Recordings
Best Classic Bands offers smart, informed and unbiased assessments of the latest rock album releases and reissues to offer readers guidance on what sounds they might enjoy.
Rolling Stones’ ‘Beggars Banquet’ Reissue: Review
The album saw them moving back to basics for an album that relied largely on acoustic blues. There’s not a rotten apple in the bunch.
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Jimi Hendrix ‘Electric Ladyland’ 50th Deluxe: Review
Half a century after its arrival, the last album Hendrix released before his death is the subject of a fittingly major anniversary limited edition.
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The Ramones’ ‘Road to Ruin’ Deluxe Edition: Review
Today, all four of the group’s original members are dead but the music lives on, and it’s a good deal better than many listeners realized in 1978.
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Sam Cooke’s Early Years Collected in 5-CD Set: Review
Cooke’s years at Keen found him taking his first steps away from gospel, including the session that would yield his first smash hit, “You Send Me.”
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Paul Young Live CD/DVD: Exhilarating and Exuberant
His light shone much brighter in Europe than in the U.S., but most of the performances on this set hold up well, and Young’s vocals remain exhilarating.
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NRBQ’s ‘Turn On, Tune In’ Review: Virtually Unclassifiable
Although it’s not their most diverse set, you can tell they are having a lot of fun with this music. You probably would, too.
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Woodstock ’69 Complete on 38 CDs: Review
The box is well worth considering: It gives you just about everything from the festival except the mud, the rain and the traffic jams.
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Procol Harum’s ‘Broken Barricades’ Reissue: Review
The new three-CD edition adds extensive liner notes and 36 bonus tracks (most of them previously unreleased) to a remastered version of the 1971 album.
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Rolling Stones ‘Bridges to Bremen’ Review
In this 1998 show, Mick Jagger is at the top of his stage-prancing form throughout, and the rest of the band delivers the goods as well.
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Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Western Stars’: Review
Every number on this disc is ear candy, thanks partly to indelible melodies and to the moody, perfectly attuned instrumentation.
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