Returning to the Columbia/Sony family after nearly two decades away, Willie Nelson once again tries to be everything to everybody on 2012's Heroes, an appealingly misshapen collection of classics, contemporaries, and originals. Heroes -- its title signifying no great concept ...

Reuniting with his band Crazy Horse for their first album together in some nine years, Neil Young puts his own wild stamp on the notion of Americana with a set of classic folk tunes, including versions of "Tom Dooley" and ...

After two decades recording for Arista Records Nashville, Alan Jackson signed with EMI Records as a distributor of Jackson's own label, Alan's Country Records (ACR), and his 17th studio album, Thirty Miles West, produced by longtime collaborator Keith Stegall, marks ...

For those who attended any concert on the Warren Haynes Band's tour in support of the brilliant Man in Motion, this three-disc package -- one DVD and two CDs -- is your keepsake. The set features stretched-out versions of all ...

As a rule, tribute recordings are a mixed bag; they tend to be well-intentioned yet fall short of the mark musically. Jamey Johnson's Living for a Song: A Tribute to Hank Cochran is a risky offering because it's his follow-up ...

After a decade-long absence from the pop charts, Rob Thomas and company return with their fourth studio album, North. Spearheaded by the radio-ready first single "She's So Mean," this is the first full set of new material (2007's singles collection ...

The dean of American pop vocalists took a different and exciting fork in the road for his third Duets album, recruiting the best Latin vocalists in the world, and rejuvenating classic material like "The Best Is Yet to Come" (featuring ...

Originally released on Ode (PE 34946). Additional Tracks Personnel: Carole King (vocals, piano, keyboards); James Taylor (acoustic guitar); Barry Socher (violin); David Campbell (viola); Terry King (cello); Curtis Amy (flute, soprano saxophone); Ralph Schuckett (electric piano); Charles Larkey, Perry Steinberg (bass instrument); ...

It should come as no surprise that a woman who counts Dionne Warwick as a cousin, Aretha Franklin as a family friend, and whose mother was a legendary session and gospel singer, became a phenomenally successful R&B act. Perhaps more ...

This is a Hyper CD, which contains regular audio tracks and also provides a link to the artist's website with the help of a web browser. It will always be a mystery how a grown man can spend his life wearing ...

Popular songs are often associated with the vocalists that made them famous but few artists actually have the distinction of having a "theme" song along the lines of Bob Hope with "Thanks for the Memories." Even fewer can claim to ...

This is part of Motown Records' "The Ultimate Collection" series. With the exception of Stevie Wonder and Marvin Gaye, one would be hard pressed to name a Motown act who went through as many creative shifts as the Temptations. While Wonder's ...

Except for a 2003 EP, Michael Bublé hadn't released a holiday album until 2011's Christmas, which coincided with a television special on NBC, A Michael Bublé Christmas. The album was produced by David Foster, Bob Rock and Humberto Gatica, and ...

First issued in the early 1960s, this collection of musical Christmas cheer is packed full of the smoothly sung, sentimental favorites associated as much with Nat "King" Cole himself as with the season. The singer's performance of "The Christmas Song" ...

Lionel Richie's birthplace is Tuskegee, Alabama so for his 2012 country duets album, Tuskegee, he is trumpeted as the country boy returning to his roots. And there's something to that: as a songwriter, Richie has had success on the country ...

Left to their own devices on Here and Now, Nickelback have embraced who they are. Chad Kroeger's brow is no longer furrowed, treating rock & roll as an ordeal; he's stepped back a bit, allowing himself to have a good ...

Foster the People's 2011 full-length debut Torches expands upon the indie electronic outfit's '80s synth-meets-'60s psych pop sound. Buoyed by the online buzz surrounding the band's single "Pumped Up Kicks," Foster the People have crafted a batch of similarly catchy, ...

There's a point just past the halfway mark on "Shake It Out," the rousing first single from Florence + the Machine's second studio release, when the swelling guitars, organs, and strings, staccato percussion, and Florence Welch's air-raid siren of a ...

Lyricist: Roger Waters. Personnel: David Gilmour (vocals, guitar); Richard Wright (vocals, keyboards); Roger Waters (vocals, bass guitar); Nick Mason (percussion); Doris Troy, Lesley Duncan, Liza Strike, Barry St. John (background vocals). Recording information: Abbey Road Studios, London (06/1972-01/1973). Photographers: Storm Thorgerson; Tony May. ...

As Kiss approach 40 years of ridiculous rock & roll fun, it makes sense that their 20th studio album, Monster, is more self-referential than anything. Following 2009's Sonic Boom, the album marks the second set of tunes by a revamped ...

Nu-metal stalwarts Linkin Park return with their fifth album, Living Things, a more personal effort than their previous releases. Teaming again with Rick Rubin, who's worked on all of their albums since Minutes to Midnight, they continue to refine their ...

Forget Metallica, forget Megadeth, Anthrax, and even Slayer! The most formidable on-stage thrash metal powerhouse of 2011 was arguably the (mostly) reconstituted classic lineup of Testament: singer Chuck Billy, guitarists Alex Skolnick, and Eric Peterson, plus returning bass badass Greg ...

Pittsburgh-based prolific 12-year-old vocalist (and classical crossover powerhouse) Jackie Evancho's fourth studio album, the 12-track Songs from the Silver Screen, eschews the usual assortment of carefully timed holiday classics and goose bump-inducing arias for a set of celluloid favorites. Evancho's ...

The first in a two-part concept album, House of Gold & Bones finds Stone Sour returning from the relatively subdued sound of their last outing with fire in their belly, bringing some of the aggression back into their sound while ...

Only his fourth studio album, NOEL finds Josh Groban already tackling that canonical mainstay of the adult contemporary singer, the Christmas album. As always, NOEL is a masterfully performed set, balanced neatly between pop standards and the more operatic material ...