Category: Album Reviews
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Music Album Review: ‘Band of Brothers – Music from the HBO Miniseries’
Band of Brothers – Music from the HBO Miniseries: Music Composed and Conducted by Michael Kamen Label: Sony Masterworks/Sony Classical Artists: London Metropolitan Orchestra and Chorus Genre(s): Motion Picture/TV Scores, Classical, Orchestral Music Year of Release: 2001 Discontinued? No Michael Kamen’s Band of Brothers: A Requiem for Heroes Few television scores have achieved the emotional…
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Music Album Review: ‘Billy Joel – Greatest Hits, Volumes I & II (1973-1983)’
🎶 Billy Joel – Greatest Hits: Volume I & Volume II Some albums become more than music—they turn into companions. For me, Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits: Volume I & Volume II was exactly that. I received the cassette in 1986 for my 23rd birthday, one of my last big celebrations. That tape became a lifeline:…
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Omnibus in Progress, Comfort in Limbo
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in ACX, Alex Diaz-Granados, Amazon, Amazon Spain (Amazon.es), Amazon UK, Audible, Audiobooks, Autumn in Florida, Books, Brandon Padilla, Bryan Haddock, Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen, Computer and Video Games, Creative Writing, Garratyverse, Kindle, Kindle Create (Publishing App), Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Kiri Sings Kern, Kiri Te Kanawa (Dame Kiri), Life in Central Florida, Life in Florida, Life in Madison (NH), Life in South Florida, MicroProse Software, Military History, Music, Reunion Duology, Reunion: A Story, Rick Atkinson, Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, Stefan (Steve) Lee, The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777–1780, The Jim Garraty Chronicles, Things I MissMonday, November 3, 2025 – Orlando, Florida “Work. Don’t Think. Relax.” — Ray Bradbury There’s a certain comfort in structure, especially for those of us who live by stories. As much as I love the creative process—and I do, or I wouldn’t be doing this—I try to keep my writing life tethered to a Monday-through-Friday…
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Music Album Review: ’20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Best of Louis Armstrong’
Review: 20th Century Masters – The Millennium Collection: The Best of Louis Armstrong Louis Armstrong may never have possessed the velvety croon of Bing Crosby, nor did he set out to reinvent the musical landscape with each recording. Yet what he offered was something rarer: a warmth, humanity, and sheer joy in performance that made…
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Music Album Review: ‘Billy Joel – 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert’
Billy Joel – 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert Label: Sony Legacy Genre: Pop Rock Year of Release: 2000 Billy Joel’s 2000 Years: The Millennium Concert may not be his most polished live album, but it’s one of his most emotionally honest. Recorded on New Year’s Eve 1999 at Madison Square Garden, this two-disc set captures…
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Music Album Review: ‘Casablanca – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack’
Casablanca – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Labels: Turner Classic Movies Music/Rhino (1997);Sony Music (Reissue) Year of Release: 1997 (Original), 2010 (Sony Music reissue) Genre: Film Score/Standards/Spoken Word 🎶 Casablanca Soundtrack: Memory, Melody, and the Music of Longing Of all the soundtrack albums I’ve collected over the years, none is quite as haunting—or as structurally unusual—as…
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Music Album Review: ‘The Empire Strikes Back (Symphonic Suite from the Original Motion Picture Score’ (Gerhardt/National Philharmonic Orchestra)
The Empire Strikes Back (Symphonic Suite From The Original Motion Picture Score)Composer: John WilliamsPerformed by: The National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles GerhardtLabel: Varese SarabandeGenre: Film Scores, Symphonic MusicYear Released (This edition): 2006 For those of us who grew up with the original vinyl and cassette editions of John Williams’s score for The Empire Strikes…
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Music Album Review: ‘Holst: The Planets’
Holst – The Planets: Chicago Symphony Orchestra/James Levine Label: Deutsche Grammophon Released: 1991 Genre: Classical/Symphonic Review: Holst’s The Planets – A Celestial Tapestry in Seven Movements Two years before Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status (not that Pluto minds, I suspect), I wrote an earlier version of this reflection on Gustav Holst’s The Planets,…
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Music Album Review: ‘Billy Joel – 52nd Street’
52nd Street Revisited: Billy Joel and the Art of Returning There’s something hauntingly familiar about the first album that makes you feel seen. For me, it was 52nd Street—acquired through teenage negotiation, a bulky eight-track cassette wrested from my sister when she moved out. At the time, “My Life” felt like rebellion’s anthem, its defiance…
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Music Album Review: ‘Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire’ (1996)
🎬 Rediscovering Shadows of the Empire: When Star Wars Became More Than a Movie Back in 1996, as fans braced for the re-release of the original trilogy and whispers of Episode I grew louder, Lucasfilm ventured into bold territory. “Everything but the movie”—that was their creative mantra. The result? A multimedia narrative tapestry called Star…
A Certain Point of View, Too 