Category: Album Reviews
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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,…
-
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…
-
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…
-
Music Album Review: ‘Superman: The Movie – Original Sound Track (1987 CD Edition)
💫 Superman: The Movie (1987 CD Soundtrack Review & Reflection) Before Rhino Records unveiled its deluxe 2-CD edition 25 years ago, the 1987 Warner Bros. release was the lone CD version of John Williams’ score for Superman: The Movie. Conducted by Williams and performed by the mighty London Symphony Orchestra, this abridged album still captures…
-
Music Album Review: ‘Billy Joel Greatest Hits, Volume III’ (1997)
Billy Joel’s Greatest Hits, Volume III: A Late Discovery Worth the Wait I’ll admit it — I nearly passed this one by. When Greatest Hits: Volume III dropped in 1997, I hesitated. Joel’s post-An Innocent Man output hadn’t exactly lit up my radar, and with my classical collection growing, I wasn’t keen on spending limited…
-
Music Album Review: ‘Amadeus: Original Soundtrack Recording’ (1984)
Amadeus: Original Soundtrack Recording Artist(s): Sir Neville Marriner, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields Label: Fantasy Records Year Released: 1984 Amadeus and Me: A Soundtrack That Never Stops Echoing I first met Mozart on the silver screen. Milos Forman’s Amadeus didn’t just introduce me to the genius of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart—it gave me an emotional blueprint. The…
-
The Sixth of June…Now, Then, and Again…
—
by
in Alex Diaz-Granados, Amazon, D-Day (June 6, 1944), Kindle, Kindle Create (Publishing App), Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), Life in Florida, Life in Madison (NH), Life in Miami (1972-2016), Life in Miami….Again, Life in New Hampshire (December 2023 – October 2024), Life in South Florida, Life in the Tampa Bay area, Life in the United States, Music, Reunion Duology, Reunion: Coda, Summer 2024, Summer 2025, Summer in Florida, The D-Day DarlingsMidday/Early Afternoon, Friday, June 6, 2025, Miami, Florida The weather system that brought that rainy opening to meteorological summer earlier this week has moved on, and the Florida Travel Bureau can rest easy because it’s sunny, clear, and hot enough to go to the beach. (Ah, bikini weather!) I’d argue, though, that – climate change…
A Certain Point of View, Too 