Tag: Music Album Reviews
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Billy Joel: Greatest Hits Volume III — A Retrospective Review
Billy Joel: Greatest Hits Volume III — 1985–1997 Year of Release: 1997 Record Label: Columbia Genre: Adult Contemporary, Pop, Soft Rock I’ll admit it freely now: I almost skipped this album. When Billy Joel Greatest Hits: Volume III arrived in 1997, I was deep into my classical music phase, spending what little discretionary money I…
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Music Album Review: ‘Yo-Yo Ma & Bobby McFerrin: Hush’
Yo-Yo Ma & Bobby McFerrin: Hush Artists: Bobby McFerrin (vocals), Yo-Yo Ma (cello) Year of Release: 1992 Record Label: Sony Masterworks Genre(s): Classical, Jazz Some recordings earn their place in a library because they’re impressive; Hush earns its place because it’s disarming. More than three decades after its release, this collaboration between Bobby McFerrin and…
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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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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: ‘Victory at Sea – Richard Rodgers, Robert Russell Bennett & the RCA Symphony Orchestra’
Victory at Sea – Richard Rodgers, Robert Russell Bennett & the RCA Symphony Orchestra Label: RCA Victor Genre: Classical/Film and TV Score Released: 1992 Although Richard Rodgers is best known for his legendary musical theater collaborations with Lorenz Hart and Oscar Hammerstein II—especially the emotionally resonant scores for South Pacific and The Sound of Music—his…
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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: ‘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: ‘Cinema Serenade 2 – The Golden Age’
Cinema Serenade 2: The Golden AgeItzhak Perlman, John Williams, Boston Pops Orchestra Label: Sony Classical/Sony Masterworks Year of Release: 1999 Genre: Movie themes, Orchestral music, Violin solos, Boston Pops Following the success of Cinema Serenade, violinist Itzhak Perlman and conductor John Williams reunited for a second cinematic journey—this time with the Boston Pops Orchestra. Cinema…
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Music Album Review: ‘Great Performances: Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez/Fantasia para un gentilhombre’
🎼 Echoes of Spain: A Journey Through Rodrigo and Albéniz with John Williams There’s something quietly transcendent about hearing the guitar sing in the hands of John Williams. Not the film composer, but the Australian virtuoso whose fingers seem to coax memory itself from the strings. In Great Performances: Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez/Fantasia para un…
A Certain Point of View, Too 