Bad Company-Dangerous Age (1988)

In 1982, Paul Rodgers decided to leave Bad Company to take a long break and dedicate himself to his family. Following a similar decision, the other members opted to put the band's career on hold. That same year, the album "Rough Diamonds" had been released, but it failed to meet the expectations of both the record label and the band itself, a fact that triggered their decision. Four years later, in 1986, guitarist Mick Ralphs and drummer Simon Kirke, two of the founding members, decided to continue and revive the group's career. To do so, they approached Paul Rodgers, but he declined, as he was uninterested in the project and more committed to other endeavors with Jimmy Page and the band The Firm. They eventually managed to recruit Brian Howe and bassist Steve Price. Howe's contribution would be vital to the band's new sound, steering their music towards melodic rock, a departure from the blues rock of their 70s albums. Later that same year, they released "Fame and Fortune", which garnered positive reviews and public acclaim. Standout tracks from this album included the catchy hard rock songs "Burning Up", "Tell It Like It Is", "Valerie", and "If I'm Sleeping", as well as the melodic tracks "This Love", "Long Walk", "Hold On My Heart", and "When We Made Love". Several years later, they released "Dangerous Age", which helped them regain their lost popularity. On this new album, the compositions were better structured, with improved production and a noticeably higher quality. The addition of keyboardist Terry Thomas played a decisive role in the greater musical cohesion of the melodic style the band brought to this album. Highlights include the melodic tracks "Shake It Up" and "The Way That It Goes", the powerful hard rock anthems "Love Attack", "No Smoke Without a Fire", "Rock of America", and "Dangerous Age", while the AOR influence is evident in "Dirty Boy" and "Bad Man", along with the inevitable ballad, the exquisite "Something About You". With this album, the band made a grand entrance into the AOR genre, achieving considerable notoriety thanks to several songs that reached the top ten of Billboard's rock charts.

Klaus Schulze - Timewind (1975)

Klaus Schulze has always been a fan of the musician Richard Wagner. In 1975 he dedicated this Timewind, considered by many experts to be his masterpiece. Clearly this is one of his greatest albums, but this praise usually come from the United States, where he was the only one of his records published for many years, and had not compare it with. Could serve this Timewind, stepping back to observe Schulze's career, as his staff to move the hinge to the call Krautrock Berlin school style that is the second heir to the first, but with a more cosmic and refined.
Again we are, as always with this kind of record, with the countless reviews that focus on the technical side, that was the first album by Klaus Schulze in using a sequencer, there is a Moog synthesizer to create melodies scattered , etc. But I prefer to talk about what sounds each work, and this is a hard Timewind me, say, three-dimensional sound. Like a movie in 3D it were, the album's sound effects (especially the effect of "wind" Bayreuth Return) seems to emerge from somewhere between the listener and the speaker, stretching to maximize the already amazing possibilities of sound in stereo. Other tracks on the album abound in this poignant sound quality because at some point the music seems to become something we can physically touch hands.
Bayreuth Return is a piece improvised in the studio, based on a rhythmic pattern imposed by the aforementioned sequencer, with some string sounds and sound effects spatter. Wahnfried 1883, meanwhile, is a more complex issue and deliberate, with overlapping layers of music and a shade slower.
What Richard Wagner paints in all this, if it was a classical composer who had little or nothing to do with delusions of Krautrock and electronic space? Well first topic titles: Bayreuth is where Wagner was born and where there is the audience that he conceived as the perfect setting for opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen, and Wahnfried is the name of the musician's home in Bayreuth, which rests precisely since 1883. And secondly, Wagner is alive in Timewind that the second topic contains an example of "leitmotiv", a theme which Wagner used to identify musically a feeling or even a character, which is undergoing minor changes throughout the piece but in general, all the composition chairs. Do not think this is easy to appreciate, especially considering what these people German electronics seventies meant by melody. What I think is the idea more tangible presiding Timewind: make the listener feel that has been frozen in time, that the universe is static around, at least for the duration of pieces.
Note that the first two pieces that pointed up Timewind were part of the original, and Klaus Schulze added three more to his double CD reissue: Echoes of Time, Solar Wind and Windy Times. Apart from the resemblance of Echoes of Time with Bayreuth Return, not just find more reasons why the musician got the three pieces in the package, but neither is exactly why it should not. It's a great album, much more bearable than earlier proposals from the German.

Lynyrd Skynyrd-Nuthin' Fancy (1975)

With "Nuthin' Fancy", Lynyrd Skynyrd's third album, the band maintained the stylistic allegory they presented in their previous two releases, but with a more compact sound than its predecessor, thanks to the vibrant, overproduced sound that producer Al Kooper brought to the album. This album also features new drummer Artimus Pyle, a musician who proved much more powerful live than in the studio. Furthermore, this would be the last album with guitarist Ed King, who left the band after its release until many years later when he returned for the recording of "Lynyrd Skynyrd 1991". Although none of their classic hits like "Free Bird", "Sweet Home Alabama", or "Workin' for MCA" are found here, it still contains great moments such as "On the Hunt", "Cheatin' Woman", "Saturday Night Special", "Railroad Song", and "Am I Losin'?". The band later expressed significant dissatisfaction with Al Kooper's overly demanding production, which led to the hiring of a new producer for subsequent recordings. Despite this, "Nuthin' Nancy" became the legendary Jacksonville group's first album to achieve platinum status and reached number nine on the Billboard charts.

Albert Collins, Robert Cray, Johnny Copeland-Showdown! (1985)

"Showdown" is one of the best blues albums of the 1980s, recorded by three of the greatest bluesmen of the late 20th century: Robert Cray, Albert Collins, and Johnny Copeland. This collaboration was made possible by the efforts of the independent blues label Alligator, which for years championed the genre and, since its founding in 1971, has released hundreds of albums by such important artists as Lonnie Mack, Koko Taylor, Charlie Musselwhite, Buddy Guy, Albert Collins, Roy Buchanan, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Elvis Bishop, and Joe Louis Walker, among many others. For this recording, the label brought together three of the most iconic artists in its catalog, each with a distinct style. On one hand, there's the smooth, soulful tone of Robert Cray, with his lyrical and melodic technique on his Fender Stratocaster. In the middle is Johnny Copeland, with his deep, powerful voice and a more rudimentary, raw guitar technique. And finally, there's Albert Collins, with a cool style, heavy, forceful guitar work, and a high-pitched voice that earned him the nickname "Iceman." These three giants deliver a repertoire that offers no respite from the excitement, with each track standing out, such as the lustful country blues "Your Fine Self Home", the elegant blues "The Dream", the playful "The Moon Is Full", and the soulful "She's Into Something". All of these, along with the rest, result in a fantastic blues album, crafted by three unique guitarists, three passionate voices, and three distinct approaches to playing the blues. An album that would unequivocally win the Grammy Award for Best Traditional Blues Recording in 1986.