Pop

If you’re a Dylan fan, this eclectic box is a great place to go treasure hunting.

Perhaps the Pale Fountains will finally garner some notice following the appearance of a new four-CD box set devoted to Michael Head's critically acclaimed band, which formed in Liverpool in 1980 and split up in 1987.

'Metal Horse' from Billy Nomates is an album that will probably fly under most people's radars but it's also one that needs to be listened to.

Adam Duritz is still singing about loneliness, dislocation, alienation, and the pitfalls of stardom, but he remains an intense, attention-grabbing vocalist, and these nine tracks are up to the high standards that the group established early in its career.

“Buck took the shuffle beat and he took the lyrics and the style of honky-tonk, and he added the spunk, the vitality of rock and roll to his sound.”

As Darryl W. Bullock writes in 'Love and Fury: The Life, Death and Legacy of Joe Meek,' the producer was a “pioneer, genius, maniac, naif…all of those things…and more.”

While Nelson’s list of five-star releases is long, it’s hard to imagine that any of them outshine this album of Rodney Crowell covers.

Meek's work is arguably less formulaic than Phil Spector’s and even more experimental and diverse.

1960 is not exactly considered a peak year for popular music, and there's no shortage of drivel in this collection, but there are also dozens of great songs from the likes of Roy Orbison, Sam Cooke, and Ray Charles.

Review: an expanded reissue of the Beckies' only album, featuring Michael Brown of the Left Banke.