Warren Zevon survived six months longer than his doctors estimated, giving him enough time to see the birth of his grandchildren and complete a final album, The Wind. Zevon's career was a bit of a rollercoaster ride, with big highs and equally big lows. He started out as half of the folk-pop due lyme & cybelle in the sixties (Warren was "lyme"), and recorded an early album that remained unreleased until after his major-label debut. Six years later, his solo career began for real with the acclaimed Warren Zevon and Excitable Boy albums and the hit "Werewolves Of London". By the early eighties, he was in rehab and without a record contract. In 1987, a now-sober Zevon's career was reborn with his best albums Sentimental Hygiene and Transverse City. By '96, Zevon was out of the business again, but pulled off another comeback in 2000 with the now-eerily titled Life'll Kill Ya. While "Werewolves" put Zevon on the map, it unfortunately pegged him to many as a one-hit wonder, with a novelty hit to boot. In reality, he was really the flip side of the mid-70s singer/songwriters, writing about dark subjects with a biting wit. He'll be missed.

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In 1968, the Beatles planned to record a self-produced, back-to-basics, recorded live-in-the-studio album to be titled Get Back with the recording sessions filmed for posterity. The results were a mess, and the film shows how close the Beatles were to self-destruction. They eventually abandoned the project and worked with long-time producer George Martin for their swan song Abbey Road. The Get Back tapes first went to producer Glyn Johns, but the results weren't deemed acceptable. Eventually, Phil Spector (legendary for his "wall of sound" production style) was chosen to sort through the hours of tape and come up with a final album. His version was released in 1970 as Let It Be, including some dialog snippets in between the tracks and string sections overdubbed, notably onto "The Long And Winding Road" and "Across The Universe". Paul McCartney was never happy with this version, and in 2002 started work on a revised version of the album, removing Phil Spector's overdubs and the dialog snippets and leaving just a plain studio record with the best songs from the Get Back sessions. The result is Let It Be… Naked. Apart from the removed strings and dialog, the running order has been changed and two "songs" ("Dig It" and "Maggie Mae") were dropped and "Don't Let Me Down" added. Let It Be… Naked really does sound like a simple studio album instead of the audio verité of the original. Sadly, what it also shows is that regardless of mix, this is the weakest album in the band's legendary canon. "Get Back", "Across The Universe", and "Let It Be" are gems, but the rest of the album just doesn't hold up with the Beatles usual level. Interesting listening for a fan of the original, but hardly a "must".

The second ELO album, recorded after founder Roy Wood departed and left Jeff Lynne in charge, sounds like nothing else in the ELO catalog. It's a much harder-edged album, with the 10-minute-plus closer "Kuiama" and the two "Boogie" songs close to qualifying as "progressive rock". The only well known song here is ELO's version of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven". Personally, I think this is a fantastic album, but if you're familiar with ELO's bigger hits, this may not be the best choice, 'cause it's a big departure from songs like "Turn To Stone" and "Don't Bring Me Down".

This reissue is based on the UK version of the album. The UK version used an edited 6-minute version of "Roll Over Beethoven" as opposed to the full 8-minute version that was included on the US version (titled Electric Light Orchestra II). Technically, the "full" version was a mistake - the edited version is what was intended, but the full version is far superior in my opinion.

The "First Light Series Reissue" adds a bonus CD of amazing material, a mix of radio sessions, alternate mixes, and run-throughs for songs that would appear on ELO's third album, On The Third Day. The huge surprise is a previously unreleased ELO song, "Everyone's Born To Die".

I found the use of the edited "Roll Over Beethoven" disappointing, but the bonus material is just stellar. If you're a fan of the album, get this.

Elton's best work, the double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, gets a fancy deluxe reissue for it's 30th birthday. The 30th Anniversary Edition splits the album back into two CDs to allow for some bonus tracks, and adds a DVD of the "Classic Albums" show about the album (note: This is an edited version of the show - the full episode is already available as a separate DVD).

The album is definitely Elton's best, along with the big hits "Bennie And The Jets", "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting", there's also the later-day hit "Candle In The Wind" and the 11-minute FM staple "Funeral For A Friend / Love Lies Bleeding" (my personal favorite of Elton's work). On top of that, several other tracks (notably "Harmony", "Grey Seal", "I've Seen That Movie Too" and "This Song Has No Title") could have easily been singles as well. If all you've heard are the "greatest hits" type albums, give this one a shot … it's well worth it.

Like last year's reissue of Good Old Boys, this reissue of Randy Newman's Faust comes as a double CD packaged with Newman's demo recordings of the project. The demos are fascinating listening … you can see how the album evolved from original concept to the final result. What the demos offer is a chance to hear more songs with Randy Newman on lead vocals. Some of the demos are sung by a chorus, but if you were disappointed with some of the guest choices on the original (like I was), this'll give you a chance to hear it with just Newman. Faust isn't his best album, but it's still very good, and the demos are a treat.

The Who's landmark Tommy album gets another reissue, this time done right. The last reissue cleaned up the sound, but added nothing new. This time around, the album has been mixed into 5.1 sound for a hybrid CD/SACD (so regular CD players get the regular stereo mix). The bonus disc is the revelation, made up of outtakes that have never surfaced on bootleg before, along with the proper studio version on "Young Man Blues" (the reissue of Odds And Sods used the wrong studio take by mistake). The "new" tracks, "I Was" and "Trying To Get Through" aren't really proper songs (the first is a little fanfare and the second is more of a short jam), but the alternate versions are fascinating.

This is the way to get Tommy, which really should be in any serious rock music collection.

Who's Next gets the "deluxe edition" treatment, this time using the original master tapes for the album and adding a bonus live CD taken from the shows at The Young Vic in London where the band was working on the original "Lifehouse" concept. The second half of the show had been bootlegged as Lifehouse Live, however, this disc is taken from the entire show, but with the Tommy songs dropped to keep it on one CD.

Like Tommy, this should also be in any serious rock music collection.

Arthur Lee, backed by his new version of Love (with The Forever Changes String and Horn Ensemble) manage to pull off something I would have figured was next to impossible: a faithful yet vibrant live performance of Love's eclectic classic Forever Changes, complete with the proper string and horn arrangements. If you're a fan of the original album, you really need to hear this.

Sold only at Television shows, Live At The Academy catches the band on their first reunion tour, playing mostly material from their self-titled third album. A stellar performance, with sound that's not quite up to usual live album standards, but still very good. If you're a big fan of the third album, grab this. If not, get the Live At The Old Waldorf: San Francisco, 6/29/78 (see the Television Reissue Review page for more on that one.)

In 1999, Playboy Magazine asked Richard Thompson for his choices for the "ten greatest songs of the millenium". Of course, as with all these "best of the millenium" polls, they were really looking for the best songs of the pop era, or the best songs of the 20th century at most. Thompson waggishly sent in a more appropriate list, including songs going as far back as 1068 AD. Not surprisingly, Playboy didn't use Thompson's list, but it did inspire a live interpretation of the same idea.

Backed by percussionist Michael Jerome (and with occasional vocals from Judith Owen), Thompson kicks off the show with "Sumer Is Icumen In" from the mid-13th century and moves to the present day with a tongue-in-cheek cover of Britney Spears' "Oops! I Did It Again", before throwing in a few older tracks and closing with another 13th century song, "Marry, Ageyn Hic Hev Donne Yt".

An extremely clever concept, and done very very well. You wouldn't expect the material to be catchy, but Thompson's interpretations make the songs too much fun to ignore.

Originally broadcast as a pay-per-view special, Live: BAM 1993 is a great live performance of Pete Townshend's dramatically underrated Psychoderelict concept album, complete with the actors reprising their performances on the album in person. The second CD has most of the non-Psychoderelict songs (although in the actual concert, some were performed before Psychoderelict and some were performed after. Superb.

The second Frank Zappa "vault" release captures some of Frank's legendary New York Halloween shows in DVD audio format, presenting the show in 5.1 surround sound. Taken from several shows in 1978, Halloween shows his touring band in fine form, running through a diverse set mixing rarely played numbers like "Magic Fingers" and "Ancient Armaments" (this is the sole version of this song) with live staples like "Easy Meat", "Muffin Man", and "Black Napkins". The only gripe here at all is the length of the CD. The main concert recordings on the DVD run a little over an hour, but the original concerts ran to almost three hours.

Note that this is a DVD audio disc, not a CD/SACD hybrid, so Halloween will not play on conventional CD players.

One year after George Harrison's passing, this concert was held as a tribute to George. This concert is a little different from similar tributes largely because everyone involved were close friends of George's. Essentially, this is George's extended family paying tribute to his music.

As you might expect, the show started off with traditional Indian music (a big favorite of George's) featuring Ravi Shankar's daughter Anoushka. The highlight of the first half for pop fans is hearing Jeff Lynne and Anoushka perform the Beatles' "The Inner Light".

The second half is a great selection of George's best songs (both Beatles and solo) given inspired performances by his friends. A terrific show with real heart.

Big Star Story is an odd compilation, mixing studio recordings, live tracks from the recent Columbia reunion album (that had Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens playing with Posies Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow), two of Chris Bell's solo tracks, and a brand new studio recording, "Hot Thing".

I love Big Star, especially their two classic albums, #1 Record and Radio City, but this compilation is basically a waste of time (which is very surprising given that Rhino put this out). The new track is nothing special, and frankly sounds very little like Big Star, and the odd mish-mash of sources makes this a poor best-of. Go get the single CD that has both #1 Record and Radio City on it and skip this.

Documenting R.E.M.'s years on Warner Brothers, In Time is a nice compilation of later R.E.M. tracks with two new songs added. "Animal" is pretty good (though not great), but "Bad Day" (an older song resurrected for this compilation) absolutely cooks and is one of the best things on the CD.

The bonus CD collects a number of non-album tracks, all but one of which were available on singles and soundtracks and the like. The new track is a terrific live version of "Country Feedback" from R.E.M.'s summer tour. All through the tour, the band took requests at their web site, and "Country Feedback" was a runaway #1 request. The version is terrific.

What In Time also shows very clearly is how some of R.E.M.'s best work in recent years has been their slower material, like "Everybody Hurts", "Nightswimming", "At My Most Beautiful", "Daysleeper", and of course "Losing My Religion". Overall, In Time is a good introduction to latter-day R.E.M. (with a few quibbles over song choice, naturally).

Four Thousand Seven Hundred And Sixty-Six Seconds is a very well-chosen best of Teenage Fanclub, taking only one song from their debut album ("Everything Flows") and really starting with their 1991 breakthrough Bandwagonesque. Three new songs (one from each songwriter) are added in, and they hold up extremely well with the other songs on here. A stellar collection, and a great introduction to their Byrds/Neil Young/Big Star-influenced power pop.

Oh, and yes, the CD really is 4,766 seconds long (that's 79 minutes, 26 seconds).

Fly On The Wall is a three disc collection of non-album Paul Weller tracks spanning his whole solo career. Most of these songs have shown up on Weller singles, so if you have all of those singles, this doesn't really offer many new songs. One clever twist: disc three, titled Button Downs in tribute to David Bowie's cover album Pin-Ups, contains all covers, ranging from Traffic's "Feelin' Alright" to Cher's "Bang-Bang" and a great take of John Lennon's "Instant Karma". For hard-core Weller fans only.

The Genuine Scoop is a lavish FIVE disc set compiling over 100 of Pete Townshend's demo recordings. The sources are a mix of official releases (like Pete's Scoop albums) and bootlegs, with a few thrown in that seem to only appear on this set (so far, anyway) like "I Always Say", "Riot In The Femail Jail", and "Why Can't You See I'm Easy". The set's a little pricey, which makes it tough if all you're looking for are those new tracks. it'll be tough to justify the cost. However, I like having all of these demos in one place and the packaging is nice, so it was worth it for me.

For some reason, the Thunderclap Newman track "Accidents" ended up on here. Pete plays bass on the Thunderclap Newman album, so I'm betting this was just a bit of sloppiness on the compiler's part.

I'll confess that I was really skeptical about this idea. The Magic Band is made up of four alumni of various Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band lineups playing Beefheart's songs. For starters, the Captain's howling lead vocals should be impossible to recreate, and the chaotic feel to the songs would be tough to capture.

I'm not sure how, but they've actually pulled it off. John "Drumbo" French on drums and vocals doesn't sound quite like Beefheart, but his throaty growl fits in fine. Rounded out by Gary "Mantis" Lucas and Denny "Feelers Reebo" Walley on guitars and Mark "Rockette Morton" Boston on bass, the new Magic Band captures the spirit of the original band with an ease I never could have imagined.

The album, recorded as a live-to-tape rehearsal, focuses on Beefheart's earlier work from early songs like "Abba Zaba" and "Sure 'Nuff 'N Yes, I Do" through "Nowadays A Woman's Gotta Hit A Man". The lone late track is "The Floppy Boot Stomp", which is an easy highlight of the album. If you're a Beefheart fan, you really need to hear this. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

The Randy Newman Songbook Vol. 1 is not a live album per se, but it's darn close. The album has Newman running through a selection of his past material accompanied only by his piano (the same way he performs live). The results are stark renditions of some of Randy's best songs that puts the focus squarely on the songs and not on the arrangements. It's a must for fans, and it would be an interesting introduction for others.

Mike Oldfield revisits his original recording, with what was purported to be a note-for-note recreation of the original, just with new technology. It's close, but it's definitely not a recreation, it's simply a new rendition. The arrangement hasn't changed, but the feel is definitely different. John Cleese sits in for the late Vivian Stanshall on "Finale". I'm not sure I really see the point of the album.

NOTE: By popular demand, the CD is broken down into more than just "part one" and "part two", using Oldfield's working titles for the various sections of the piece.

The Raven captures Lou Reed's score for the stage production of POEtry, along with readings of Poe's writing backed by rough textures from the band as backing. It's an adventurous, gutsy project, but it doesn't really work that well on CD (it may be better on stage). Definitely a hit-and-miss proposition.

In what almost seems like a concession, there is also a single-CD version of The Raven, with almost all of the Poe readings sections removed. The single CD is the better detail for a casual fan, but it's still worth hearing it before you buy.

As you might expect, Everything Must Go is very similar in feel to 2000's Two Against Nature, and almost as good. As always, the sound is smooth, jazzy rock, played and produced to perfection. "Green Book", "Pixeleen", "The Last Mall" and "Things I Miss The Most" are easily the highlights. Like Two Against Nature, grab this if you're a fan.

After splitting with The Soft Boys again last year, Hitchcock goes back to his softer, acoustic side on Luxor. Not quite up to the standard of his first acoustic album, I Often Dream Of Trains, Luxor is still a very good album (especially "One L"), but is a bit of a disappointment after the stunning Soft Boys Nextdoorland album from 2002. Definitely worth picking up if you're a fan of Hitchcock's acoustic work.

King Crimson's first new studio album in three years picks up roughly where The ConstruKction Of Light left off, with the current quartet blasting out dark, mainly instrumental, tracks that sound like a hybrid of the "double trio" VROOOM/THRAK material and the power trio rock of Red. Powerful stuff.

You Gotta Go There To Come Back continues the evolution started on 2001's Just Enough Education To Perform and if anything, shifts the balance even further towards quieter songs. There are still some loud tracks on here like "Help Me" and "Madame Helga", but the bulk of the album is taken up by slower, more elegant songs like "Maybe Tomorrow" and "Getaway" and the laid-back feel of "Climbing The Wall".

Richard Thompson's first album in four years is a mix of intense rockers like "Jealous Words", "I'll Tag Along" and "Pearly Jim", should-be hits like "She Said It Was Destiny", and emotional, dramatic songs like "Gethsemane" and "A Love You Can't Survive". A chilling highlight of the album is "Outside Of The Inside", a song about the West written from a fundamentalist Muslim's point of view. A gutsy lyric, especially given Thompson is also a Muslim.

On The Old Kit Bag, keeps the cleaner sound of his last album, 1999's Mock Tudor. Thompson is backed only by a bassist and drummer (with an occasional second vocalist). The sparse arrangements lets the songs (and Thompson stellar guitar work) shine through. Another superb album from a vastly underrated songwriter.

Essentially an E solo album (long-time drummer Butch only plays on part of the album), Shootenanny! (a term coined by E for a shooting spree), is a return to the core Eels sound, away from the grunge of 2001's Souljacker. "Saturday Morning" is a catchy rocker sung from a kid's point of view, and "Rock Hard Times" has E's usual bleak outlook, but the best thing on here is the chilling "Restraining Order Blues", sung from the point of view of an obsessive stalker. It's creepy, but it's a great song. If Souljacker put you off Eels, this is the album that should bring you back into the fold.

In September of 2002, Warren Zevon announced that he had inoperable lung cancer and less than six months to live. His reaction was to go into the studio to try to complete one more album. As usual for Zevon, a host of big name guests came down to play on the record, including Jackson Browne, Mike Campbell, Ry Cooder, Emmylou Harris, Don Henley, Jim Keltner, David Lindley, Tom Petty, Timothy B. Schmit, Tommy Shaw, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Bob Thornton, Joe Walsh, Dwight Yoakam, Warren's son Jordan, and long-time collaborator Jorge Calderón. Zevon beat the odds, survived the cancer for a year, just long enough to finish the album and see its release.

The Wind will probably show up on a number of year-end best lists simply out of respect for Warren's career, but the album is really worthy of the praise. As you'd probably expect, it's a very personal album with less of Zevon's usual sense of humor. However, given what was going on in Zevon's life, it's suprisingly not depressing. The highlights include the rocking "Disorder In The House" (featuring a gritty guitar solo from Bruce Springsteen), the sentimental "She's Too Good For Me" (written to Zevon's ex-wife), the self-analytical "My Dirty Life And Times" and "Numb As A Statue", a beautiful cover of Bob Dylan's "Knocking On Heaven's Door" (complete with Zevon singing "open up! open up!" near the end), and the touching closer "Keep Me In Your Heart".

Rigby's fourth studio album is her best yet, although the style isn't much different from her first three. She combines pop, rock, and folk music with clever, witty lyrics about, well, life after 30. Highlights include the wistful "Don't Ever Change" and the wry "Why Do I", although the two best songs on here are a contradictory pair. The first, the Beach Boys-flavored "The Deal" is about giving up on real love and just being with someone, and the following song, "O'Hare", is a plea to a long-time friend to finally start a relationship. The lyrics are probably too "grown-up" to actually catch on with a large mainstream audience, but this is a great album.

After all the attention given to The White Stripes after the success of White Blood Cells, I was curious to hear how the followup would turn out. Elephant is a fantastic album, and isn't simply a rehash of White Blood Cells. The album opens loud and nasty with "Seven Nation Army" and "Black Math", "Ball And Biscuit" is the best blues song they've recorded, and they still show a playful side with the tongue-in-cheek closer "Well It's True That We Love Each Other", featuring Holly Golightly singing with Jack and Meg White. Meg also gets a lead vocal on the charming "In The Cold, Cold, Night". There isn't an obvious single like "Fell In Love With A Girl" on here, but Elephant is overall the better album. Check this out.

Neil Young seems to thrive by doing things no-one would expect, and he's done it again. Greendale is an ambitious concept album, and while the dreaded term "rock opera" has been avoided, that's really what we're talking about. The lyrics on Greendale link together to tell the story of the Green family and how their lives are thrown into chaos by the killing of a police officer. The CD also comes with a bonus DVD of Young performing the whole suite solo on acoustic guitar, with spoken interludes that help flesh out the story.

Rumor has it that this was Crazy Horse's first complete take of Greendale, and Young decided to go with that instead of polishing the songs over and over. Backed only by Billy Talbot and Ralph Molina (guitarist "Poncho" Sampedro isn't on the album, although he toured with the band for the Greendale tour dates), Greendale has a rough, loose, sound that really feels almost like a live album.

The songs on Greendale are simply amazing. They're mostly fairly long, but the groove is irresistable. It opens and closes with epic rockers "Falling From Above" and the pair of "Sun Green" and "Be The Rain". Along the way, you get a little blues ("Double E"), a little boogie ("Devil's Sidewalk") and haunting, stark ballads ("Bandit" and "Bringin' Down Dinner").

I always hate to come to this kind of conclusion with a new release, but it's quite possible that Greendale is the best thing Neil Young's ever done. This is a spectacular album.