Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975)
Artist: Eagles
Community Score: 7.56

On their first four albums, the Eagles were at pains to demonstrate that they were a group of at least near-equals, each getting a share of the songwriting credits and lead vocals. But this compilation drawn from those albums, comprising the group's nine Top 40 hits plus "Desperado," demonstrates that this evenhandedness did not extend to... Read More

Terence Boylan
Artist: Terence Boylan

On his eponymous debut for Asylum, Terence Boylan gave the label everything it could possibly have wanted from one of its artists in 1977: confessional singer-songwriter ballads, slick Steely Dan-style L.A. jazz-pop, Eagle harmonies, and a bevy of L.A. session heavyweights. Boylan doesn't really offer anything particularly new here, but he is... Read More

Finger Style Jazz Guitar
Artist: Duck Baker
Still Crazy After All These Years
Artist: Paul Simon
Community Score: 7.34

The third new studio album of Paul Simon's post-Simon & Garfunkel career was a musical and lyrical change of pace from his first two, Paul Simon and There Goes Rhymin' Simon. Where Simon had taken an eclectic approach before, delving into a variety of musical styles and recording all over the world, Still Crazy found him working for the most... Read More

The Best of Leon Russell - DCC/SHELTER
Artist: Leon Russell

Pianist/composer/arranger Leon Russell has a resumé that would be the envy of most musicians: as an L.A. session player, he's recorded and toured with Jerry Lee Lewis, the Rolling Stones, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, George Harrison, Glen Campbell, and Bob Dylan, among many others. In addition, Russell came through the ranks of Phil Spector's... Read More

Son of Schmilsson
Artist: Harry Nilsson

Emboldened by a huge hit and hanging with Lennon and Ringo, Harry Nilsson was ready to let it all go when it came time to record a follow-up to Nilsson Schmilsson. The very title of Son of Schmilsson implies that it's a de facto sequel to its smash predecessor but, as always with Nilsson, don't take everything at face value. Yes, he's back with... Read More

Into the Music
Artist: Van Morrison
Community Score: 8.75

Into the Music may not seem like a great Van Morrison record, one of his very best, upon first listen, especially if you're trying to compare it to such masterpieces as Astral Weeks and Moondance, or even Tupelo Honey. Yet this is certainly one of his best records, one that is quietly winning and thoroughly ingratiating, sounding stronger, even... Read More

Shaved Fish
Artist: John Lennon
Community Score: 5.00

At the time of its release, Shaved Fish didn't attract as much attention as any compilation of John Lennon's work would have either a few years before or a few years after. Lennon had just issued the somewhat disappointing genre album, Rock 'n' Roll, and was only a year from Walls and Bridges, not one of his strongest albums, and had also grown... Read More

The Stranger
Artist: Billy Joel
Community Score: 9.60

Billy Joel teamed with Phil Ramone, a famed engineer who had just scored his first producing hits with Art Garfunkel's Breakaway and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years for The Stranger, his follow-up to Turnstiles. Joel still favored big, sweeping melodies, but Ramone convinced him to streamline his arrangements and clean up the... Read More

Turnstiles
Artist: Billy Joel
Community Score: 10.00

There's a reason Turnstiles begins with the Spector-esque epic "Say Goodbye to Hollywood." Shortly after Streetlife Serenade, Joel ditched California -- and, by implication, sensitive Californian soft rock from sensitive singer/songwriters -- for his hometown of New York. "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" was a celebration of his move, a repudiation of... Read More

Jackrabbit Slim
Artist: Steve Forbert

Although Jackrabbit Slim was Steve Forbert's best-selling album, containing his only Top 40 hit, "Romeo's Tune," and his only other chart single, "Say Goodbye to Little Jo," it took Nemperor (formerly part of CBS, now part of Sony) 17 years to put it out on CD (on September 3, 1996). It sounds as good as it did before, thanks both to Forbert's... Read More

Alive on Arrival
Artist: Steve Forbert

Steve Forbert's youthful features and boyish voice certainly become misleading once his lyrics are heard. His folk-rock styled songs are usually centered around life's ups and downs and the problems of adulthood, portraying him as an artist who's just trying to get by. Alive on Arrival is an album full of earnest tunes about loneliness,... Read More

El Mirage
Artist: Jimmy Webb

Jimmy Webb, best known as a songwriter ("MacArthur Park," "By the Time I Get to Phoenix"), recorded three albums for Reprise Records between 1970 and 1972, and a fourth for Asylum in 1974, without commercial impact, before subsiding into the background work of writing, producing, and arranging for other artists. But he came back to the forefront... Read More