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Musicologists looking for evidence of Neil Young's connection with the avant-garde likes of Sonic Youth need look no further than this uncompromising soundtrack to Jim Jarmusch's film Dead Man--the first post-punk western to make any sense at all. The music here is scattered and fragmentary, and per...

This 1972 collection set the bar it took years for Raitt to clear again. Moving easily between sensitive singer-songwriter and bawdy blues-mama roles, the blazing redhead proved she was a talent to watch on several fronts. Raitt demonstrated a keen instinct for finding suitable material, adopting Ja...

Live Rust gets the most props, but if you're looking for a live document of Neil Young and Crazy Horse at their speaker-shredding, stage-scorching best, Weld is an absolute must-own. Fired up by the success of 1990's Ragged Glory, and outraged by the eruption of the Gulf War, Young and his cohorts a...

Released in 1973 after the dismal musical detour that was Sometime in New York City, Mind Games showed John Lennon returning to the emotional pop sounds of Plastic Ono Band and Imagine. But while the glorious title track (the album's only hit) was every inch a worthy successor to "Imagine," the rest...

Hold Out...

The last time Bruce Springsteen ventured West for inspiration, the result was the desolate Nebraska and its tales of serial killers and used cars. On his first record in three years, Springsteen navigates barren deserts and Old West war fields for a dozen forlorn songs that co-star the artist and hi...

After a long period of unfocused weirdness, Young spotted grunge around the corner and declared unity with the loud, scruffy sounds coming from Seattle. The countryish ballads, such as the opening "Farmer John," get roaring Crazy Horse treatment, and the headbanging "F*!#in' Up" is the most self-eff...

Like its two multiplatinum predecessors, Longing in Their Hearts was produced by Don Was (Raitt is listed as coproducer on the last two) and features the funky rhythm section of ex-Neville Brothers bassist Hutch Hutchinson and ex-Beach Boys drummer Ricky Fataar. As before, Was provides a sympathetic...

Learning to Flinch...

It's hard to imagine, but Beatles resident mystic George Harrison has arguably become the band's most curmudgeonly cynic. We offer as evidence this splendidly remastered 30th-anniversary edition of his 1970 multidisc solo epic. If the mini-boxed set's booklet and twin inner CD sleeves won't convince...