Queen ‘Studio Collection’ Vinyl Box Set Review

This is an exceptional collection that is a must buy for any serious Queen fan, collector or vinyl enthusiast. The quality of the records is outstanding and the set is excellent value for money. Here’s hoping for a similar release containing Queen’s extensive catalogue of live material. Grab one while you can.

Phono Stages Explained

Buying a record player is not always as easy as acquiring the most expensive turntable you can afford and plugging it into an amp and speakers. In this article I will guide the prospective purchaser through the minefield of phono stages, since upgrading the phono stage can provide one of the most dramatic improvements to sound quality.

Stevie Wonder – “Songs In The Key Of Life” At (Nearly) 40!

The 3 stunners from Stevie Wonder were Talking Book, Innervisions and the culmination, Songs In The Key Of Life. Recording began in 1974 and ended up being about a year late. It was released at the end of September 1976. It was a phenomenal success, and yielded many hits and cover versions, as well as countless samples on other artists’ songs.  Now that “Songs In The Key Of Life”  is coming up to 40 years old this year, it deserves a revisit.

Remembering Prince

In this round up I’ve barely scraped the surface of Prince’s prolific output, but rather than playing the Hits compilations released by Warners when the boss felt he needed to buy another mansion with a swimming pool, look out for these albums, which show a true genius (a flawed true genius maybe) at work. Heaven must be dancing now.

Take A Chance On Me and Honey Honey – A compare, contrast of two ABBA Songs

It seems that ABBA are a band that, despite not having recorded together since 1982, simply refuse to go away. This is evident from the multi-million selling compilation, “Gold”, through CD and vinyl box-set reissues of the original albums, right up to the phenomenal success of the stage musical and film, “Mamma Mia”. This is due in no small part to the combination of the girls’ voices, but often overlooked is the song writing talent of Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson. In this article, I review, compare and contrast two songs, Honey Honey and Take A Chance On Me, and attempt to analyse the song writing devices that lift these songs out of the ordinary, and turn them into works of art.