LATEST ADDITIONS

After a delay of a few years, due to the meticulousness of all involved, The Beatles catalog will finally be reissued in the format in which it's meant to be heard and has always sounded best: vinyl.

Does it matter that the rattle and phlegm in Bob Dylan's voice makes it sound as if your midrange driver has blown? No. Hell no. In fact, despite the ragged vocals and 50 years since his debut, this is Dylan's best album in quite some time.

Bob Dylan cracks himself up performing some of these songs. Producer Tom Wilson must have gotten it, but recording engineers Roy Halee and Fred Catero might have been ready to stop the tape. After all, this was staid, but still pre-corporate Columbia Records. It was “straight” and at that point Halee was more experienced recording Percy Faith than Bob.

Brian Eno's early influences include John Cage, Steve Reich and other minimalists. He was more art than rocker. In 1971 when he joined forces with Bryan Ferry's Roxy Music he was more a knob twiddler than a musician. He worked saxophonist Andy Mackay's VCS3 synthesizer and along with a pair of Revox A77s provided the electronic sounds and "tape treatments" that on the group's first two albums, helped create Roxy Music's unique sound.