Best Music

The Best of the Glen Campbell Music Show
$12.95
As other reviewers have noted, the sound and video quality are below today's standards. The video looks like off-air recordings on a home VCR, but the mono sound is acceptable. You'll overlook these flaws as you enjoy some fresh new renditions of some of Glen's most popular hits. After polishing his skills on the weekly Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS, 1969-1972, this collection (apparently from a short run British or Canadian series; it's never quite clear except for one reference to "Mary In The Morning" being a hit in England) shines from Glen's flawless, rich performances in the days before he adopted the corny "country twang" accent that infects today's most of today's country music. Frankly, I can't hear much difference among today's male country vocalists - Tim, George, Clint, Alan, Keith, etc. - their voices, style and songs are all interchangeable, like standard parts in a machine. But on his signature ballads, no one can outperform Glen. A recently released cover of "By The Time I Get to Phoenix" by one of today's best female vocalists, Maureen McGovern, proves that even an A-list singer can't top Campbell's original. The best part of this collection is it's all Glen, unlike the recent collection of Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour highlights, also on DVD, which mostly pairs Glen with other vocalists, and with mixed results. Although video recording wasn't as common as it is today, it's hard to believe such a popular singer (how many solo singers had their own TV show by 1970?) has such a limited archive of video recordings. I can only hope whoever owns the Goodtime Hour series will release most of the Glen-only material on DVD in the near future.

Learning Through Music Plus - SpongeBob's Extrava-Krabba-Ganza
$12.99
This broke after a few days of my son playing with it. Loved it when it worked, but sent it back.

The Best Of NOW That's What I Call Music - 10th Anniversary Edition
$18.98
This is a CD that has some of the best songs recorded during the last 10 years. My daughter enjoys this CD immensely.

Best Music Writing 2009 (Da Capo Best Music Writing)
$15.95
Best Music Writing has faithfully collected the year¡Çs most compelling writing on music for a decade now, so it¡Çs appropriate this special edition be guest-edited by one of the best-known writers on music and popular culture, Greil Marcus, author of Lipstick Traces, Mystery Train, Like a Rolling Stone, and other groundbreaking excursions into the very fabric of music, America, and beyond.As always, Series Editor Daphne Carr has culled an impressively wide range of essays, profiles, news articles, interviews, creative non-fiction, fiction, book reviews, long-format reviews, blog posts, and journal articles on music and music culture, from rock and hip-hop to R&B and jazz to pop, blues, and more. Writers who have been published in Best Music Writing include Alex Ross, Jonathan Lethem, Ann Powers, Dave Eggers, Susan Orlean, and more.