The peak of the so-called boy band craze in pop music came in about the year 2000; by 2002, the fashion was over. Altar Boyz, a musical about a boy band, arrived off-Broadway on March 1, 2005, which may be as close to currency as the musical theater gets. But there is nothing as out as that which was recently in, and the show plays as a period piece no less than Forever Plaid, another off-Broadway musical about a male vocal group. And similar to Forever Plaid, Altar Boyz is intended as a lightly satiric, yet affectionate take on its subject. The big joke here is that the fictional Altar Boyz are a group of Catholics – Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Juan (and, oh, yes, Abraham, who, for reasons never really explained, is Jewish) – and they are here to sing about their faith. They do so in the combination of dance, Latin, and ballad styles, complete with overly emotive harmony and solo singing, that will be familiar to anyone who's ever heard a Backstreet Boys album…

Formed in 1993, as 'Abba Gold' taking their name from the 1992 'Greatest Hits' album, One of the pioneers of Abba tribute shows in the UK' … In 1997 the band changed it's name to 'The Real Abba Gold' and are still a leading force in the continuing upsurge in the popularity of the Abba tribute Scene…

The Curse of the Antichrist: Live in Agony is the third live album released by German thrash metal band Destruction. The album was released on September 25, 2009, by AFM Records…

Possibly the biggest success story in the history of Finnish heavy metal, Nightwish celebrated their second chart-topping album in their homeland with 2002's Century Child, which eventually collected numerous awards and went double platinum (60,000 units in Finland) within a year of release. The group's fourth LP overall, Century Child wisely repeated its predecessors' winning characteristics: symphony-enhanced power metal laced with accessible pop sensibilities (mostly straightforward song structures and romantic lyrics), distinguished by the operatic voice of classically trained singer Tarja Turunen…

When British producer Harold Davison thought of rivalling the American “Jazz At The Philharmonic” (JATP) formula of the great jazz impresario Norman Granz, he invented “Jazz from Carnegie Hall”. It was short-lived, but given the talent of the musicians onstage it had no cause to be jealous. This concert was recorded on October 1, 1958, and the tracks here are the only ones to survive from that session. This is their first-ever release, and they feature the cream of the crop in the late Fifties: the Golden Age of jazz in Paris.

Pop Essentials offers a definitive playlist of Classic Pop Anthems! The biggest hits from Jennifer Lopez, Christina Aguilera, Dolly Parton, Meat Loaf, Outkast, Anastacia, Westlife and many more.

This luxurious set containing 39 CDs, 3 DVDs, 1 CD-Rom and four detailed booklets will tell you the full story of Baroque opera in Italy, France, England, and Germany. No fewer than 17 complete operas (including two on DVD) and two supplementary CDs (the dawn of opera, Overtures for the Hamburg Opera) provide the most comprehensive overview of the genre ever attempted! The finest performers are assembled here under the direction of René Jacobs and William Christie to offer you 47 hours of music. An opportunity to discover or to hear again the masterpieces of Baroque opera, some of which have been unavailable on CD for many years.

It could be argued that Creedence Clearwater Revival were the greatest American rock & roll band, and one convincing argument would be that no other of their peers had such a commanding grasp on a variety of American music and could synthesize them in such a bracingly original fashion. It's that synthesis that makes a genre-specific compilation like Creedence Country so difficult to pull off – it's hard to single out one strand from that mix, particularly since CCR didn't so much perform country as absorb its influence…