Left Of The Dial

On their third album, Songs for the Deaf, Queens of the Stone Age are so concerned with pleasing themselves with what they play that they don't give a damn for the audience. This extends to the production, with the entire album framed as a broadcast from a left-of-the-dial AM radio station, the sonics compressed so every instrument is flattened…

Expectations for Natalie Imbruglia's debut album, Left of the Middle, were high because of the runaway success of the pre-album single "Torn" during 1997-1998. Fans of the single will be pleased to hear that the album is quite similar in approach and sound to the breakthrough single: laid-back alt-pop with sweetly melodic vocals. Admittedly, some of the material will be seen as pop fluff by certain listeners, but fans of popular latter-day female artists like Paula Cole, Sheryl Crow, and Meredith Brooks will find Imbruglia's debut most enjoyable.

This Rhino U.K. 2012 budget-priced box set rounds up the prime of the Replacements: five albums, beginning with their debut Sorry Ma, Forgot to Take Out the Trash, continuing with the Twin/Tone landmarks Hootenanny and Let It Be, then concluding with their major-label debut Tim and their first post-Bob Stinson album Pleased to Meet Me. These aren't the expanded versions Rhino put out in the 2000s; they're just the albums, but that's enough to make this a worthwhile purchase, particularly at this price. The Replacements were an American rock band formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1979. Initially a punk rock band, they are considered one of the pioneers of alternative rock.

LOS ANGELES – In February 1986, The Replacements performed a classic live show at Maxwell’s in Hoboken, NJ. That night, a 24-track mobile studio was on hand to record the quartet as they careened through a 29-song marathon that mixed tracks from all of the band’s albums to date with B-sides and covers. Until now, that pristine recording of the legendary performance has only been available in low-quality bootleg form. Even so, Pitchfork has called the show “a fiery, focused set that would make a true believer out of any skeptic.”