Originally released in December 1989, "…But Seriously" features many of Phil Collins' biggest hits and was one of the era's biggest selling albums. In the UK, it spent a total of 15 weeks at #1 during an extended run of almost a year in the Top 10 en route to becoming the biggest selling album of 1990. The album campaign culminated with his fourth and fifth BRIT Awards for British Single ( Another Day in Paradise ) and British Male. Internationally, the album scored #1 chart positions all over the globe including a four-week spell atop the Billboard 200.

Mahogany Rush is a Canadian progressive rock band led by guitarist Frank Marino. The band had its peak of popularity in the 1970s, playing such venues as California Jam II together with bands such as Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Heart. The band is perhaps best known for Marino's soaring lead guitar which bears a strong resemblance to the playing of Jimi Hendrix. Long term members of the band have included bassist Paul Harwood and drummer Jimmy Ayoub, and Frank's brother Vince on guitar; Frank Marino is the sole continuous member of the band. In the late 70's and onward, the group toured as Frank Marino & Mahogany Rush and at times is referred to simply as Frank Marino at certain shows, and on a couple of albums. Mahogany Rush IV is the fourth studio album by band Mahogany Rush.

German multi-instrumentalist Stephan Micus was making his own rather idiosyncratic version of world music years before it became fashionable to do so. Micus specializes in taking ethnic instruments from all over the planet and using them, in ways that transcend their traditional contexts, to play his own moody and somewhat austere compositions. On Darkness and Light Micus makes extensive use of the dilruba, a four-stringed bowed Indian instrument that sounds somewhat like a nasal cello which has 24 sympathetic strings that set up a hypnotic drone effect behind the haunting melodies. Also featured are the classical Spanish guitar, the Balinese suling flute, an Irish tin whistle, the sho (a Japanese bamboo mouth-organ), the kortholt (a German renaissance reed instrument), various gongs, and the remarkable ki un ki, a six-foot-long Siberian cane trumpet (pictured on the cover)…

It was with the release of Now & Then that the Carpenters lost any pretense of being even dorky cool. The album jacket was a giveaway, depicting them in a car in front of a suburban home. The problem also laid in the relentlessly cheerful children's chorus on "Sing," which seemed to come out of every public music outlet that spring and summer; the silly version of "Jambalaya" on side one; and the oldies medley on the second side, which at least predated Happy Days going on the air but still botched its job, mixing Karen Carpenter's haunting rendition of "Johnny Angel" and her spirited version of "One Fine Day" (anticipating her white-bread but effective version of "Beechwood 4-5789") with filler like "Fun, Fun, Fun" and "Dead Man's Curve," all interspersed with Tony Peluso doing his best (i.e., worst) imitation of an obnoxious disc jockey…

101 is a live album and documentary by Depeche Mode released in 1989 chronicling the final leg of the band's Music for the Masses Tour and the final show at the Pasadena Rose Bowl. Group member Alan Wilder is credited with coming up with the name; the performance was the 101st and final performance of the tour (and coincidentally also a famous highway in the area).

Jimi Hendrix left behind more unreleased material than just about any other rock artist. Some tracks have rated as all-time classics ("Angel," "Izabella," "Drifting," etc.), while others should have remained in the vaults (such as the full-length albums Crash Landing and Voodoo Soup, two collections that were near-criminally touched up by then-Hendrix keeper Alan Douglas). The out of print War Heroes is one of the few consistent compilations of unreleased Hendrix, and has since been replaced by First Rays of the New Rising Sun and South Saturn Delta. Highlights include "Beginning" (which contains a riff almost identical to the Stones' "Bitch"), "Highway Chile," and "Izabella," a track premiered on a Dick Cavett TV show a year before Hendrix's death…

Alan Simon is a French folk-rock musician and composer, best known for his rock operas performed with noted rock musicians guesting. Simon is associated with Breton Celticism, and his most ambitious works are typically on themes linked to Celtic myth and history. Simon achieved fame with his rock opera Excalibur, La Légende des Celtes (Excalibur, The Legend of the Celts) (Sony) in 1999, of which he was both songwriter and producer. The first part of an intended trilogy, Excalibur blended musical styles and was performed by Roger Hodgson (ex-Supertramp), Fairport Convention, Dan Ar Braz, Tri Yann, Angelo Branduardi, Didier Lockwood and Gabriel Yacoub.