Guns'N'Roses: Live Era '87 '89 (Geffen)
G'N'R was American pop metal in excelsis, veering dangerously between raucous and ridiculous, and often swerving over the edge of self-parody. They disintegrated in a mire of ego-clashes and rock'n'roll excess, and here's their legacy: a live double-CD which captures six years of crashin' and burnin'. All the big hits are here, including Paradise City, Welcome To The Jungle and Sweet Child O' Mine, but the presence of a live audience adds extra punch, creating a suitably dynamic chronicle of the band's glory days. Last I heard, singer W. Axl Rose was clinging stubbornly to the G'N'R name despite the departure of Slash, Izzy Stradlin et al, so we can comfortably predict this album to be the final flourish before Guns 'N' Roses morph into a complete joke.
- Kevin Courtney
Whitney Houston: My Love Is Your Love (Arista)
This limited edition double CD features Ms Houston's album in its entirety, plus a club remix CD for all you party people out there in Whitney-land. While Mariah Carey and Celine Dion outsold her in the 1990s, La Houston is still doing the business with such hit singles as It's Not Right But It's Okay, My Love Is Your Love and I Learned From The Best. All three singles are featured here, plus In My Business, featuring Missy Elliot, and When You Believe, a duet with Mariah Carey which appears on the soundtrack for Prince Of Egypt. The club CD includes the Thunderpuss 2000 mix of It's Not Right But It's OK, and a Wyclef Jean remix of My Love Is Your Love. Give CD 1 to your mum and CD 2 to your 12-year-old niece and then evacuate the premises.
- Kevin Courtney
Chuck Prophet: The Hurting Business (Cooking Vinyl)
Greyhairs among you may remember with affection a fine under-acclaimed San Franciscan roots band from the 1980s by the name of Green on Red. If not, fear not, as the band's guitarist, Chuck Prophet is still alive and, well, kicking. And kicking with some purpose, I might add. This moody late 1960s-influenced collection grows on you, with its rapping inserts and white boy blues motifs coursing through Prophet's languid, late-night vocals. Unlike on his last outing, the ripping Homemade Blood, his guitar playing is relatively muted, allowing his band to fill the space with a fatter, more densely layered sound. The songs, bittersweet snippets of keen-eared observation, chugging rhythm and infectious melody, burrow deep on repeated listening. For evidence, listen to the regret-filled It Won't Be Long.
- Joe Breen