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Here are a few of my favorite albums on CD. They're definitely not the latest, but they are worth a listen to if you've never heard them before.
The Soundtrack from the movie "The Commitments" - 1991
As you can see from the other selections, listening to soul music is not high on my list, but the music from the movie version of the "The Commitments" is just as good as the movie and is a CD that keeps finding it's way back into the car when I've had too much jocular morning guys and Howard Stern.
As wonderful as this CD is, I don't recommend volume 2. Many of the same tunes are repeated and it does not have enough new material to really justify buying it. For the most part, volume 2 was a fast-buck rip-off.
Tales of Mystery and Imagination - 1987
The first album from the "Alan Parsons Project" was a demonstration that Alan Parsons could do no wrong. This songs contained within this CD are Parsons and Eric Wolfson's interpretations of the poems and stories of Edgar Allan Poe. The style of the music contained within this CD demonstrates the remarkable range of Parsons who had been the recording engineer on the Beatles "Abbey Road" and produced Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon". The songs on this album mix many different styles of music and add insight into Poe's dark writings. I have always been a great fan of Poe, since finding out that he was the one that came up with the idea of crossing the Atlantic ocean in a balloon (and wrote the bogus "The Great Balloon Race" to tell the tale). When this album came out, I was well aware of Poe's works and I found that the mood set by such songs as the "The Raven" and "The Fall of the house of Usher" matched the tone of the stories and enhanced the experience of reading them.
Genesis "Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" - 1994
When Genesis first released this album, they were at their creative peak. This is the story of steet rat "Rael" (not "real"?) and how he becomes lost in a netherworld of drugs, fantasies and hopes. Haunting music and heartfelt emotions push it above much of the rest of '70s music. The biggest disappointment of the CD is that the detail and artistry of Hipgnosis' brilliant album cover and liner notes are lost in the smaller CD format.
Jeff Wayne's "The War of the Worlds" - 1987
There is really only one "Book on tape" and that's Jeff Wayne's musical version of H.G. Wells' "The war of the worlds". Artists on it include Phil Lynnott (of "Thin Lizzy"), David Essex and Julie Covington (the original "Evita"). Hit singles include "Forever Autumn" and "The Spirit of Man". After listening to this, you'll never want to listen to Roddy McDowell reading a Grisham novel again.