“KOTOKO is a female J-Pop singer who has released 5 albums (3 associated with Geneon and 2 associated with I've Sound), 10 maxi singles and 1 DVD (DVD is scheduled for a US Domestic release), as well as singing, composing and writing lyrics for numerous other song collections. She frequently works with producers I've Sound, and has contributed songs to numerous anime and games including Onegai Teacher, Mahou Shoujo Tai Arusu, Onegai Twins, Ren'ai CHU!, Maria-sama ga Miteru, Hayate the Combat Butler, Colorful Kiss, Kannazuki no Miko, Starship Operators and Shakugan no Shana.” – Wikipedia.org

“Now it is 0:30am and I've been looking for this album for 6 hours. I searched the net and got nearly insane. But now I've found CDJapan.co.jp and I am happy! I've heard the main theme of “Toki wo Kakeru Shojo” and got smashed by the sound of Oku Hanako. And then I've heard song samples of the Oku's official website. And the whole CD is amazing!” – Customer Review on CDJapan.co.jp

“Giuliani sure must have studied Mozart because, if you like Mozart (and who doesn't), you will like Giuliani. These CDs are a good bargain and a pleasant introduction to the music of Mauro Giuliani. The recording is relatively old (1975-1978 ADD) but the performances are fine (Pepe Romero in my mind is the best in the world today) and so is the sound. A fine addition to anyone's classical CD collection!” – Customer Review on Amazon.com

“Taiwanese singer and actress Angela Chang returns once more. It has been a busy year for her as leading star in the hit TV series “Romantic Princess” co-starring Fahrenheit's Wu Zun. Now it's time for her latest highly anticipated release which arrives as a follow-up to her fourth album, “Flower in the Wonderland”. Angela treads into new music territory on Ang 5.0, surprising her devotees with the unique rock tune «I Am In Love».” – YesAsia.com

“One in a while one of the classical labels does something a bit more than right. I owned Kleiber's famous version of Brahms's 4th back in the heady days of the LP and would have bought just that on CD. But to commemorate the career and extremely limited recording career of Carlos Kleiber they repackaged Brahms's 4th with Kleiber's nearly as excellent version of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony along with excerpts from Wagner to produce a horn of plenty for music lovers. Kleiber produced fewer recordings than any other great conductor of his generation, but despite his rather meager output will be remembered for generations to come on the basis of the amazing quality of a few of these discs. There are several candidates for the best recording of Brahms's Fourth, but this is one of them and is certainly one that one has to take into account when evaluating the finest versions on record. All Kleiber's recordings will, of course, always take a bit of a back seat to his very famous recording of Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh symphonies. Even if one already owns multiple versions of both the Brahms and Schubert this is a disc that any classical music lover should get. Rarely will you see two such classic version of major orchestral works coupled together on at a bargain price. This disc truly should be in the library of everyone who doesn't already own the works on their original CD releases.” – Customer Review on Amazon.com

“Francescatti has a truely beautiful rich tone that is filled with so much warmth and emotion, it gives you goose bumps. He is masterly accompanied by Dimitri Mitropoulos, sadly, a forgotton conductor whose career was ruined by Leonard Bernstein, by “outing” his homosexuality. Here, Zino and Dimitri give the most inspired Mendelssohn performance you will hear. It is not taken at the slow pace that virtually all conductors and soloists take. It has pace, breadth and energy. Just compare Francesccati's performance, to an equally revered performance by Menuhin and Furtwangler. I guarantee you'll be more impressed by Francesccati and Mitropoulos. The Saint-Saens concerto sounds so vivid, it's hard to believe it was recorded in 1950. Except for the mono sound, it's sound like he recorded it yesterday. A great compilation of concertos that deserve to be in any colleciton!” – Customer Review on Amazon.com

“2007 13-track CD album, the 10th longplayer from the Australian Pop Princess. The album features the lead-off single, “2 Hearts”, produced by London based electro band Kish Mauve. Among the other musicians contributing to the album are Cutfather & Jonas (Jamelia – “Superstar”, Mercedes – “Get Rich”), Richard “Biff” Stannard (Spice Girls, Holly Valance), Bloodshy & Avant: Christian Karlsson & Pontus Winnberg (Christina Milian, Brooke Valentine), Guy Chambers (Beverley Knight, Delta Goodrem), Cathy Dennis (Janet Jackson, Kelly Clarkson), Karen Poole (Leona Lewis, Mutya Buena), Calvin Harris (Kelis, Roisin Murphy), Greg Kurstin (Jessica Simpson, Lily Allen) and Eg White (Natalie Imbruglia, Maria Lawson).” – Amazon.com

“This survey of Italian cinema by Martin Scorsese is a worthwhile follow-up to his 1995 documentary A Personal Journey Through American Movies. Packed with insight and film clips, Voyage covers Italian cinema from World War II through the early '60s, the time that the young Scorsese watched these films before starting his career. The heart of the documentary is the Neo-Realism movement – not the lightest of genres, but Scorsese's passion helps considerably. He introduces us to his family and Sicilian ancestors via photos and home movies allowing us to understand how powerfully these films affected him and his family. He talks about how he saw the films, often through inferior prints on television, and calls out details to observe. The filmmaker spends upwards of 15 minutes on a single film, with the bulk of the history centering on five powerhouse directors: Roberto Rossellini (“Open City”), Vittorio De Sica (“The Bicycle Thief”), Luchino Visconti (“Senso”), Federico Fellini (“8-1/2”), and Michelangelo Antonioni(“L'Avventura”).
Scorsese's four-hour-plus survey should come with a college credit for film history. He examines the major films but also spends time on films that may be hard to find on home video (at least at this time): Rossellini's six-part “Paisan”, a heart-breaking look at the last days of the war; De Sica's episodic “The Gold of Naples”; Fellini's atypical “I Vitelloni”, which was a major influence on Scorsese's own “Mean Streets”; Antonioni's “Eclipse” with its radical ending; and Rossellini's “Voyage to Italy”, an examination of a marriage that failed worldwide as a film but was a touchstone for the French New Wave movement. The final results are not as accessible as “Personal Journey” but, at worst, a viewer will have working knowledge of more than 20 Italian films (and be able to cheat their way through a discussion). At best, these are four hours that will end too soon and leave you hungry to view these films that have fueled Scorsese's cinematic vision.” – Doug Thomas, Amazon.com

“The Korean team of 1966, 1000-1 outsiders, performed miracles at the 8th World Cup in England. On arrival in London, they were labelled the enigma, foreign in every aspect of their make-up. For a brief period they would become the darlings of the nation, their exploits the stuff of legend. Yet once their adventure was over, the plane taking them home might as well have been flying them to the moon. Today, almost as little is known of the players and their country as was the case in 1966.
Having created the greatest shock in world cup history by sensationally knocking out one of the tournament favourites, Italy, North Korea became the first, and as yet only, Asian team to make it to the quarter finals. On their return to Genoa the Italians, some of the finest and wealthiest footballers on the planet, were pelted with rotten tomatoes.
The Koreans were 3-0 up in their quarter final match against Portugal before the magical Eusebio intervened and won the game for the Portuguese 5-3. For years, rumours have persisted particularly in South Korea that North Korea's World Cup heroes had been sent to labour camps on their return from England and remain in dishonour. Until now, no-one has been given permission to enter North Korea to interview the players about their experiences at the 8th World Cup.
During the four years it took to make this documentary, it became clear that the seven surviving players from the Italy match are household names and are revered as national heroes. This is their opportunity to tell the story of «The Game of Their Lives».” – NorthKoreaZone.org

“B'z is a popular and influential Japanese hard rock band comprised of Tak Matsumoto (guitar) and Koshi Inaba (vocals). As of 2007, they have sold over 75 million albums in Japan alone, which make them the best-selling Japanese band of all-time. They were the first artists from Japan, and from Asia as a whole, to have their handprints and signatures put up in the Hollywood's Rock Walk. They were recommended by Steve Vai.” – Wikipedia.org

“To Buy or Not to Buy! Educators, lovers of theatre and great literature – take note! Late in the 1990s, Harper Row began to release on cassettes the Arkangel Complete Shakespeare, all of which I reviewed in one paper or another. Using some of the best of the young theatrical talent in Great Britain and some of the older established stars of stage and screen, the producers gave us readings of every single word of every single play by Shakespeare, including the seldom-performed “Two Noble Kinsmen” which is partially by Shakespeare.
Well, hold on! Audio Partners has been contracted to release the entire set on CDs. The trick is that you cannot purchase the individual sets but are required to purchase the entire package of 38 plays for $600. That is 98 CDs in all with a playing time of just over 101 hours! Libraries and school departments take note.
Hearing them as they were released on tape in batches of four or five, I was impressed mostly with the enormity of the project but found some things to quibble about. Casting Oberon and Titania with a pair whose voices were South African or Jamaican (no Henry Higgins, I) made some sense in that it emphasized their other-worldly-ness. So did assigning Malvolio in “Twelfth Night” to an actor with a distinct Scottish accent, but giving Mercutio in “Romeo and Juliet” to the same actor was absurd. Then too there is that sudden sound effect of a train pulling out of a station in the middle of “All's Well That Ends Well”! Granted there was a production current then that did place the play in more modern times, but when one is hearing a recording with no clue as to setting, the result was jarring and should have been omitted.
In the grander roles such as Hamlet, Othello and the like, the younger actors give modern readings which might strike some as slighting demands of the high poetry. And those who long for the grander readings can turn to the re-releases of the old Shakespeare Recording Society sets.
One great disadvantage to the cassettes is that you could locate a specific scene only with much fast forwarding. With CDs, of course, you can jump to any scene by pressing the Skip button on your player. When a scene continues onto another disc, the tracking list tells you at which line the scene picks up. The price might be prohibitive to all but an institution – but I feel that every library should find its way to purchasing the complete set in much the same way that many purchased the complete set of BBC Shakespeare videos.” – Customer Review on Amazon.com

“Balancing biological, psychological, social and cultural approaches, David Barlow and V. Mark Durand's ground-breaking integrative approach is the most modern, scientifically valid method for studying abnormal psychology. In this Fourth Edition of their proven «Abnormal Psychology», Barlow and Durand successfully blend sophisticated research (including new prevention coverage) and an accessible writing style with the most widely recognized method of discussing psychopathology. Going beyond simply describing different schools of thought on psychological disorders, the authors explore the interactions of the various forces that contribute to psychopathology. A conversational writing style, consistent pedagogical elements, integrated case studies (95 percent from authors' own files), video clips of clients (on the free accompanying Abnormal Psychology Live CD-ROM), and additional study tools make this text the most complete learning resource available. For instructors, an Instructor's Resource Manual, Test Bank, and a wide selection of videos are available to use when teaching the course.”