Pink Floyd followed up the seminal Dark Side of the Moon with this tribute to Syd Barrett, their erstwhile bandmate who had succumbed to too much acid in the late 60s. It is a poignant lament for the loss of their friend with the track Shine On You Crazy Diamond taking up much of the album. Rick Wright’s glacial keyboards form the sonic base to this classic, while David Gilmour’s inimitable guitar and Roger Water’s lyrics combine to produce arguably Pink Floyd’s finest work.

Miles Davis hadn’t played live for six years, having spent the time focusing on women and cocaine, when he came out of his self-imposed hiatus for a series of concerts in 1981. He had a new band too, featuring Mike Stern on guitar, Al Foster on drums, Mino Cinelu on percussion, Bill Evanson on soprano sax, and Marcus Miller on bass. The tracks on this album were recorded live at Boston's Kix Club, on June 27, 1981, Avery Fisher Hall, New York City, on July 5, and at Nishi Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan, October 4 of that year.

The eighth studio album from the highly influential German electronic band focuses on the rise of the computer within society and seems astonishingly prescient nearly a quarter of a century later. It is the expression of all things digital and is a hugely optimistic take on the direction of travel that technology was taking. Kraftwerk were one of the key influences of techno and house music that would follow in later years. Globalists before globalism became a thing, the album exists in both German and English versions, but it is the German version that is the one to listen to.

Steely Dan’s sixth album took their obsession with the perfect sound to new heights. The jazz rock band were essentially just Walter Becker and Donald Fagen by this time, accompanied by a plethora of the finest studio musicians available. No matter who you were though, you might not make the final cut. Certain guitar solos were recorded by over a dozen different guitarists before the duo found one that they could live with. In 2010, the album was recognized by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or artistically significant" and selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry. It has long been an audiophile favourite.