John Lennon - Anthology (iTunes)

Most of the solo Lennon albums are £9.99 to download with some obvious cut-price tactics for ‘tier two’ LPs like Live in New York City, Live in Toronto and Acoustic (all of which come in at £7.99). But making the entire 1998 Anthology box set available to download for just £9.99 has to be the bargain of the century. It has 94 tracks in total, although admittedly many of them are short spoken word extracts, either from interviews or the studio. Either way, you’d be mad to spend £7.99 to download the 21-track Wonsuponatime sampler when you could get another sixty tracks from the Lennon archives for just two pounds more. One again the iTunes marketing team have let themselves down though – look carefully at the Anthology sleeve shot and what do you see? A sticker proclaiming “Property of EMI Music A&R Department”!

John Lennon - Milk and Honey (iTunes)

Two posthumous albums that have been preserved well - that might easily have fallen by the wayside (as Heart Play has) - are Milk and Honey and Menlove Avenue, Yoko’s attempts to make ‘new’ Lennon albums in the early and mid-eighties based on reels of outtakes and works-in-progress. The former still makes a nice companion piece to Double Fantasy (and includes an exclusive video download of Nobody Told Me) but the latter is more of a worry: no extra tracks and surprisingly low-volume previews which doesn’t bode well for the quality of the full-length downloads.

John & Yoko / Plastic Ono Band with Elephant's Memory - Sometime in New York City (iTunes)

One of Lennon’s most derided albums, its arrival on iTunes gives you the chance to sample for yourself and try before you buy. It’s a long haul, a compendium of Lennon’s protest songs like Attica State and Luck Of The Irish. It was also his first solo outing to feature major vocal input from Yoko, like track two in this set: the boogie version of Sisters, O Sisters. Happy Christmas (War Is Over) is the video that comes with this set and it’s the version from the Lennon Legend DVD.

John Lennon - Walls and Bridges (iTunes)

One of the things solo Lennon fans have all spent a lot of time thinking about, at one time or another, is what type of music he would have made throughout the 80s, 90s and today, had it all not been so brutally cut short. Perhaps the two most overlooked pointers to the answer are Walls and Bridges and Mind Games, two classic albums recorded as he surfed the wave of New York life and – briefly – that of a single man in the mid-70s. But what’s been done to Walls and Bridges on iTunes is an abomination: for starters the original sleeve has been replaced by the photo used for the 2005 remaster. But that seems like nothing when you read the official write up Apple has given the album. You wonder if they really are trying to preserve and promote Lennon’s legacy when they describe Walls and Bridges as “decidedly uneven… containing too much mediocre material… weighed down by weak melodies… heavy over production…” Incredible!

Plastic Ono Band - Plastic Ono Band (iTunes)

This is where it all started – the companion piece to Yoko Ono’s album of the same name and John’s first solo outing. Sixteen Lennon albums arrive on iTunes this month and Plastic Ono Band is one of six that comes with an exclusive video, in this case it’s Mother. This is the recently remastered version of the album of course - not the version that languished on CD throughout the 90s - and as such comes as a 13-tracker with additional remixes of Do The Oz and Power To The People.

Coming Soon?

According to her MySpace blog, Lily Allen says her next album will be called "Three Singles and Other Songs, Plus iTunes Exclusive"!

The Wolfmen – Cecilie (indiestore.com)

This is the latest from Marco Pirroni and Chris Constantinou – both of which took our iPod Challenge on these pages last year. This is their third single and is a low-down and dirty Velvet Underground-style chunk of confusion and flutes. Available on all platforms, but best downloaded from 7 Digital’s IndieStore which has two exclusive remixes.

Manic Street Preachers – Autumnsong (tunetribe.com)

It comes as somewhat of a relief to see the Manic Street Preachers back on form, and enjoying commercial and critical success. I’ve never really heard their sound waver, but seeing them fizzle, when they’d been so massive, would have been like watching some giant dinosaur collapse and die right in front of you. Their July single, Autumnsong, has a B-side only available from TuneTribe. From Despair To Where was recorded live at The Point in Cardiff in June. 95p well spent.

Dr Calculus MDMA – Designer Beatnik (Virgin)

With five rare bonus tracks and an album that was never released on CD, it’s bizarre that Virgin didn’t make any fanfare around the digital re-release of this lost classic. Not long after Kiss Me went global, Stephen Duffy got off his face on ecstasy and studio gimmickry and came up with the appropriate moniker of Dr Calculus MDMA to record this psychedelic early blast of trip-hop. It sank without trace, of course, and became the stuff of legend. Across the next twenty years you could pay a high price for it on the collectors market, or just as easily find it in a bargain bin in the High Street. But Virgin has reassembled the album along with all of the 7” and 12” remixes and B-sides, to make a great 16-track set, the only omission remaining the brilliant artwork that was as much a part of the original prank as the music. Annoyingly, Straight To Stereo (12” Mix) is the only piece of the set not available as a single-track download on iTunes, so your best buy is from TuneTribe. But at £7.99 for the full thing from all online platforms, it’s a bargain.

Natasha Bedingfield – Live from London (itunes.com)

The latest in iTunes’ exclusive monthly sessions, recorded live at the Apple store in Regent Street comes from Natasha Bedingfield. At eight tracks, it’s longer than other releases in the series, which this summer have also included Kate Walsh and Lemar. The highlights are the singles of course, like Unwriten and the two closing songs from the session: These Words and Single. Natasha’s gushing, gusty vocal style and lyrics are like Marmite and this set screams For Fans Only. But the fans certainly seem happy – according to Blue-Rose, an iTunes user who was in the audience for this very session, “the crowd and the atmosphere was electric.”

Ashford & Simpson – Best Of (itunes.com)

With a new Best Of just out, five of Ashford & Simpson’s back catalogue albums have also been given the digital-only reissue treatment. Take your pick from Street Opera, High-Rise, Solid, Real Love and Love or Physical. 1984’s Solid is probably the one that most people will go for, but the best, funkiest Ashford records (before he got with Simpson) have to be his contributions to Quincy Jones’ early 70s solo albums Gula Matari and Smackwater Jack.

The Moscow Coup Attempt – Recidivism

Top marks for best band name in this entire issue of RC! But what about the music? The pseudonym of LA composer David Whitacre, TMCA deliver über-chilled gothic-tinged ambience. Dark and eerie and very intriguing. If you want to try before you buy you’ll find a free MP3 download of a track called Sprout and the Bean on the official website. The album, meanwhile, collects B-sides and remixes and is the follow-up to 2005’s The Failure of Shortwave Radio. It’s download-only and is available at iTunes and most other online stores.

Loose Ends - A Little Spice (EMI)

Another digital download reissue from EMI’s vaults, this one fits exactly in the 80s-shaped gap between US funk and UK house. It’s the home to the band’s classic Hangin’ On A String (Contemplating) which – despite the albums that followed – they never really managed to better. While the entire album is now available for download, the 1991 CD edition is also now available as part of Amazon.co.uk’s four-for-three sale, making the choice between downloads and physical product even harder…

Various - UK:One-The New Music Collection (iTunes)

Mark Vidler – a/k/a Go Home Productions – is one of the UK geniuses behind the recent DJ mash-up craze. Along with Osymyso, he’s still leading that field, even though it has now been commercialised out of the underground and into the mainstream, as a recent comedy-tinged mash for Comic Relief proved. While he’s built his name remixing other people, Vidler’s first original release turned up recently on iTunes. It’s part of this download-only album sponsored by Coca Cola. His 20 Days Till The Roof Falls Down sits alongside Bo Popper and The Happiness but is undoubtedly the highlight of the whole set.

Dreadzone - The Remixes (tunetribe.com)

This one’s available to buy at all the usual download stores but TuneTribe is a great source of other Dreadzone-like bands. With 22 tracks for just £8.99, this is a great introduction to a much-overlooked bunch of UK talent. The most collectable track by far is William Orbit’s remix of Earth Angel. But splash an extra £0.89 while you’re there and get Asian Dub Foundation’s brilliant rework of Moving On too.

Kate Walsh – Tim’s House (Blueberry Pie)

This singer/songwriter is new to the pages of RC but has every right to be in our round-up this month. She recorded her album at a friend’s house for just a few quid, distributed it on iTunes and – after just a few weeks – managed to sell almost 10,000 copies, hitting number one on iTunes’ download chart. People first heard about her when the site gave one of her tracks Single Of The Week status. As Oliver Schusser, director of iTunes Europe says of her resulting sales “This is an incredible achievement when you consider Kate Walsh is unsigned and still outsold several major international artists.”