It’s much easier, nearly four decades later, to separate the music from the moment when it comes to Wings Over America. Back then, this multi-disc concert souvenir from Paul McCartney seemed like a triumphant musical summation.

Arriving in a period in which Yes wasn’t doing studio work, and including contributions from no less than five musicians with ties to the band, the comparisons for Circa came early and often. A new reissue from Cleopatra underscores the differences.

The turn of the millennium was a time of artistic resurgence for UK guitar lord Allan Holdsworth; with its stripped down arrangements and group improvisational freedom, Holdsworth got more from less out of Sixteen Men of Tain (2000).

The last recordings of an early rock legend had none of the crunchy grit of “Dizzy Miss Lizzy.” Instead, Larry Williams reimagined his sound (and with “Bony Moronie,” one of his most famous songs) as ass-shaking 1970s funk bombs.

This imminently listenable brand of no-frills rock might have sold in any decade. But only in the 1980s, a period marked by a steep swing rightward after the polyester era’s excesses, could Huey Lewis and the News have been such big stars.

If 1987′s Document heralded the moment when R.E.M. started to get away from us, the follow up Green confirmed things: This wasn’t going to be our little secret anymore.

Despite the tortured history surrounding this release, something that ultimately mangled its original, rather Lovecraft-ian storyline, Imaginos might just be the most complete full-length Blue Oyster Cult ever did.

This is a first-time CD reissue in any form of Sam The Sham’s fine 1971 solo album, originally released on Atlantic Records and produced by the legendary Tom Dowd at Criteria Studios in Miami

At the time, punk was thought of as the fast and rough stuff, with classic rock geezers like Ritchie Blackmore already relegated to the dustbin of history. Hardly. Rainbow’s molten Live in Munich, recorded in 1977, zips along at a blinding pace.

This is the Almost Hit from Midnight Oil’s Diesel and Dust, which is primarily remembered for the Top 20 smash “Beds Are Burning,” but in many ways “The Dead Heart” always felt like the better song to me.