Buying Guides

Buying guide The humble cassette tape, once the world’s default portable music format, is back in fashion. Here are the best cassette players you can buy right now

Never one to repeat himself, Canadian guitar hero Pat Travers boasts a prolific, genre-shifting back catalogue – and these are his best albums

Buying guide Warren Zevon could have carved out a career as a mainstream piano man were it not for his caustic wit, chemical-induced instability and general contempt for the world. These are his best albums

Buying guide Elvis Presley escaped poverty to become a global phenomenon and a hip-swivelling, parent-baiting target for the KKK. These are his best albums

Buying guide Ride the wave of CD revivalism with these handheld portable CD players from FiiO, KLIM and Shanling

Buying guide From the smoke-filled clubs of London’s rhythm’n’blues scene to the world's greatest stadiums, the Rolling Stones' recorded work is the soundtrack to rock'n'roll itself

Buying guide You can’t get a better on-ramp to records than these entry-level turntables from Audio-Technica, Sony, Pro-Ject and more

The recorded manifesto of politically charged folk-punk-rock survivors Levellers, still casually ignoring musical trends in 2026

Buying guide Arguably the most influential female singer-songwriter of our time, Joni Mitchell has recorded some of the finest albums of her era

Buying guide With or without The Dukes, Steve Earle is a true rock’n’roll maverick, and these are his best albums