A progressive rock album from Rick Wakeman in 2020? Sign me up! The keyboard wizard has released The Red Planet with an updated version of The English Rock Ensemble behind him (drummer Ash Soan, bassist Lee Pomeroy, and guitarist Dave Colquhoun). The “caped keysader” presents eight instrumentals covering the landscape of Mars. Here are wonderful Wakeman key sound signatures fans have not heard in precisely this manner in a long time..

For the third time in a row, Deep Purple and producer Bob Ezrin have delivered a stellar, rock-solid record that brings out the best in every participant.  The 13 songs, presented in two acts, comprising Whoosh!, as it is called, range from straight-forward hard rock to ragtime fills to more intricate progressive rock strains, soaking in a stew of classical and neo-acid rock flavorings. A few spins in, and you begin to realize that this album, bundled with 2013’s NOW What?! And 2017’s inFinite, marks a significant creative streak in Purple’s storied 50-year history. Looks like The Long Goodbye they announced three years ago is going into overtime.

Letter to You is Bruce Springsteen’s first album in six years to feature the E Street Band. Outfitted with these players, the Boss delivers songs that largely touch on mortality — a testament to the fact that he’s still making music at 71 that still sounds fresh and rocks.

It’s hard to pinpoint how exactly Chrissie Hynde hasn’t lost her rock and roll edge. She’s made a few detours — as any seasoned musician should. But she always comes back to the Pretenders, pens songs that fit the band’s style, and makes it all sound and feel so effortless. She does it brilliantly on Hate For Sale, the 11th Pretenders album and every bit a contender for one of the group’s finer latter-day releases. Unlike 2016’s Alone, this is a group effort with all the songs credited to Hynde and guitarist James Walbourne, and original drummer Martin Chambers appearing on his first Pretenders album since 2002’s Loose Screw.

With such an auspicious beginning, it’s difficult to say how 2020 will end up. One thing for sure is that a lot of music is being made — some of it meant to keep an artist’s name in the public eye, some of it a little more promising. There are several projects that have been in the wings, ready for consumption, waiting until the timing is just right to share it with the world. Who knows, it seems with Music Box, the Mitch Perry Group’s nine-track collection dripping over with superlative musicality and production, timing may just be everything.

When I spoke to Blue Öyster Cult singer and guitarist Eric Bloom in 2007, I asked him if the band had any plans to cut a new album. At the time, it had been six years since their most recent release, 2001’s The Curse Of The Hidden Mirror. He told me the BÖC didn’t have a label, though that didn’t seem to be the problem. “Maybe we’ll make one of our own and make it a download only,” he said. “There’s talk about it, but we have a lot of touring.” In subsequent years, Bloom repeated in other interviews that the band spent much of their time on the road, adding that making a record isn’t cost-effective and there’s simply no demand for a new BÖC record. Obviously, things have changed and in 2020, when touring isn’t really in the cards, Blue Öyster Cult has finally been able to release The Symbol Remains, their first new album of original material in nearly 20 years.