Ry Cooder - Bop Till You Drop (1979)

As one of Warner Bros.'s first digitally mastered recordings, the LP was packaged a bit differently than the standard releases. And I remember the thrill of putting it on the turntable to check out "the new sound", even though analogue seemed to work fine for me. I liked the music straightaway, but it took a while for me to get used to the somewhat overcompressed hiss-free sound.

While the set, a tribute to '50s pop and R&B, has some wrinkles, vibrant versions of classics 'Little Sister', 'Look at Granny Run Run' and 'Trouble, You Can't Fool Me' make the proceedings often irresistible. And Cooder's slide work is as sublime as ever, especially on a rousing rearrangement of 'I Think It's Going to Work Out Fine'.