Kickin' is a Rick James album from 1989. Officially shelved at the time, the album was released as a series of promotional copies in the United Kingdom by Warner Bros. Records.
After James' death in 2004, Kickin' became available to download via torrent websites. In July 2014, in celebration of the release of his autobiography "Glow," the James' Estate released the album digitally, along with the rest of his discography.
Paragon may refer to:
A paragon is a perfect diamond — flawless and without inclusions. In the 16th century, a mass of twelve carats was sufficient to qualify for this designation, but today the threshold lies at 100 carats.
The largest flawless diamond in the world is known as The Paragon, a D-class gem weighing 137.82 carats, and the tenth largest white diamond in the world. The gem was mined in Brazil and attracted attention for being an exceptional white, flawless stone of great size. The Mayfair-based jeweller Graff Diamonds acquired the stone in Antwerp, cut it into an unusual seven-sided kite shield configuration, and set it in a necklace which separates to both necklace and bracelet lengths. Apart from the main stone, this necklace also contains rare pink, blue, and yellow diamonds, making a total mass of 190.27 carats. The necklace has associations with the end of the millennium and was worn by model Naomi Campbell at a diamond gala held by De Beers and Versace at Syon House in 1999.
Paragon is a speed metal/power metal band from Hamburg, Germany.
Paragon was founded by guitarist Martin Christian (who in many of the band's album booklets is written as Martin Wöbcke when it comes to songwriting-credits). After releasing some demo tapes and a mini-CD, they were able to release an album in 1994, the debut World of Sin. Shortly after this, their record company Blue Merle went bankrupt, and Martin decided to put the band on hiatus.
About two years later, Martin found four new members (Andreas, Jan, Markus, & Claudius) and recorded the album The Final Command. In 1999, Chalice of Steel was released. In 2001, Paragon released Steelbound, engineered and produced by Piet Sielck of Iron Savior. Piet has worked with the band on every album since then.
After the recording of Forgotten Prophecies in early 2007, the band's longtime bass player Jan Bünning quit the band because of "musical differences." Shortly after the band had found a replacement in Dirk Seifert.