Who's Next is not an album lacking for reissues. In addition to a deluxe edition from 2003, there have also been multiple audiophile editions and remasters of the album since its 1971 release. So what could a "super deluxe edition" possibly contain? Quite a bit, as it turns out. As even casual Who fans know, the genesis of Who's Next was as Lifehouse, a multimedia rock opera even more ambitious than Tommy. Pete Townshend had developed a bizarre, dystopian story that somehow merged his devotion to Indian guru Meher Baba, his recent fascination with synthesizers, and the idea that the only thing that could save humanity from a test-tube-bound future was "real rock 'n' roll." Yeah, the aftereffects of the '60s were wild. After some live shows at the Young Vic in London and a series of marathon recording sessions, a 16-song tracklist was finalized, but by this point, it was collectively decided—both creatively and commercially—that perhaps another concept-dense double album might not be the best studio follow-up to Tommy. So, eight Lifehouse songs were re-cut and one new song ("My Wife") was recorded and the leaner, meaner Who's Next was released in August 1971. The album was both an instant success and has become an undisputed part of the classic rock canon, thanks to the inclusion of absolutely iconic tracks like "Won't Get Fooled Again," "Baba O'Riley," and "Behind Blue Eyes."While one could make an argument that the taut and focused power of Who's Next inadvertently proved the point of the Lifehouse story (namely, that rock 'n' roll is most effective when it's at its most primal), it's important to remember that Who's Next was also a giant artistic leap forward for the Who, as it found them at the peak of their powers as a pummeling rock band and as a band willing to be experimental and artful in their approach to being a pummeling rock band. (If any evidence is needed of the group's unrivaled power, check out take 13 of "Won't Get Fooled Again" on this set, which is so immediate and electric that it could easily be mistaken for a concert performance.) While several Lifehouse tracks found their way to other Who and Townshend records, getting a sense of the contours of the project has been difficult. But this massive, 155-track set creates those lines thanks to the inclusion of multiple Townshend demos as well as recording sessions of Life House tracks that occurred both before and after the release of Who's Next, and, most notably, two freshly mixed live shows from 1971 (including one of the Young Vic shows) that provided both the energy and, in some cases the basic tracks, for the album versions. While nothing on this bursting-at-the-seams edition overrides the all-killer-no-filler approach of Who's Next, it does provide plenty of long-desired context and documentation for what made that record so powerful. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

A major change of direction for Natalie Cole, Unforgettable found the singer abandoning the type of R&B/pop she'd been recording since 1975 in favor of jazz-influenced pre-rock pop along the lines of Nat King Cole's music. It was a surprising risk that paid off handsomely -- both commercially and artistically. Naysayers who thought that so radical a change would be commercial suicide were proven wrong when the outstanding Unforgettable sold a shocking five million units. Quite clearly, this was an album Cole was dying to make. Paying tribute to her late father on "Mona Lisa," "Nature Boy," "Route 66," and other gems that had been major hits for him in the 1940s and early '50s, the 41-year-old Cole sounds more inspired than she had in well over a decade. On the title song, overdubbing was used to make it sound as though she were singing a duet with her father -- dishonest perhaps, but certainly enjoyable. Thankfully, standards and pre-rock pop turned out to be a primary direction for Cole, who was a baby when the title song became a hit for her father in 1951.© Alex Henderson /TiVo

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He'll never be the new Stevie Ray Vaughan, but at the rate blues-rock (emphasis on the latter) guitarist Joe Bonamassa is going, he can take a stab at being the next Gary Moore. Like the Irish guitarist, Bonamassa is influenced by the British blues-rockers more than the Americans they lifted their licks from. He's also just as prolific; this is his thirteenth album in twelve years and that's not including side projects with Black Country Communion and Beth Hart, and DVDs grabbed from his 200-night-a-year road schedule filled with sweaty, high-energy performances. Makes you tired just reading about it. Bonamassa isn't much of a songwriter so he wisely contributes only four tunes to this disc's eleven, with some relatively obscure deep blues covers from Howlin' Wolf ("Who's Been Talkin'"), Willie Dixon ("I Got All You Need"), and Robert Johnson ("Stones in My Passway") gravitating toward his roots side. Also included are offbeat choices from Bill Withers ("Lonely Town/Lonely Street") and Tom Waits ("New Coat of Paint"). For better or worse, they all end up sounding like Joe Bonamassa tracks, since he feeds them into his leathery rock sensibilities, churning out requisite hot guitar solos whether they serve the song or not. He's left his road-hardened band on the sidelines and calls in top-notch session guys, including Aerosmith's Brad Whitford, David Letterman drummer Anton Fig, and keyboardist Arlen Schierbaum, whose piano and organ add some much-needed R&B attitude to the hard rock attack. Bonamassa even relinquishes lead vocals to Australian Jimmy Barnes, who goes so over the top singing his own "Too Much Ain't Enough Love" it seems like he is auditioning for AC/DC. Longtime producer Kevin Shirley gets a slick, professional sound from these guys, and when everyone is cooking and the material is solid, such as on the grinding Bonamassa original "Dislocated Boy" and the Wolf cover (including a spoken word sample of the blues legend that kicks off the tune), the arrangements and guitars mesh together like whisky and soda. What Bonamassa lacks in a distinctive sound and singing, he makes up for with sheer determination, which is almost enough to push the album from pretty good to pretty great, especially on the horn-enhanced slow blues of "A Place in My Heart" that explodes out of the speakers in a way Gary Moore could summon at will. In other words, this is a keeper if you've already bought into the guitarist's more-is-more approach that has served him well thus far, and he shows no signs of abandoning it now.© Hal Horowitz /TiVo

A major change of direction for Natalie Cole, Unforgettable found the singer abandoning the type of R&B/pop she'd been recording since 1975 in favor of jazz-influenced pre-rock pop along the lines of Nat King Cole's music. It was a surprising risk that paid off handsomely -- both commercially and artistically. Naysayers who thought that so radical a change would be commercial suicide were proven wrong when the outstanding Unforgettable sold a shocking five million units. Quite clearly, this was an album Cole was dying to make. Paying tribute to her late father on "Mona Lisa," "Nature Boy," "Route 66," and other gems that had been major hits for him in the 1940s and early '50s, the 41-year-old Cole sounds more inspired than she had in well over a decade. On the title song, overdubbing was used to make it sound as though she were singing a duet with her father -- dishonest perhaps, but certainly enjoyable. Thankfully, standards and pre-rock pop turned out to be a primary direction for Cole, who was a baby when the title song became a hit for her father in 1951.© Alex Henderson /TiVo

Europiana is the seventh studio album from singer/songwriter Jack Savoretti, the follow-up to 2019's Singing to Strangers. This record brings in an even more diverse set of influences, namely the touches of disco found throughout, aided by the close collaboration with guitarist Nile Rodgers.© Liam Martin /TiVo

Steve Earle is a rebel. Not in the Hollywood/James Dean/Easy Rider/rebel-against-society sense, but rather in a real and personal way. Throughout his life and career he has rebelled against the very industry that surrounded him and did not find the freedom he sought until he started his own label, E-Squared. He rebelled against his common sense and his health in search of true American artistry and did not find the freedom he sought until he hit the bottom of addiction, and he continues to rebel against mainstream American culture and politics with his attitudes and songs; Transcendental Blues is no exception. Transcendental Blues walks the line between Steve Earle the country-rock rebel who gave the world Copperhead Road and Guitar Town and Steve Earle the traditionalist who opened a new chapter in bluegrass with his last release, The Mountain. This album rocks with songs like "Everyone's in Love with You" and "All My Life." It soothes with "The Boy Who Never Cried" and "Lonelier Than This," and it two-steps with new country like "The Galway Girl" and "Until the Day I Die." Fans of alternative country music sing the praises of artists like Charlie Robison, Jack Ingram, and Robert Earl Keen, Jr., but Earle proves again and again that he is the original alternative to the glossy side of Nashville. Earle cut the path that all his followers thankfully hike along, avoiding the weeds and branches that made him what he is today.© Michael Cusanelli /TiVo

Shawn Mendes circumvented traditional routes to a recording contract by posting short clips of himself singing other people's songs on the video-sharing service Vine. These were no more than a few seconds -- Vine's restrictions set the limit at six seconds, which is hardly enough time to cover a chorus -- but it was enough to set some teenage hearts aflutter, which led to a contract with Island, which led to an EP in 2014, which led to the full-length debut Handwritten in 2015. That was a two-year march to an album, which should've been enough time for Mendes to learn how to engage a listener for at least 60 seconds, but Handwritten is pretty thin gruel. Some of this is down to material, songs that feel like a laboratory-generated fusion of Jason Mraz's singsong loverman schtick and Ryan Tedder's icy adult contemporary. Although he has songwriting credits on two-thirds of Handwritten, he can't be blamed for the rinky-dink tunes: his producers could've sharpened the hooks so they all stuck like those on "Stitches" and "Kid in Love." What he can be blamed for is the fact that he can't hold the audience's attention for any longer than on Vine, relying on his puppy-dog eyes and croon to get him through a song. Cute he may be, but he has charisma that lasts no longer than a GIF, as Handwritten makes painfully clear. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

In early 2006, roughly in time for the 40th anniversary of Merle Haggard's debut album, Capitol Nashville launched an ambitious Haggard catalog project, reissuing ten albums as a series of five two-fers, each adorned with bonus tracks. All these albums had been reissued before, either stateside by Capitol or Koch or in the U.K. by EMI or BGO, but they've never have been given such an excellent treatment as they are here. The albums are paired together in logical, chronological order, the 24-bit digital remastering gives these recordings the best sound they've ever had, the front cover artwork is reproduced for each album on a two-fer, and the liner notes are candid and detailed. Dedicated Hag fans certainly have nearly all this material in their collection -- not only have the albums been on CD, but the bonus tracks have by and large appeared on Bear Family's box Untamed Hawk, which chronicled his early work for Capitol, or showed up on Capitol's own box, Down Every Road -- but they still may be tempted by this series, since these discs not only sound and look terrific, but they're also more listenable than any previous CD incarnation of these classic albums.And make no mistake, all ten albums featured in Capitol Nashville's first wave of Haggard reissues in February 2006 are classic albums; some may be a little stronger than others, but there's not a weak one in the bunch, and they all stand as some of the finest music of their time. The fourth of these two-fers pairs his last album of 1968, Mama Tried, plus his first from 1969, Pride in What I Am. Mama Tried has a loose prison theme, with about a third of the album sung from the perspective of a prisoner. Chief among these is Haggard's masterpiece "Mama Tried," a semi-autobiographical tribute to a mother who couldn't steer her son right no matter how hard she tried, but covers of Porter Wagoner's "Green Green Grass of Home" and Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues," plus Mel Tillis' "I Could Have Gone Right," also give the album a loose theme, but this is hardly a concept album. The rest of the album contains lean, tough Bakersfield honky tonk like "Little Ole Wine Drinker Me" and an excellent cover of Lefty Frizzell's "Run 'Em Off," plus such bittersweet, folky tunes as a cover of Dolly Parton's "In the Good Old Days (When Times Were Bad)." There are also a number of excellent, often overlooked originals like "I'll Always Know," "The Sunny Side of My Life," and "You'll Never Love Me Now," which illustrate the progression in both Haggard's writing and his music, and help make Mama Tried one of his very best records. As good as Mama Tried is, it's matched by Pride in What I Am. While there are no hits outside of "I Take a Lot of Pride in What I Am" the album gains considerable strength from its diverse material. The rolling, folk-tinged sound epitomized by the title song is balanced by twangy, spare country and bits of hard honky tonk, blues, and cowboy, not to mention the slyly inventive arrangement on his version of Lefty Frizzell's "It Meant Goodbye to Me When You Said Hello to Him." There are also hints of the direction Hag would take in the near future, including a Jimmie Rodgers song (his tribute to the singing brakeman, Same Train, Different Time, would follow next), and the encroaching celebration of a time passed, through his cover of Red Simpson's "I Think We're Livin' in the Good Old Days." There is another Simpson cover in "Somewhere on Skid Row," but what fuels Pride in What I Am is a selection of graceful, low-key minor masterworks from Haggard himself, who explores gentler territory with "The Day the Rains Came" and "I Can't Hold Myself in Line," while kicking up the tempo with the delightful "I'm Bringin' Home Good News" and lying back with the steady-rolling "I Just Want to Look at You One More Time." None of these may be among his most commonly celebrated songs, but they're all small gems that illustrate what a fine songwriter he is. They also help form the core of this subtly adventurous, rich album that may not be among his flashiest, but is another excellent record by one of the most reliable recording artists in country history. And when it's paired with Mama Tried, it makes for a two-fer that very well may be the strongest disc in Capitol Nashville's initial installment of Haggard reissues.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Allen Toussaint experienced a late-career revival sparked, ironically enough, by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. He had to leave his hometown New Orleans after the hurricane, relocating to New York City where he started to play regular gigs at Joe's Pub and, soon enough, he cut The River in Reverse with Elvis Costello. That 2006 album propelled Toussaint toward a greater audience, leading to more headlining concerts, two of which are chronicled on Rounder's 2013 release Songbook. Recorded in 2009 at Joe's Pub, Songbook features nothing more than Toussaint alone at a piano running through songs he's written over the decades. He sprinkles in a New Orleans standard here and there -- there's an excellent rendition of "St. James Infirmary" -- but the spotlight is on his peerless originals, songs that are standards in their own right: "Lipstick Traces (On a Cigarette)," "Holy Cow," "Get Out of My Life, Woman," "Yes We Can," a medley of "A Certain Girl/Mother-in-Law/Fortune Teller," "Southern Nights." Toussaint's voice sounds smooth and silky -- he in no way seems as if he's in his seventies -- and his piano is similarly nimble as it glides from signature New Orleans stride and boogie to sophisticated, elegiac chords. Perhaps this album packs no revelations -- there are no rearrangements, nothing unexpected in the songs -- but as an elegant summation of strengths, this Songbook is mighty attractive.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Nina Nastasia's first outing is a captivating, melancholic affair of precision and emotional clamor and stands as a fantastic sibling to her essential sophomore album, The Blackened Air. Dogs has a calming atmosphere, occasionally flirting with dissonance, and stands as a remarkable work of minimal building by repetition to support Nastasia's pitch-perfect voice. It is a rare group who can pull off such a fluid shift from composed sophistication to raw, dangerous, and sinister energy and not only continue to be engaging, but make ascending demands so confidently as to require full attention for the span of 40 minutes without interruption. Hypnotic, luscious, and timeless, Dogs is an album whose freshness and immediacy will never falter. © Gregory McIntosh /TiVo

Europiana is the seventh studio album from singer/songwriter Jack Savoretti, the follow-up to 2019's Singing to Strangers. This record brings in an even more diverse set of influences, namely the touches of disco found throughout, aided by the close collaboration with guitarist Nile Rodgers.© Liam Martin /TiVo

Shawn Mendes circumvented traditional routes to a recording contract by posting short clips of himself singing other people's songs on the video-sharing service Vine. These were no more than a few seconds -- Vine's restrictions set the limit at six seconds, which is hardly enough time to cover a chorus -- but it was enough to set some teenage hearts aflutter, which led to a contract with Island, which led to an EP in 2014, which led to the full-length debut Handwritten in 2015. That was a two-year march to an album, which should've been enough time for Mendes to learn how to engage a listener for at least 60 seconds, but Handwritten is pretty thin gruel. Some of this is down to material, songs that feel like a laboratory-generated fusion of Jason Mraz's singsong loverman schtick and Ryan Tedder's icy adult contemporary. Although he has songwriting credits on two-thirds of Handwritten, he can't be blamed for the rinky-dink tunes: his producers could've sharpened the hooks so they all stuck like those on "Stitches" and "Kid in Love." What he can be blamed for is the fact that he can't hold the audience's attention for any longer than on Vine, relying on his puppy-dog eyes and croon to get him through a song. Cute he may be, but he has charisma that lasts no longer than a GIF, as Handwritten makes painfully clear.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Jason Mraz's Waiting for My Rocket to Come is a two-part invention. The first level is that of a young, almost compelling, singer/songwriter. Mraz has a nice voice, perhaps a little too articulated at times, which manages to mostly avoid the histrionic despite a predilection towards show tuney melodic turns. His voice tumbles out on top of folk-reggae rhythms that will probably sound a bit dated with time, but his vocals are filled with enough internal rhythms and rhymes to keep them interesting. Lyrically, Mraz relies on cliché to a certain degree, but does so with an earnestness that allows for believability and an eye for imagery that succeeds often enough to suggest that he knows what he's doing. The second level of Waiting for My Rocket to Come is the production of John Alagía, whose work has enhanced other similar folk-pop fair, including the Dave Matthews Band and O.A.R. His work with Mraz is, at its best, transparent, filling out the songs with subtle and glossy production and instrumentation. Reflections of banjos, organs, mellotrons, lap steels, ukuleles, and others peak out through the shine of the tunes, creating an impact too rich to be written off as lite.© Jesse Jarnow /TiVo