At 23 years of age, Stevie Wonder’s music is in its innovative stages in Innervisions, released on August 3, 1973. Playing all kinds of instruments, featuring musicians such as Jeff Beck, Ray Parker Jr., David Sanborn and Buzz Feiten, and touching on a range of themes from drugs, ghetto, spirituality, politics, racism and of course love with a big L, Michigan’s musical genius manages to create the ultimate fusion of soul, rhythm’n’blues, funk and pop. The sound of his synthesisers was unprecedented at the time and works well with this spiritual soul music that is full of crazy melodies. Innervisions provides the perfect soundtrack for difficult times in America, like in Living for The City where Stevie recalls the trials and tribulations of a young black man from Mississippi who went to New York for a job he would never get, before ending up behind bars (to make his 7-minute composition even more realistic, he incorporates street recordings, siren sounds and arrest-dialogues). With He’s Misstra Know-It-All, Stevie takes a thinly-veiled dig against the incumbent president, Richard Nixon. This album is the perfect addition to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On released two years earlier as we leave the blues behind and embrace the broken American dream instead. It’s also very personal for Stevie Wonder, who has the original Innervisions cover engraved in braille, “This is my music. It’s all I have to say to you and all that I feel. Know that your love helps mine to stay strong”. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

With Breakfast in America, Supertramp had a genuine blockbuster hit, topping the charts for four weeks in the U.S. and selling millions of copies worldwide; by the 1990s, the album had sold over 18 million units across the world. Although their previous records had some popular success, they never even hinted at the massive sales of Breakfast in America. Then again, Supertramp's earlier records weren't as pop-oriented as Breakfast. The majority of the album consisted of tightly written, catchy, well-constructed pop songs, like the hits "The Logical Song," "Take the Long Way Home," and "Goodbye Stranger." Supertramp still had a tendency to indulge themselves occasionally, but Breakfast in America had very few weak moments. It was clearly their high-water mark.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Never before has Beyoncé made her fans wait so long between solo albums. Of course, these past six and a half years haven’t been easy for the singer—far from it. However, such levels of anticipation inevitably lead to impatience. After unveiling the house-pop influenced single Break My Soul, which definitely came as a surprise, you’d be forgiven for expecting her new album to be something more along the lines of Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind released a month prior, but it’s nothing of the sort. Renaissance has electronic rhythms at its core, but it’s extremely wide-ranging. Beyoncé flirts with disco-funk on Cuff It, summons huge choirs fit for a queen on Cozy, and includes a new ode to feminist empowerment with Church Girl (which gives an insight into her soul and gospel influences). Perhaps the best musical synthesis on the album is found in the track Virgo’s Groove, reviving the Latin sounds that feature on Move and Heated. With Renaissance, Beyoncé has really upped her pace, creating a highspeed musical freeway that’ll take you to a lot of different places. © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

Two years after Honey Moon, Lana del Rey comes back with the much anticipated Lust for Life, her fourth studio album. The voice is magnetic, more sensual than ever; the melodies are solid. If through the eyes of Lana, the world stays affected, slow and pensive, the skillfully chosen featuring tracks offer a few welcome respites. Thereby, the baby doll has invited a few friends to her ball. A$ap Rocky officiates on Groupie Love and Summer Bummer—in which he brings with him Atlanta’s wild youngster, Playboi Carti—The Weeknd on Lust for Life, Jonathan Wilson on Love. Others, and not least among them, have joined the party. Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac’s emblematic singer, pops by on Beautiful People Beautiful Problems, and Sean Ono Lennon on Tomorrow Never Came. 16 tracks, 72 minutes. It’s a mix of genres ranging from hip hop with trap accents to psychedelic, without forgetting ballads on piano, and always a focus on acoustic. It’s a passionate craving for life then, which comes back to the one that has made her queen, Born to Die. It’s almost ironic. Has it gone back full circle? Anyway, this faded color melancholy is as attractive as ever, and its varnish doesn’t only crack to reveal the throes of an idol anymore, but also to tackle a modern America in disarray, between past and future. © MD/Qobuz

With the release of her first international album over twenty years ago, Bebel Gilberto has proved ever since that she’s not just “somebody’s daughter”, and certainly not a spoiled child. Her father? João Gilberto, one of the founders and giants of 20th century Brazilian popular music. Her mother? Miúcha, also a singer and the sister of another pillar of Brazilian music, Chico Buarque. Bebel Gilberto, born in 1966, at the height of the bossa wave, couldn’t help but take part in the long and rich history of Brazilian music - it’s in her name and her blood. Yet the singer made a name and a style for herself by modernizing it, and introducing it to the era of electronic music. And then life caught up to her. In 2018, she lost her mother, and her father the following year. As the title suggests, João is an homage to the songs of her legendary father – a repertoire that she had explored very little, despite “Bim Bom'' being a memorable track from her 2009 album, All in One. While still avoiding a period piece, Bebel chooses here to put aside the electronic and pop arrangements. With the haute couture producer Thomas Bartlett, Bebel Gilberto dresses up these songs with a little something special: a bit of acoustic guitar, a few piano notes, flowery percussion and that voice that comes out of a slightly sad smile. Full of restraint, elegance, and emotion, this album distinguishes itself within Bebel Gilberto’s discography by its silence. Indeed, it’s the absence and the loss of her father that she’s singing. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz

A guitarist worshipped by Jimi Hendrix, an insanely good falsetto singer that even Prince looked up to, an author heavily involved in the American civil rights movement and a top-tier songwriter: Curtis Mayfield was a man of many talents. His groovy symphonies helped form solid links between funk, jazz, blues, soul and traditional gospel. After making his name with The Impressions in the 60s, he embarked on a solo career in 1970. This box set named Keep On Keeping On contains the singer’s first four studio albums, each remastered in Hi-Res 24-Bit quality: Curtis (1970), Roots (1971), Back to the World (1973) and Sweet Exorcist (1974). Here, the rhythm'n'blues enjoy a second life, supported by a wah-wah guitar, careful percussion and an always airy string section. Every topic concerned is a mini-tragedy, socially engaged, anchored in traditional gospel music. The masterful arranging of these albums (especially his masterpiece Curtis, and Roots) can be considered rivals to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On. It is worth mentioning that this 1970-1974 box set does not include the soundtrack to Superfly, Gordon Parks Jr.’s 1972 film which contains the singles Pusherman and Freddie’s Dead. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

The final album with Jim Morrison in the lineup is by far their most blues-oriented, and the singer's poetic ardor is undiminished, though his voice sounds increasingly worn and craggy on some numbers. Actually, some of the straight blues items sound kind of turgid, but that's more than made up for by several cuts that rate among their finest and most disturbing work. The seven-minute title track was a car-cruising classic that celebrated both the glamour and seediness of Los Angeles; the other long cut, the brooding, jazzy "Riders on the Storm," was the group at its most melodic and ominous. It and the far bouncier "Love Her Madly" were hit singles, and "The Changeling" and "L'America" count as some of their better little-heeded album tracks. An uneven but worthy finale from the original quartet.© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

As fatiguing as it is invigorating, as cold-blooded as it is heart-rending, as haphazardly splattered as it is meticulously sculpted, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is an extraordinarily complex 70-minute set of songs. Listening to it, much like saying or typing its title, is a laborious process. In some ways, it's the culmination of Kanye West's first four albums, but it does not merely draw characteristics from each one of them. The 13 tracks, eight of which are between five and nine minutes in length, sometimes fuse them together simultaneously. Consequently, the sonic and emotional layers are often difficult to pry apart and enumerate. Nothing exemplifies its contrasting elements and maniacal extravagance as much as "All of the Lights." Rattling, raw, synthetic toms are embellished with brass, woodwinds, and strings. It’s a celebration of fame ("Fast cars, shooting stars") and a lament of its consequences ("Restraining order/Can't see my daughter"). Its making involved 42 people, including not one but two French horn players and over a dozen high-profile vocalists, only some of which are perceptible. At once, the song features one of the year's most rugged beats while supplying enough opulent detail to make Late Registration collaborator Jon Brion's head spin. "Blame Game" chills more than anything off 808s & Heartbreak. Sullen solo-piano Aphex Twin plays beneath morose cello; with a chorus from John Legend, a dejected, embittered West -- whose voice toggles between naturally clear-sounding and ominously pitched-down as it pans back and forth -- tempers wistfully-written, maliciously-delivered lines like "Been a long time since I spoke to you in a bathroom, ripping you up, fuckin' and chokin' you" with untreated and distinctively pained confessions like "I can't love you this much." The contrast in "Devil in a New Dress," featuring Rick Ross, is of a different sort; a throwback soul production provided by the Smokey Robinson-sampling Bink, it's as gorgeous as any of West's own early work, yet it's marred by an aimless instrumental stretch, roughly 90 seconds in length, that involves some incongruent electric guitar flame-out. Even less explicable is the last third of the nine-minute "Runaway," when West blows into a device and comes out sounding something like a muffled, bristly version of Robert Fripp's guitar. The only thing that remains unchanged is West's lyrical accuracy; for every rhyme that stuns, there's one deserving of mockery from any given contestant off the The White Rapper Show. As the ego and ambition swells, so does the appeal, the repulsiveness, and -- most importantly -- the ingenuity. Whether loved or loathed, fully enjoyed or merely admired, this album should be regarded as a deeply fascinating accomplishment.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

Madvillainy represents the highly anticipated collaboration between Madlib and MF Doom. Recorded throughout 2003 -- a year which, between the two of them (under various aliases), saw more than eight releases featuring their work. When Madvillainy was released in March 2004 it became obvious that the best was saved for last as MF Doom's unpredictable lyrical style fits quite nicely within Madlib's unconventional beat orchestrations. Twenty-two short and blunted tracks bang out mythical stories of villains and urban (anti) heroes trying to make it through with their ganja and wits still intact -- each flows together in a comic book fashion sometimes segued with vignettes sampled from 1940s movies and broadcasts or left-field marjuana-toting skits. Madvillainy's strength lies in its mix between seemingly obtuse beats, samples, MCing, and some straight-up hip-hop bumping. Take "Accordion" for example. A wacky accordion sample loops throughout a slow-paced beat and lazy bassline while Doom flies through almost unaware of the background at times. Or "Raid," which features a beat that seems to be so out of time or step with a traditional hip-hop direction. But Doom sits quite comfortable within its frame and sets up Medaphor for a slick guest appearance. Other guests include the bad character, Lord Quasimoto, on "Americas Most Blunted" and the Sun Ra-inspired "Shadows of Tomorrow"; Wildchild blasts million-miles-an-hour rhymes on "Hardcore Hustle" and Stacy Epps floats through "Eye." Madvillainy gets close to the genius seen on Quasimoto's Unseen, and like that record this one might take a few listens to find it. But once it clicks in, this disc stays in the CD player for days.© Sam Samuelson /TiVo

After R.E.M. found commercial and critical success with their 1983 debut, Murmur, the Athens, Georgia, band wasted no time trying to make lightning strike twice. In late 1983 and early 1984, the group returned to where they recorded Murmur, Reflection Sound Studios in Charlotte, North Carolina, and reunited with the LP's co-producers, Mitch Easter and Don Dixon. However, in a move that would play out time and time again during R.E.M.'s career, the resulting album avoided repetition and embraced sonic progress. More extroverted than Murmur, Reckoning has a crisp-sounding core of warm guitar jangle, taut drums, and lively bass lines. To this the band members—vocalist Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck, bassist Mike Mills, and drummer Bill Berry—add various instrumental flourishes: piano chords give gleaming polish to "So. Central Rain" and rustic charm to the country-tinged "(Don't Go Back To) Rockville"; latticework-like backing harmonies add buoyancy to the insistent pogo "Letter Never Sent." And "Pretty Persuasion" is punk-like in its execution, as a train-whistle harmonica gives way to whirring riffs and windmilling drums, which crescendo into a bridge full of roaring noise. Although it's widely believed that Stipe didn't embrace vocal clarity until two albums later on 1986's Lifes Rich Pageant, Reckoning tells a different story. On the slow and sparse "Camera" especially, his voice is haunted with grief as he mourns an ex: "If I'm to be your camera/Then who will be your face?" Elsewhere on the album, while certain specific lyrics might be puzzling ("There's a splinter in your eye and it reads 'react'"), songs are crystal-clear about homesickness, displacement, road-weariness, and the complexity of relationships. On the rollicking "Second Guessing," however, Stipe is unmistakably clear about how he feels about R.E.M.'s place in the world: "Here we are," he announces, while challenging unnamed critics for "second guessing" them and their approach. Hindsight proves that such confidence was completely justified: Reckoning is a bold, cohesive step forward that propelled R.E.M. further down a path to success. © Annie Zaleksi/Qobuz

The last work from the Doors before their frontman’s fatal overdose in the summer of 1971 in Paris, L.A. Woman, recorded at the end of 1970 over six days at the Doors’ rehearsal spot in the Santa Monica Boulevard Workshop, shows a band at the top of their game. Jim Morrison, whose voice had thickened, was singing like a god and Ray Manzarek was setting his keyboards on fire. The title track L.A. Woman itself is another stunning tour de force, a blues cavalcade that verges on trance... Once again, it's the blues that sets the tone here (a magnificent cover of John Lee Hooker's Crawling King Snake). It’s a blues that is so clearly unique to the Doors: atmospheric, poisonous. The legendary Riders on the Storm closes out this final record, with its organic rhythm that’s in step with nature—you can hear the rain falling and the storm rumbling. This song remains the most beautiful ballad: an oddity whose power reverberates across the history of rock, across fashions and across eras. To celebrate its half-century, the 50th Anniversary Deluxe Edition of L.A. Woman is out in a new remaster, done by their favourite sound engineer, Bruce Botnick. It also sports numerous bonus features. These include alternative takes and demos, such as one for Riders on the Storm, which specialists had believed to be lost forever. Also included in this orgy of unreleased material is a demo of Hyacinth House recorded in Robby Krieger's home studio in 1969, and alternative versions of covers by Junior Parker (Mystery Train), John Lee Hooker (Crawling King Snake), Big Joe Williams (Baby Please Don't Go) and Lee Dorsey (Get Out of My Life Woman). © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

America's debut album is a folk-pop classic, a stellar collection of memorable songs that would prove influential on such acts as the Eagles and Dan Fogelberg. Crosby, Stills & Nash are the group's obvious stylistic touchstone here, especially in the vocal harmonies used (compare the thick chordal singing of "Sandman" and "Children" to CS&N's "You Don't Have to Cry" and "Guinevere") and the prominent use of active strummed acoustic guitar arrangements (contrast "Riverside" to CS&N's "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes"). America's intricate interplay of acoustic guitar textures is more ambitious than that of their influences, however. Performance quality is usually good, though on occasion sloppily executed or out of tune (especially on the openings to "Donkey Jaw" and "I Never Found the Time"). Lengthy instrumental introductions ("Donkey Jaw"), middle improvisatory interludes ("Here"), and closings ("Clarice") are frequently encountered. Most of these selections boast highly unusual and inventive chord progressions that work well without drawing undue attention to themselves. Lyrics are sometimes trite ("I need you/Like the flower needs the rain") or obscure ("He flies the sky/Like an eagle in the eye/Of a hurricane that's abandoned"), but the music more than makes up for any verse problems; only the odd "Pigeon Song" seems an unsalvageable misstep. Sound quality here has a covered, intimate feel that lends a ghostly aura to this release. Chart hits from this album include the spectrally loping "A Horse with No Name," the squarishly tuneful "I Need You," and the nervously dour "Sandman." Other highlights include the buoyantly charming "Three Roses," the yearningly lovely "Rainy Day," and the quietly ringing "Clarice." In spite of its flaws, this platter is very highly recommended.© David Cleary /TiVo

Fusion, transcendence: it's what he's always done. At 74, Carlos Santana is still as curious as ever, and his 26th studio album brings together all his current interests, with an unabashedly popularising aim. With this record, the Mexican-born guitarist wanted to "return to radio". And this album has all the ingredients to make its mark on the airwaves in the coming months. First of all, he relaunched his duet with Rob Thomas, which had won a Grammy for Smooth at the time of Supernatural, Santana's 1999 comeback album. And the very groovy track Move looks set to do it again. The cover of Manu Dibango's Soul Fiesta (taken from 1972’s Africadelic), here becomes Santana Celebration, an intro in the form of a percussion and wah-wah jam, is also a noteworthy track.Santana then wanders between Latin music (Rumbalero with Asdru Sierra from the Californian band Ozomatli), pop passages (Break, Breathing Underwater, She's Fire) and high-quality guest appearances, starting with Joy, with country singer Chris Stapleton coming in for a well-oiled reggae/blues double-act, and a cover of Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale featuring Steve Winwood. But the highlight of the album is the encounter with Kirk Hammett, the guitarist of Metallica (+ Mark Osegueda, the singer in Death Angels) on America for Sale, six minutes of rage with a totally unbridled finale featuring these two guitar heroes. Note also that Blessings & Miracles contains Chick Corea's very final recording, on Angel Choir / All Together. The legendary American pianist, who died in February 2021, had sent over a keyboard part, which Santana embellished with his guitar, creating an excellent jazz-rock track, rounded out by the musician’s widow, Gayle Moran Corea, who provided the opening chorus. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

Simon & Garfunkel quietly slipped Bookends, their fourth album, into the bins with a whisper in March 1968. They are equal collaborators with producer/engineer Roy Halee in a multivalently layered song cycle observing the confusion of those seeking an elusive American Dream, wistfully reflecting on innocence lost forever to the cold winds of change. Bookends opens with an acoustic guitar stating a theme, slowly and plaintively. It erupts into the musical dissonance that introduces "Save the Life of My Child." Its uneasy rock & roll frames highly metaphorical and ironic lyrics and a nursery rhyme bridge. "America" is a folk song with a lilting soprano saxophone in its refrain as a small pipe organ paints acoustic guitars, framed by the ghostly traces of classic American Songbook pop structures. Two people travel the landscape by bus searching for the track's subject, eventually discovering that everyone else on the freeway is too. Its sophisticated harmonic invention is toppled by its message; "America" becomes an ellipsis, a cipher, an unanswerable question. "Overs," a study about the end of a relationship, contains Halee's ingenious use of sound: lighting a cigarette and inhaling and exhaling its smoke underscore the story told by the melody and lyrics. In a two-minute field recording of the voices of old people collected from nursing homes by Garfunkel, disembodied voices reveal entire lifetimes in a few seconds. "Old Friends" carries the message deeper. Simon's image of two old men sitting on a park bench sharing memories and their fears of the changes surrounding them is indelible. A horn section threatens to interrupt their reverie, reflecting the chaos they perceive, but is warded off as the gentle melody returns and fades into the album's opening theme. In "Fakin' It," Simon reveals the falsity inherent in modern life -- it's better to appear to have it together than reflect the struggle of not being able to: "This feeling of fakin' it/I still haven't shaken it/I know I'm fakin' it/I'm not really makin' it." The album's final three tracks, "Mrs. Robinson" (the iconic theme song from the film The Graduate), "A Hazy Shade of Winter," and the album's concluding track, "At the Zoo," offer a tremblingly bleak vision of the future rooted in the lives of everyday people who "fake it," living an illusory dream publicly while trembling with confusion and fear in private (no matter one's generation), subverting the Madison Avenue notion of the "generation gap" simply and honestly. Bookends' problematic, disillusioned themes, sometimes disguised in wry humor, striking arrangements, and augmented orchestral instrumentation, portray the sounds of people in an American life that they no longer understand, or understands them. Simon & Garfunkel never overstate; instead they observe, almost journalistically, enormous life and cultural questions in the process of them being asked. In just over 29 minutes, Bookends is stunning in its vision of a bewildered America in search of itself.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

In 1997, after helping define ’90s Britpop, Blur unexpectedly embraced American indie rock. Led by guitarist Graham Coxon's love of artists like Dinosaur Jr. and Beck, the band took cues from the former's trembling lo-fi aesthetic on "You're So Great" (the rare track sung by Coxon) and the latter's early laconic weirdness on songs "Killer for Your Love" and "Country Sad Ballad Man." But even if you take the boys out of Brittania, you can't take the national influences out of the band. Opener "Beetlebum", a dreamy ode to drugs, comes on like a lost late-era Beatles track. "M.O.R." slips and slides with Pavement-style guitar but also lifts a chord progression right from Bowie’s "Boys Keep Swinging", while "Strange News From Another Star" is Sebadoh by way of Ziggy Stardust. But it's "Song 2" that steals the show; with its rip-roaring bass line, Damon Albarn’s deadpan-to-shout vocals, fuzzed-out guitars and compulsive "Whoo-hoo!" it’s an immediate classic. © Qobuz

Okay it’s Childish Gambino! Stay Calm! During his appearance on Saturday Night Live, where he hosted and was the musical guest, Mr. Donald Glover, alias Childish Gambino, debuted two new tracks off a soon to be released album. The two tracks titled This is America and Saturday are a sneak peak for what’s to come and oh baby we can not wait! This Is America was released with a video directed by Hiro Murai, Glovers long time creative partner on previous music videos and on his award winning comedy series Atlanta. The track coupled with the imagery sees the Atlanta artist in a new light, one in which we are yet to see him. He is addressing recent events and current issues that divide and cripple the USA; gun violence, mass shootings, racism. And it’s a welcomed change for Gambino, as it seems he has moved away from themes of sex, fame and growing up on his early records Kauai, because the internet, Camp, as well as the critically acclaimed soul/funk infused Awaken, My Love!. But now we see him tackling this social juggernaut that he handles with such character and brilliance, both musically and visually.The video is truly thought provoking as we see Glover marching around a warehouse topless, as he shoots a man in the head, dances with some school children, and even mows down an entire choir with an automatic rifle. Sounds pretty shocking right? Additionally, his nonchalance when jumping from jolly dancing to murder seems like a strong narrative on how senseless and emotionless America has become when it comes to gun violence. And it all soon becomes evident that he himself is a mere distraction from the chaos that is occuring in the background (we recommend you re-watch it and see for yourself). It is as if the song holds even more significance and importance with recent events, as we have Kanye West taking on an entirely different approach to try and bring about change, with twitter rants, TMZ appearances and incoherent ramblings that have left society baffled and stunned. This thoughtless output isn’t undertaken by Gambino, who has shifted effortlessly into a voice for transforming our society.It is a credit to the man hailing from Atlanta, as he quite literally does it all. Having graduated from NYU, he started off as a comedy writer for the TV series 30 Rock, moved into acting on the hit show Community, jumped ship to stand up comedy, became an award winning creator of Atlanta, a TV series in which he also stars, and finally as Childish Gambino, he’s a Grammy winning artist. Oh and did we mention he’s starring in the latest Star Wars spin off Solo: A Star Wars Story. There is nothing this man can’t do and it is why his take on America’s political and social climate holds so much weight. It’s a message that has class, quality and all in a time where we really need a coherent voice. The upcoming LP, which is set to be his last as Childish Gambino, cannot come soon enough and although previously he has told us to “Stay Woke”, now we need to face up to the America of today and fight for change. © Aidan Nickerson/ Qobuz 

Shinedown are the epitome of the “alternative metal” wave that gained traction after grunge and neo metal bands like Nickelback, Chevelle and Staind stormed the early 21st century. Shinedown has sold almost ten million records throughout their twenty-year career—more than enough to establish them as true heavyweights in the genre, particularly in the US. However, this might actually be something of a hindrance for the band members, since they seem to imbue their music with revolutionary, anti-system undertones… something difficult to achieve when you’ve become an integral part of amplified music.Planet Zero is a topical album. It sounds as much like a soundtrack for a dystopian sci-fi film as it does a report on the current state of the USA and, by extension, the rest of the world. The music still features big riffs with powerful vocals (which are often doubled) leading up to federative choruses ('Planet Zero', The Saints Of Violence And Innuendo). Though the subject matter is undoubtedly darker - the interlude tracks, for example, on which a robotic female voice delivers statements that carry a weighty pessimism - the album remains eminently radio-friendly. Shinedown understood that to be heard by the greatest number of people, they needed to keep one foot in the mainstream door, at least in terms of form. The most obvious proof of this is the single 'Daylight', a mid-tempo ballad featuring a resonant piano and gospel-like choirs. This album is a romantic take on pessimism. © Chief Brody/Qobuz