Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe aren't often discussed as one of pop music's great songwriting teams, but the wonderfully eclectic body of work they've created as Pet Shop Boys speaks for itself. Since crashing into the mainstream with 1985's chart-topper, "West End Girls," the London duo have delivered a remarkably consistent barrage of tightly crafted synth pop singles that fuse dance culture with trenchant cultural commentary and an undeniable sense of melodic grace. Each of their 14 albums has reached the U.K. Top Ten, and they've sent an astonishing 42 singles into the Top 30, including number ones like "It's a Sin" and "Heart." A bevy of compilations have celebrated Pet Shop Boys' highlights over the years, and 1991's Discography: The Complete Singles Collection was a significant number three hit itself. 2023's Smash: The Singles 1985-2020 is essentially an update of the aforementioned collection and contains, in chronological order, each of their singles from this 35-year period. In unpacking its 55-song sequence, the first thing one notices is the uniform quality of their songs: elegantly constructed, dense with pop nutrients, undeniably catchy, yet ever so smart. Tennant is an underrated vocalist who has continually pushed his range over the years, balancing wry asides and spoken word sections with his reedy and surprisingly nimble tenor. Lowe's ear for a catchy hook is another defining element and ranges from subtle (1990's droll standout "Being Boring") to grandiose (2013's marvelous banger "Love Is a Bourgeois Construct"). What's more, the pair has assembled this durable catalog almost without interruption, reliably delivering singles, albums, remixes, and EPs almost annually since their debut. Work ethic and quality don't always go hand in hand, but Pet Shop Boys have both in spades.© Timothy Monger /TiVo

If you’d told David Gahan and Martin Gore a year before the release of this latest album (which was still in the making at that time) that its title would be somewhat foreboding, the pair would likely have agreed, but for a rather different reason. Memento Mori roughly translates to ‘remember you’re going to die’—that’s what was on Gahan’s mind having just entered his sixties, whilst also remembering his stepfather, the man who raised and cared for him, who had died at just 61. But fate would prove both twisted and cruel when, without warning, it would take the life of Andy Fletcher on 26th May 2022. Depeche Mode’s third man was just 60 years old.However, this sudden death was not what primarily guided the somber, melancholic content of the record. Most of it was composed during the pandemic, which must have forced the band to ask themselves countless questions about their existence, their future and how these doubts would be manifested within their music (though Fletcher’s death would inevitably alter their approach to these same compositions). This all gives rise to a record which, whilst rejecting any semblance of ‘joie-de-vivre’, is a real return to more gothic, vintage and organic sounds. The album’s quasi-industrial opener, ‘My Cosmos is Mine’, sets the tone for the darker journey to come. The album takes a more stripped-back approach to the melodies, where Gahan’s sobering voice steers clear of all excess.In the midst of this darkness, the emphasis on synthesized sounds from a seemingly bygone era strikes a nostalgic chord without losing its edge (‘Wagging Tongue’, ‘Never Let Me Go’). These textures are accompanied by more saturated tones, taking us right back to their flirtations with rock in the 90s (‘My Favourite Stranger’). Memento Mori sounds like a kind of condensed version of the band’s more delicate songs without becoming a simple reconstruction of them. It has a subtle beauty which surely highlights the expertise of the musicians behind it, despite being somewhat overshadowed by the erratic nature of their discography over the last twenty years. Light filters through the cracks here and there on this album however, like the song ‘People are Good’, reminiscent of the classic ‘People are People’ released almost forty years ago. Remember that you’re meant to enjoy it… © Chief Brody/Qobuz

Whether it's the atmospheric reverb on "Midnight Rambler," Byron Berline's fiddle (recorded outside on the street) on "Country Honk," or the meaty bass part that opens "Live with Me," Let It Bleed has always been an album full of intriguing sound. Add to that Merry Clayton's unforgettable vocal overdubs on "Gimme Shelter" (as well as its opening ghostly voices, washboard guiro scrapes and reverb-drenched guitar) and Let It Bleed, newly remastered by Bob Ludwig for its 50th anniversary reissue, is an album especially suited to the world of high resolution audio. From 1968 through 1972, no popular music act (except The Beatles) made better albums than The Rolling Stones. Their blockbuster run began in late 1968 with Beggars Banquet and continued through Let It Bleed (1969), Sticky Fingers (1971) and Exile on Main Street (1972). If Beggars Banquet was the sound of the band stripping down their sound and working out their frustrations over their legal tangles and impending departure of Brian Jones (replaced in June 1969 by Mick Taylor), Let It Bleed was the band emerging unbowed, with a new confidence and a dramatic leap in songwriting quality from Jagger/Richards, bookended by the ominous "Gimme Shelter" and the common sense rock gospel of "You Can't Always Get What You Want." Let It Bleed also acknowledges the band's deep roots in the blues with with an acoustic cover of Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain," Richards' prolific slide guitar parts and "Midnight Rambler," the band's "blues opera." Despite its popularity (#1 in UK and #3 in US), there's even a sleeper track—the underrated "Monkey Man," whose lyrics sum up the swinging '60s with impenetrable lines like, "I'm a cold Italian pizza / I could use a lemon squeezer / What you do?” Originally produced by Jimmy Miller and engineered by Glyn Johns, the new remastering is a sonic refresh with a larger soundstage that adds new detail to Jagger's vocal performance of "Love in Vain" and Richards' guitar work in "Midnight Rambler". Like all the recent ABKCO reissues from this period, this may well be the best Let It Bleed will ever sound. © Robert Baird / Qobuz

Taylor Swift left her longtime home of Big Machine in 2018, setting up shop at Republic Records. Usually, such changes in label are only of interest to trainspotters, but once Swift departed Big Machine, the label was acquired by a group owned by Scooter Braun, a nemesis of Taylor's. The singer attempted to regain rights to her original recordings to no avail, leaving her with one option: she could re-record her records, thereby undercutting the value of her catalog in terms of syncs, placements, and licensing. Swift carried through on the promise in April 2021, releasing Fearless (Taylor's Version), a brand-new version of her 2008 breakthrough. Swift recorded all 19 songs from the 2009 Platinum Edition of Fearless, adding a new version of "Today Was a Fairytale" from the Valentine's Day soundtrack, then six additional songs ("From The Vault") -- songs that were written around the time of Fearless but not released. These tracks are of greatest interest, as they certainly have a younger, dewy-eyed perspective but were recorded with Aaron Dessner and Jack Antonoff, the producers of Swift's mature work. The blend of youth and experience is appealing, and it can also be heard in the newer renditions of the Fearless material. Swift largely re-creates the arrangements and feel of the original 2008 album, yet her voice and phrasing has aged, giving the music a hint of bittersweet gravity. That said, it's only a hint; Fearless (Taylor's Version) serves the purpose of offering new versions that could be substituted for the originals for licensing purposes. It's to Swift's credit that the album is an absorbing (if long) listen anyway.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

There's a narrative to the soundtrack for Bradley Cooper's 2018 remake of A Star Is Born, one that mirrors the one told in the movie. Often, the album features dialogue ripped from the screen -- a full 15 tracks, actually, amounting to seven minutes of this 74-minute album -- which means A Star Is Born almost plays like a Disney record from the '60s or '70s: it's designed to tide listeners over until they get a chance to see the movie again. Of course, A Star Is Born is a musical, so its soundtrack is filled with full-fledged songs, all of which serve the story that the dialogue gooses along. Strip out the distracting dialogue tracks and the plot of A Star Is Born is still evident, as the music moves from the grungy Americana of Cooper's character, through his affecting duets with Lady Gaga, toward her flashy pop, and then culminating with "I'll Never Love Again," the song where the two estranged lovers reunite. Each of these phases is expertly executed. Lukas Nelson assists Cooper in the rangy grunge of "Black Eyes," while Jason Isbell's spare "Maybe It's Time" is an affecting slice of Americana. The second stage, where Gaga is duetting with Cooper, fuses their sensibilities seamlessly, particularly on the aching ballad "Shallow" and loping country-rock of "Music to My Eyes," which was co-written by Nelson and Gaga. Her pop section plays like its own EP, and it's snappy, stylish, and savvy, particularly on the retro-disco of "Why Did You Do That?" and soulful "Heal Me." All the songs make sense narratively and on their own, so they hold together well and would amount to a first-rate soundtrack, if it weren't for those meddling dialogue tracks, which wind up sapping any kind of momentum for the album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Released in conjunction with Billy Joel's grand experiment with classical music, The Essential Billy Joel was a welcome reminder of Billy Joel's way with a pop song, improving on the previous Greatest Hits, Vol. 1 & 2 by extending into the '90s and delving deeper into his catalog. There were some casualties along the way -- it's easy for a fan to carp about the absence of personal favorites like "She's Right on Time" or "Travelin' Prayer," and it may even make some sense that "You're Only Human (Second Wind)" or "Shameless" didn't make the cut, but it's mind-boggling that "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" isn't here (we won't mention that the classical pieces that end the record, no matter how surprisingly good they are, are as out of place as Attila would have been) -- but for the most part, this has every one of Joel's heavy-hitters, and his craftsmanship, both as a songsmith and record maker, has never shone brighter. The biggest fault is that there is a notable drop-off in quality after 1986's The Bridge (which ends midway through disc two), but even so, this is as good a distillation of Joel's talents imaginable. In fact, as the first disc unfurls, even cynics may wonder why he's been dogged by the critics, since singer/songwriter pop doesn't come better than "Say Goodbye to Hollywood," "New York State of Mind," "Only the Good Die Young," "My Life," "It's Still Rock and Roll to Me," "Don't Ask Me Why," "Allentown," and their seven companions.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Hailed for songwriting skill and an unironic embrace of outlaw country, Chris Stapleton, on his fourth album, puts his vocal versatility on impressive display. Supported by a moody, shadowy string section, he unfurls a torch-singer side on "Cold," a heartbreaker that lives up to its name in feel and lyrics—"Why you got to be so cold/ Why you got to go and cut me like a knife/ Put our love on ice." The lowdown-and-dirty guitar of "Whiskey Sunrise" is matched for power by a wailing blues delivery from Stapleton. And he cuts loose with a Southern-rock howl on the Tom Petty-esque swamp stomp "Devil Always Made Me Think Twice." An early Petty influence is alive and present across Starting Over, with Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench guesting on guitar and Hammond B3, respectively. Stapleton co-wrote the simmer-to-fury "Watch You Burn" with Campbell, and the guitarist's signature style is front-and-center on "Arkansas," a heavy Southern-rock blues burner celebrating the underrated beauty of the Ozarks. The ghost of Guy Clark also blesses the sessions, as Stapleton covers a back-to-back shot of the songwriter's "Worry B Gone" and "Old Friends" and former with a velocity that makes Willie Nelson's gentle version sound cute. (A flow-like-the-creek cover of John Fogerty's "Joy of My Life" is more faithful.) As on previous releases, Stapleton's wife and collaborator Morgane Stapleton lends angelic vocal harmonies, sweetening the sobering, Kristofferson-sounding ballad "When I'm With You," which find her husband taking stock of middle age and where it goes from there: "I'm 40 years old/ And it looks like the end of the rainbow ain't no pot of gold." She also shows up on that song's spiritual flip side and the album's title track, an optimistic, stripped-down guitar jangle: "I can be your lucky penny/ You can be my four-leaf clover.” Indeed, for all his tough-guy appearance, there's always been a tender side to Stapleton, and he shows every bit of it on "Maggie's Song," an absolute tearjerker about a found dog's life and death that's teed up and ready for a pickup truck commercial. (Nothing wrong with that.) And lest anyone ever doubt his outlaw tendencies, Stapleton ends on an absolutely gorgeous kiss-off to the country capital: "So long Nashville, Tennessee/ You can't have what's left of me." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Released in September 2002, Forty Licks was the first compilation to bring together tracks from all of the Stones' different eras, and from all of the different labels they recorded for. The icing on these abundant forty tracks are four previously unreleased tracks: Don't Stop, Keys to Your Love, Stealing My Heart and Losing My Touch. There isn’t much to add beyond the tracklist, so many masterpieces follow one after the other: Street Fighting Man, Gimme Shelter, (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, The Last Time, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Sympathy for the Devil, Wild Horses, Paint It, Black, Honky Tonk Women, Let's Spend the Night Together, Start Me Up, Brown Sugar, Miss You, Beast of Burden, Happy, Angie, It's Only Rock 'n Roll (But I Like It), and so on. The whole history of rock'n'roll (especially from the 60s and 70s) flashes before our ears. A magic trick lasting over two hours and forty minutes, during which the brilliant tandem Mick Jagger/Keith Richards invent a music nourished by blues, soul, country, gospel and funk. Vital! © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Billy Joel teamed with Phil Ramone, a famed engineer who had just scored his first producing hits with Art Garfunkel's Breakaway and Paul Simon's Still Crazy After All These Years for The Stranger, his follow-up to Turnstiles. Joel still favored big, sweeping melodies, but Ramone convinced him to streamline his arrangements and clean up the production. The results aren't necessarily revelatory, since he covered so much ground on Turnstiles, but the commercialism of The Stranger is a bit of a surprise. None of his ballads have been as sweet or slick as "Just the Way You Are"; he never had created a rocker as bouncy or infectious as "Only the Good Die Young"; and the glossy production of "She's Always a Woman" disguises its latent misogynist streak. Joel balanced such radio-ready material with a series of New York vignettes, seemingly inspired by Springsteen's working-class fables and clearly intended to be the artistic centerpieces of the album. They do provide The Stranger with the feel of a concept album, yet there is no true thematic connection between the pieces, and his lyrics are often vague or mean-spirited. His lyrical shortcomings are overshadowed by his musical strengths. Even if his melodies sound more Broadway than Beatles -- the epic suite "Scenes From an Italian Restaurant" feels like a show-stopping closer -- there's no denying that the melodies of each song on The Stranger are memorable, so much so that they strengthen the weaker portions of the album. Joel rarely wrote a set of songs better than those on The Stranger, nor did he often deliver an album as consistently listenable.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

GRRR Live! captures the December 15, 2012 concert the Rolling Stones held at Newark's Prudential Center as part of their 50 & Counting Tour. GRRR!, the multi-format 50th Anniversary compilation, was barely a month old at the time, hence the title of this belated 2023 release: the Stones were out hawking their hits, so why not name it after a comp few remember a decade later? As the concert was originally designed as a pay-per-view extravaganza, the show is packed with guest stars, ranging from the Stones' old mate Mick Taylor playing on "Midnight Rambler" and New Jersey's own home state hero Bruce Springsteen jamming on "Tumbling Dice" to young guns Black Keys, Lady Gaga, and Gary Clark, Jr. & John Mayer. The set list offers few surprises -- if you don't recognize a song, that's because it's a new tune added to GRRR! -- but the Stones are in fine form, never seeming tired of playing the hits in a fashion that guarantees a splendid time for one and all. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The meteoric rise Olivia Rodrigo experienced after Sour would have been thrilling and challenging for any artist, but navigating the cusp of adolescence and adulthood at the same time gave her a bounty of material for her second album. GUTS reveals that she didn't crumble under expectations -- instead, she took notes. Recorded with returning producer Daniel Nigro in the same garage studio where he and Rodrigo made Sour, the album hones in on her soaring, soul-baring ballads and spiky pop-punk manifestos and perfects them. "Driver's License" may have been her debut album's mega-hit, but many fans connected with fiercely catchy singles like "Good 4 U." Several of GUTS' standouts are in the same throbbing vein: Rodrigo cringes at herself and throws shade at an old flame on the new wave-y "love is embarrassing." She makes mistakes gleefully on "bad idea right?," a witty recollection of hooking up with an ex that rivals Wet Leg when it comes to chugging post-punk-pop with droll singalong choruses. Songs like these suggest that Rodrigo's record collection is growing along with her confidence, and though the way "all-american bitch" swings from deceptively winsome folk to raging punk shares pages with Phoebe Bridgers' and Courtney Love's songbooks, she ties it all together even more convincingly than she did on Sour. Likewise, GUTS' not-too-raw, not-too-slick production bolsters her talent for giving complex moods wide appeal. The song "get him back!" tangles revenge and longing in some of the album's most scathing lyrics ("I wanna meet his mom/Just to tell her her son sucks"), but it sounds like a direct hit. This gift is almost as uncommon as her ability to write lyrics so relatable that it feels like she's read her fans' diaries -- or minds. Rodrigo confronts the sting of second and third heartbreaks with hard-earned wisdom, and tracks like "making the bed" and "logical" add a refreshing dose of self-awareness to the catharsis of "Driver's License." And while "vampire"'s recriminations against older men who leech off of her and "sell (her) for parts" may not reflect the everyday reality of her listeners, it brings them into her world with as much authenticity as her other ballads. GUTS even features songs her listeners might not know they need yet: The breathy "pretty isn't pretty" tackles lookism and body dysmorphia, near-universal experiences for young women with surprisingly few songs written about them. Rodrigo does a remarkable job of balancing moments that are very much of the time when she made the album with moments that hint at more: "teenage dream" yearns for the day when she won't be wise beyond her years, and "lacy" explores the intricacies of jealousy and yearning with nuance that a singer/songwriter of any age would be proud to possess. GUTS is emphatic proof that Rodrigo isn't just good for a kid -- she's grown into an artist with plenty of things to say, and the confidence and eloquence to say them her way.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Following through with the avant-garde inclinations of Station to Station, yet explicitly breaking with David Bowie's past, Low is a dense, challenging album that confirmed his place at rock's cutting edge. Driven by dissonant synthesizers and electronics, Low is divided between brief, angular songs and atmospheric instrumentals. Throughout the record's first half, the guitars are jagged and the synthesizers drone with a menacing robotic pulse, while Bowie's vocals are unnaturally layered and overdubbed. During the instrumental half, the electronics turn cool, which is a relief after the intensity of the preceding avant pop. Half the credit for Low's success goes to Brian Eno, who explored similar ambient territory on his own releases. Eno functioned as a conduit for Bowie's ideas, and in turn Bowie made the experimentalism of not only Eno but of the German synth group Kraftwerk and the post-punk group Wire respectable, if not quite mainstream. Though a handful of the vocal pieces on Low are accessible -- "Sound and Vision" has a shimmering guitar hook, and "Be My Wife" subverts soul structure in a surprisingly catchy fashion -- the record is defiantly experimental and dense with detail, providing a new direction for the avant-garde in rock & roll.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo