Songs in the Key of Life was Stevie Wonder's longest, most ambitious collection of songs, a two-LP (plus accompanying EP) set that -- just as the title promised -- touched on nearly every issue under the sun, and did it all with ambitious (even for him), wide-ranging arrangements and some of the best performances of Wonder's career. The opening "Love's in Need of Love Today" and "Have a Talk with God" are curiously subdued, but Stevie soon kicks into gear with "Village Ghetto Land," a fierce exposé of ghetto neglect set to a satirical Baroque synthesizer. Hot on its heels comes the torrid fusion jam "Contusion," a big, brassy hit tribute to the recently departed Duke Ellington in "Sir Duke," and (another hit, this one a Grammy winner as well) the bumping poem to his childhood, "I Wish." Though they didn't necessarily appear in order, Songs in the Key of Life contains nearly a full album on love and relationships, along with another full album on issues social and spiritual. Fans of the love album Talking Book can marvel that he sets the bar even higher here, with brilliant material like the tenderly cathartic and gloriously redemptive "Joy Inside My Tears," the two-part, smooth-and-rough "Ordinary Pain," the bitterly ironic "All Day Sucker," or another classic heartbreaker, "Summer Soft." Those inclined toward Stevie Wonder the social-issues artist had quite a few songs to focus on as well: "Black Man" was a Bicentennial school lesson on remembering the vastly different people who helped build America; "Pastime Paradise" examined the plight of those who live in the past and have little hope for the future; "Village Ghetto Land" brought listeners to a nightmare of urban wasteland; and "Saturn" found Stevie questioning his kinship with the rest of humanity and amusingly imagining paradise as a residency on a distant planet. If all this sounds overwhelming, it is; Stevie Wonder had talent to spare during the mid-'70s, and instead of letting the reserve trickle out during the rest of the decade, he let it all go with one massive burst. (His only subsequent record of the '70s was the similarly gargantuan but largely instrumental soundtrack Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants.)© John Bush /TiVo

Rhiannon Giddens' latest is a surprise and a delight—a mix of the mountain music we've come to expect from the Grammy winner but also a slew of solid gold soul. That new persona suits her very, very well, as Giddens turns into a funk diva for sassy opener "Too Little, Too Late, Too Bad"—a kiss-off to an ex trying to get back in. Bolstered by big, bright horns, shoop-shoop backing vocals and a feisty beat, Giddens growls her warning at "just an old dog with old tricks." Stirring, bass-throbbing "Wrong Kind of Right" picks up where Amy Winehouse tragically left off. And "You're the One" is a fascinating combo: Blending strutting soul and solid beats from producer Jack Splash, with Giddens' delicate banjo. The song breaks wide open at the chorus, then turns folky. Giddens isn't the only one having fun. Duet partner Jason Isbell positively cuts loose on "Yet to Be," a rootsy, Janis Joplin-style blues number that finds the two super-strong voices and personalities trading verses and weaving a rollicking harmony. The beats and horns turn ominous on "Another Wasted Life," a chronicle of brutality within America's justice and prison systems. "Doesn't matter what the crime/ If indeed there was the time/ He's given solitary time ... It's a torture of the soul/ The narrow confines of control/ Thrown down the stinking hole/ With no hope of release," Giddens sings. But she finds release, if not relief, chanting the title line of the chorus—setting off for a different stratosphere where she drags out the vocalizations. The second half of the record is more traditional, but in no way average or predictable. Giddens gets into mountain mischief on "You Louisiana Man," with trembling accordion from Dirk Powell, and sweetly lays down the law on "If You Don't Know How Sweet It Is," kicking back against a partner whining about tough steak, loud kids and unfolded laundry: "You're good, but I'll find better/ And it'll be without your bitching/ If you don't know how sweet it is/ Get on outta my kitchen!" "Hen in the Foxhouse" is sultry and playful, with a wild rhythm. Jazzy "You Put the Sugar in My Bowl" is old-timey flirtatious, and Giddens goes full Ella on the dreamy "Who Are You Dreaming Off," with its cymbal brushwork like an audio time portal. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

After releasing two "head" records during 1970 and 1971, Stevie Wonder expanded his compositional palette with 1972's Talking Book to include societal ills as well as tender love songs, and so recorded the first smash album of his career. What had been hinted at on the intriguing project Music of My Mind was here focused into a laser beam of tight songwriting, warm electronic arrangements, and ebullient performances -- altogether the most realistic vision of a musical personality ever put to wax, beginning with a disarmingly simple love song, "You Are the Sunshine of My Life" (but of course, it's only the composition that's simple). Wonder's not always singing a tender ballad here -- in fact, he flits from contentment to mistrust to promise to heartbreak within the course of the first four tracks -- but he never fails to render each song in the most vivid colors. In stark contrast to his early songs, which were clever but often relied on the Motown template of romantic metaphor, with Talking Book it became clear Wonder was beginning to speak his mind and use his personal history for material (just as Marvin Gaye had with the social protest of 1971's What's Going On). The lyrics became less convoluted, while the emotional power gained in intensity. "You and I" and the glorious closer "I Believe (When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever)" subtly illustrate that the conception of love can be stronger than the reality, while "Tuesday Heartbreak" speaks simply but powerfully: "I wanna be with you when the nighttime comes/I wanna be with you till the daytime comes." Ironically, the biggest hit from Talking Book wasn't a love song at all; the funk landmark "Superstition" urges empowerment instead of hopelessness, set to a grooving beat that made it one of the biggest hits of his career. It's followed by "Big Brother," the first of his directly critical songs, excoriating politicians who posture to the underclass in order to gain the only thing they really need: votes. With Talking Book, Wonder also found a proper balance between making an album entirely by himself and benefiting from the talents of others. His wife Syreeta contributed two great lyrics, and Ray Parker, Jr. came by to record a guitar solo that brings together the lengthy jam "Maybe Your Baby." Two more guitar heroes, Jeff Beck and Buzzy Feton, appeared on "Lookin' for Another Pure Love," Beck's solo especially giving voice to the excruciating process of moving on from a broken relationship. Like no other Stevie Wonder LP before it, Talking Book is all of a piece, the first unified statement of his career. It's certainly an exercise in indulgence but, imitating life, it veers breathtakingly from love to heartbreak and back with barely a pause.© John Bush /TiVo

Anybody who was initially confused by singer/songwriter John Mayer's foray into blues with 2005's Try! John Mayer Trio Live in Concert could only have been further confounded upon listening to the album and coming to the realization that it was actually good. And not just kinda good, especially for guy who had been largely labeled as a Dave Matthews clone, but really, truthfully, organically good as a blues album in its own right. However, for longtime fans who had been keeping tabs on Mayer, the turn might not have been so unexpected. Soon after the release of his 2003 sophomore album, the laid-back, assuredly melodic Heavier Things, Mayer began appearing on albums by such iconic blues and jazz artists as Buddy Guy, B.B. King, and Herbie Hancock. And not just singing, but playing guitar next to musicians legendary on the instrument. In short, he was seeking out these artists in an attempt to delve into the roots of the blues, a music he obviously has a deep affection for. Rather than his blues trio being a one-off side project completely disconnected to his past work, it is clear now that it was the next step in his musical development. And truthfully, while Try! certainly showcases Mayer's deft improvisational blues chops, it's more of a blues/soul album in the tradition of such electric blues legends as Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan, and features songs by Mayer that perfectly marry his melodic songcraft and his blues-slinger inclinations. In fact, what seemed at the time a nod to his largely female fan base (the inclusion of "Daughters" and "Something's Missing" off Heavier Things) was actually a hint that he was bridging his sound for his listeners, showing them where he was going.That said, nothing he did up until the excellent, expansive Try! could have prepared you for the monumental creative leap forward that is Mayer's 2006 studio effort, Continuum. Working with his blues trio/rhythm section of bassist Pino Palladino and drummer Steve Jordan, along with guest spots by trumpeter Roy Hargrove and guitarist Ben Harper, Mayer brings all of his recent musical explorations and increasing talents as a singer/songwriter to bear on Continuum. Produced solely by Mayer and Jordan, the album is a devastatingly accomplished, fully realized effort that in every way exceeds expectations and positions Mayer as one of the most relevant artists of his generation. Adding weight to the notion that Mayer's blues trio is more than just a creative indulgence, he has carried over two tracks from the live album in "Vultures" and the deeply metaphorical soul ballad "Gravity." These are gut-wrenchingly poignant songs that give voice to a generation of kids raised on TRL teen stars and CNN soundbites who've found themselves all grown up and fighting a war of "beliefs." Grappling with a handful of topics -- social and political, romantic and sexual, pointedly personal and yet always universal in scope -- Mayer's Continuum here earns a legitimate comparison to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On. Nobody -- not a single one of Mayer's contemporaries -- has come up with anything resembling a worthwhile antiwar anthem that is as good and speaks for their generation as much as his "Waiting on the World to Change" -- and he goes and hangs the whole album on it as the first single. It's a bold statement of purpose that is carried throughout the album, not just in sentiment, but also tone. Continuum is a gorgeously produced, brilliantly stripped-to-basics album that incorporates blues, soft funk, R&B, folk, and pop in a sound that is totally owned by Mayer. It's no stretch when trying to describe the sound of Continuum to color it in the light of work by such legends as Sting, Eric Clapton, Sade, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and Steve Winwood. In fact, the sustained adult contemporary tone of the album could easily have become turgid, boring, or dated but never does, and brings to mind such classic late-'80s albums as Sting's Nothing Like the Sun, Clapton's Journeyman, and Vaughan's In Step. At every turn, Continuum finds Mayer to be a mature, thoughtful, and gifted musician who fully grasps his place not just in the record industry, but in life.© Matt Collar /TiVo

Time takes its cues more from such bands as the Alan Parsons Project and Wings than from Jeff Lynne's fascination with Pepper-era Beatles. Sure, all the electronic whirrs and bleeps are present and accounted for, and Time did spawn hit singles in "Hold on Tight" and "Twilight," but on the average, ELO had begun to get too stuck on the same structure and content of their releases. "The Way Life's Meant to Be" echoes very early ELO hits like "Can't Get It Out of My Head," and the "Prologue" and "Epilogue" segments try and bring about a unifying concept that doesn't quite hold up upon listening all the way through. Time proves to be competent ELO but not great ELO.© James Chrispell /TiVo

Already a social media star by the time her widely acclaimed mixtape To Hell with It changed the game in 2021, PinkPantheress made her mainstream breakthrough in 2023, when the Ice Spice-featuring sequel to her single "Boy's a Liar" became a major worldwide hit. "Angel," an Irish folk-influenced tune recorded for Barbie: The Album, also gained the artist major exposure. The cover art for Heaven Knows, her debut full-length, suggests that PinkPantheress is undergoing a makeover as a singer of sultry R&B slow jams. In reality, the album is a fully developed refinement of the brisk, intricately arranged pop style she's become known for, with lyrics about romantic infatuations set to pulse-quickening liquid drum'n'bass, U.K. garage, and filter-house rhythms. Unlike her mixtape, all of the songs exceed two minutes this time around (though some of them just barely do), and most of them are packed with enough ideas to make them feel longer than they are. She co-produced the album's tracks along with previous collaborator Mura Masa, pop maven Greg Kurstin, Count Baldor, and others, with Danny L. Harle, Sam Gellaitry, and Oscar Scheller each making contributions. While the songs generally sound upbeat, the lyrics are much darker, describing obsessions taken to their extremes. The funereal organs and bursting storm clouds of "Another Life" provide the album's dramatic introduction, and the lyrics attempt to process the shock following the death of a partner. Several other songs mention thoughts of death -- on "Mosquito," PinkPantheress is only concerned about dying because it would separate her from her loved one, and "Ophelia" sonically illustrates a drowning scene with bubbling water effects, detached vocal glitches, and police sirens. The ominously titled "Bury Me," a drill-influenced duet with Kelela, is about the desire for more than a surface-level relationship, and "Internet Baby" also seems to search for something deeper, while feeling attracted by the pressure. On the boom-bap cut "Feel Complete," she's unsure if she ever really knew her partner, and she contemplates whether she'll ever be able to love again during the ambitious, dazzling "Capable of Love." "Boy's a Liar Pt. 2" is tucked away at the end as a bonus track, but it fits in perfectly with the album's themes of questioning trust in others as well as one's own self-worth. Crucially, the song is a joyous dance-pop delight with a bouncy, Jersey club-inspired beat. Even as PinkPantheress explores her deepest, darkest emotions, her songs are vibrant, hook-filled, and wildly inventive, making Heaven Knows just as worthy of repeated listens as To Hell with It, and confirming her status as a pop visionary.© Paul Simpson /TiVo

Less than a year after the release of their critically acclaimed sixth album Imploding the Mirage, the Killers returned with the melancholic Pressure Machine, a stark rumination on small-town life set to the most pensive, yet touching soundscapes in their catalog to date. This is not a typical Killers album: stripped of their typical Vegas bombast, rousing anthems, and glittering showmanship, the set reveals the dark side of the Sam's Town trailer park, a place of depression, fundamentalism, desperation, and violence. Yet it's also a place where doors remain unlocked at night, kids go hunting and dirt bike riding, and a quiet sense of pride courses through the souls of the God-fearing. Steeped in personal memories and fleshed-out by stories of people from his hometown of Nephi, Utah (snippets of interviews from current locals introduce each song on the album), Pressure Machine finds frontman Brandon Flowers in reflective mode, meditating on provincial American life through a strikingly personal lens. Channeling these assorted townsfolk -- blue-collar laborers, addicts, suicidal teens, and the blissfully insular -- Flowers maintains his position as one of his generation's most effective storytellers, capturing the resignation of a small town where residents don't mind that they've "never seen the ocean" because the ultimate treasure awaits "way up high" in heaven. Despite these bleak views of a suffocated population of humble people just trying to get by, he's careful to respect their stories, creating a patchwork of experiences that is oddly beautiful and heartfelt. From the high school sweethearts who never left town ("We'll be here forever," the interviewee says at the start of the sweeping, string-backed opener "West Hills") to the ones who felt they only had one way to escape (on the devastating "Terrible Thing"), listeners are plunged into this world, meeting a cast of characters that are humanized and utterly relatable. While not a cheerful listen, the album works best as a narrative experience, a series of cinematic peeks behind the curtain of everyday life, like on the pastoral "Runaway Horses," where guest vocalist Phoebe Bridgers backs Flowers as he frames the horror of a rodeo girl and her injured steed into a moving coming-of-age tale that is at once intimate and absolutely beautiful. Through these weighty snapshots, the band -- a reunited Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer, and Ronnie Vannucci -- relies on simplicity and restraint with acoustic guitars, harmonica, sweeping strings, and modest percussion. For fans in search of those trademark synths, sky-high guitars, and galloping drums, there are only a few moments that get the toes tapping (the Springsteen-with-synths of "Quiet Town," the driving synth pop of "In the Car Outside," and the full-bodied rocker "In Another Life"). Otherwise, Pressure Machine remains dour and bittersweet. This matured focus on concept and mood saves the album from becoming an odd catalog misstep, serving instead as a dignified artistic exercise that rewards the band's bravery by becoming the most heartfelt and poignant statement of their careers.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

On her first studio recording in three years, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Sarah Jarosz completes the musical shift that began on 2013's Build Me Up from Bones. The earlier album, recorded while finishing her studies at the New England Conservatory of Music, explored songwriting outside the norms of contemporary folk, bluegrass, and country. Undercurrent finds her defining a music built out from American roots traditions, not bound by them. She wrote or co-wrote all 11 songs -- a first. Another is the album's instrumentation. While her octave mandolin and banjo playing are present, guitar is the dominant instrument here. Now living in New York, Jarosz surrounds herself with familiar collaborators who include I'm with Her bandmates Sara Watkins and Aoife O'Donovan, Luke Reynolds, Parker Millsap, and Jedd Hughes. The fingerpicked solo acoustic opener "Early Morning Light" commences with the audacious lyric "All my troubles have just begun...." It's a broken love/leaving song that admits regret and doubt, but ultimately refuses anything but forward motion. First single "House of Mercy," with its minor-key, rumbling, low-tuned acoustic guitar and arco bass, is a dark, steely Americana blues. It's a bitter kiss-off tune to a bad-news ex, spiny and forceful: "This house wasn't meant for strangers/But you come knockin' anyway...Underneath that shirt you're wearin'/Strained muscles and a heart of stone...You make me want to be alone...." "Comin' Undone" is a jazzy, rag-tinged shuffle outfitted with a gospelized B-3 and ringing electric six-strings. Lyrically, it offers more optimism than its melancholy title indicates. On the solo acoustic "Take Another Turn," in 6/8 time, Jarosz asks "What does it mean to be hungry/Hungry and hunting and wild...Should you talk to yourself a little more/Push right through that closed door." On "Take Me Back," her protagonist desires a return to solace and refuge but also accepts that nothing last forever, as an electric guitar adds poignant solo fills. "Still Life," driven by a lonesome fiddle, is another broken relationship song. In it she questions settling for less, but refuses, even though it means leaving a beloved who cannot completely surrender to what love demands. Though darker than her previous albums, Undercurrent is also more resilient. Jarosz reaches through her musical and personal histories with vulnerability and willingness. She comes out on the other side with songs that possess narrative savvy, melodic invention, and a refreshing sense of self-assuredness.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

In the mid-1970s, while most of the music world was focused on stadium concerts, the excesses of hard and glam rock and inevitable indulgences like half-hour drum solos, one unknown Memphis quartet was quietly predicting the future. Fronted by Alex Chilton who'd been the teenaged singer on the Box Tops 1967 hit, "The Letter," and including songwriter/guitarist Chris Bell, bassist Andy Hummel, and drummer Jody Stephens, Big Star (named for a local supermarket chain), was steeped in the Beatles and contemporaries of Badfinger and The Raspberries. During its short life, the band recorded three ahead-of-their-time albums in the early 70s that are now worshipped as THE unassailable grails of power pop. Even more far-reaching, the band's three albums are also the place where R.E.M., The dBs, The Posies, Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, and many others first got the idea for the jangly, tuneful, proudly Anglophilic guitar pop that eventually became a large part of Alternative Rock. Opening with Chris Bell's unexpectedly Robert Plant-esque vocal on the opening track, "Feel," this collection of Bell/Chilton originals progresses through sparkling tracks like the hilariously-titled, Byrdsian romp, "The Ballad of El Goodo," rockers like "Don't Lie To Me," the anthemic "When My Baby's Beside Me," and the joyous, bouncy single "In The Street," sung by Bell and later re-recorded by Cheap Trick as the theme song of television's That 70's Show. All are lean, clean, joyous blasts of melody built on tight ensemble playing rather than vocalist melodrama or solo instrumental glory. What gives #1 Record a never to be repeated edge in the slim Big Star catalog, is the presence of two strong vocalists in Chilton and Bell, who trade leads and harmonize together. The gossamer, beseeching "Give Me Another Chance" rises on their ravishing, John and Paul-like entwining. The defining twist in the Big Star fable is that because the distribution was fumbled, #1 Record barely made it into the stores, a lost cult record from the day it was released. Given an appropriately shimmering, tingle-inducing production thanks to the recording and mixing expertise of both Bell, but in particular Ardent Studio owner John Fry (most apparent in the crystalline acoustic guitar tones in "Watch The Sunrise"), these 12 miraculous confections are given added detail and punch in the sparkling new all-analog remastering. Guitar pop music has rarely if ever been this consequential. The still-radiant, all-consuming pop genius here remains sublime. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

Songs in the Key of Life was Stevie Wonder's longest, most ambitious collection of songs, a two-LP (plus accompanying EP) set that -- just as the title promised -- touched on nearly every issue under the sun, and did it all with ambitious (even for him), wide-ranging arrangements and some of the best performances of Wonder's career. The opening "Love's in Need of Love Today" and "Have a Talk with God" are curiously subdued, but Stevie soon kicks into gear with "Village Ghetto Land," a fierce exposé of ghetto neglect set to a satirical Baroque synthesizer. Hot on its heels comes the torrid fusion jam "Contusion," a big, brassy hit tribute to the recently departed Duke Ellington in "Sir Duke," and (another hit, this one a Grammy winner as well) the bumping poem to his childhood, "I Wish." Though they didn't necessarily appear in order, Songs in the Key of Life contains nearly a full album on love and relationships, along with another full album on issues social and spiritual. Fans of the love album Talking Book can marvel that he sets the bar even higher here, with brilliant material like the tenderly cathartic and gloriously redemptive "Joy Inside My Tears," the two-part, smooth-and-rough "Ordinary Pain," the bitterly ironic "All Day Sucker," or another classic heartbreaker, "Summer Soft." Those inclined toward Stevie Wonder the social-issues artist had quite a few songs to focus on as well: "Black Man" was a Bicentennial school lesson on remembering the vastly different people who helped build America; "Pastime Paradise" examined the plight of those who live in the past and have little hope for the future; "Village Ghetto Land" brought listeners to a nightmare of urban wasteland; and "Saturn" found Stevie questioning his kinship with the rest of humanity and amusingly imagining paradise as a residency on a distant planet. If all this sounds overwhelming, it is; Stevie Wonder had talent to spare during the mid-'70s, and instead of letting the reserve trickle out during the rest of the decade, he let it all go with one massive burst. (His only subsequent record of the '70s was the similarly gargantuan but largely instrumental soundtrack Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants.)© John Bush /TiVo

The electric blues guitar boss -- only in his early twenties at the time of this release -- Christone "Kingfish" Ingram brought his tight quartet to London's Garage on June 6, 2023, for a standing-room-only crowd. Live in London, the guitar slinger's third album for Alligator, appeared just three months later. It's a beautifully recorded, incendiary gig captured in the moment. The 17-track program is equally split between selections from his first two albums: 2019's Kingfish and 2021's 662, plus new tunes and a cover.Kingfish leaves plenty of room for spontaneity live. Set opener "She Calls Me Kingfish" is introduced by DeShawn Alexander's reverbed, floating Rhodes piano that's replaced by a Hammond B-3 organ before Paul Rogers' bumping bassline and Chris Black's drum kit establish a funky shuffle. Ingram's playing crisscrosses jazz, prog rock, soul, and blues before it's time to solo. In contrast, his biting Stratocaster delivers a strolling break that melds the phrasing of B.B. King and Jimmy Johnson with an innate, deeply personal lyricism. Over seven minutes, its dynamic and intensity shift several times, drawing the enthusiastic crowd in. "Fresh Out" is even longer, a slow, wrangling, Chicago blues, it offers locked-on group interplay even during the solos by Ingram and Alexander. The tempo remains relatively laid-back through the poignant soul blues of "Another Life Goes By." (Interestingly, one can hear the influence of Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson in the melody and lyric.) Michael "Iron Man" Burks' "Empty Promises" is Hendrixian in invention, drama, and tension. Its loss-laden lyric is underscored by the B-3 and sets a perfect frame for Ingram's arrestingly soulful singing on top. The nasty, gritty "Hard Times" is a keyboard and rhythm collision that Ingram elevates with his hip vocals and distorted wah-wah soloing. "Mississippi Night" is a previously unissued scorching ten-minute instrumental that puts all of Ingram's considerable improvising skills on display. The middle section offers two solo acoustic Delta jams. "Been Here Before" is an autobiography and tribute to his grandmother with canny fingerpickinging and percussive strumming. The other -- "Something in the Dirt" -- is also a testifying autobiography of person and place set to a celebratory I-IV-V shuffle with killer turnarounds. The second half commences with the swaying blue soul of "You're Already Gone," driven by B-3 as Ingram testifies with conviction in his vocal. His solo adds depth, dimension, and power. While "Rock 'n' Roll" remains a deeply moving tribute to his late mother complete with gospel overtones, "Not Gonna Lie" combines blues, funk, and rootsy rock in a personal manifesto. "Midnight Heat," another new song, is snarling and potent, as Ingram's lyric offers intimacy to a lover with a loose groove that crisscrosses electric Southern blues and Meters-esque R&B. Closer "662" is bursting with the uptempo dancehall Texas groove of Albert King, the Vaughan Brothers, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Live in London provides more evidence that Ingram is a force to be reckoned with: Not only can he play like the legends, but he's an original vocalist, a solid songwriter, and a disciplined bandleader.© Thom Jurek /TiVo