Note to Clapton lovers: here comes the Super Deluxe edition of an expanded compilation of his best tracks, played at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, in 1990 and 1991. It was released in the form of a double LP of fifteen tracks at the time. London’s prestigious concert hall hosted 32 of his Slowhand concerts, 18 of which were performed in succession - breaking his own record - and with four different groups. This new box set of 47 titles, three-quarters of which were previously unreleased, is this time divided into three parts (the first edition was divided into four parts); “Rock”, “Blues”, and “Orchestral”. At the time, Clapton had been accompanied by some high-flying musicians. On the first record, we find Phil Collins on drums for covers of Bob Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff , and Bob Dylan’s Knockin' On Heaven's Door. On the second record, we find Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and Jimmy - on guitar. Jimmy is the older brother of Stevie Ray Vaughan, who died in a helicopter crash in August 1990. More reserved, performed with the National Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted by Michael Kamen, the third record offers 10-minute-long scintillating and highly-charged versions of Crossroads, by Robert Johnson, and Layla. Almost six hours of enjoyable listening. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

Yusuf is a talented singer and songwriter with an interesting past – in the 1960s and '70s he was the internationally famous pop singer Cat Stevens, whose thoughtful, soulful songs often had a spiritual bent. After the release of his 1978 album Back to Earth, Cat Stevens walked away from his career in music, embracing the Muslim faith and taking the name Yusuf Islam. In 2006, he released the album An Other Cup, credited to Yusuf, that found him gingerly easing back into the folk-influenced pop that made him famous, and since then, Yusuf has been making music that aims to strike a balance between the musical personality of his most famous work and his present-day spiritual focus and his dreams of a more just, peaceful, and generous world. In terms of this match of form and content, 2023's King of a Land may be the best album Yusuf has delivered since returning to popular music (and like his last several releases, it's credited to Yusuf/Cat Stevens, suggesting he's at peace with his musical past while wanting to remind us he's not exactly the man he used to be). Working with Paul Samwell-Smith, who produced the bulk of his 1970s work, on King of a Land Yusuf writes melodies that are more artful than his best-known hits but have a very recognizable warmth, and a mood that finds room for both joy and gravity. The lyrics are open in his devotion to God and our shared need for a more merciful world. The album's artwork features illustrations by Peter H. Reynolds, portraying a young boy in situations that match the stories and themes of the songs, and many of the tunes feel like fables for young and old, songs whose messages are clear but express their lessons with a gentle touch that doesn't feel doctrinaire or judgemental. (Significantly, "Son of Mary" is a compact retelling of the life of Jesus, subtly but firmly affirming that we all worship the same God). King of a Land is not quite pop-folk in the way "Peace Train" or "Moonshadow" were, yet the music is engaging and seems intended to soothe a troubled spirit, and though Yusuf's voice is just a bit sandy around the edges compared to his salad days, his performances are passionate without histrionics and speak of a wisdom he wants to share with all willing to listen. It's a well crafted and often moving album that mixes a bit of Cat Stevens' sound with Yusuf's heart and soul, and it honors both with skill and sincerity.© Mark Deming /TiVo

Genre-ingesting prog rock virtuosos Polyphia recorded their fourth album, Remember That You Will Die, with contributions from producers like Rodney Jerkins (Destiny's Child, Black Eyed Peas), Johan Lenox (Big Sean, Machine Gun Kelly), and Y2K (Doja Cat, Remi Wolf), although bandmembers Tim Henson and Scott LePage helmed its production. It marked the group's debuts on both the Rise Records label and the Billboard 200 chart, the latter thanks at least in part to the star power of such guests as Grammy winners Steve Vai and Brasstracks, Deftones' Chino Moreno, and charting rapper $not, among others from just as wide-ranging corners of the music world. Highlights include the playful "ABC," featuring R&B-pop singer Sophia Black, and "Chimera," a relatively brooding entry featuring raps by Lil West. The album closes on the Vai showcase "Ego Death," a multi-act instrumental sure to delight fans of Polyphia's scorching funk-rock.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

Little Simz's fourth album the biggest success of her career. Aptly dubbed Sometimes I Might Be Introvert (whose initials, SIMBI, are a reference to the rapper's first name), it is a superb exploration of intimacy. The Londoner mobilises big string arrangements, as on Standing Ovation or the long intro Introvert, while mixing the organic and the electronic with disconcerting skill. This album sketches different aspects of her personality, going back to her Nigerian origins with the tracks Point and Kill (featuring rising star Obongjayar) and Fear No Man, all the way to the decidedly English sounds on Rollin Stone, which verges on grime without diving fully into that sound. With an aesthetic that veers close to the American alternative rap of the late 1990s, she studs this record with welcome, relevant interludes, sonic breaks, dotted throughout the tracklist. In terms of her flow, the technique is the same. It is still all about playing with time, even when it gets more uniform on the excellent single Woman, or more full-frontal on Speed. Sometimes I Might Be Introvert stands out as one of the highlights of English rap in 2021, accomplished and enjoyable without denying its social message. A real success. © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

A great, revived soul voice. Politically-conscious songs from the Great American Songbook. This project harks back to the 1960s (and beyond), but it finds a strong echo in today's America, divided and rocked by President Trump... By dedicating the whole record to covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Bettye LaVette makes her voice heard, literally and figuratively. Produced by Steve Jordan, Things Have Changed which features, amongst others, Keith Richards and Trombone Shorty, alternates between warm, vintage soul, and funkier bursts of real rock'n'roll. Above all, the 72-year old soul artist from Michigan continues to prove that she has a lot of singing in her yet. LaVette made her definitive comeback as long ago as 2005, with the album I’ve Got My Own Hell To Raise, itself also made up of covers, this time of songs from artists like Sinéad O'Connor, Lucinda Williams, Joan Armatrading, Rosanne Cash, Dolly Parton, Aimee Mann and Fiona Apple. Two years later she confirmed her vocal powers with The Scene Of The Crime which revisited Eddie Hinton, George Jones, Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, John Hiatt and Elton John. Coming, like all good things in spurts of threes, Interpretations: The British Rock Songbook, from 2010, saw her taking on compositions by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Traffic, the Animals, Led Zep, George Harrison, Pink Floyd, Ringo Starr, Paul McCartney, the Moody Blues, Derek & The Dominos and the Who… This latest 2018 offering, though, stands head and shoulders above the others, thanks to the hair-raising sincerity that the singer brings to Dylan's repertoire. Great art. © Max Dembo/Qobuz

The Coral weren't really looking to make another album so soon after completing the epic Coral Island concept album, but when one of their favorite haunts, Parr Studios, was about to close down, they took advantage of the friendly surroundings to cut another record. Two, in fact. The more substantial of the pair, Sea of Mirrors, is a sepia-toned, string-filled, and melancholy imagined soundtrack for a vintage spaghetti Western starring Lee Hazlewood as the busted-up and bitter troubadour. Calling in the arrangement expertise of Sean O'Hagan of High Llamas fame, the band chose to outfit the songs in orchestral flourishes, vocal choruses, and Western-friendly banjos and acoustic guitars. It ends up being their most adult-sounding album yet; stately and nostalgically sad, it sheds all traces of psychedelia in favor of an almost-middle-of-the-road approach where the road is old and covered in sand, barely used, and caked in nostalgia. The elaborate ballads and misty melodies are tailor-made for James Skelly's voice, he's got pipes big enough to inhabit the songs like an aging gunfighter while at the same time hinting at the pain lurking beneath the hard-worn surface. The band proves just as adept at creating the perfect atmosphere, filling the sonic spectrum with galloping basslines, rippling percussion, jangling and twanging guitars, and the occasional dusty piano. When paired with the widescreen efforts of O'Hagan, they come up with a sound old Lee would have been proud to call his own. Certainly one that some wily filmmaker might have stuck in their movie to conjure up a dramatically melancholy mood. The title track or "Wild Bird" could have fit into Midnight Cowboy with their aching vocals, shimmering strings, and downcast feel. Other songs might have been good for moments where lovers pine for one another ("That's Where She Belongs"), the lead ponders where it all went wrong ("North Wind") or wanders the night in a trance-like state ("Dream River"). The combination of O'Hagan and the Coral is so perfect it's hard to believe it actually happened. Each of them brings out something intrinsically good in the other; the Coral are so resolutely earthbound that O'Hagan's additions could never veer too far toward the precious, and his fluttering arrangements give the group space to nimbly explore lighter, less earthbound territory. It's definitely not like anything else in their catalog, and it's pretty clear by now that the Coral could take on just about any kind of guitar-based music and make it fully their own. Deeply bruised, cinematic, and graceful Western music is no match for their skills, and Sea of Mirrors is another triumph for the band.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

Since 1979, Roger Waters has been up against The Wall. Almost 40 years after the release of The Wall, the former Pink Floyd bassist has never fundamentally surpassed his great work, the double album that entered into rock legend but which also marked a turning point in the life of the group that he founded in 1965 with Syd Barrett, Nick Mason and Richard Wright. In his several solo albums, as well as in the great live performances that re-interpret The Wall, Waters has always worked on the same grandiloquent musical and ideological themes. With Is This The Life We Really Want?, his obsessions with the alienation of the individual by society and imminent apocalypse have not changed one iota. Madness like the excesses of our times naturally form a central part of this record, his first proper studio album since Amused To Death, which came out in 1992. Roger Waters, who surely knew that he needed to introduce a little novelty into his creative universe, had the good idea of entrusting the production to Nigel Godrich, who is mainly known for his work with Radiohead. And to amplify the winds of change, the British producer even roused some of the big names of his generation, like the guitarist Jonathan Wilson, the drummer Joey Waronker and keyboard player Roger Manning. But the Waters fundamentals are still very much audible. And his fans, as well as Floyd fans, will soon feel a sense of homecoming. Roger Waters has not revolutionised his art, his words, and even less his personal touch. Instead, he has set about developing the talent for which he is known. And in his register of rock that verges on the theatrical, he truly excels. © CM/Qobuz

The many voices that come out of the ether on Bruce Springsteen's The Rising all seem to have two things in common: the first is that they are writing from the other side, from the day after September 11, 2001, the day when life began anew, more uncertain than ever before. The other commonality that these voices share is the determination that life, however fraught with tragedy and confusion, is precious and should be lived as such. On this reunion with the E Street Band, Bruce Springsteen offers 15 meditations -- in grand rock & roll style -- on his own way of making sense of the senseless. The band is in fine form, though with Brendan O'Brien's uncanny production, they play with an urgency and rawness they've seldom shown. This may not have been the ideal occasion for a reunion after 15 years, but it's one they got, and they go for broke. The individual tracks offer various glimpses of loss, confusion, hope, faith, resolve, and a good will that can only be shown by those who have been tested by fire. The music and production is messy, greasy; a lot of the mixes bleed tracks onto one another, giving it a more homemade feel than any previous E Street Band outing. And yes, that's a very good thing.The set opens with "Lonesome Day," a midtempo rocker with country-ish roots. Springsteen's protagonist admits to his or her shortcomings in caring for the now-absent beloved. But despite the grief and emptiness, there is a wisdom that emerges in questioning what remains: "Better ask questions before you shoot/Deceit and betrayal's bitter fruit/It's hard to swallow come time to pay/That taste on your tongue don't easily slip away/Let kingdom come/I'm gonna find my way/ Through this lonesome day." Brendan O'Brien's hurdy-gurdy cuts through the mix like a ghost, offering a view of an innocent past that has been forever canceled because it never was anyway; the instrument, like the glockenspiels that trim Bruce Springsteen's songs, offers not only texture, but a kind of formalist hint that possibilities don't always lie in the future. Lest anyone mistakenly perceive this recording as a somber evocation of loss and despair, it should also be stated that this is very much an E Street Band recording. Clarence Clemons is everywhere, and the R&B swing and slip of the days of yore is in the house -- especially on "Waitin' for a Sunny Day," "Countin' on a Miracle," "Mary's Place" (with a full horn section), and the souled-out "Let's Be Friends (Skin to Skin)." These tracks echo the past with their loose good-time feel, but "echo" is the key word. Brendan O'Brien's guitar-accented production offers us an E Street Band coming out of the ether and stepping in to fill a void. The songs themselves are, without exception, rooted in loss, but flower with the possibility of moving into what comes next, with a hard-won swagger and busted-up grace. They offer balance and a shifting perspective, as well as a depth that is often deceptive.The title track is one of Springsteen's greatest songs. It is an anthem, but not in the sense you usually reference in regard to his work. This anthem is an invitation to share everything, to accept everything, to move through everything individually and together. Power-chorded guitars and pianos entwine in the choruses with a choir, and Clemons wails on a part with a stinging solo. With The Rising, Springsteen has found a way to be inclusive and instructive without giving up his particular vision as a songwriter, nor his considerable strength as a rock & roll artist. In fact, if anything, The Rising is one of the very best examples in recent history of how popular art can evoke a time period and all of its confusing and often contradictory notions, feelings, and impulses. There are tales of great suffering in The Rising to be sure, but there is joy, hope, and possibility, too. Above all, there is a celebration and reverence for everyday life. And if we need anything from rock & roll, it's that. It would be unfair to lay on Bruce Springsteen the responsibility of guiding people through the aftermath of a tragedy and getting on with the business of living, but rock & roll as impure, messy, and edifying as this helps.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

The much-ballyhooed reunion of the original Aerosmith lineup had pretty much fallen flat on its face after 1985's hit-and-miss Done With Mirrors. Realizing that the band simply couldn't do it alone, A&R guru John Kalodner capitalized on the runaway success of Run-D.M.C.'s cover of "Walk This Way" and decided to draft in the day's top hired hands, including knob-twiddler extraordinaire Bruce Fairbairn and career-revitalizing song doctors Desmond Child and Jim Vallance. Together, they would help craft Permanent Vacation, the album which would reinvent Aerosmith as '80s and '90s superstars. Yet, despite the mostly stellar songwriting, which makes it a strong effort overall, some of the album's nooks and crannies haven't aged all that well because of Fairbairn's overwrought production, featuring an exaggerated sleekness typical of most mid-'80s pop-metal albums. Furthermore, Desmond Child's pedantic writing often compromises the timeliness of even the best material. On the other hand, pre-fab radio gems like "Rag Doll" and "Dude (Looks Like a Lady)" remain largely unassailable from a "delivering the goods" perspective. But remember kids, this is Aerosmith, so that can only mean one thing: a guaranteed number of incredible tracks for any time and place. These include the earthy voodoo blues of "St. John" and the excellent hobo-harmonica fable of "Hangman Jury." And, although some of the remaining cuts lean to the filler side, both the awkwardly Caribbean title track and the cover of the Beatles' "I'm Down" are well executed. Finally, the crowd-pleasing schmaltz of "Angel" showcases the band at the peak of its power ballad cheese. A valiant effort, this album proved to be the crucial catalyst in reintroducing Aerosmith to the masses, but if you're looking for an even better example of the band's renewed strength, check out Pump first.© John Franck & Ed Rivadavia /TiVo

The Diamond Collection is a nine-track compilation from rapper Post Malone. The record features all eight of his diamond-certified singles, from his very first, "White Iverson," through "Congratulations," "Rockstar," and pop smashes "Sunflower" and "Circles." It also features his 2023 single "Chemical" from that year's Austin.© Liam Martin /TiVo

Establishing identity through the lens of cultural appropriation can be tricky business. On Post Malone's studio debut Stoney, the Dallas-raised musician with gold grills and braids does his best to sing-rap his way through an album's worth of woozy R&B-inflected hip-hop. As a fan of rap and its associated culture, Post delivers with moderate respect, careful not to toe the precarious line over which others like Iggy Azalea and Riff Raff have stumbled. Yet, there still seems to be something missing in the calculated white-guy-does-hip-hop formula. Although he plays guitar and is influenced by Tim McGraw as much as Kanye West, Stoney is mostly devoid of that country twang, save for some outlaw grit on "Broken Whiskey Glass" and faint strumming on "Go Flex" (bonus track "Leave" actually captures his true cross-genre nature better than anything here). Mostly, that part of his background only comes through when he chooses to sing. Those tracks -- notably "No Option" and "I Fall Apart" -- work best, featuring strong vocals that quiver when he pushes it to the limit. Guest vocalists and producers like Kehlani ("Feel"), River Tiber ("Cold"), Pharrell Williams ("Up There"), and Quavo and Metro Boomin ("Congratulations") bolster Stoney with both atmosphere and credibility, while tourmate Justin Bieber increases the star power on the sweet "Cha-Cha"/"Hotline Bling"-esque "Deja Vu." Even though most of the songs bleed indistinguishably into one another, the aptly titled album provides an appropriate soundtrack for a certain type of recreational rest and relaxation (even occasionally threatening to sedate the listener). It's competent and listenable, but many others have tread this same path already. Post Malone has a way to go before standing out with his own unique voice, but there are signs on Stoney that it could happen. © Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo