David Bowie returned to relatively conventional rock & roll with Scary Monsters, an album that effectively acts as an encapsulation of all his '70s experiments. Reworking glam rock themes with avant-garde synth flourishes, and reversing the process as well, Bowie creates dense but accessible music throughout Scary Monsters. Though it doesn't have the vision of his other classic records, it wasn't designed to break new ground -- it was created as the culmination of Bowie's experimental genre-shifting of the '70s. As a result, Scary Monsters is Bowie's last great album. While the music isn't far removed from the post-punk of the early '80s, it does sound fresh, hip, and contemporary, which is something Bowie lost over the course of the '80s. [Rykodisc's 1992 reissue includes re-recorded versions of "Space Oddity" and "Panic in Detroit," the Japanese single "Crystal Japan," and the British single "Alabama Song."]© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Not the first posthumous compilation from David Bowie -- that would be the lavish box Who Can I Be Now? (1974-1976), which was planned prior to his January 10, 2016 death -- Legacy is nevertheless the first designed with his, well, legacy in mind. That much can be gleaned from the title of the compilation, but that's a bit of a feint since this set essentially repackages the simplest incarnation of a previous Bowie hits compilation, 2014's Nothing Has Changed. Legacy is available as a single and a double-disc, both carrying sequencings that mirror those on Nothing Has Changed (and both featuring a new mix of "Life on Mars?"). On the single disc, the first 12 songs are the same, then the back sequence is different, discarding "Absolute Beginners" and "Hallo Spaceboy" and concluding with "Where Are We Now?" and "Lazarus." Similarly, the double-disc has a nearly identical sequencing on its first disc -- "Ashes to Ashes" and "Fashion" are swapped -- with the differences arriving in the comp's final six songs, so Heathen's "Everyone Says Hi" is here, and this concludes with "Lazarus" and "I Can't Give Everything Away." In both cases, the Legacy sequencing is slightly better than that on Nothing Has Changed, since it winds up ending on the elegiac note that Bowie gave Blackstar. Still, it's splitting hairs: the 2016 and 2014 compilations are similar to each other, and they're also similar to the many Bowie comps that came before, and they're all just as likely to satisfy and pique interest.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Changestwobowie, the follow-up to 1976's Changesonebowie, was released as David Bowie's RCA contract entered its final months, and a certain rancor began to permeate the relationship. The label did not even consult the star over the makeup of this collection, and the result is a strangely disjointed ragbag of tracks scraping through the past decade with little regard for either continuity or, perhaps surprisingly, the hits. Any cohesion that might be detected, then, tends to be in the eye of the beholder, although there's no denying that, with songs the quality of "Aladdin Sane" and "Oh You Pretty Things" onboard, there should be little room for rubbish. As with Changesonebowie, RCA appealed to collectors via the inclusion of one non-LP cut, in this case the 1975-era remake of "John, I'm Only Dancing" -- long legendary as an outtake, a single had finally appeared in 1979. Further attention was garnered after "Wild Is the Wind" was lifted as a single. With Bowie agreeing to cut a very striking promotional video to accompany it, this most un-Top 30-like ballad reached number 24 in the U.K.© Dave Thompson /TiVo

Come now, let us all genuflect before Lamb of God, for to them we owe our metal souls. In the fat rat-infested, decrepit tenement called Heavy Rock Manor, the Virginia-based shock unit is one of the few groups striving to keep the power on and the hallways clear of gluttonous rap-rock/post-grunge False Marias. Yes, yes, Ashes of the Wake arrives via Epic Records, but this only will inflame the ire of the ignorant. For the rest of us, Lamb's ascendance to the majors melts a little more of the crap rock golden calf. Where previous efforts were fully automatic hot LZs, they were also slightly muddled for the very same reason. They fired in all directions. With Ashes, producer Machine has sharpened the corner of every riff and tightened the turns on classicist metal gallops. Best of all, Randy Blythe's furious yawp is more focused. Rather than simply being another scary voice shouter, Blythe becomes Lamb of God's threshold of pain conduit. "Laid to Rest" begins with his measured statements -- "If there was a single day I could live...I'd trade all the others away" -- flanked by the at-odds guitars of Willie Adler and Mark Morton. But then Blythe unleashes his demonic throat, and the guitars leap over and across one another like basilisks on a prowl for ibex kids. "Hourglass" offers more, its interlocking rhythms and breakdowns harking to the dark lands of Scandinavia. But it doesn't go all the way there. This is American metal, after all, meaning that, in the tradition of Pantera and Poison the Well, large-form grandiosity is sacrificed in favor of a muscularity derived from hardcore and hard living. The aptly named "Omerta" begins with that code's reading. "Whoever appeals to the law against his fellow man is either a fool or a coward." It proceeds to stalk slowly into gear, the sound of a wounded man coming after his would-be murderers. "Blood of the Scribe" refits death metal's cadence for a leaner, meaner era; the less than subtle "Now You've Got Something to Die For" offers the kids a new unifying chant, not to mention some spectacularly martial instrumental breaks. Drummer Chris Adler really shines here, with Machine ensuring his snare is a steely bullet fired by viscous double bass gunpowder. Instrumental freaks will swallow the title track whole. Guest soloists Alex Skolnick (Testament) and Chris Poland (Megadeth) each get a taste, alongside Morton and Adler -- their insane fretting sounds like a city exploding. That's what Lamb of God does for us, what it does for metal in the 21st century. With the genre getting clogged by PVC goofs and Alice in Chains impersonators, Lamb of God balances the equation of power, rage, tradition, and craft. It kills the filler.© Johnny Loftus /TiVo

Renowned producer Trevor Horn presents his latest compilation, Trevor Horn Reimagines the 80s. This collection reinterprets a multitude of '80s hits in an entirely new way: Horn wanted to rebuild some of the '80s biggest singles from the ground up, with modern production standards. Several guest vocalists appear throughout the record, including Robbie Williams, Seal, and Tony Hadley.© Liam Martin /TiVo

Spanning the group's prime period of 1983 to 1993, Saturnine Martial & Lunatic is an odd, incomplete collection of B-sides and rarities from Tears For Fears. Although this material is valuable for hardcore fans, it only scratches the surface of the group's B-sides. Nevertheless, several prime tracks -- including the non-LP U.K. hit single "The Way You Are" and a cover of David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes" -- are featured, which makes it worthwhile for dedicated fans, even though its incompleteness (especially since it comes at the expense of several weaker latter-day cuts) will make Saturnine Martial & Lunatic a frustrating listen.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Once again, director Ridley Scott has employed composer Hans Zimmer to score a motion picture, following their collaboration on Gladiator (2000) and Hannibal (2001). From ancient Rome to the world of a serial killer, Scott's settings vary considerably, and Black Hawk Down presents yet another musical challenge, set in Mogadishu, Somalia, during a failed mission by UN peacekeeping (i.e., U.S. military) personnel in 1993. Zimmer has done his homework on traditional North African music as it meets the late 20th century; his work combines identifiably Middle Eastern strains with elements of techno. The key to the approach is the use of vocalists Baaba Maal ("Hunger," "Still") and Rachid Taha (Taha's own co-composition "Barra Barra"). Although the music is quite aggressive early on, the later tracks reflect the mission's troubles. Denez Prigent and Lisa Gerrard's "Gortoz a Ran -- J'Attends" is distinctly elegiac, and the symphonic "Leave No Man Behind" toward the end makes it clear that, even if men haven't been left behind, they haven't necessarily been brought back alive. This sadness is given its final expression in a new recording of the traditional song "Minstrel Boy" by Joe Strummer and the Mescaleros (an earlier version is on their 2001 album Global a Go-Go) that plays over the credits. Zimmer used an unusual method to play this score, putting together the BHD Band, consisting of himself on keyboards, guitarists Michael Brook and Heitor Pereira, and string players Craig Eastman and Martin Tillman, and in effect jamming on much of the music, with orchestral scoring added later. He has achieved a style that works well for the downbeat, if suspenseful, tone of the film and its exotic setting.© TiVo

Renowned producer Trevor Horn presents his latest compilation, Trevor Horn Reimagines the 80s. This collection reinterprets a multitude of '80s hits in an entirely new way: Horn wanted to rebuild some of the '80s biggest singles from the ground up, with modern production standards. Several guest vocalists appear throughout the record, including Robbie Williams, Seal, and Tony Hadley.© Liam Martin /TiVo

The fifth in a series of box sets that break down David Bowie's discography into cohesively thematic eras, Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) covers the most years of any of the sets to date: nearly a full decade, almost twice as long as the period chronicled on 2018's Loving the Alien (1983-1988). Eagle-eyed observers will note that there's a gap of four years separating the material on Loving the Alien and Brilliant Adventure: that would be when Bowie led Tin Machine, the noisy guitar outfit whose discography operates under a different contract than his solo work. That means Brilliant Adventure picks up with Black Tie White Noise, an artful blue-eyed soul excursion from 1993, then runs through The Buddha of Suburbia -- an excellent, adventurous album that flew under the radar in 1993 -- the 1995 Brian Eno reunion 1. Outside, 1997's Earthling, and 1999's Hours, adding an expanded version of the BBC concert from 2000 originally released as part of 2000's Bowie at the Beeb, a three-disc collection of remixes, edits, and B-sides called ReCall 5 and Toy, an unreleased album from 2001. Heavily bootlegged over the years, Toy features Bowie revisiting a bunch of songs he wrote in the '60s, most written and recorded prior to "Space Oddity." Hearing Bowie apply Hours aesthetics to swinging, mod-ish material is odd but mildly appealing; it's a slight record but it's nice to have it as part of the official discography. The rest of the box follows a familiar and comforting pattern, confirming that the '90s were a bit of a creative resurgence for Bowie. The pair of 1993 albums are complementary in their strengths, the period affectations of 1. Outside wind up giving the album complexity that Bowie further explores on Earthling. Given that stretch, it's little wonder that he sounds a bit spent on Hours, but the BBC Live show is quite good and it's fun to sort through the grab-bag of ReCall.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The soundtrack to Brett Morgen's David Bowie film Moonage Daydream essentially offers the audio component of his movie, a two-hour-and-50-minute tapestry of exclusive edits, remixes, live performances, interview snippets and other oddities. Morgen meant the mix to be blasted at top volume, but even without the power of IMAX speakers -- or visuals, for that matter -- Moonage Daydream manages to convey the feeling of a journey through space, floating with no particular direction but with memorable mile markers. Here, the Buddah of Suburbia instrumental "Ian Fish U.K. Heir" acts as a connective tissue that threads together slightly altered versions of familiar songs and melodies along with unearthed live performances. Occasionally, the particulars are interesting -- Jeff Beck shreds on a live version of "The Jean Genie" where "Love Me Do" pops up during the jam -- but the emphasis is not on the individual tracks, it's on the whole, offering a specific and evocative (if not entirely thorough) portrait of Bowie that's enchanting and beguiling, especially for listeners already well-acquainted with the entirety of his catalog.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo