The classic Marley album, the one that any fair-weather reggae fan owns, Legend contains 14 of his greatest songs, running the gamut from "I Shot the Sheriff" to the meditative "Redemption Song" and the irrepressible "Three Little Birds." Some may argue that the compilation shortchanges his groundbreaking early ska work or his status as a political commentator, but this isn't meant to be definitive, it's meant to be an introduction, sampling the very best of his work. And it does that remarkably well, offering all of his genre-defying greats and an illustration of his excellence, warmth, and humanity. In a way, it is perfect since it gives a doubter or casual fan anything they could want. Let's face it, the beauty and simplicity of Marley's music was as important as his message, and that's captured particularly well here.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

If it's not broken, why try and fix it? This is the overriding sentiment one is struck with while listening to Lewis Capaldi's sophomore album, 2023's yearningly romantic Broken by Desire to Be Heavenly Sent. The follow-up to his commercially successful debut, 2019's Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent, Broken by Desire is full of the same kind of emotive, piano-driven balladry that helped make previous singles like "Someone You Loved" and "Before You Go" memorably chart-topping U.K. hits. Working with the same cadre of trusted songwriter/producers, including TMS, Phil Plested, Nick Atkinson, and Edd Holloway, among others, Capaldi brings a similarly earnest, open-hearted approach to his work here. Tracks like "Wishing You the Best," "Pointless," and the unexpectedly clubby "Forget Me" are soundtrack-ready anthems that nicely showcase Capaldi's throaty croon. © Matt Collar /TiVo

"Blinding Lights" artistically and commercially was so optimal for Abel Tesfaye that it quickly became his signature song, and was only two years old when Billboard announced that it had rocketed past Chubby Checker's "The Twist" to claim the title of all-time number one hit. For the follow-up to "Blinding Lights" parent album After Hours, Tesfaye delves deeper into the early- to mid-'80s pop aesthetic. He resurfaces with a conceptual sequel designed as a broadcast heard by a motorist stuck in a purgatorial tunnel. The primary collaborators are "Blinding Lights" co-producers Max Martin and Oscar Holter, plus fellow After Hours cohort Daniel Lopatin, whose airwaves-themed 2020 LP Magic Oneohtrix Point Never was executive produced by Tesfaye. Instead of scrambled voices like those heard on the OPN album, Dawn FM features recurrent announcements from Jim Carrey as a serene and faintly creepy character, or maybe himself, intonating end-of-life entertainment and counsel. The other unlikely appearances -- Quincy Jones with a spoken autobiographical interlude, Beach Boy Bruce Johnston somewhere in the cocksure "how it's going" outlier "Here We Go...Again" -- are ostentatious. In the main, this is a space for Tesfaye to fully indulge his frantic romantic side as his co-conspirators whip up fluorescent throwback Euro-pop with muscle and nuance. Tesfaye's almost fathomless vocal facility elevates even the most rudimentary expressions of co-dependency, despair, regret, and obsession, and he helps it all go down easier with station ID jingles and an amusingly hyped-up ad for "a compelling work of science fiction" called (the) "After Life." The set peaks early with a sequence of dejected post-disco jams that writhe, percolate, and chug. Most of these songs surpass the bulk of Daft Punk's similarly backward-gazing Random Access Memories, projecting the same lust for life with underlying existential doom as Italo disco nuggets such as Ryan Paris' "Dolce Vita." Toward the end of that first-half stretch, Tesfaye reaffirms his R&B roots and affinity for Michael Jackson with a cut built from Alicia Myers' 1981 gospel boogie classic "I Want to Thank You." After that, it slows down and stretches out a bit to varying effect, dipping into Japanese city pop for the bittersweet and remorseful "Out of Time" and edging ever so achingly toward Latin freestyle with "Don't Break My Heart." Just before Carrey's epilogue, Tesfaye and company pick up the pace with "Less Than Zero." Rather than use the title as a prompt to sink back into detailing debauchery, Tesfaye makes the song this album's "Scared to Live," a sentimental ballad that's hard to resist. © Andy Kellman /TiVo

The Very Best of 1989-2023 is a career spanning compilation from Scottish pop/rock band Texas. As an all encompassing look at their career, this record features all of their greatest hits, including "Summer Son," "I Don't Want a Lover," and "Black-Eyed Boy."© Liam Martin /TiVo

The Beach Boys have kicked off their 60th anniversary celebrations with a huge retrospective comprising of three records and 80 tracks. There’s no shortage of material—afterall, this group (which was formed in 1961 by the Wilson brothers) released a whopping nine albums between 1963 and 1965 alone! This release is based on their greatest hits album, Sounds of Summer: The Very Best of The Beach Boys (2003), so as you might expect it contains all their biggest tracks (Get Around, Surfin’ USA, Surfin Safari, Fun Fun, and the timeless Good Vibrations). They released their first single (and first hit), Surfin, in December 1961, and the doo-wop track immediately attracted the attention of Capitol Records, who would transform the song into a real money-making machine. “It’s hard to believe it’s been 60 years since we signed to Capitol Records and released our first album Surfin’ Safari”, the group explains in a joint statement. “We were just kids in 1962 and could have never dreamed about where our music would take us, that it would have such a big impact on the world, still be loved, and continue to be discovered by generation after generation.” This release was overseen by official Beach boys archivists Mark Linettand and Alan Boyd, and it’s just perfect for the summer. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

With three albums in three years, Drake maintains a productivity on par with his status on the American music scene. He delivers an album with flow in line with the rap blockbusters of the early 2020s, which rely on the opulence of their tracks, almost like outward signs of wealth. Far from going into autopilot, Drake explores an incalculable number of sound paradigms, his finger on the pulse of the latest trends, venturing into the emo rants of Yeat, who he features on  “IDGAF,” and into loops of dark samples on the hard hitting single “First Person,” where J. Cole also spits fire. With a touch of playfulness and mischief, the Canadian turns himself into a grimey schoolboy, shooting at anything that moves to settle the score and establish his dominance, then gets in his feelings on the very boom bap “8am in Charlotte.” For All the Dogs is a wiry, complex album, a deep dive into the psyche and the innumerable artistic desires of its artist. © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

The title speaks for itself: The Best of Everything! It’s also a wink at the track recorded by Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers for their 1985 album Southern Accents… Tom Petty fans will know all that by heart, but even if this 38-track compilation is mostly aimed at newcomers, the album does include two rarities: an alternative version of the song The Best of Everything and the unpublished track For Real. As an ambassador of timeless rock’n’roll who left us in October 2017 at the age of 66, Tom Petty’s brilliance is perfectly encapsulated in this double album. Much like Bruce Springsteen, Petty was the flame bearer for a rock rebellion. While the topics of his lyrics were somewhat exhausted, he searched for the perfect song through his irresistible choruses and glorious melodies… Surrounded by the Heartbreakers, he was like a rock’n’roll mathematician who knew all the different theorems like the back of his hand, whether they were British (The Rolling Stones and The Beatles) or North American (Dylan and The Byrds), all the while adding his own unique sound. At the end of the 70's, Petty laid down his four aces: Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers (1976), You're Gonna Get It (1978), Damn The Torpedoes (1979) and Hard Promises (1981). They were classic, classy albums that were superbly written and performed, and we find many of the key tracks in this compilation. Punk, post-punk and new wave were big at the time and the styles fed into Petty’s music, proving that he could make something new out of something old. Or rather that he could take the rock he had grown up with (he was 15/20 years old in the 1965/1970 golden age) and give it a new energy... “What’s great, Tom Petty said in a 2006 interview, is when someone comes up to me on the street and more or less thanks me for all my work. They often call it the soundtrack to their lives. It's an incredible feeling. And that's all an artist asks for.” Perhaps The Best Of Everything - The Definitive Career Spanning Hits Collection 1976-2016 would be better off labelled under “film music”! © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

With this CD, the young Canadian singer/pianist/arranger joins forces with producer Tommy LiPuma, who places his orchestral stamp on eight of the 13 tracks. It is the latest attempt to push Krall to an even wider pop/smooth jazz audience than she already enjoys. After all, Nat Cole, Wes Montgomery, and George Benson, among others, went this route. Wonder if she'd agree the cuts sans strings were more fun and challenging? Krall does get to it with central help from bassists John Clayton and Ben Wolfe, drummers Jeff Hamilton and Lewis Nash, and guitarist Russell Malone, all stellar players. Krall's voice is sweet and sexy. She's also flexible within her range and at times a bit kitschy, mostly the hopeless romantic. On this CD of love songs, it's clear she's cool but very much in love with this music. Bob Dorough's "Devil May Care" and the insistent "Best Thing for You" really click. Favorites are a decent Shearing-esque "Let's Fall in Love" with vibist Larry Bunker; a suave slow bossa on the opening number, "Let's Face the Music"; the lusher-than-lush title track; and especially an incredible horn-fired fanfare intro/outro on the hip "Pick Yourself Up." Some might call this fluff or mush, but it depends solely on your personal taste. This will certainly appeal to Krall's fans, lovers, and lovers at heart.© Michael G. Nastos /TiVo

Though Supertramp eventually broke through in the U.S. as radio-friendly pop/rockers, they started out in the prog rock mode, turning out lengthy songs full of fanciful instrumental interludes. Even at their proggiest, though, they always interjected a discernible Beatlesque pop sensibility that kept them well away from the excesses often associated with prog rock. The Very Best of Supertramp offers a handy career overview of the band's stylistic evolution. "Crime of the Century" shows the group at its most expansive and conceptual, but the bulk of this collection is in fact occupied by concise, well-crafted tunes full of infectious melodies, propulsive keyboards, and the tasty interjections of John Anthony Helliwell's saxophone. By the time they'd gotten around to their 1980s hit "It's Raining Again," Supertramp had fully transformed into a straight-ahead pop group, their McCartney-like tendencies coming fully to the fore. For most former art rockers, this might have been a woeful development, but in the case of the already-popwise Supertramp, it was a blessing, making this anthology a pleasure all the way down the line.© Jim Allen /TiVo