For younger listeners who may have trouble remembering that Sammy Hagar and Guy Fieri are two different people, the clunky food-as-sex metaphors of "Good Enough" won't do much to help unwind their confusion. That song—blown open with Sammy Hagar's bellowing, try-hard "Hellooooo, baaay-byyy"—was a generation's introduction to Van Halen, Mark II, and it was an instant line in the sand. On paper, 5150 hit all the notes of a "classic" Van Halen album, with brain-melting guitar lines, bombastic drum lines, hard-rock harmonies, and a show-off lead singer belting out lyrics that were kinda dumb and kinda naughty, but meant to inspire a good time. The thing was, the blueprint was different than the final build, and not only did Hagar bring his own signature moves (half-dork, half-corporate rocker), but the Van Halen brothers had also significantly altered their instrumental approaches in the two years since 1984 to be busier and more sharply defined, aided along by a decidedly more crystalline production approach. They even changed the Van Halen logo! Thus, 5150 was—both metaphorically and probably literally—a fine-tuned Lamborghini compared to the Roth era's hot-rodded street racer, resulting in a high-gloss, high-performance effort that yielded multiple hits ("Dreams," "Why Can't This Be Love," "Best of Both Worlds") and was double-platinum two months after its release. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

For younger listeners who may have trouble remembering that Sammy Hagar and Guy Fieri are two different people, the clunky food-as-sex metaphors of "Good Enough" won't do much to help unwind their confusion. That song—blown open with Sammy Hagar's bellowing, try-hard "Hellooooo, baaay-byyy"—was a generation's introduction to Van Halen, Mark II, and it was an instant line in the sand. On paper, 5150 hit all the notes of a "classic" Van Halen album, with brain-melting guitar lines, bombastic drum lines, hard-rock harmonies, and a show-off lead singer belting out lyrics that were kinda dumb and kinda naughty, but meant to inspire a good time. The thing was, the blueprint was different than the final build, and not only did Hagar bring his own signature moves (half-dork, half-corporate rocker), but the Van Halen brothers had also significantly altered their instrumental approaches in the two years since 1984 to be busier and more sharply defined, aided along by a decidedly more crystalline production approach. They even changed the Van Halen logo! Thus, 5150 was—both metaphorically and probably literally—a fine-tuned Lamborghini compared to the Roth era's hot-rodded street racer, resulting in a high-gloss, high-performance effort that yielded multiple hits ("Dreams," "Why Can't This Be Love," "Best of Both Worlds") and was double-platinum two months after its release. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Robert Palmer's grin on the cover of Double Fun is reflected throughout this light, feel-good, and funky album, recorded while he was living the life of an Island-loving expatriate with style and money to burn. With its laid-back sway, slap-and-pop bassline, steel drum melody, and lyrics that are really saying something, the big hit "Every Kinda People" is quintessential pre-Power Station Palmer, even if -- and considering his success with covers, maybe especially because -- he didn't write it. The easy and uplifting "Best of Both Worlds" is a great example of how slick can be an entirely positive thing and the closing rocker, "You're Gonna Get What's Coming," predicts his breakthrough American hit, "Bad Case of Loving You," with same combination of lust and guitar grit, just at a slower tempo. "Love Can Run Faster" -- which is "The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game" for the sandals set -- and "Come Over" ("You tease my monkey/You make my knees feel funky") also deserve special mention. If it wasn't for "Where Can It Go?" (pure, unashamed syrup) and the slinky cover "You Really Got Me" (clever for the first minute, trying afterward), this would rank among the singer's best. Even with its faults, fans of Palmer's more Caribbean-flavored work will find plenty to love here.© David Jeffries /TiVo

It's no secret that there's a deep animosity between Van Halen -- particularly their leader, guitarist Edward (formerly Eddie) Van Halen -- and their former frontman, David Lee Roth. His 1985 departure was acrimonious, and while his solo career paled in comparison to Van Halen's continued success with Sammy Hagar as their frontman, the group never escaped the shadow of Diamond Dave. No matter how many number one albums and singles they racked up, no matter how many shows they sold out, fans and critics alike preferred their gonzo days with Roth, and kept hounding the band for a reunion. Edward held his ground for years, but once the band stumbled with 1995's Balance, he reconsidered, courting Dave for an ill-fated mini-reunion for the 1996 hits compilation The Best of Van Halen, Vol. 1 -- a move that resulted not just in two enjoyable albeit underwhelming new songs, but also the alienation of Sammy, who left the band over this issue. Van Halen recruited Extreme vocalist Gary Cherone for 1998's Van Halen III, but instead of offering a new beginning, the album torpedoed the group's career, losing them fans and eventually their record contract. Years passed with no activity from the band, and the silence whetted the appetite for a reunion -- which for many meant a reunion with Dave, not Sammy, but bad blood can run deep, so when Edward pulled the rest of the band together for a comeback tour in 2004, he chose Hagar as the frontman. To promote the tour, the band assembled a new hits compilation, the double-disc, 36-track Best of Both Worlds. On the surface, this seemed like an ideal solution to the problems that plagued the half-baked Best Of, which at one disc couldn't possibly have fit the hits from both the Dave and Sam eras, but Best of Both Worlds turns out to be another botched collection, and one of the reasons it doesn't work as well as it should is that animosity toward David Lee Roth. Since the band's sound and popularity were built on the records they made with Roth, there was no way for Van Halen to ignore his contribution, but they do their damnedest to diminish it here. There are no pictures of Diamond Dave to be found in the artwork (unless you count the miniature reproductions of the sleeves of Van Halen and Women and Children First) and David Wild's liner notes mention him only twice -- once when he joins the band, once when he leaves -- while conspicuously lavishing praise on Sammy. As petty as this swipe is, it's understandable and could even be forgivable if the two discs were well assembled, but they're sabotaged by an absurd sequencing that alternates a Dave song with a Sammy song for the bulk of the entire collection. This is a jarring sequencing, to say the least, causing a whiplash change of tone, mood, and attitude with every song, which are otherwise well-chosen, containing the big hits from each era (the only exception is the boneheaded move to end the collection with three cuts from the 1993 live album Live: Right Here, Right Now, all Diamond Dave songs sung by Sammy). This attempt to elevate Sammy above Dave in the canon is a bit like trying to say Ronnie James Dio was more important to Black Sabbath than Ozzy Osbourne -- a piece of flat-out hyperbole that does a disservice to what the singer actually achieved. David Lee Roth was larger than life, a gonzo performance artist touched with genius who helped Van Halen seem bigger, sillier, grander than any other metal band; with him in front, they were giants, they were golden gods. Sammy Hagar was his opposite, an everyman who sang about girls and tequila, somebody who brought Van Halen back down to earth. Since part of the fun of rock stars is to have them be larger than life, a manifestation of the audience's dreams, fans naturally gravitate toward the Diamond Dave years, but there are merits to both approaches and both resulted in good to great music. But that's hard to appreciate on Best of Both Worlds, when the Dave and Sammy tunes are mixed up with no regard for chronological, musical, or emotional cohesiveness. The raw materials for a great Van Halen compilation are here -- it's just up to users to take these 36 songs and sequence them at home, on their CD players or iPods, to make this the compilation it should have been. [WEA International released the Very Best of Van Halen in 2004, which contains the exact same track listing.]© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Van Halen assembled their first live album, the double-disc Live: Right Here, Right Now, from a pair of shows performed in Fresno, California, in 1992. Their only live album to feature Sammy Hagar, the collection focused less on the David Lee Roth era, going so far as to include two of Hagar's solo songs ("One Way to Rock" and "Give to Live"). With the exception of the consistently impressive Eddie Van Halen, the album slows to a halt during the solo passages. Most of the time, the performances aren't all that different from the original studio recordings. Despite the moments of tedium, Live: Right Here, Right Now deserves to be in any real Van Halen fan's collection; those who aren't devoted to the band would be advised to stick with the original albums.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

One of the most appealing Disney pop confections in some time, the Hannah Montana soundtrack features the show's star Miley Cyrus singing cute, well-written songs that nod to teen-pop, rock and country. Tracks like "Just Like You" borrow every gimmick that producers like the Matrix have perfected in the early 2000s: acoustic guitars that give way to big, crunchy electric ones, shiny synths and backing vocals that sound like they were sung into a megaphone. However, Hannah Montana has some sharper-than-average songwriting going for it, especially on "If We Were a Movie"'s clever, catchy chorus: "If we were a movie"/You'd be the right guy/And I'd be the best friend that you'd fall in love with in the end." Songs like "The Best of Both Worlds" allude to Hannah Montana's double life as a pop star and a regular girl transported from Nashville to Malibu ("This is the Life"'s soaring country-pop sounds decidedly more like the former city than the latter), and the themes of having fun, being yourself and following your dreams wind throughout the album, especially on the spunky, new-wavey girl power anthem "I Got Nerve." Fittingly, though, Cyrus is the star of Hannah Montana. Her voice is surprisingly rich for a girl in her early teens, and she has more personality than many pop starlets her age, especially those in the Disney stable. Aside from the slight stumble of "Pumpin' Up the Party" -- a groove that ends up going nowhere -- the album does a great job of showcasing her charismatic vocals with strong melodies. Cyrus also performs a track as herself, "I Learned From You," a duet with her dad, Billy Ray, that has an earnest vibe that's more Vanessa Carlton than Hannah Montana. The soundtrack is rounded out with a few like-minded songs, such as Everlife's "Find Yourself in You" (which seems to be the template for Hannah's rock-edged pop) and the sparkly power pop of the Click Five's "Pop Princess." Hannah Montana is a sweet, starry-eyed, utterly charming soundtrack.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Midnight Oil's second international release found them ambitiously taking on a variety of lyrical causes in a variety of musical styles. Their basic approach, with its martial rhythms, chanted vocals, and guitar textures, served as a jumping-off place, but they always sounded more assured when they stuck to that, rather than trying other things. And the unrelentingly judgmental tone of the lyrics, sung with dead seriousness by Peter Garrett, tended to douse the album's potential enjoyment, too. (It's hard to dance when you're being lectured to.) It wasn't much of a surprise when Garrett decided to run for the Australian Senate shortly after this album's release.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Although Walker's second album was his biggest commercial success, actually reaching number one in Britain, it was not his greatest artistic triumph. His taste remains eclectic, encompassing Bacharach/David, Tim Hardin, and of course his main man Jacques Brel (who is covered three times on this album). And his own songwriting efforts hold their own in this esteemed company. "The Girls From the Streets" and "Plastic Palace People" show an uncommonly ambitious lyricist cloaked behind the over-the-top, schmaltzy orchestral arrangements, one more interested in examining the seamy underside of glamour and romance than celebrating its glitter. The Brel tune "Next" must have lifted a few teenage mums' eyebrows with its not-so-hidden hints of homosexuality and abuse. Another Brel tune, "The Girl and the Dogs," is less controversial, but hardly less nasty in its jaded view of romance. Some of the material is not nearly as memorable, however, and the over the top show ballad production can get overbearing. The album included his first Top 20 U.K. hit, "Jackie."© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

One can view The Best of Both Worlds as either an exercise in futility or a chance to become better acquainted with two very different incarnations of Marillion. Split up into the band's two eras, The Best of Both Worlds features 14 Fish-led compositions and 15 tracks from the Mach II lineup featuring former How We Live frontman Steve Hogarth on vocals. Truth be told, disc one features a plethora of spectacular essentials including "Script for Jesters Tear," "Assassing," and the single edits of "Kayleigh" and "Lavender." Revisiting songs like "Warm Wet Circle" and "Forgotten Son," it's easy to understand why this lot was so esteemed by their Euro audience. Oddly enough, and somewhat incomprehensibly, the epic "Fugazy" fails to make an appearance. Of the Hogarth era, the best material is culled from his debut with the band, Season's End and from Afraid of Sunlight. Everything in between is pretty iffy. This collection is obviously a quote-unquote, hit-driven compilation, so consequently, some of the better Hogarth moments like the title track from Season's End or Berlin are omitted. If you've ever been curious about the band, The Best of Both Worlds is a good place to start. For a deeper understanding, spend some time with Script for Jesters Tear, Misplaced Childhood, Clutching at Straws, and Season's End. For beginners only.© John Franck /TiVo

Both R. Kelly and Jay-Z were flying high around the time of The Best of Both Worlds, so the idea of a collaborative album was a reasonable one, following up the success of The Blueprint (2001) and TP-2.com (2000). The Best of Both Worlds falls terribly short of both artists' high standards, unfortunately, sounding as if the vocals were phoned in, which in the case of Jay-Z they probably were, for his contributions (interjections and verses, mainly) sound like filler here. Kelly fares better throughout The Best of Both Worlds, supplying some potent hooks and co-producing the tracks with the Trackmasters (i.e., Poke and Tone), but not even he can carry an album this uninspired. Still, there are some moments where the collaborations click, particularly on the album's singles, "Get This Money" and "Take You Home with Me." Overall, though, The Best of Both Worlds rates among the poorest efforts -- arguably the poorest -- in either Kelly's or Jay-Z's catalog to date.© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo

The Hannah Montana train -- which is ever so slowly turning into the Miley Cyrus train as the years go by -- continues with Best of Both Worlds Concert, the CD/DVD set to accompany the Hannah/Miley concert film of the same name. To be clear, the DVD in this set does not contain the concert film; it has a pair of live performances and some miscellaneous behind-the-scenes footage (thereby necessitating the purchase of the film separately). Instead, this is a soundtrack containing 14 songs from the movie split evenly between the fictional Hannah character and Miley herself, although anybody who doesn't follow the show can be forgiven for not noticing the difference between the two personas, as they do sound pretty similar on the surface. Of course, Best of Both Worlds Concert isn't for anybody who doesn't follow the show; this is another souvenir for those fans who can't live without the show, and in that regard it's perfectly fine -- a nice, polished piece of product that will tide them over until the next new Hannah/Miley album comes along (the safe money is on speculation that it will be the first full-fledged Miley Cyrus album at this stage).© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

For younger listeners who may have trouble remembering that Sammy Hagar and Guy Fieri are two different people, the clunky food-as-sex metaphors of "Good Enough" won't do much to help unwind their confusion. That song—blown open with Sammy Hagar's bellowing, try-hard "Hellooooo, baaay-byyy"—was a generation's introduction to Van Halen, Mark II, and it was an instant line in the sand. On paper, 5150 hit all the notes of a "classic" Van Halen album, with brain-melting guitar lines, bombastic drum lines, hard-rock harmonies, and a show-off lead singer belting out lyrics that were kinda dumb and kinda naughty, but meant to inspire a good time. The thing was, the blueprint was different than the final build, and not only did Hagar bring his own signature moves (half-dork, half-corporate rocker), but the Van Halen brothers had also significantly altered their instrumental approaches in the two years since 1984 to be busier and more sharply defined, aided along by a decidedly more crystalline production approach. They even changed the Van Halen logo! Thus, 5150 was—both metaphorically and probably literally—a fine-tuned Lamborghini compared to the Roth era's hot-rodded street racer, resulting in a high-gloss, high-performance effort that yielded multiple hits ("Dreams," "Why Can't This Be Love," "Best of Both Worlds") and was double-platinum two months after its release. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Most of Midnight Oil's late-'80s and early-'90s hits are on the band's first compilation, 20,000 Watt R.S.L.: Greatest Hits -- "Beds Are Burning," "The Dead Heart," "Dreamworld," "Blue Sky Mine," "Forgotten Years," "King of the Mountain," "Truganini" -- and many highlights from the group's early albums ("Power and the Passion," "Kosciuszko," "US Forces," "Best of Both Worlds," "Back on the Borderline," "Don't Wanna Be the One") are also present. The music is not sequenced chronologically -- it flips between the two periods of the group's career with no rhyme or reason, adding two new tracks ("What Goes On," "White Skin Black Heart") from the group's (then) forthcoming 1998 album, Redneck Wonderland. Even though the non-chronological running order is frustrating, it's a worthwhile retrospective, since the compilation features everything a casual fan could want.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The Temptations waited nearly ten years to work with '70s hit-making producer Thom Bell. While the Temptations sound as impeccable as ever, the compositions lacked the magic for which the quintet was known among their R&B followers. This collection of songs leans more toward the pop format. "Aiming at Your Heart" is an uptempo, homegrown R&B cut featuring Richard Street and Glenn Leonard on lead vocals, and it was the only single to crack the Billboard R&B charts (#36, 13 weeks). While Street gets gritty with his blaring baritone, Leonard's contrasting falsetto blossoms with agility as the two storm their way through the vamp. Melvin Franklin takes center stage on "What Else," a beautifully written number with a bright melody and a Temptations-style arrangement. Franklin's distinguishable bass sails through this mellow tune. While all the songs are worthy, the album should have been marketed to a crossover audience.© Craig Lytle /TiVo

After releasing 20 or so albums under the leadership of Rev. Clay Evans, Fellowship Chicago passed the torch of gospel music to Pastor Charles Jenkins, who was a relatively young 34 when it happened in 2010. Still, his respect for the music was vintage, and when combined with his upstart exuberance, the initial result was "Awesome." That aptly titled number gave the fellowship their first number one gospel hit since 1996, and much faster than anyone could have imagined, taking over local church choirs and gospel radio swiftly with its traditional structure, simple message, and wealth of emotion. The album it lands on, The Best of Both Worlds, does not disappoint. Humble and welcoming as ever, Jenkins first pays tribute to the Chicago legacy with a grand "Fellowship Medley" (first song in the medley? "What a Fellowship") before the very 2012 drum machines and funky horn sections come out, rocking "Joy Will" all the way up to highlight status. Tambourines shake and basslines stroll as "A Word for Me" takes it back to the '60s while "Praise on My Mind" pops with that Michael Jackson circa Bad feel, combining bright horns, a call-and-response chorus, and gritty guitars. What anchors it all is Jenkins' deep respect for the Fellowship's rich history and his desire to welcome all age groups. No matter how modern or classic he plays it, this really is The Best of Both Worlds. © David Jeffries /TiVo