Obsessed with carnality as he is, it was only a matter of time before Jason Mraz realized that it's better to sound sexy than to blather about it incessantly. This monumental moment arrives on his third album, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, easily his sleekest collection of sounds and his only album to contain a suggestion of seduction within its grooves. Actually, We Sing is Mraz's only album to actually groove, as he sets down his acoustic guitar for much of the album and rides along on smooth rhythms partially indebted to '80s blue-eyed soul by Hall & Oates and Steve Winwood -- in that sense, the album recalls John Mayer's Continuum -- but he relies more heavily on Thriller, mixing it up with some modern neo-soul that gives this a surprisingly soulful sound. Mraz can glide on these surfaces, leaning on the gentle art of insinuation instead of goosing his paramour, but old habits die hard: it's only a matter of time before he punctures the seduction by scatting sophomorically, slipping in juvenile come-ons ("You make my slacks tight"), or stuttering manic syncopations on "The Dynamo of Volition." Mraz is also prone to terminal cuteness, drafting in a kids chorus to close out the coda of "Coyotes" and mewling out phrases like "always a goody doer," and while these are often so close-miked and forthright they're hard to ignore, they're also just not as prevalent as they were on the icky Mr. A-Z. Also, they're cleverly camouflaged beneath that gossamer gloss, typified by the quite catchy "Butterfly," whose Quincy Jones-styled horns disguise his mildly queasy oral sex puns. Mraz's lyrics don't stand up to such close scrutiny -- something the McCartney-esque, perhaps autobiographical divorce ballad "Love for a Child" ("Was it my mom who put dad out on his ass/Or the other way around") makes plain -- but the nice thing about the soulful shimmer of We Sing is that it's so slick that it's easy to ignore the gibberish spilling out of Mraz's mouth and just enjoy the sunny, easy sound.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

During her career, Polly Jean Harvey has had as many incarnations as she has albums. She's gone from the Yeovil art student of her debut Dry, to Rid of Me's punk poetess to To Bring You My Love and Is This Desire?'s postmodern siren; on Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea -- inspired by her stay in New York City and life in the English countryside -- she's changed again. The album cover's stylish, subtly sexy image suggests what its songs confirm: PJ Harvey has grown up. Direct, vulnerable lyrics replace the allegories and metaphors of her previous work, and the album's production polishes the songs instead of obscuring them in noise or studio tricks. On the album's best tracks, such as "Kamikaze" and "This Is Love," a sexy, shouty blues-punk number that features the memorable refrain "I can't believe life is so complex/When I just want to sit here and watch you undress," Harvey sounds sensual and revitalized. The New York influences surface on the glamorous punk rock of "Big Exit" and "Good Fortune," on which Harvey channels both Chrissie Hynde's sexy tough girl and Patti Smith's ferocious yelp. Ballads like the sweetly urgent, piano and marimba-driven "One Line" and the Thom Yorke duet "This Mess We're In" avoid the painful depths of Harvey's darkest songs; "Horses in My Dreams" also reflects Harvey's new emotional balance: "I have pulled myself clear," she sighs, and we believe her. However, "We Float"'s glossy choruses veer close to Lillith Fair territory, and longtime fans can't help but miss the visceral impact of her early work, but Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea doesn't compromise her essential passion. Hopefully, this album's happier, more direct PJ Harvey is a persona she'll keep around for a while.© Heather Phares /TiVo

By the time of 2000's Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, PJ Harvey was still finding ways to reinvent her music. While the album's sonics were even smoother than on Is This Desire?, Harvey traded her previous record's moody character studies for direct songwriting that feels even more genuine on Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea: The Demos. As on her previous collections of sketches, Harvey's strategies for her songs are clearly mapped out. Aside from the trip-hop-tinged beats on "A Place for Us" and "We Float," there are few drastic differences from the demos to the finished versions, but even when the instrumentation is as simple as Harvey and her guitar, it never feels like anything is missing. This raw minimalism heightens the songs' intimacy, particularly on "This Mess We're In," where Harvey sings alone instead of being joined by Thom Yorke, and on the somber sensuality of "Beautiful Feeling." Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea's undercurrent of happiness -- one of its most surprising but welcome artistic choices -- jumps out loud and clear on a throaty rendition of "Good Fortune" and an emphatic "This Is Love." As demos, the album's rockers feel lean and unencumbered: Harvey's spine-tingling wails and fuzzed-out guitar have all the crackling immediacy of a live performance on "The Whores Hustle and the Hustlers Whore." Elsewhere, tributes to the power of New York City like "Big Exit" and "Kamikaze" pay homage to Patti Smith and hint at the energy that was about to burst forth from acts like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. While Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea's glossy rock and straightforward ballads were different than anything else in Harvey's body of work, the album's demos remain consistently entertaining for fans who want to hear her music come into being.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Obsessed with carnality as he is, it was only a matter of time before Jason Mraz realized that it's better to sound sexy than to blather about it incessantly. This monumental moment arrives on his third album, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, easily his sleekest collection of sounds and his only album to contain a suggestion of seduction within its grooves. Actually, We Sing is Mraz's only album to actually groove, as he sets down his acoustic guitar for much of the album and rides along on smooth rhythms partially indebted to '80s blue-eyed soul by Hall & Oates and Steve Winwood -- in that sense, the album recalls John Mayer's Continuum -- but he relies more heavily on Thriller, mixing it up with some modern neo-soul that gives this a surprisingly soulful sound. Mraz can glide on these surfaces, leaning on the gentle art of insinuation instead of goosing his paramour, but old habits die hard: it's only a matter of time before he punctures the seduction by scatting sophomorically, slipping in juvenile come-ons ("You make my slacks tight"), or stuttering manic syncopations on "The Dynamo of Volition." Mraz is also prone to terminal cuteness, drafting in a kids chorus to close out the coda of "Coyotes" and mewling out phrases like "always a goody doer," and while these are often so close-miked and forthright they're hard to ignore, they're also just not as prevalent as they were on the icky Mr. A-Z. Also, they're cleverly camouflaged beneath that gossamer gloss, typified by the quite catchy "Butterfly," whose Quincy Jones-styled horns disguise his mildly queasy oral sex puns. Mraz's lyrics don't stand up to such close scrutiny -- something the McCartney-esque, perhaps autobiographical divorce ballad "Love for a Child" ("Was it my mom who put dad out on his ass/Or the other way around") makes plain -- but the nice thing about the soulful shimmer of We Sing is that it's so slick that it's easy to ignore the gibberish spilling out of Mraz's mouth and just enjoy the sunny, easy sound.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

There's a difference between accessibility and focus, which Pavement illustrate with their fourth album, Brighten the Corners. Arriving on the heels of the glorious mess of Wowee Zowee, the cohesive sound and laid-back sarcasm of Brighten the Corners can give the record the illusion of being accessible, or at the very least a retreat toward the songcraft of Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain. And the record is calm, with none of the full-out blasts of noise that marked all of their previous releases. It would be easy to dismiss the absence of noise as mere maturity, or a move toward more accessible songcraft, but neither statement is entirely true. Brighten the Corners is mature but wise-assed, melodic but complex -- it's a record that reveals its gifts gradually, giving you enough information the first time to make you want come back for more. At first, the dissonant singsong verse of "Stereo" seems awkward, but it's all pulled into perspective with the gleeful, addictive outburst of the chorus, and that is a microcosm of the album's appeal. The first time around, the winding melody of "Shady Lane," the psycho jangle pop of "Date With Ikea," the epic grace of "Type Slowly," and the speedy rush of "Embassy Row" make an impression, but repeated listens reveal sonic and lyrical details that make them indelible. Similarly, Stephen Malkmus' hip-hop inflections on "Blue Hawaiian" and the quiet beauty of "Transport Is Arranged" unfold over time. While the preponderance of slow songs and laid-back production makes the album more focused than Wowee Zowee, it doesn't have the rich diversity of its predecessor -- "Type Slowly" comes closest to the grand, melancholic beauty of "Grounded" -- but it remains a thoroughly compelling listen.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The title of Jason Mraz's Beautiful Mess: Live on Earth is unnecessarily complicated, but this CD/DVD set -- the concert runs two songs longer on the DVD -- is pretty simple, capturing a show Mraz gave at the Charter One Pavilion in Chicago in August 2009. Colbie Caillat shows up to duet on "Lucky," but that's really the only surprise here: Mraz is in total crowd-pleaser mode, running through hits and favorites, bending arrangements and improvising a little bit, but not enough to alter the feel or familiarity of the songs, creating a show that's a good time for fans, which is all that this needed to be, anyway.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Obsessed with carnality as he is, it was only a matter of time before Jason Mraz realized that it's better to sound sexy than to blather about it incessantly. This monumental moment arrives on his third album, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, easily his sleekest collection of sounds and his only album to contain a suggestion of seduction within its grooves. Actually, We Sing is Mraz's only album to actually groove, as he sets down his acoustic guitar for much of the album and rides along on smooth rhythms partially indebted to '80s blue-eyed soul by Hall & Oates and Steve Winwood -- in that sense, the album recalls John Mayer's Continuum -- but he relies more heavily on Thriller, mixing it up with some modern neo-soul that gives this a surprisingly soulful sound. Mraz can glide on these surfaces, leaning on the gentle art of insinuation instead of goosing his paramour, but old habits die hard: it's only a matter of time before he punctures the seduction by scatting sophomorically, slipping in juvenile come-ons ("You make my slacks tight"), or stuttering manic syncopations on "The Dynamo of Volition." Mraz is also prone to terminal cuteness, drafting in a kids chorus to close out the coda of "Coyotes" and mewling out phrases like "always a goody doer," and while these are often so close-miked and forthright they're hard to ignore, they're also just not as prevalent as they were on the icky Mr. A-Z. Also, they're cleverly camouflaged beneath that gossamer gloss, typified by the quite catchy "Butterfly," whose Quincy Jones-styled horns disguise his mildly queasy oral sex puns. Mraz's lyrics don't stand up to such close scrutiny -- something the McCartney-esque, perhaps autobiographical divorce ballad "Love for a Child" ("Was it my mom who put dad out on his ass/Or the other way around") makes plain -- but the nice thing about the soulful shimmer of We Sing is that it's so slick that it's easy to ignore the gibberish spilling out of Mraz's mouth and just enjoy the sunny, easy sound.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The debut album by Nonkeen sports an extensive back story, dating back to the trio's first musical experiments growing up in Germany in the late '80s. Nils Frahm, Frederic Gmeiner, and Sebastian Singwald would trade tapes back and forth between Hamburg and Berlin, creating music with whatever instruments they had on hand, making up skits and stories, and updating each other about their lives. During summer breaks, they'd convene and play music together, eventually playing summer concerts at a fairground. This came to a halt when an accident occurred, smashing their instruments and damaging their spirits. It wasn't until a decade later that the trio members found themselves all living in Berlin, and decided to look beyond the tragic experience and reignite the creative spark of their initial collaboration. They revisited the tapes of their youth, sampling and reworking ideas, and taking off into new directions. The tracks that make up their debut album, The Gamble, were pieced together from informal rehearsal sessions over the course of nearly a decade, all recorded on multi-track tape recorders in basement or apartment studios. There's definitely a loose, casual spirit to them, but given how the three musicians have become proficient over the years (particularly Frahm, who is now a world-renowned pianist and composer), it's no surprise that the results sound highly developed and considered rather than amateur and sloppy. The mood of the album is generally low-key and occasionally a bit melancholy, with the song title of "Saddest Continent on Earth" accurately reflecting its blue mood. The shuffling drums, disruptive bass, and circular synths of "Ceramic People" are considerably more uptempo, and feel breezy yet frantic, especially as additional drums layer on the track during the second half. "Animal Farm" and "Chasing God Through Palmyra" both seem to be variations on the same Cluster-like rhythm, burying a muttering vocal loop underneath mellow keyboards and a shaker-driven beat; "Chasing God" is the faster of the two, and it has a bit more of an anxious feel to it. Much of the album has the sort of jazz-but-not-quite sensibility of Ambiq or Moritz von Oswald Trio, and its more rhythmic moments are in line with many of the younger Krautrock-inspired acts on the Bureau B label, but the trio members allow themselves to drift out of orbit with spacious ambient cuts such as the closing "Re: Turn!" The overall result is a spirited collaboration that digs through the past for inspiration, but seems to prefer to keep memories a bit hazy.© Paul Simpson /TiVo

Swing Out Sister's grand Beautiful Mess was issued by Avex Trax in Japan in 2008, and licensed by Shanachie for release in July of 2009. While the duo of lead vocalist Corinne Drewery and musical arranger and multi-instrumentalist Andy Connell fell off the musical radar -- in a popular sense -- in the United States in the '90s, the duo has consistently made fresh, sophisticated, compelling pop since their inception in the '80s when they scored big worldwide with hits such as "Breakout" and "Twilight World." The duo have utilized both keyboard-driven approaches -- such as on 1999's brilliant Filth and Dreams, which was altogether darker recording that nonetheless kept their pop leanings intact -- and full-band and even orchestral approaches. Beautiful Mess is one of the latter, and finds the pair engaging a fine band that includes the vocal backing group Gina Foster & the Champagnettes as well as string arrangements and excellent guitar and piano approaches. The set is also more jazz-inflected, though its pop roots are unmistakable and prevalent. Check out the gorgeous "Time Tracks You Down," with its obvious nod to Dusty Springfield, and the lithe fingerpopping, bittersweet elegance on the ballad "Butterfly." But that's not it by a long shot. The taut samba-meets-soul feel of "All I Say, All I Do," and the slippery nocturnal groove of the title track ice the cake on one of Swing Out Sister's very best efforts. This is musical sophistication presented with grace and an unpretentious accessibility that's hard to imagine anyone disliking. © Thom Jurek /TiVo

The most impressive part of this album is the list of names that contributed. Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy from Soul Asylum sing on "Blood Is Thicker Than Water," Benmont Tench plays the organ, and Michael Penn sings on "Body and Soul?" Joe Hardy produced along with Pete Anderson and Al Kooper, the latter of whom oversaw "Adios Lounge," a duet between singer Bob Forrest and Tom Waits. Oddly, the all-male rock band chose another female for inspiration (they cover Joan Armatrading's "Weakness in Me") after paying homage to Lena Horne and Tracy Chapman on the previous record. Even this star-studded lineup couldn't save the band, whose members were their own worst enemies and basically fell off the musical map after its release.© Denise Sullivan /TiVo

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This Beautiful Mess is the second release of Sixpence None the Richer. This introspective effort shows a hint of things to come with its poetic lyrics and slightly guitar-heavy melodies. Sixpence digs deep with their songs, refusing to limit themselves to strictly "Christian" concerns, one of their trademarks that has caused some "crossover" backlash. "Within a Room, Somewhere" is one of the strongest songs of the album, with Leigh (Bingham) Nash adding sweet poignancy to Matt Slocum's lyrics. "Melting Alone" keenly expresses the pain of loneliness. This album does have some slow moments, and gets a bit long by the time the last few tracks come around. All in all, this is a good album showcasing their promising future.© Melinda Hill /TiVo