Reference album, rock monument, pop masterpiece.

Nearly 30 years into a career that's moved on and off the fringes of the indie underground, Blonde Redhead continues to delight with their thoughtful approach to highly textured melodic pop. While Sit Down For Dinner is technically the band's follow-up album to 2014's sleepy-sounding Barragán, the intervening near-decade saw two notable things happen for the band. The first was the Masculin Féminin box set, which collated their earliest releases, and then there was 2019's release of Adult Baby, a solo album by guitarist/vocalist Kazu Makino. These releases helped foster the idea that Blonde Redhead was done as a band. Instead, they seemed to revitalize them. Sit Down For Dinner certainly doesn't find the band returning to their noisy roots or even the high-impact shoegaze of their mid-career era, but it seems as though there was a conscious effort to move away from the spare, icy whispers of Barragán. That said, for the most part, Dinner still works around a similar set of loping, midtempo grooves; it's much less minimalist in its approach, evoking the warm, diaphanous sounds associated with the band at its peak. While one would struggle to ever call a Blonde Redhead song "space rock"—the vocals of Makino and Amedeo Pace are far too distinct for interstellar hypnosis—there is a spaciousness to cuts like "Kiss Her Kiss Her," "If," and "I Thought You Should Know" that gives the album a sense of textural richness that's certainly welcome. The thematic centerpiece here—a title track split into two distinct parts—is a great example of the creative energy still at play with Blonde Redhead; the first part is all dreamy ambience with Makino's near-spoken-word lyrical delivery demanding the listener's attention, while the second part unfolds into a rhythm-driven pop number that bears little resemblance to its predecessor beyond the echoes of a keyboard figure that persist throughout both. And although there's a good deal of middle-age melancholy coursing through the material here, it's nonetheless exciting to see the band still finding ways to experiment with and evolve their sound. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Roughly a year after Avril Lavigne released her eponymous fifth album in 2013, she was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Her illness informs Head Above Water, which arrives six long years after Avril Lavigne -- the longest time separating Lavigne albums by far. Considering that half-decade gap and all the personal turmoil the singer endured, it scans that Head Above Water unveils a different Avril Lavigne, one who proudly bears her scars and is eager to share her journey. Head Above Water has its moments of darkness, but they're not sad, they're stirring. The album is designed to offer solace while also being a rallying call. Inspirational music, in other words, so it's not entirely surprising that its title track was serviced to Christian radio in advance of its release -- a gambit that proved successful, since "Head Above Water" went to number five on the Christian radio chart. Despite this, Head Above Water can't be called Christian music by any measure -- no album with "Dumb Blonde," a cherry bomb stomp of defiance featuring a Nicki Minaj verse could -- but its quieter, contemplative moments, of which there are many, do veer toward the aspirational pop of Rachel Platten, a sign Lavigne is no longer the mall punk of lore. Although the album is weighed heavily by ballads suited for adult contemporary radio, Lavigne fortunately peppers it with moments of levity: "Tell Me It's Over" sways with echoes of a '50s slow dance, "Crush" is so light it floats into the stratosphere, and "Bigger Wow" swells with strings reminiscent of vintage Vanessa Carlton. Such moments provide a needed contrast to the motivational ones while also connecting to Lavigne's bubblegum roots, a move that makes the overall maturation of the album feel earned.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

March 2020 sees Brian Eno releasing the first official album in collaboration with his younger brother Roger. The two have been in the studio together, way back in 1983 for the space odyssey Apollo: Atmospheres and Soundtracks which was released by Brian as a solo effort. The brothers also collaborated on the soundtrack to David Lynch’s Dune in 1984, but this record Mixing Colours is the first to feature the two names on an equal footing, and is the first for the prestigious German label Deutsche Grammophon. The album is made up of classical Schubert-style pieces composed by Roger Eno over the last 15 years on a MIDI keyboard. Brian then took these demos and put them through his ambient software, naming each one a different colour (nuanced as they are), such as the cosmic Blonde, the melancholic Rose Quartz or the morbid Obsidian. Although he is often described as a musical painter, could this Brian Eno’s most monochrome album? The British musician, who doesn’t have synesthesia, admits that while he does often compose with colours on his mind, he likes music for its “completely nonfigurative” nature, and enjoys this paradox: “I don’t think anyone listens to music in the hope of visualising a painting’s landscape. Yet many people find abstract painting inaccessible, despite music being a resolutely abstract art.” Something to think about when listening to this record while seeing the new Kandinsky exhibition. ©️ Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

Of all the great transitional albums in rock history, Joni Mitchell's For the Roses is one of the greatest. Coming after the spare, diaristic Blue—on which Mitchell both perfected and abandoned her evolution from the coffeehouse folk scene —and pointing the direction to the more jazz-flecked and kaleidoscopic sounds of Court and Spark, Roses found her going from strength to strength lyrically, while opening a pandora's box of musical possibilities in these songs' structures and instrumentation. The album starts familiarly enough, with the piano-and-vocals simplicity of "Banquet," which initially presents as an impressionistic number but quickly reveals itself to be a biting class critique far more cynical and angry than anything Mitchell had previously recorded. If that wasn't enough of a clue that Roses was going to be a very different Joni Mitchell album, "Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire" makes it clear that this was an artist intent on radically reshaping her sound. The song couples bleak lyrics about addiction and codependency with a lush arrangement that leans as heavily on well-deployed horn lines as it does on a full-bodied acoustic guitar attack accentuated by subtle studio effects. It's a complex sonic construction that is remarkably airy and light-filled, providing an unsettling contrast to its dark lyrics. Despite its rather dour opening, Roses has considerable tonal variety; after all it's also home to "You Turn Me On, I'm a Radio" one of Mitchell's most beloved accidents, written as an offhanded half-joke reply to her label's insistence that she get a song on the radio. Naturally, it wound up being a hit, but also sneakily subverts the "songs about radios get played on the radio" trope by being lined with "Wall of Joni" multi-tracked vocals, no discernable chorus, and a questionable take on whether radios are actually cool or not. There are also several other numbers that align closely with the singer-songwriter vibes of Blue, most notably the beautiful piano-and-vocals approach of "Lesson in Survival," but for the most part, Roses is an album that finds Mitchell pushing forward. "Let the Wind Carry Me" is profoundly intense lyrically ("Sometimes I get that feeling that I wanna settle and raise a child with somebody/ But it passes"), and wildly dynamic musically, with odd timings, quirky phrasings, and ethereal saxophone lines intertwined with gut-punch vocal harmonies. "Car on a Hill" would revisit some of the musical themes here just a few months later, but this number is far more challenging than its Court and Spark descendant. Likewise, "Blonde in the Bleachers"—a pure homage to the sanctifying (and suffocating) power of rock stardom—is perched upon such a jazzy foundation that it wouldn't have been out of place on The Hissing of Summer Lawns three years later. This "in-between-ness" has often found For the Roses left out of conversations extolling the virtues of the records it came before and after, but that very aspect is what makes it such a remarkably unique and utterly essential album in Mitchell's catalog. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

There have been many, many Dolly Parton compilations over the years, but RCA/Legacy's 2005 set The Essential Dolly Parton is one of the handful that gets it right. Spanning two discs and 37 tracks, this set covers her entire career, from her 1967 debut, Hello, I'm Dolly, to her 2001 bluegrass comeback album, Little Sparrow, but the bulk of this set concentrates on her hitmaking years for RCA in the '70s and '80s. Since Dolly had so many hits, not all of them can be included even on a double-disc collection, but this does a tremendous job of picking the biggest and the best of them. Roughly, the first disc covers her first decade of recording, including a healthy dose of her inventive country-folk material from the early '70s, while the second disc covers her slicker crossover hits from the '80s. Dividing her material in this fashion makes each disc consistent within itself, and helps make this a more listenable set than such similar career-spanning collections as 1993's The RCA Years. While Raven's excellent Mission Chapel Memories: 1971-1975 documents her most creative period more effectively, this tells the story of her entire career, and it's the best of its kind of compilation yet assembled.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Like their debut album, Thievery Corporation's second, The Mirror Conspiracy, is a pleasant album of sublime mid-tempo trip-hop, reminiscent of easy listening groove music, and continually referencing the breezier, atmospheric side of Brazilian, Jamaican, French, and Indian forms. The nocturnal dub-poetry of "Treasures" sets a tone for the bruising basslines and echoey keys throughout the album, and "Lebanese Blonde" is another early highlight, with the graceful vocalese of Pam Bricker framing live sitar by Rob Myers and a Jamaican-style horn section. Brazil represents with a triple-shot of "Air Batucada," "So Com Voce" (with vocals from Bebel Gilberto), and "Samba Tranquille." French chanteuse Lou Lou adds a bit of downtempo continental flair on "Le Monde" and "Shadows of Ourselves," and Thievery Corporation even samples Ella Fitzgerald on the ambient-jungle closer "Tomorrow." As on their first LP, Garza and Hilton occasionally appear satisfied to just push a few grooves and reference their favorite styles of music over the top -- at the expense of any new ideas -- but The Mirror Conspiracy is excellently produced and almost as stylish as the duo's swinging suits on the cover.© John Bush /TiVo

First things first: There is no discussing Dogstar without talking about the reason the trio is famous—bassist Keanu Reeves. And there is no dismissing the fact that they traded off his Hollywood fame in the late 1990s; what other band toured and got the chance to open for Bowie at the Palladium (in 1995) despite not having a radio hit or even an American release for three years after that? They were the quintessential "big in Japan" band and broke up after their last 2002 show there. But in March 2023, Dogstar played a Napa, California, music festival and let it be known that they were back—and releasing their first album in 24 years, with producer Dave Trumfio (Wilco, OK Go) at the board. It's solid, cleanly produced and age-appropriate adult-contemporary, but maybe not the most exciting record you've heard this year. Opener "Blonde" is poppy and muscular with a dash of New Romantic flair courtesy of singer-guitarist Bret Domrose, who delivers lines with a sense of drama that recalls Ian McCulloch or Daniel Ash. Killers-aspiring "How the Story Ends" starts off with thrumming bass from Reeves—why not put the spotlight on the celebrity?—but he has a better, almost goth line on "Overhang" and casts a dark, shadowy presence on the Love and Rockets-esque "Glimmer." Reeves is no spotlight hog, though, and never overplays it; on songs like hard-rocking "Lily," he leaves air where others might be tempted to fill it with something busy. Domrose's delivery pushes for the high end on "Everything Turns Around," one of the band's sunnier efforts, and flies aloft at the end of lines for "Sleep." Drummer Rob Mailhouse's crisp drums pop on peppy "Sunrise" as Reeves' playful bass runs up and down. The band really comes to life on "Breach," with buzzes with an air of menace and urgency, Domrose's guitar searing. "Dillon Street," which shares a name with the band's record label, jangles with guitar and harmonica as Domrose seems to deliver wish-fulfillment to Keanu fans: "You can turn his music on/ Forget about everything that's gone wrong/ Told you, he can hold you/ And you don't have to feel so alone ... You don't have to worry when he's there/ To sing you to sleep." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Though the sudden embrace of the trappings of goth culture via Anne Rice was a bit odd, given Napolitano's long-standing fascination with both Catholic and Mexican imagery (and the elements of sex and death prevalent in both) it wasn't too strange. Her songwriting and singing focus remains much more roots-oriented, as the opening strut/stroll of "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)" makes clear. Not that she and the band can't kick out the jams as well -- immediately following that is "The Sky Is a Poisonous Garden," a punk-speed thrash with deliciously decadent imagery to boot. The most well known song was "Joey," which actually got some top 40 airplay; while it has a certain catchiness to it, ultimately it comes off as a less successful Heart song from the same era, which is saying something. Far more successful is nearly everything else on the album, from the dark chime of "Caroline," addressing a departed friend, to the soothing "Lullabye," which far from being a mere kiddie tune is a great love song with some fantastic guitar from Mankey. R.E.M.'s Peter Buck adds mandolin to "Darkening of the Light," which adds to the song's mysterious, haunting edge, while "I Don't Need a Hero" is barely there, the softest of music accompanying Napolitano's lyric. Her singing throughout Bloodletting is passionate and catchy, with a deep throaty ache on many cuts. Everything wraps up with a version of Andy Prieboy's "Tomorrow, Wendy." Having done a duet with him on his own recording of the song, she takes full lead here, delivering a bravura performance of the bitter, heartbreaking lyric.© Ned Raggett /TiVo

Billy Joel had never taken as much time to record an album as he did with River of Dreams, and its troubled birth is clear upon the first listen. Never before had he recorded an album that sounded so labored, as if it was a struggle for him to write and record the songs. With River of Dreams, he's surrounded himself with ace studio musicians and star producer Danny Kortchmar, all of whom have the effect of deadening an already self-consciously serious set of songs. There are no light moments on the album, either lyrically or musically -- all the songs are filled with middle-age dread, even the two best moments, the gospel-inflected title track and his song to his daughter, "Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel)." Those two songs have the strongest melodies, but they're not as natural as his best material. Everywhere he tries too hard -- the metaphors of "The Great Wall of China," the bizarre vocal intro to "Shades of Grey," minor-key melodies all over the place. He may be trying different things, but he doesn't sound comfortable with his detours, and by the end of the record, he sounds as exhausted as the listener feels. By that point, the closing track, "Famous Last Words," seems prophetic -- River of Dreams feels like a sad close to an otherwise strong career, and from all indications he's given in the press, Joel claims it is indeed the last pop album he'll ever make. It's an unworthy way to depart.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

If new wave was about reconfiguring and recontextualizing simple pop/rock forms of the '50s and '60s in new, ironic, and aggressive ways, then Blondie, which took the girl group style of the early and mid-'60s and added a '70s archness, fit right in. True punksters may have deplored the group early on (they never had the hip cachet of Talking Heads or even the Ramones), but Blondie's secret weapon, which was deployed increasingly over their career, was a canny pop straddle -- they sent the music up and celebrated it at the same time. So, for instance, songs like "X Offender" (their first single) and "In the Flesh" (their first hit, in Australia) had the tough-girl-with-a-tender-heart tone of the Shangri-Las (the disc was produced by Richard Gottehrer, who had handled the Angels ["My Boyfriend's Back"] among others, and Brill Building songwriter Ellie Greenwich even sang backup on "In the Flesh"), while going one step too far into hard-edged decadence -- that is, if you chose to see that. (The tag line of "Look Good in Blue," for example, went, "I could give you some head and shoulders to lie on.") The whole point was that you could take Blondie either way, and lead singer Deborah Harry's vocals, which combined rock fervor with a kiss-off quality, reinforced that, as did the band's energetic, trashy sound. This album, released on independent label Private Stock, was not a major hit, but it provided a template for the future. © William Ruhlmann /TiVo

The first full-scale collaboration between brothers Roger and Brian Eno is a lengthy set of tone poems meant to evoke different colors and shades. Recorded over a 15-year period, the album simply began with Roger improvising melodies using a digital MIDI keyboard and sending them to Brian, who altered their timbres and textures. While Brian added treatments to Roger's 1985 solo debut, Voices, the pieces on Mixing Colours don't feel quite as windswept, nor do they get quite as dramatic. Much of the album consists of sparse, gentle notes that resound clearly, with sound waves reverberating from the center like ripples on a pond. Many of the compositions seem simple enough to be played on an acoustic piano, but Brian's sonic manipulations add so much character and take them just enough into the realm of the unfamiliar that the record doesn't directly resemble any other. Moodwise, much of the album tends to be eerie and mysterious but not quite foreboding, and occasionally sad and blue yet not as if it's bawling its eyes out. "Burnt Umber" seems like music for a reflective scene in a mystery film, with a slightly ominous bell-like melody and carefully paced chords. "Obsidian" is more of a drifting, glowing organ drone, and the biggest departure from the clearer melodies of most of the record's tracks. Moments like "Blonde" and "Rose Quartz" are sweet and wistful, mingling sadness with joy. The album seemingly becomes more spaced out towards the end, but the concluding "Slow Movement: Sand" feels like a solemn resolution and is one of its more affecting tracks.© Paul Simpson /TiVo