Since 2016 and his fourth album Views, Drake has changed dimension and his artistic direction. Seeking the musical hit, often with brilliance, allowing all his influences to bloom on his mixtape More Life in 2017 or dividing the critics with Dark Lane Demo Tapes in 2020, here he is returning to his first loves. Certified Lover Boy is frontal and gargantuan in terms of lyrics as Drake has something to say. Starting with settling scores with Kanye West or with the industry. But after the storm comes the calm, as with the tracks Pipe Down or 7am On A Bridle Path, these are the moments when the Canadian can leave aside the discursive to at last please himself, and to explore what he does best. On the first tracks such as Champagne Theory or Papi’s Home, Drake has superbly placed Certified Lover Boy under the sampling prism. But that is only a foretaste. For when he summons Metro Boomin to perform in Knife Talk or the trap bosses Future and Young Thug on Way 2 Sexy, he cuts to the essential, looks ahead and makes this album one of his best releases since 2015. © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

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Fed up with the Gallagher brothers? Believe they long ago grew too big for their (Beatle) boots? Be that as it may, here's a pointed reminder of just why the siblings' heads and egos became so outsized. Familiar to Millions [Highlights] slims down the band's double-live CD Familiar to Millions to one disc, which also makes for a handy-dandy greatest-hits set. Recorded at London's Wembley Stadium across two nights at the end of their 2000 grand world tour, Oasis were more than at the top of their game, they were gods. The band sound omnipotent, and were met by a crowd of adoring worshippers whom they drove to a screaming frenzy. One of the many highlights of the show was a seething "Shakermaker," and behind the group you can hear the whole stadium singing along in ecstasy. For all the comparisons with the Fab Four (and on record there was no denying them), live the band brought a power to their music that even the Mop Tops at their early Hamburg heights could never equal. The thundering sound of "Who Feels Love" is a case in point, both brothers' emotive performances across "Gas Panic" is another, and when they burst into "Roll with It," Oasis would have brought the walls down if they'd been indoors. But it's the one, two, three sucker punches of "Wonderwall," a hard rocking "Cigarettes and Alcohol," and the wave your lighters in the air "Don't Look Back in Anger" that brings the entire arena to their feet. A strutting "Rock 'N' Roll Star" hauls the set to a suitable close with all the insouciance of the early Small Faces and bad boy attitude of the '60s Rolling Stones. If ever a band wanted to go out on a high, this was the chance; nothing Oasis have done before or since has equaled this show, and having heard the Highlights, you'd be a fool not to go and hear the entire set in all its glory.© Dave Thompson /TiVo

A young Noel Gallagher at the height of Oasis' popularity in the mid-'90s declared that the band would not release a compilation CD until the end of their career, since such compilations implied that a band's career was indeed over. A decade later, an older, presumably wiser Gallagher realized that if you're about to leave your longtime label and that label will release a compilation whether you participate or not, it's better to write your own draft of your band's history than having the label do it for you. And so Gallagher designed the first Oasis hits compilation, 2006's double-disc, 18-track Stop the Clocks. As he so often has done in his career, he looked to the Beatles for guidance, choosing their two 1973 hits comps 1962-1966 and 1967-1970 -- better known as The Red Album and The Blue Album -- as a template for Stop the Clocks. Those records mixed up hits with album tracks and B-sides to offer an overview of the band's identity, and so it is with Oasis' double-disc set, as it overlooks big hits -- "Roll with It," "D'You Know What I Mean," "Stand by Me" -- in favor of things that were tucked away on albums or singles. Where the Beatles albums sampled more or less equally from each phase of their career, Gallagher is a bit more ruthless in rewriting his own history, thoroughly excising 1997's Be Here Now from the band's past -- an overreaction that's nevertheless perfectly in line with everything regarding their overblown third album.Such fits of pique are typical for Gallagher and Oasis -- which at the time of the release of Stop the Clocks had only his brother Liam as the other remaining original member -- and another is the exclusion of the non-LP Christmas 1994 single "Whatever," omitted presumably because if it were here the band would have to shell out royalties to Neil Innes. But even if "Whatever" is missed along with such other great singles both early ("Shakermaker") and late ("The Hindu Times"), Stop the Clocks works at its most basic level: it offers an excellent primer to Oasis at their best. Of course, this means that it draws very heavily on the glory days of 1994-1996, offering five tracks each from Definitely Maybe and (What's the Story) Morning Glory, plus various B-sides from this era. All in all, a whopping 15 of the 19 tracks here date from this time, and the four songs that do come from the 21st century -- "Lyla," "The Importance of Being Idle," "Go Let It Out," "Songbird" -- more than hold their own since they rely on what has always been their strengths: sturdy classicist songwriting and spirited performances. And that's why Oasis' best music has dated very well: anything with such aspirations to be classic lives and dies by the strength of their material, and this manages to capture its time and transcend it, since its attitude remains potent, and the songs sound as good hundreds of times after their fist spin. No, even at two discs Stop the Clocks doesn't contain all of the best of Oasis, but it does contain Oasis at their best and enough of it that it can indeed be passed along to future generations as an introduction to one of the best bands of their time, just like how the Red and Blue albums converted many young listeners to the Beatles.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Accompanied by Johnny Winter and his band, Muddy Waters turns in an enthusiastic performance on Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live. The set list contains most of his biggest hits, and the sound quality and performances are mostly energetic. Still, there's something faintly repetitive about this record. For one thing, there's only one song here, "Deep Down in Florida," that comes from any of Waters' recent albums. All of the others are old standards, which makes this album rather superfluous, since there are equally forceful performances of these cuts elsewhere. It doesn't help any that "Deep Down in Florida" isn't an especially noteworthy song, sounding more like a rewrite of Waters' older, better cuts. Without much in the way of new material, or anything especially notable about the performances, it sometimes comes off as little more than a set of Muddy Waters' greatest hits, with applause as the sole new ingredient. The addition of Johnny Winter is surprisingly unexceptional as well, since Winter fades into the background as much as any other bandmember. None of it is unlistenable, but it's hardly indispensable. Muddy "Mississippi" Waters Live is a nice addition to the Muddy Waters catalog, but it's not nearly as essential as his earlier work.© Victor W. Valdivia /TiVo

Unlike in the States, music hall had a much longer life span in the U.K., kept alive at summer season seaside shows, its influence percolating out as far as punk -- think Ian Dury & the Blockheads, and even into Two Tone via Madness. Sailor represented the best of this tradition, from their sailor caps to their bell bottom trousers, their port of call stage set, and their sing-along songs. Their eponymous debut album disembarked in 1974, with their "Glass of Champagne" single rocketing to number two on the British chart the following year. "Girls Girls Girls" returned them to the Top Five in 1976, with "One Drink Too Many" tottering to number 35 in 1977. The fact that Sailor even managed that last hit says much about their fan's undying loyalty, what with punk slaying virtually every other established act on the scene. Even so, the group called it a day in 1978. A dozen years later, the original quartet re-formed and began touring again, although Georg Kajanus departed in 1995, with Henry Marsh following later in the decade. With Peter Lincoln and eventually Rob Alderton enlisting, Sailor continued playing live, with this two-CD set recorded in England at The Swan in High Wycombe in November, 2002.Originally released as a DVD, the band may be older, but they still know how to have a great time, and certainly haven't lost their ability to entertain. Running through their hits (including "Karma Chameleon," a smash Phil Pickett co- wrote), well-chosen album tracks, fan faves, and astutely picked covers -- from "Mack the Knife" to the "1812 Overture," the band is in grand form. Old fans may find the lineup a little disconcerting, but one can't imagine they'll being put off for long. A Sailor live CD will never be quite as effective without the stage show, but since you can't watch them while driving your car, this CD is a welcome companion to the DVD release.© Jo-Ann Greene /TiVo