A musical romance about a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling) and an aspiring actress (Emma Stone) set in the City of Angels, La La Land was written and directed by Damien Chazelle, the man behind the 2014 Oscar winner Whiplash. He enlisted his former Harvard roommate Justin Hurwitz to write the songs and score for the film. The pair also worked together on Whiplash, about drummers, and on a 2009 student project that went on to receive theatrical distribution, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, about a jazz trumpeter. Hurwitz is joined here by lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, two veterans of musical theater (the off-Broadway musical Dogfight, TV's Smash, Broadway's Dear Evan Hansen) at the relatively young age of 31 by the time of release. (The latter is also true of Chazelle and Hurwitz.) La La Land's original soundtrack includes both songs and instrumentals, with the songs performed by a cast that also includes John Legend, fresh off his Oscar win for Selma's "Glory," and Callie Hernandez, a musician-turned-actress. Hernandez performs alongside Stone, Jessica Rothe, and Sonoya Mizuno on "Someone in the Crowd," a soaring, uptempo number with swing-era rhythms. Preceding it, the film opens with a big production number set in L.A. traffic that Hurwitz said was inspired by Jacques Demy-Michel Legrand film musicals of the '60s ("Another Day of Sun"). While listeners and moviegoers alike will find that Gosling and Stone don't quite have the singing chops of an Astaire and Rogers, their voices are warm and approachable, and their duet "A Lovely Night," in particular, is a bright charmer. Later, Legend delivers the goods on "Start a Fire," a song written in the context of a jazz musician trying to cross over to the contemporary mainstream. Score tracks range from the tender-slash-anxious piano piece "Mia & Sebastian's Theme," to the legit jazz exercise "Herman's Habit," to the Romantic tone poem "Planetarium." The film and the soundtrack wrap up with a second reprise of Gosling's "City of Stars," this time hummed by Stone, which will likely provide a feel-good earworm after the music ends.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

With a story that takes place 100 years in the future, Logic's sophomore LP is also a concept album, and with the Gaithersburg, Maryland MC's vibrant, ambitious debut providing evidence the young artist could do it, it doesn't take long for The Incredible True Story to live up to its title. The "true" bit comes from the album's honest yet uplifting message, as early highlight "Fade Away" gives up "Everybody's gonna die, gonna go one day/Maybe it'll happen on a Monday, drop in to work and get hit by a Hyundai," as that flippant wisdom is delivered with Logic's usual breakneck speed. As fast as he raps, it's arguable that the musical ideas come even faster, with the flute-driven "Like Woah" reimagining hip-hop in the age of hippies and flower power, while highlight "Young Jesus" kicks with the old-school boom-bap from 6ix and Sir Dylan, as this clever devil MC gets in the Eminem spirit with "Eat whack MCs like Hannibal/Cause Joe Pesci's my spirit animal." Much of the album comes off as a De La Soul-like kaleidoscope with that OutKast attitude of anything goes, and then cuts like "Lord Willin'" and "Paradise" with Jesse Boykins III offer something new, with a small funk band formation delivering music that could easily be reproduced on-stage. This kinetic album can get flashy, and the sci-fi interludes grow as big as a Michael Bay movie, yet it is anchored by the more thoughtful numbers, like the wise "Never Been" ("You gotta climb over your ego to master your will") and the overwhelming title cut, where Logic delivers a stream of consciousness looking back at his life and in a style somewhere between Kendrick Lamar and a jazz singer. The guest list is lean plus the production is mostly from in-house folks like 6ix, DJ Khalil, and Logic himself, and the whole experience is like Prince in his heyday, where a creative force and a tight-knit crew create something startling and fully formed. An outward-aimed Drake is another comparison, based on style and swagger, but like the album's intro says as it captures two future cosmonauts going through music from 2015, this is the album where it all changed, as the one they call Young Sinatra comes into his own and proves his nearly perfect debut was no isolated fluke.© David Jeffries /TiVo

Madonna staked much of her career on Evita, gambling that it would establish her as a proper movie star and a respected actress, as well as reviving her slumping musical career. Both the film and the soundtrack, while worthy efforts, fall just short of their goals, despite their numerous strong points. The double-disc soundtrack to Evita -- which essentially is an audio document of the entire film, since there is no dialogue in the movie -- is an exquisitely produced and expertly rendered version of Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's rock-inspired musical, yet it remains curiously unengaging. Part of the reason is Madonna's performance. While she gives a startlingly accomplished and nuanced performance -- her voice actually sounds like it matures over the course of the album -- it is impossible to listen to her without getting the impression that she is trying really hard to be credible, which makes it difficult to connect with her. It doesn't help that her supporting cast of Jonathan Pryce and Antonio Banderas are only fitfully successful; Banderas' performance, in particular, suffers from being removed from the visuals. Even with the faults, Evita has its merits, including the written-for-film ballad "You Must Love Me," and is worth investigating. It just isn't the definitive work that it wishes to be.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Modest Mouse's Epic debut, The Moon & Antarctica, finds them strangely subdued, focusing on mortality as well as the moody, acoustic side of their music and downplaying the edgy rock that helped make them indie stars. Not that their first major-label release sounds like a sellout -- actually, the slight sheen of Brian Deck's production enhances the album's introspective tone -- but occasionally The Moon & Antarctica's melancholy becomes ponderous. Unfortunately, the album's middle stretch contains three such songs, "The Cold Part," "Alone Down There," and "The Stars Are Projectors," which tend to blur together into one 17-minute-long piece that bogs down the album's momentum. Individually, each of these songs is sweeping and haunting in its own right, but grouping them together blunts their impact. However, this trilogy does provide a sharp contrast to, as well as a bridge across, The Moon & Antarctica's more vibrant beginning and end. Though it explores death and the afterlife, The Moon & Antarctica's liveliest moments are its most effective. "3rd Planet"'s simple, ramshackle melody and strange, moving lyrics ("Your heart felt good"), the elastic guitars on "Gravity Rides Everything," and the angular, jumpy "Tiny Cities Made of Ashes" and "A Different City" get the album off to a strong start, while the fresh, unaffected "Wild Packs of Family Dogs," "Paper Thin Walls," and "Lives" bring it to an atmospheric, affecting peak before "What People Are Made Of" closes the album with a climactic burst of noise. Their most cohesive collection of songs to date, The Moon & Antarctica is an impressive, if flawed, map of Modest Mouse's ambitions and fears.© Heather Phares /TiVo

This is the Oscar-winning score to Damien Chazelle's 2016 musical film, La La Land. Composed and orchestrated by Justin Hurwitz, the album also features the standout track "City of Stars," which features vocals from lead actors Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.© Rich Wilson /TiVo

Still as inspiring as ever at 83 years old, Rhoda Scott has surrounded herself here with an impressive gang of contemporary jazz Amazonians for a track aptly called Lady All Stars which follows on from her Lady Quartet created in 2004 at Jazz in Vienna, with Sophie Alour on tenor saxophone, Airelle Besson on trumpet and Julie Saury on drums. In 2007, the saxophonist Lisa Cat-Berro replaced Besson. Rhoda Scott has joined forces with Géraldine Laurent on alto saxophone, Céline Bonacina on baritone and Anne Paceo on drums, and has also brought back Airelle Besson. Here Rhoda Scott has joined forces with Géraldine Laurent on alto saxophone, Céline Bonacina on baritone and Anne Paceo on drums, and has also brought back Airelle Besson. In short, some excess power to boost the funky DNA of this brass band. Behind her blazing Hammond, the American organist, supported by this rising generation of French jazzwomen, shows above all that her Leslie has not finished turning! “Playing with these young artists has inspired me and I have learned a lot from them. After concerts, some spectators have also told me that it makes them feel good, and that we are likely role models for their daughters.” © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz

This live set (recorded at Hollywood's Vine St. Bar and Grill) was Shirley Horn's "comeback" album after many years in which she purposely maintained a low profile as she raised her daughter. Typical of Horn's music ever since, she sings intimate ballads with her trio (which includes bassist Charles Ables and drummer Steve Williams) and plays very effective piano behind her vocals, taking "Isn't It Romantic" as an instrumental.© Scott Yanow /TiVo

Download not available

After extensive touring since the band's formation led to on-the-road songwriting habits, as well as even more refined performance chops, neo-traditional folk duo the Milk Carton Kids decided to record songs for their third LP in live performance at empty venues (pre-show) while on tour in 2014. In the end, recordings from four venues in the U.S. and Canada made over six days are represented on Monterey, including six tracks at Downtown Presbyterian Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Not only do the spaces' natural reverb and the live aspect add warmth to the duo's nearly flawless guitar work and harmonizing (that it's live may actually go unnoticed by many listeners, at least consciously), but it ties into the thematic role travel plays on an album about places, people, and country. The pair already have songs in their catalog titled "Michigan," "New York," and "Memphis" -- Monterey offers "The City of Our Lady," "Asheville Skies," and an unhurried title track with a Spanish guitar influence that has them "blinded by the notion of fog and air and ocean all around." The wider view of "Freedom" renders sociopolitical commentary in sadly appropriate melancholy fashion with a dissonant arpeggio lead-in: "Freedom's glowin' sadly now/Listen up, look around/Candles burn in memory/Freedom is a fading dream." Some songs are of a more personal nature: "Shooting Shadows" is a reflective tune about loss, time, and memory, and the melodic standout "Deadly Bells" is a poetic requiem also noteworthy for unexpected turns of chord and impressive lead guitar phrasing. Genre fans may want to note that the more uptempo but still minor chord-strewn "Secrets of the Stars" was co-written by fellow 2014 Best Folk Album Grammy nominee Sarah Jarosz. Kenneth Pattengale's beyond-agile flat-picking skills are highlighted on the brighter "High Hopes," though it still has those diminished chords that form a cloud over the song title. As for that cloud, even the band jokes about the "sad" tone and deliberate pace of the majority of their songs. This almost unrelenting wistfulness does, in part, as on prior albums, define their sound; but so do the vocal tones, harmonies, and guitar performances that are so accomplished and starkly beautiful from both performers throughout the record. Despite being a bit of a downer for some, these qualities and the improvisatory feel of the guitar work as their songs unfold (however well-rehearsed in reality) may well induce engaged and repeat listening, even for the sanguine.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

A musical romance about a jazz pianist (Ryan Gosling) and an aspiring actress (Emma Stone) set in the City of Angels, La La Land was written and directed by Damien Chazelle, the man behind the 2014 Oscar winner Whiplash. He enlisted his former Harvard roommate Justin Hurwitz to write the songs and score for the film. The pair also worked together on Whiplash, about drummers, and on a 2009 student project that went on to receive theatrical distribution, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, about a jazz trumpeter. Hurwitz is joined here by lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, two veterans of musical theater (the off-Broadway musical Dogfight, TV's Smash, Broadway's Dear Evan Hansen) at the relatively young age of 31 by the time of release. (The latter is also true of Chazelle and Hurwitz.) La La Land's original soundtrack includes both songs and instrumentals, with the songs performed by a cast that also includes John Legend, fresh off his Oscar win for Selma's "Glory," and Callie Hernandez, a musician-turned-actress. Hernandez performs alongside Stone, Jessica Rothe, and Sonoya Mizuno on "Someone in the Crowd," a soaring, uptempo number with swing-era rhythms. Preceding it, the film opens with a big production number set in L.A. traffic that Hurwitz said was inspired by Jacques Demy-Michel Legrand film musicals of the '60s ("Another Day of Sun"). While listeners and moviegoers alike will find that Gosling and Stone don't quite have the singing chops of an Astaire and Rogers, their voices are warm and approachable, and their duet "A Lovely Night," in particular, is a bright charmer. Later, Legend delivers the goods on "Start a Fire," a song written in the context of a jazz musician trying to cross over to the contemporary mainstream. Score tracks range from the tender-slash-anxious piano piece "Mia & Sebastian's Theme," to the legit jazz exercise "Herman's Habit," to the Romantic tone poem "Planetarium." The film and the soundtrack wrap up with a second reprise of Gosling's "City of Stars," this time hummed by Stone, which will likely provide a feel-good earworm after the music ends.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo