March 1985 was a golden age for Rogers Nelson… at just 27 years old, Prince already had six huge albums to his name: For You (1978), Prince (1979), Dirty Mind (1980), Controversy (1981), 1999 (1982) and, of course, the massive Purple Rain (1984) which catapulted him into superstardom. His seventh album, Around the World in a Day, was released just a month after he finished touring. This record set his music on a new trajectory, experimenting with rock, pop and even psychedelic sounds. This live album was recorded in Syracuse, New York, on the 30th of March 1985 during his Purple Rain tour, and Prince made sure to pepper it with genius. This genius was multiplied tenfold by the adrenaline he put into his stage performances. Everything he touched would fizzle and spark with energy. He was supported by his fantastic band, The Revolution, which was composed of Bobby Z. on drums, Brown Mark on bass, Dr. Fink on keyboard, Eric Leeds on saxophone and the amazing twosome Wendy & Lisa on guitar and keyboard, not to mention guests such as percussionist Sheila E. His compositions, each one more perfect than the last, contain raw rock, pop and rhythm & blues. They’re a far cry from the old Prince from the decade prior, who was more inclined to stretch his tracks into extra-long improvs that flirted with jazz-fusion. He still enjoys making the pleasure last on this album, as evidenced by Baby I’m a Star, however, he maintains a funky, rock n roll beat throughout. Remixed by the sound engineer Chris James, who he would continue to work with throughout his later career, this reissue is a momentous release that can only be described with superlatives. Its explosive tone is established right from the opening track, Let’s Go Crazy. Prince and The Revolution: Live is 1 hour and 54 minutes of pure brilliance. It’s a must-listen! © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Well, if you just had your biggest hit ever, you'd probably try to replicate it, too. And if you were praised for being visionary because you played all your blues grooves to a slightly sequenced beat, you'd probably be tempted to not just continue in that direction, but to tighten the sequencer and graft on synthesizers, since it'll all signal how futuristic you are. While you're at it, you might visualize how space age this all is by turning your signature car into a space shuttle. If you look at things that way, then Afterburner, ZZ Top's follow-up to their blockbuster Eliminator, makes sense -- they're just giving the people more of what they want. Problem is, no matter how much you dress ZZ Top up, they're still ZZ Top. Sometimes they can trick you into thinking they're a little flashier than usual, but they're still a lil' ol' blues band from Texas, kicking out blues-rockers. And blues-rock just doesn't kick when it's synthesized, even if ZZ Top's grooves always bordered on robotic. So, Afterburner, their most synthetic album, will not please most ZZ Top fans, even if it did go platinum several time over and reached number four. That's all just a sign of the times, when even hard rock bands had to sound as slick as synth pop, complete with clanging DX-7s and cavernous drums. As an artifact of that time, Afterburner is pretty good -- never has a hard rock album sounded so artificial, nor has a nominal blues-rock album sounded so devoid of blues. Apart from the chugging "Sleeping Bag," not even the singles sound like ZZ Top (though "Dipping Low (In the Lap of Luxury" is a blatant "Gimme All Your Lovin'" rewrite): the terrific post-new wave rocker "Stages" is the poppiest thing they ever cut, the ballad "Rough Boy" is far removed from slow blues, and the full-fledged synth dance of "Velcro Fly" is a true mind-bender. All this means that Afterburner is merely a product of its time -- the only record ZZ Top could have made at the time, but it hardly exists out of that time.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

A chart-topper in her native Norway, Susanne Sundfør continues to negotiate electronic dance pop alongside textured orchestral arrangements on her sixth LP, Ten Love Songs, a collection of dynamic, mostly club-ready if wistful experimental pop rather than traditional love songs. Produced by Sundfør, collaborators include Röyksopp ("Slowly"), Jonathan Bates aka Big Black Delta ("Accelerate"), Anthony Gonzalez of M83 ("Memorial"), and musician/composer Lars Horntveth ("Silencer"), as well as the Trondheim Soloists chamber ensemble.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

Calling 12 Songs Neil Diamond's best album in three decades may be a little misleading: truth be told, it doesn't have much competition in his discography. While Diamond never stopped making albums, he did seem progressively less interested in recording sometime after the Robbie Robertson-produced 1976 album Beautiful Noise. Following that weird, ambitious album, he pursued a slicker, streamlined course and started writing less original material. For a while, this paid off great commercial dividends, culminating in his 1980 remake of the Al Jolson film The Jazz Singer, but after 1982's Heartlight he slowly drifted off the pop charts. Over the next two decades, he toured regularly, turning out a new album every three or four years, and their patchwork nature of a few covers and a few originals suggested that Diamond wasn't as engaged in either the writing or recording process as he was at the peak of his career. With 2001's Three Chord Opera he delivered his first album of all-original material since Beautiful Noise, which was also his first non-concept album since 1991's Lovescape (he spent the interim cutting theme albums, such as a record devoted to Brill Building pop or a country-oriented collection). While it was uneven, it did suggest that Diamond was re-engaging with both writing and recording, and as he prepared material for a new record, he received word that producer Rick Rubin -- the man responsible for Johnny Cash's acclaimed '90s comeback, American Recordings -- was interested in working with him, and the two combined for the project that turned out to be 12 Songs. Rubin was the first producer to push Diamond since Robbie Robertson, but where Robertson indulged the singer/songwriter, Rubin drove Neil to strip his music down to his essence. As Diamond's candid liner notes reveal, Rubin wasn't a co-writer, he was a precise and exacting editor, encouraging Neil to rework songs, abandon some tunes, and to keep writing. The process worked, as Diamond wound up with a set of 12 songs (actually, 13 on the special edition that contains two bonus tracks, including an alternate version of "Delirious Love" featuring a delirious Brian Wilson contribution) that result in his most consistent set of songs ever. This is entirely Rubin's doing, since he's the first producer to exercise such tight control over one of Diamond's albums. Where Tom Catalano, the producer of Neil's '60s and early-'70s work, let Diamond indulge in flights of fancy and sheer weirdness, Rubin keeps him on a tight leash, only allowing a couple of light, cheerful songs into the finished product. Instead of encouraging Neil to write these rollicking, effortlessly hooky pop songs, Rubin brings the moody undercurrents of "Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon" and "Solitary Man" to the forefront, pushing Diamond toward somber, introspective territory that his music suggested but never truly explored in the past. To highlight this mood, Rubin keeps the arrangements spare, even skeletal, reminiscent of the monochromatic nature of his Cash collaborations. 12 Songs also shares with American Recordings a creeping sense of mortality, but where that sounded natural coming from Johnny Cash, it's slightly affected here, since even when Diamond attempts to reach inward it's offset by his natural inclination toward hamminess. And that flair for the theatrical almost begs out for arrangements that are a little bit more fleshed out than what's here -- not something as slickly cold as what he did in the late '70s, but something similar to the rich yet fruity orchestrations Catalano brought to Diamond's best songs. But if 12 Songs does occasionally come across as slightly affected in its intent and presentation, it also is inarguably Neil Diamond's best set of songs in a long, long time. Diamond's writing is not only more ambitious than it has been in years, but it's also more fully realized; the songs are tightly written, with the melodies bringing out the emotions in the lyrics. Similarly, Diamond also sounds engaged as a performer, singing with passion and unexpected understatement; it's his most controlled, varied vocal performance ever, and even if Rubin's production is a bit too stark, it does force listeners to concentrate on the songs, which makes this a better case for Diamond's talents as a songwriter than most of his other albums. And that's why 12 Songs is, in a way, even more welcome than American Recordings. Where Cash's comeback confirmed what everybody already knew about him, this presents a side of Neil Diamond that's never been heard on record and, in the process, it offers a new way of looking at the rest of his catalog -- which is a pretty remarkable achievement, but the best thing about 12 Songs is that it's simply one of the most entertaining, satisfying albums Diamond has ever released. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Leaving behind her longtime band the Nocturnals -- in name, at least; a fair number of the members show up here, including her drummer/husband Matt Burr -- Grace Potter also leaves country in the dust on her second solo album, Midnight. Teaming with Los Angeles-based producer Eric Valentine -- he's best known for heavier stuff like Queens of the Stone Age (he even brought in Nick Oliveri to sing some backup vocals here) but also has done work with progressive bluegrass band Nickel Creek -- Potter dives headfirst into pure pop with Midnight, creating a gleaming confection that, at its best, could be mistaken for late-'80s AOR. Such submersion in gloss is bound to alienate fans who've long favored her Americana authenticity but Midnight bears the same considered construction as her four albums with the Nocturnals; the surface just happens to sparkle. At first, that sheen seems blinding: the neo-new wave synths grin along with glam stomps and disco allusions, guitars play to the rafters but are still overshadowed by vocal hooks halfway between Heart and Stevie Nicks or perhaps informed by the urgent revivalism of HAIM or even memories of early Madonna. Potter isn't posturing here. She's embraced every cliché that comes with this retro album rock and that enthusiasm certainly gives Midnight panache -- she's every bit as passionate here as she was on the rawer The Lion the Beast the Beat -- but what gives the album resonance is how her clever songs keep Valentine's supremely SoCal production from playing like aural candy. Both Potter and Valentine delight in celebrating and inverting the clichés of overblown '80s AOR and that's what makes Midnight such a fun trip.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Poplife was a turning point in David Guetta's career. It made the French DJ's fame truly global by giving him his first number one dance hit stateside: a collaboration with the always fresh Chris Willis forever to be known as "Love Is Gone." Other singles that burned up the dancefloor were "Baby When the Lights" and "Everytime We Touch," though it was not the same recording as the one of the same name by Euro-pop group Cascada. The strength of the beats on Poplife made Guetta a recognizable name in the United States, and gave him the platform on which he could build relationships, and ultimately, form collaborations, with A-List pop artists, as he did on his next album, One Love.© Matthew Chisling /TiVo

Poplife was a turning point in David Guetta's career. It made the French DJ's fame truly global by giving him his first number one dance hit stateside: a collaboration with the always fresh Chris Willis forever to be known as "Love Is Gone." Other singles that burned up the dancefloor were "Baby When the Lights" and "Everytime We Touch," though it was not the same recording as the one of the same name by Euro-pop group Cascada. The strength of the beats on Poplife made Guetta a recognizable name in the United States, and gave him the platform on which he could build relationships, and ultimately, form collaborations, with A-List pop artists, as he did on his next album, One Love.© Matthew Chisling /TiVo

Having launched their career in promising fashion with the very well-received March of the Saint album, Los Angeles-based Armored Saint now seemed poised to take things to the next level and become one of the '80s biggest metal stars. Further buoyed by widespread critical approval, the band and their label, Chrysalis, were especially careful when planning to record 1985's all-important follow-up, Delirious Nomad. Enlisting the services of top metal producer Max Norman was supposed to be the final piece of the puzzle, and all involved were confident that this would be the band's "career" album. But while Delirious Nomad was certainly a more refined, more confident effort than its predecessor, it also felt somewhat less vital and spontaneous -- contrived even. Standouts like "Over the Edge," "For the Sake of Heaviness," and "In the Hole" are meticulous studio creations which proved the band's songwriting talents were indeed improving from strength to strength. But while the band was convinced that they'd successfully captured their "live sound" for the first time, many old-school fans flatly disagreed. For these, Delirious Nomad was missing that certain elemental spark of excitement which had made their debut so memorable, and the off-the-cuff looseness of rehashed older material like "You're Never Alone" and "Released" arguably proves their point. Still, the stunning beauty of the epic "Aftermath," with its glorious smorgasbord of harmony guitars, represents a career peak by any standard. Finally, for a band which always took itself perhaps a bit too seriously, Armored Saint was approaching maximum paranoia here, with songs like "Nervous Man" and the aforementioned "Over the Edge," both brimming with high-strung tension. Apparently, so was the band, who parted with founding guitarist Phil Sandoval as soon as the album was completed.© Eduardo Rivadavia /TiVo

Seven years after their official split, Delirious? offer up their definitive compilation, The Ultimate Collection. Featuring a solid look at the band's history of worship songs, this record is full of Delirious? hits including "Rain Down," "Deeper," and "I Could Sing of Your Love." The Ultimate Collection was released by Christian record label Integrity Music. © Liam Martin /TiVo

Imagine a cross between the Squirrel Nut Zippers, some of J.G. Thirlwell's more swing/exotica-oriented work, and Lacuna Coil and you've got Diablo Swing Orchestra. This Swedish group combines swing and hot jazz in a '30s style with metal and operatic female vocals, with the results being quite compellingly weird, though decidedly not for everyone. Their instrumentation -- guitar, trumpet, keyboards, bass, cello, drums, and dual male-and-female vocals -- allows for a fair amount of energy and style-hopping, but the songs always work as songs rather than as mere displays of instrumental/vocal technique (though it must be said that Annlouice Wolgers has an astonishing voice), and their thrashy riffs have a groove that'll get any moshpit moving. The European funhouse/carnival atmosphere occasionally gets a little too thick, giving Sing-Along Songs the feeling of an elaborate joke, but the Orchestra always gets quickly back on track, with songs like "A Tap Dancer's Dilemma" offering thoughtful lyrics atop the rampaging swing-metal grooves. Ultimately, this is too weird a record to ever succeed in any kind of mainstream way, but fans of the groups cited above (or of Tim Burton movies, as Danny Elfman's soundtracks to them are a clear stylistic reference point) will almost certainly dig it.© Phil Freeman /TiVo