In the year of his 90th birthday (which he would have celebrated on the 23rd of September 2020 had he not died in 2004), Ray Charles is honoured with a new 90-track compilation box set. Just another compilation like all the rest? Yes and no. Ray Charles is undoubtedly one of the most-compiled artists in the history of music. Published by Tangerine, the label that the musician set up at the end of the 50s to keep the rights to his songs, this box set starts out like all the others: with the post-Atlantic hits, Georgia On My Mind, Hit The Road Jack, One Mint Julep, Busted... These are timeless treasures of proto-soul, but there doesn't seem to be much novelty here. The rest is much more interesting, and much rarer: tracks recorded between the second half of the 1960s and the 2000s, many of which were only released on vinyl, never reissued on CD and until now unavailable on digital. This is the first time that Ray Charles' lesser-known years have been given the compilation treatment in this way, and it is a revelation. In the 90s and 2000s, the production of his songs had a synthetic feel, and they did not age too well. These rarer songs are often hidden gems of southern soul, flavoured with country and wrapped in sumptuous symphonic orchestrations. Whether he is singing the Muppets (It's Ain't Easy Being Green) or Gershwin (Summertime, a duet with Cleo Laine), Ray Charles is always deeply moving. Now, the dream is to hear reissues of all these albums in their entirety. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz

Pet Shop Boys followed the release of 1993's Very (their only album to top the U.K. charts) with their third world tour, which brought them to Australia, Singapore, and Latin America for the first time. A particularly electric concert in Rio de Janeiro was filmed by a local television crew and released on VHS and Laserdisc as Discovery: Live in Rio in 1995. Inspired by the vibrancy of New York City nightlife, the duo focused the tour on uptempo dance songs, and embraced spontaneity more than they did on their earlier tours, which were more staged and theatrical. They're joined on-stage by a quartet of free-spirited dancers, a pair of percussionists, and charismatic backing singer Katie Kissoon. The energy is more than reciprocated by the audience, who scream, cheer, and sing along throughout the entire show. The arrangements totally embrace the type of hyper-glitzy Euro-dance which was everywhere at the time, and older singles like "Always on My Mind" and "Domino Dancing" sound absolutely huge. Early B-side "Paninaro" is given a reggae-disco remake, sounding even more charged-up than the version released as a single around the same time as Discovery. Elsewhere, PSB nod to several then-current dance hits -- the crowd goes wild when "One in a Million" slides into Culture Beat's "Mr. Vain," as well as the medley of "Left to My Own Devices" and Corona's glorious "Rhythm of the Night." They also perform Blur's cheeky alt-dance classic "Girls & Boys," which they had previously remixed, fully transforming an already PSB-indebted song into one of their own. Wisely, the duo know when to dial the energy down a notch from time to time, so that everyone involved avoids the risk of short circuiting and burning out. In this manner, even "West End Girls" feels like a bit of a comedown. Joking that they were never asked to appear on MTV Unplugged, they offer largely acoustic versions of "Rent" and "Suburbia," which only leave more room for the crowd to shout along. Of course, there's no way they couldn't do this show without ending it with a bang, and the final sequence includes "I Will Survive" into "It's a Sin," an Olympic-sized "Go West," and of course the poignant fan favorite "Being Boring." Long confined to obsolete formats, Discovery was given a long-overdue CD/DVD reissue in 2021.© Paul Simpson /TiVo

Some might say that the Pet Shop Boys have released more live documents than any synth pop band has a right to, but fans would wholeheartedly disagree. Joey Sixpack might not notice, but the duo takes great pride in making each tour’s set list unique, plus there are always some surprises for card-carrying fanclub members. Here, on this document of a 2009 concert at London’s O2 Arena, that means rarely heard live numbers like "Two Divided by Zero" and "Why Don't We Live Together?" plus the long-lost B-Side “Do I Have To?” Well-worn numbers like “Suburbia” and “Being Boring” are delivered as if they were fresh and new, while the triumphant performance of “West End Girls” shows that PSB have, shockingly, not grown tired of the tune. Kick it all off with a fantastic new mash-up of "More Than a Dream/Heart" and it’s a must own for the faithful, but when you add a well-shot DVD that captures the whole stage show, it’s the ultimate in PSB live sets. Borrowing an idea from Pink Floyd, the stage set features a wall of white blocks that are deconstructed, rearranged, and scattered as video is projected onto them. The effect is something dynamic and full of change that disappears when the lights come up, leaving nothing but the stark white stage and the fairly motionless duo. Clever, as always. © David Jeffries /TiVo