After her big band beginnings, resolutely anchored in traditional forms of jazz, followed by increasingly notable incursions towards soul, rhythm, blues and pop that describe an agile technique and holistic sense of entertainment, the singer Robin McKelle seems, in recent years, to have naturally returned to her first love. As proof, this magnificent new album is designed, as its name suggests, as a personal and impressionistic evocation of the inimitable vocal art of the brilliant Ella Fitzgerald. Unfussy and faithful to the text and the great standards immortalised by this icon of swing jazz, Robin McKelle showcases a mature mixture of humility and know-how as she deploys all the facets of her outstanding talent: a clear and irresistibly fresh timbre, supple and beautifully articulated phrasing gliding as close as possible to the melodic line with varying intensity, placement and rhythm of great musicality, and a constant emotional commitment offering personal interpretations of the song lyrics. Magnificently accompanied by a sumptuous trio, composed of the pianist Kenny Barron, double bassist Peter Washington, and drummer Kenny Washington, the record is imperial throughout, both in terms of elegance and expressiveness. Robin McKelle has not only put her name to her most touching and personal album to date but has put herself among the greatest real jazz singers of the present day. © Stéphane Ollivier/Qobuz 

Effectively his introduction to a wide audience -- it's his second album on a major but first to be thoroughly polished, right down to the inclusion of cameos -- Whitsitt Chapel finds Jelly Roll planting a stake firmly in the heart of country music. Much of his shift is due to how Ballads of the Broken, his 2021 mini-LP, landed a hit with "Son of a Sinner," a slow-burning outlaw anthem placed in soft enough focus to appeal to those listeners who have no stomach for the gaudy bounce of hick-hop. With its very title, Whitsitt Chapel appears thoroughly country and Jelly Roll plays with this theme throughout the record, emphasizing the sacred/profane connection by littering the album with tunes like "Halfway to Hell," "Church," "Dancing with the Devil," and "Hungover in a Church Pew." He still swears, he still sings to electronic rhythms, he still brings old rap friends Struggle Jennings and Yelawolf aboard for cameos, but he also finds space for country singers Brantley Gilbert and Lainey Wilson, all in an attempt to steer himself squarely toward the moody country mainstream. Jelly Roll not only seems kinder than, say, Jason Aldean, he seems earnest: his range may be limited but his delivery is sincere, and that lack of affectation reads as country even when the sound veers closer to post-grunge malls than backwoods honky tonk.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

What an album cover! The beautiful black and white photo by Robert Freeman is already a kind of must-have... Recorded only four months after their first album Please Please Me, the album With The Beatles, released in November 1963, is like a little extension. This second studio album brings together seven songs by the duo of Lennon/McCartney (notable mention: All My Loving), a George Harrison (Don't Bother Me), as well as six cover songs, and is mostly vintage rock'n'roll, soul and Motown rhythm’n’blues. Introducing new instruments, dubbed voices and sound eclecticism, With The Beatles depicts a young group that gradually extricate themselves from the influences of their elders in order to create their own unique musical universe. The original songs on this album, although certainly at the level that they would go on to achieve in subsequent years, show that The Beatles were already ahead of their time. ©MZ/Qobuz, Translation/BM

Recorded "live" at the Paris Olympia, Live in Paris offers listeners Diana Krall's understanding of the musical techniques of composition, piano, and vocal improvisation on 12 songs from the Great American Songbooks of Cole Porter,Harold Arlen, George and Ira Gershwin, and contemporary artists Joni Mitchell and Billy Joel. Accompanied by the award-winning Anthony Wilson on guitar, John Pisano on acoustic guitar, John Clayton on bass, Jeff Hamilton on drums, and Paulinho Da Costa on percussion as well as the Orchestra Symphonies European on "Let's Fall in Love" and "I've Got You Under My Skin," the lovely vocalist heightens your listening pleasures with distinctive phrasings and tangible pathways to inside the creative imagination by getting inside harmony, the changes, and melodic structures. On Joel's "Just the Way You Are," Krall is accompanied by Christian McBride on bass, Michael Brecker on tenor saxophone, Lewis Nash on drums, and Wilson on guitar, among others. This song also resides on the soundtrack to the film The Guru and is probably one of the best ballads on the set due to the great solo from Brecker. His powerful but sensitive playing adds the ultimate expression and approach to the melody -- one with attitudinal preparation, which is always necessary for a song that has such familiarity and association with another musician. For those who may not have heard Krall perform "live," this recording will give you a firsthand account of the ambience and excitement of a musical evening with her.© Paula Edelstein /TiVo

The problem with compiling an essential best-of compilation covering the phenomenon that was (and is) Elvis Presley is the very man himself, who has passed from this mortal coil into the iconic pop culture stratosphere where even his own death is questioned and Elvis sightings are as frequent as fleas. Then there are the thousands of performers who daily dress up as Presley himself and sally forth into the world like perfectly gyrating replicas of either the early or later Elvis (body physics dictate that you can't be both). Elvis may have left the building, but not really. His image is everywhere, and his fans are legion and devout. So how does one pick his essential sides when "Do the Clam" is a classic in the Kingdom of Presley simply because Elvis did it? He recorded Tony Joe White's "Polk Salad Annie" in 1970. It was hardly the best version ever of "Polk Salad Annie" but it was Elvis' version of "Polk Salad Annie," which puts it in rarefied class of its own, and making it, like "Do the Clam," absolutely essential in some quarters. When you're larger than life, words like essential have to expand or be left wanting. The Essential Elvis Presley boils this imposing legacy down to two discs of 20 tracks each, and approaches the problem of what is truly essential by choosing to compile all of Elvis' significant charting hits, beginning with his 1954 cover of Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right" from Sam Phillips' Sun Records and continuing chronologically through Presley's long association with RCA Records through the year 1976. That means, while there's no version of "Do the Clam" ("Polk Salad Annie" is here, though), there are classic sides like 1956's "Heartbreak Hotel," "Don't Be Cruel," "Hound Dog," and "Love Me Tender," 1957's "Jailhouse Rock," 1961's "Little Sister," and 1969's "In the Ghetto," "Suspicious Minds," and "Kentucky Rain." There are 17 number one hits and a whole lot more. Elvis fanatics are going to complain about what isn't here, of course. Elvis is the King, after all, and therefore by definition everything he recorded ought to be essential. And everything he recorded is indeed essential on some level. But these are the sides that broke through to the deepest level of the world pop culture that Elvis helped create. These are the songs that broke him and then sustained him on radio and television and at the movie theaters. Die-hard Elvis fans will undoubtedly already have everything collected here. This is a set instead for folks who want to have at least one Elvis anthology in their collections, and want the hits they remember and don't much care if those hits are from the early Elvis or the later Elvis or the dear departed Elvis. Just the hits, bartender, shaken not stirred. That means no version of "Do the Clam," singular as it is.© Steve Leggett /TiVo

Morgan Wallen opens One Thing at a Time with two songs where the narrator cops to drinking too much and not quite remembering what they've said. It's not the only time he alludes to letting the bottle turn him into a different man, an elliptical allusion to the scandal that embroiled the country singer after he was captured on video uttering a racial slur. The incident happened not long after the release of Wallen's Dangerous: The Double Album, and far from knocking his career off track, the scandal helped consolidate his audience; the double-LP turned into the best-selling album of 2021. One Thing at a Time offers more of the same -- a lot more of it. Weighing in at 36 songs, it's six tracks longer than Dangerous: The Double Album, a difference that clocks in at nearly an additional half-hour, bringing it just a few minutes shy of two hours. This untrammeled sprawl means One Thing at a Time offers a little something for everybody: there are sentimental weepers like "Thought You Should Know," a superstar duet thanks to Eric Church's cameo on "Man Made a Bar," party songs, sad songs, songs that lift liberally from classic rock standards ("Everything I Love," which borrows from both Allman Brothers Band's "Midnight Rider" and Marshall Tucker Band's "Can't You See"), songs about beer, songs about whiskey, and songs about wine. On Dangerous: The Double Album, all this radio-ready variety suggested that Wallen wanted to appeal to every audience everywhere, but in the wake of his scandal, this multi-purpose crowd-pleasing suggests an artist who wants to provide the perpetual jukebox within a walled garden.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Recorded during their American tour in late 1969 and centered around live versions of material from the Beggars Banquet-Let It Bleed era, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! is often acclaimed as one of the top live rock albums of all time, although its appeal has dimmed a little today. The live versions are reasonably different from the studio ones, but ultimately not as good, a notable exception being the long workout of "Midnight Rambler," with extended harmonica solos and the unforgettable section where the pace slows to a bump-and-grind crawl. Some Stones aficionados, in fact, prefer a bootleg from the same tour (Liver Than You'll Ever Be, to which this album was unleashed in response), or their amazing the-show-must-go-on performance in the jaws of hell at Altamont (preserved in the Gimme Shelter film). Fans who are unconcerned with picky comparisons such as these will still find Ya-Ya's an outstanding album, and it's certainly the Stones' best official live recording.© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

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

Biopic The Dirt tells the story of Mötley Crüe's wild ride through their time as one of the most popular and most debaucherous bands of the metal years. During a blistering run that lasted the entirety of the '80s, the L.A. band sold millions of records, toured the world, and challenged death constantly with reckless behavior, substance abuse, and the kind of mayhem that sometimes seems like it only existed in the time when hair metal reigned. Some of these misadventures were collected in the 2001 book The Dirt, and the 2019 film adaptation of the book further dramatizes some of the group's already unbelievable antics, as well as getting into the music that made it all happen. The soundtrack to the film is made up entirely of music by Mötley Crüe, but in addition to 14 selections from their early catalog, they recorded four entirely new tracks in 2018 especially for inclusion in the film. Rapper Machine Gun Kelly (who plays the role of drummer Tommy Lee in the film) features on the song "The Dirt (Est. 1981)," dropping a rapped coda about tattoos, girls, cars, and the rock & roll lifestyle into the song's pop-metal framework. Huge, hooky choruses were part of the Crüe's formula for success in the '80s, and they don't shy away from that formula here, either. In addition to two other new songs, "Crash and Burn" and "Ride with the Devil," the band offer an unlikely cover in the form of Madonna's 1984 smash hit "Like a Virgin." Die-hard metalheads might scoff at the idea of a band synonymous with '80s metal decadence taking a stab at one of the decade's most commercial artists, but 35 years later the context of the song (and of all the musicians in the equation, for that matter) has shifted to the point where the cover can be taken at face value. It's a revved-up version of an undeniably catchy song, delivered with an extra dose of menace and possibly a self-aware smirk at how ridiculous it is. The Dirt soundtrack pairs the nostalgia of well-loved favorites ("Home Sweet Home," "Kickstart My Heart," "Shout at the Devil") with the reinvigorated excitement of the raw newer songs for a collection that feels more like a companion to the film than a greatest-hits repackaging.© Fred Thomas /TiVo

During her 25-year career in the music biz, Kylie Minogue’s ability to re-invent herself and stay current is rivaled only by Madonna’s. Unlike her American counterpart, though, Kylie’s changes never seem desperate, and everything she does exudes a touch of class that makes her shifts seem far more organic. From chirpy teen popper to indie diva to dance-pop heavyweight, every step she’s taken has made perfect sense and in the process, she’s released some of the best pop records of her era. In 2012, as part of her own look back at the highlights of a long and successful career, Kylie and her band went to Abbey Road studios to run through a selection of her biggest hits and best songs. Joined by an array of backing singers and an orchestra, the songs are re-imagined in ways that bring out the underlying emotions behind the glittery pop facades. Stripping the songs down to their basics and then adding strings on top proves to be very effective, especially on “All the Lovers” or “Hand on Your Heart,” and most of the new arrangements are imaginative and sometime inspired. The piano ballad version of “Better the Devil You Know” works very well, as does the sultry trip-hop take on “Slow,” while the strings and vocals on “I Should Be So Lucky” turn the song into a classy '30s musical showstopper. The most interesting reboot takes place on “Can’t Get You Out of My Head” where the insistent strings push the song along with a tightly coiled electricity that is impossible to resist. The only song that really falls flat is the cutesy, Motown-inspired take on “The Locomotion.” Though Kylie may not have the strongest voice around, she has more than enough charm and understated emotional strength to fill the more intimate arrangements with a solid and exceedingly warm center. The album stands as both as a reminder of all the classic pop songs Kylie has released and of her fearless nature. She’s always been willing to take risks, and despite the initial thought that her music may not stand up to the orchestral treatment, The Abbey Road Sessions is another victory in a career full of them.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

What set the Pogues apart from any number of other energetic Irish traditional bands was the sheer physical force of their performances, the punky swagger of their personalities, and Shane MacGowan's considerable gifts as a songwriter. Unfortunately, none of these qualities comes through very clearly on their first album, Red Roses for Me. While the Pogues are in good form here, the production (by Stan Brennan) is thin and lacks the body or nuance to capture the finer details of the performances, robbing this recording of the fire the group would display on their later albums. And it's clear that MacGowan had not yet fully matured as a songwriter; there are a handful of superb songs here, such as "Transmetropolitan," "Streams of Whiskey," and "Down in the Ground Where the Dead Men Go," but some of the others suggest MacGowan was still learning how to fit all his ideas into his songs. Red Roses for Me is good and rowdy fun, but on Rum Sodomy & the Lash and If I Should Fall from Grace with God, the Pogues would prove they were capable of a lot more than that.© Mark Deming /TiVo

Over six previous albums, Kentucky's Black Stone Cherry continued to prove that their hoary hybrid of Southern rock, grunge, post-metal, and hard rock remains vital. The Human Condition underscores their deserved reputation as the brotherhood of Southern swamp metal, but there is immense growth in their creative process. Previously, BSC's recording process always involved cutting basic tracks while playing live on the studio floor. Working in bassist Jon Lawhon's Monocle Studios, the band did a 180: For the first time ever, they meticulously multi-tracked every note and sound. The sonic detail is indeed expansive, but the group sacrificed none of their power or swagger. They also felt a sense of urgency; while recording, the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading exponentially, and they undertook marathon sessions to complete the record. They finished days before the world shut down. The result is a startlingly fresh-sounding BSC album.Opener "Ringin' in My Head" offers muted feedback and dissonance before a bone-crunching guitar riff introduces the melody. Though written years ago, its lyrics are oddly prescient: "People people, your attention please/I need to tell all y'all about a new disease/it's crept right up from beneath our nose...I got a ringin' in my head/My bones are shakin'...I can feel it in my chest...The whole world's been shaken." The jam welds shattering grunge to metal as vocalist Chris Robertson sounds the alarm. "Push Down & Turn" offers scorching swamp metal. Robertson wails about his struggles with bipolar disorder and the band protects him with a maelstrom of overdriven riffs, chugging bass, and John Fred Young's thundering kick drums. "When Angels Learn to Fly" and "In Love with the Pain" are both exercises in the kind of anthemic AOR stadium rock balladry employed by bands such as 38 Special and the Outlaws. The muscular, dynamic production frames infectious, melodic hooks, vulnerable lyrics, and chiming group choruses. The metallic psych in "The Chain" channels Soundgarden in the best possible way. "If My Heart Had Wings" melds Dobro, electric guitars, piano, synth strings, and majestic processional drumming as Robertson heartbreakingly confesses his shortcomings in a relationship strained to the breaking point. BSC's customary inclusion of a classic cover remains in a noisy, slamming, irresistible read of ELO's "Don't Bring Me Down," offered with impeccable backing vocals and the filthiest bass line Lawhon has yet recorded. On "Devil in Your Eyes," Ben Wells channels Sonny Landreth's slide guitar sound before raging into dark, swirling Pearl Jam-esque hard rock. "Keep On Keepin' On" had to close the set. Despite its fist-pumping riff and hard rock vamp, the lyrical melody and group refrain return us to the tragic uncertainty of the present: "When everything that's good is gone, got to keep on keepin' on." The Human Condition's polished production might startle, but it's key to the band's most adventurous, mature, and finely wrought album to date, hands down.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

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Problems with the Mushroom label delayed the release of Magazine, which eventually went platinum and peaked at number 17 on the album charts. Only the hard-rocking "Heartless" made it into the Top 40, and the album didn't really live up to Heart's last few efforts. 1976's Dreamboat Annie showed stronger songwriting, while Little Queen had a lot more bite to it. Magazine lacks in energy and, to a much greater extent, fluency. The songs sound careless and scrambled together, and while some of the blame can be placed on the label controversy, it's apparent that the Wilsons seem unconcerned, for the most part. "Here Song," "Just the Wine," and the predictable "Without You" all have weak seams in both the writing and the articulateness of the tracks as a whole. 1978's Dog & Butterfly shows more interest and rock & roll vitality than its predecessor, making Magazine an album even the band likes to forget about.© Mike DeGagne /TiVo