Beth Hart commands the stage with just one click of her fingers! The Californian tigress is still as feisty as ever without getting caught up in the clichés. In this live performance recorded on May 4th 2018 in London’s most prestigious setting, the Royal Albert Hall, she sets up her very own cabaret mixing blues, jazz and vintage soul. A woman who honours Nina Simone, Howlin’ Wolf, Dinah Washington, Buddy Guy and so many other key personalities of rhythm’n’blues, she shows us the full extent of her talent during this two-hour show. With a microphone to hand or sat behind her piano, what impresses us most is Beth Hart’s ability to mix all her musical influences and produce one very personal cocktail. Her secret? Her voice, of course. A kind of unstoppable magnet that pulls every word, every sentence, every chorus and which is made even more powerful by her contact with the audience. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz

When does an artist morph from being current to nostalgia? It's an often imperceptible evolution that can happen almost overnight. Back in 2010, when this album was first released, old friends and musical contemporaries Carole King and James Taylor were fast approaching that turn. And yet this pair of indispensable American singer/songwriters were still in fine voice and even more buoyant spirits during these shows which judging by the crowd reaction, were a rousing success. Capturing highlights from three 2007 shows at the legendary (and still open) Troubadour in West Hollywood, these shows were meant to celebrate the club's 50th anniversary, and also its history with King and Taylor, who once laid the foundations of their respective careers there. In 1969 prior to her first solo release Writer, King played piano in Taylor's band during a six-night residency at the club. The next year they returned to co-headline a multi-night stand. Their appearance in 2007, using the same band as those original gigs—Danny Kortchmar (guitar), Leland Sklar (bass) and Russ Kunkel (drums)—were a love fest for the fans and performers alike, igniting the subsequent 2010 Troubadour Reunion Tour which touched down in the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The big news with this reissue is that for the first time it's available in 96 kHz/24-bit high resolution. While live albums will never be noted for their pristine sound, the increased level of detail, hearing the resonances of the room for the first time and the newly crisped edges to the overall production are a welcome improvement. Needless to say, finding suitable material was not this duo's problem. The dilemma quickly became which songs not to play. Adopting the your song-my song method of a guitar pull they swing back and forth between originals. No disrespect to Taylor but King's songs, many from her 1971 breakthrough, Tapestry, are hard to top. While not the singer she was in 1970, King delivers a first-class rendition of "It's Too Late" which is spiced by a tight Danny Kortchmar solo. "Smackwater Jack," with King playing barrelhouse piano licks, becomes even more of a head-bobbing, toe-tapping stomp than the original. She reaches back, giving a slow performance of "Will You Love Me Tomorrow?" her 1960 hit for the Shirelles, in which Taylor sings a duet in the chorus. Wise performers that they are, they save the big fireworks for the finale: Taylor works his way through a slow-paced "Fire and Rain," King adds the necessary snap to "I Feel the Earth Move" before Taylor volleys back with "You've Got a Friend" where King takes a verse and sings duet in the choruses on a song that opened side two of Tapestry. In closing, they trade verses on King's "Up On The Roof," a 1962 hit for The Drifters, and sing a duet on Taylor's "You Can Close Your Eyes," which seems a bit anticlimactic and mournful for a friendly performance—akin to listening to '70s FM Radio—from aging old pros which is anything but. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

While their previous, self-titled album found them taking their sound in a more muscular direction, Escape the Fate find their knack for melody again on their fourth album, Ungrateful. Though the album retains a lot of the heaviness of their last effort, there's a soaring quality here that feels like the band is opening its sound up more, allowing the big moments to go in whatever direction is natural rather than trying to give everything a hard edge. With more room to stretch out, it definitely feels like Escape the Fate are moving into more familiar -- and more comfortable -- territories, making Ungrateful an album that feels like a return to form for the band.© Gregory Heaney /TiVo

Carole King and James Taylor reuniting isn’t quite a monumental reunion -- they never were an official performing entity, so they never had a falling out, appearing on-stage and on record from time to time since their ‘70s heyday -- but it is a notable one, particularly when they choose to perform at the Troubadour, the L.A. venue so crucial at the start of their stardom, backed by such fellow veterans of the SoCal singer/songwriter scene as guitarist Danny Kortchmar, bassist Leland Sklar, and drummer Russell Kunkel, musicians who supported them the last time they co-headlined the club back in 1971. All this made their series of shared shows in November 2007 an event, albeit a low-key one. King and Taylor embrace their classics -- it seems that there’s not a hit missed between the two of them -- and there’s genuine warmth to the whole show that’s quite appealing. Perhaps there are no surprises here, but any shock would have run counter to the whole spirit of the evening: this is about basking in both nostalgia and friendship, and if you’re on the same wave as the musicians, Live at the Troubadour is enjoyable.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Busta Rhymes is undoubtedly one of the best and most distinctive rappers of the '90s. He's also one of the most prolific; Anarchy, released in the summer of 2000, is his fourth album since 1996. Each one has been jammed full of material and also a little erratic, packed not only with great singles and tongue-twisting performances but also filler that gets by mostly on Busta's personality. Clocking in at around 78 minutes, Anarchy is no exception to the rule. Its best moments are as brilliant as ever, but there are also signs that Busta's winning formula is starting to show a little wear and tear. "C'Mon All My Niggaz, C'Mon All My Bitches" has the insanely rapid-fire delivery of E.L.E.'s "Gimme Some More," which sums up the difficulty of Anarchy in a nutshell: no matter how incredible it is, we've heard much of this from Busta before. Of course, the converse is also true: a lot of it is still incredible, no matter how familiar, and there are a few intriguing production touches. But, perhaps for the first time, Busta's singular yet now familiar style isn't quite enough to carry the weaker material, which often feels too tossed off. It doesn't help, either, that Anarchy follows the same sort of millennial-apocalypse concept that enlivened E.L.E. (and, to a certain extent, When Disaster Strikes); it's a little disappointing to hear such an inventive rapper retreading familiar territory. It seems almost impossible that Busta could produce a true failure, but by this point, a growing number of fans may not salivate over a new album nearly as much as the inevitable best-of collection.© Steve Huey /TiVo

The sixth full-length effort from the veteran alt-rockers, It's the End of the World, But It's a Beautiful Day sees the Jared and Shannon Leto-led ensemble deliver an assured set of prog-, pop-, and electronic-leaning songs that play to all the band's strengths. Inspired by the sounds of '70s and '80s electronic music, the album is the group's first effort, apart from their debut, to not feature guitarist Tomo Miličević, who left the fold in 2018. The 11-song set includes the streaming hits "Stuck," "Life Is Beautiful," and "Get Up Kid."© TiVo

Let's set the scene: Tattoo You was released in August 1981. After an incredible run with Beggars Banquet, Let It Bleed, Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street, the Stones were careening between highs (Goat's Head Soup, Some Girls) and lows, not to mention some real deep dips (Black and Blue, Emotional Rescue). Most of all, Mick and Keith were grating on each other more and more. But since touring is what keeps the cash register ringing, it was time to put together an album and take it around the world. That album was to be Tattoo You, in fact a bit of a counterfeit "new" record because as it was made up of scraps from the previous albums, and even old demos and embryos of songs that were never finalized. While all this did not bode well, the result was surprisingly miraculous. Indeed: for many fans Tattoo You would be the last truly good Rolling Stones record. A very rock'n'roll side A, a B side with more of a focus on ballads, and everywhere Mick and Keith's flawless expertise... After the hit Start Me Up which always plays very well in 80,000-seater stadiums, some excellent and rather edgy songs—not really Richards' thing—such as Hang Fire or Neighbours show that there is still plenty of life left in the old dogs yet! And as yet another reminder that the real source of the Stones' music is the blues, we are treated to an excellent, lively rendition of Black Limousine. In terms of the slower numbers, the soulful Top is pretty steamy, and Heaven sees Jagger's spirited falsetto reach new heights. Finally, on Waiting on a Friend, they bring on board a giant of jazz, the saxophonist Sonny Rollins, who puts out an impeccably powerful solo with Caribbean flavours (he is also present on Neighbours and Slave)… The 40th anniversary edition of Tattoo You enjoys Deluxe Edition treatment with a new mix, rarities like covers of the Chi-Lites (Troubles a' Comin), Jimmy Reed's Shame Shame Shame and Dobie Gray's Drift Away, not to mention a hearty live performance recorded in London's Wembley Stadium in 1982. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Def Leppard have released a whole host of standout albums that combine great artistic creation with huge commercial success, particularly during the 80s with records like High’n’Dry (1981), Pyromania (1983) and Hysteria (1987)—the latter of which went 12 times platinum in the US alone. As grunge and new modern music gained traction, it really dealt a blow to MTV-era hard rock bands, but Def Leppard—like many of the old school rockers of the time—never gave up. If you’ve been closely following the band’s career since the early 90s, Diamond Star Halos won’t come as a surprise since the band have followed a fairly logical progression. From civilised ballads to huge productions that have swapped hard rock for more classic rock, they could easily be included within the AOR genre. This English band haven’t lost their knack for creating huge hits either: there’s three on this 2022 album alone.This album is smooth, clean, and harmonised. The agressive sound they went for in their early years has been replaced with the kind of class that only comes with age, even their big riffs have a classy edge (for example in SOS Emergency, which starts off heavy but eventually morphs into a track well-suited to mainstream radio). Naturally, this release features its fair share of ballads, some of them more accomplished than others. Keyboardist Mike Garson (David Bowie’s faithful companion) even features in the credits of Goodbye for Good This Time and Angels (Can’t Help You Now). The guest list also includes Alison Krauss, the 27-time Grammy Award-winning bluegrass star (who has also released two albums in duet with Robert Plant in the past). Her vocals light up This Guitar and Lifeless. There are few other tracks that pack a real punch too: the lively and synthetic Unbreakable, the groovy U Rock Mi (which has a chorus that was just made for live stadium performances) and the incredible Open Your Eyes (which really puts the spotlight on Joe Elliot’s evolution as a vocalist). Unlike Scorpions and Saxon with their recent viagra-fuelled albums, Def Leppard are now making music that’s “suited to their age”—and that’s no bad thing, no one’s going to be holding it against them. Diamond Star Halos is a great rock album (perhaps even a great hard rock album). It might have been worth dropping two or three tracks from the tracklist (see if you can spot them!), but this a still a brilliant, well-produced release. There’s no doubt that Def Leppard have still got something to say that’s worth hearing. © Charlélie Arnaud/Qobuz

Though they were the most highly touted new wave band to emerge from the CBGB's scene in New York, it was not clear at first whether Talking Heads' Lower East Side art rock approach could make the subway ride to the midtown pop mainstream successfully. The leadoff track of the debut album, Talking Heads: 77, "Uh-Oh, Love Comes to Town," was a pop song that emphasized the group's unlikely roots in late-'60s bubblegum, Motown, and Caribbean music. But the "Uh-Oh" gave away the group's game early, with its nervous, disconnected lyrics and David Byrne's strained voice. All pretenses of normality were abandoned by the second track, as Talking Heads finally started to sound on record the way they did downtown: the staggered rhythms and sudden tempo changes, the odd guitar tunings and rhythmic, single-note patterns, the non-rhyming, non-linear lyrics that came across like odd remarks overheard from a psychiatrist's couch, and that voice, singing above its normal range, its falsetto leaps and strangled cries resembling a madman trying desperately to sound normal. Talking Heads threw you off balance, but grabbed your attention with a sound that seemed alternately threatening and goofy. The music was undeniably catchy, even at its most ominous, especially on "Psycho Killer," Byrne's supreme statement of demented purpose. Amazingly, that song made the singles chart for a few weeks, evidence of the group's quirky appeal, but the album was not a big hit, and it remained unclear whether Talking Heads spoke only the secret language of the urban arts types or whether that could be translated into the more common tongue of hip pop culture. In any case, they had succeeded as artists, using existing elements in an unusual combination to create something new that still managed to be oddly familiar. And that made Talking Heads: 77 a landmark album.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo