Jonathan Demme's creative direction and this group's brilliance make for an unusual live performance event. Starting solo with David Byrne, each song brings another band member to the stage until the full band kicks in. With Bernie Worrell on keyboards and a strong hit-filled set from the Speaking in Tongues tour, this is definitely worth checking out.© Scott Bultman /TiVo

How to better a record like Revolver? Sign off another by the name of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For many, this is truly the greatest pop and rock music of all time, if not one of the most significant works of art in popular culture from the second half of the twentieth century... After discovering the endless possibilities offered to them in the recording studio, John, Paul, George and Ringo continue their crazy musical experiments. More than ever considered as the ‘fifth Beatle’, producer George Martin runs out a magic carpet of discoveries that would go on to influence the future of pop. When this eighth studio album is released in June 1967, the era is one that has embraced the all-out psychedelic, and this concept album is a true hallucinatory trip (not only for Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds). Like the patchwork of his mythical pocket, Sergeant Pepper's journeys through pure pop, manly rock'n'roll, totally trippy sequences (to near worldly scales), retro songs of nursery rhymes, animal noises and even classical music! On the composition side, the duo of Lennon/McCartney is at the top of its game, delivering new songs that are still influential today. © MZ/Qobuz, Translation/BM

How to better a record like Revolver? Sign off another by the name of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For many, this is truly the greatest pop and rock music of all time, if not one of the most significant works of art in popular culture from the second half of the twentieth century... After discovering the endless possibilities offered to them in the recording studio, John, Paul, George and Ringo continue their crazy musical experiments. More than ever considered as the ‘fifth Beatle’, producer George Martin runs out a magic carpet of discoveries that would go on to influence the future of pop. When this eighth studio album is released in June 1967, the era is one that has embraced the all-out psychedelic, and this concept album is a true hallucinatory trip (not only for Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds). Like the patchwork of his mythical pocket, Sergeant Pepper's journeys through pure pop, manly rock'n'roll, totally trippy sequences (to near worldly scales), retro songs of nursery rhymes, animal noises and even classical music! On the composition side, the duo of Lennon/McCartney is at the top of its game, delivering new songs that are still influential today. © MZ/Qobuz, Translation/BM

Swedish DJ Avicii is a strange case. In 2011, he broke through with "Levels," a bleepy and bright bit of EDM that could have been his signature hit, but then his 2013 album, True, was a country-pop and folk-inspired affair that thrilled his fans with its inventiveness, but left others as cold as a meandering Mumford & Sons remix effort. Two years later, his LP Stories is another genre-busting affair that fits in better with mainstream radio than it does the club, but everything iffy about True has been perfected here, as the producer revisits the song-oriented album and lets the outside genres freely come and go. Country-pop is back in EDM remix form when "Broken Arrows" offers a spirited Zac Brown song with Avicii pumping it higher during the whirlwind bridge, but "Pure Grinding" is a highlight that would have never fit on True, and it lives up to its claim to be "funktronica" with double-dutch lyrics and '70s electro in support. "Touch Me" is a bell-bottomed delight that owes a debt to the disco movement, specifically Chic, and if the strange "City Lights" is the album's most arguable track, fans of Meco and Giorgio Moroder could argue it's spot-on with its robot vocals and tiny melody. "Talk to Myself," with Sterling Fox, steps into the '80s with a modern version of Matthew Wilder's "Break My Stride," and the rest of the prime moments come from the mainstream pop side of the spectrum, with the Martin Garrix and Simon Aldred (Cherry Ghost) feature "Waiting for Love" leading the pack. "Can't Catch Me," with Matisyahu and Wyclef Jean, is reggae, but the kind that Michael Franti and Radio Margaritaville can agree on, while "For a Better Day" is the same kind of electro and soul that Moby took to the top of the charts. Complaints that this isn't a dance album and doesn't sound like "Levels" may still be filed, but they're better applied to True. The pleasing, alive, and diverse Stories is a fine reason to think of Avicii as a producer of attractive music, with EDM, pop, and all other genres on a sliding scale.© David Jeffries /TiVo

How to better a record like Revolver? Sign off another by the name of Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. For many, this is truly the greatest pop and rock music of all time, if not one of the most significant works of art in popular culture from the second half of the twentieth century... After discovering the endless possibilities offered to them in the recording studio, John, Paul, George and Ringo continue their crazy musical experiments. More than ever considered as the ‘fifth Beatle’, producer George Martin runs out a magic carpet of discoveries that would go on to influence the future of pop. When this eighth studio album is released in June 1967, the era is one that has embraced the all-out psychedelic, and this concept album is a true hallucinatory trip (not only for Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds). Like the patchwork of his mythical pocket, Sergeant Pepper's journeys through pure pop, manly rock'n'roll, totally trippy sequences (to near worldly scales), retro songs of nursery rhymes, animal noises and even classical music! On the composition side, the duo of Lennon/McCartney is at the top of its game, delivering new songs that are still influential today. ©MZ/Qobuz, Translation/BM

While there's no debating the importance of Jonathan Demme's classic film record of Talking Heads' 1983 tour, the soundtrack released in support of it is a thornier matter. Since its release, purists have found Stop Making Sense slickly mixed and, worse yet, incomprehensive. The nine tracks included jumble and truncate the natural progression of frontman David Byrne's meticulously arranged stage show. Cries for a double-album treatment -- à la 1982's live opus The Name of This Band Is Talking Heads -- were sounded almost immediately; more enterprising fans merely dubbed the VHS release of the film onto cassette tape. So, until a 1999 "special edition" cured the 1984 release's ills, fans had to make do with the Stop Making Sense they were given -- which is, by any account, an exemplary snapshot of a band at the height of its powers. Even with some of his more memorable tics edited out, Byrne is in fine voice here: Never before had he sounded warmer or more approachable, as evidenced by his soaring rendition of "Once in a Lifetime." Though almost half the album focuses on Speaking in Tongues material, the band makes room for one of Byrne's Catherine Wheel tunes (the hard-driving, elliptical "What a Day That Was") as well as up-tempo versions of "Pyscho Killer" and "Take Me to the River." If anything, Stop Making Sense's emphasis on keyboards and rhythm is its greatest asset as well as its biggest failing: Knob-tweakers Chris Frantz and Jerry Harrison play up their parts at the expense of the treblier aspects of the performance, and fans would have to wait almost 15 years for reparations. Still, for a generation that may have missed the band's seminal '70s work, Stop Making Sense proves to be an excellent primer.© Michael Hastings /TiVo

Power pop bands are often caught in a quandary. Their core audience praises them for their classicist approach, but if they ever want to break out into a larger audience, they have to modernize their sound, which makes their cult angry. The problem is especially difficult for bands that came of age in the early '90s, since they were weaned on not just the Beatles and Beach Boys, but also the Pixies and Sonic Youth. As a result, bands like the Dandy Warhols are restless, anxious to make catchy pop songs while keeping indie cred, and that's why their major-label debut, The Dandy Warhols Come Down, is so uneven. The band has talent for not just punchy hooks, but for layered sonics as well, but they don't know how to meld the two together. As a result, the most immediate moments on the record are awash in a sea of feedback, which can't be trance-inducing since its spell is punctured by pop hooks. And while those pop songs are good, they aren't enough to prevent Come Down from being a frustrating listen. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Although his previous studio albums have rightly positioned him as the king of electric blues guitarists, Joe Bonamassa’s gut-wrenching expressiveness and technical wizardry are best experienced live. This blistering two-disc concert set captures Bonamassa’s brilliance on strutting stompers (“Bridge to Better Days”), aching laments (“So Many Roads”), and—the highlight--a sweat-inducing medley of “A New Day Yesterday”/ “Starship Trooper” / “Wurm.” © TiVo

What if a black metal band with a penchant for performance art and symphony-sized stage shows got a major label to back up and fund its perverted vision of apocalypse? The result would be something like Damnation and a Day, a metal album that features a 40-piece orchestra and 32-piece choir, but is still definitely extreme-sounding and can in no way be viewed as a sellout. Cradle of Filth was called a sellout long before they hooked up with Sony. Hardcore black metalers thought their stage show was too cartoony and Alice Cooper-like. That's true in a way -- the band's delivery of dark music comes filtered through a show that's more Cirque du Soleil than satanic. If any black metal band was ever going to be in league with the Beelzebub-owned music industry, it was Cradle of Filth. So not surprisingly, for their major-label debut the filthy ones have come up with a sprawling, 77-minute-long record. It has some grand-sounding moments and is recorded cleanly, with the symphonic and operatic elements being perhaps its best. But it is endless, and only a true Filth fan could tell one song from another. The song titles include "A Bruise Upon the Silent Moon," "The Promise of Fever," and "The Mordant Liquor of Tears," and obviously they are trying for something truly portentous with Damnation and a Day -- but it's a mess. Perhaps someone more level-headed at the record label or a gifted producer could have turned this into a record with real songs. As it is, it's a taxing, less-than-monumental work that won't win them many new mainstream fans, if that's at all what they had in mind.© Adam Bregman /TiVo

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This double-CD set is the first of two anthologies to gather the solo work of Temptations co-founder Eddie Kendricks. Included are his early-'70s long-players All by Myself, People...Hold On, Eddie Kendricks, and For You. Although he had gained considerable distinction as a key component in the Temptations during the 1960s, by decade's end the group was being torn apart by substance abuse and egos. David Ruffin's departure was followed by Kendricks -- who had actually already begun to record All by Myself prior to officially leaving the Temps. His debut project was sensitively produced by Motown stalwart Frank Wilson, who showcases Kendricks at his best and most diverse. The material ranges from the funky "Let's Go Back to Day One" through to the Philly soul score that weaves beneath the remake of Jimmy Webb's "Didn't We." People...Hold On takes Kendricks down a path of introspective, socially conscious themes -- much like labelmate Marvin Gaye had done with his landmark What's Going On in 1971. Among the standouts are the optimistic "Someday We'll Have a Better World" and the passionate "My People...Hold On." Much more personal are the inspired "Day by Day" and the driving groove that propels "Let Me Run into Your Lonely Heart" -- all reconfirming Kendricks' stature as a substantial singer. Although there were several singles from All By Myself and People...Hold On that performed admirably on the R&B surveys, the majority didn't create a stir on the pop charts. All that changed, however, with Eddie Kendricks -- which entered the Top 20 R&B and pop LP countdowns. Much of the attention was due to the chart-topping "Keep on Truckin'," which is here in the unedited seven-plus-minute album version. On the other side of the stylistic spectrum are "Each Day I Cry a Little," replete with spoken intro, and the not-to-be-missed remake of "Any Day Now" -- the Burt Bacharach-penned song that Chuck Jackson spun into gold some years earlier. The success of "Keep on Truckin'" spilled over to For You, with Kendricks garnering a pair of Top Ten tunes with "One Tear" and his second number one, the refined "Shoeshine Boy." He also covers light rock hits with "If" by Bread and an outstanding interpretation of "Time in a Bottle" that may best Jim Croce's original. Keep on Truckin': The Motown Solo Albums, Vol. 1 is limited to an edition of 5,000 and comes with a full-color glossy 28-page booklet with photos, reproductions of the LP artwork, full credits, and discographical details.© Lindsay Planer /TiVo

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