In 2015, David Gilmour decided to undertake a series of concerts in the world’s oldest venues. A year later, the guitarist from Pink Floyd becomes the first artist since the gladiators in 79 AD to give a concert before an audience in Pompeii’s amphitheater! It was a trip back to the Italian city for him, as he had already performed there in 1971 during the shooting of Adrian Maben’s movie Pink Floyd: Live At Pompeii… In the shadow of the Vesuvius, David Gilmour plays in the more than legendary venue on July 7th and 8th, 2016 and revisits songs that have always been there his whole life, in solo as well as with Floyd. And let’s not forget the new interpretations of The Great Gig In The Sky from the album Dark Side Of The Moon, rarely performed in solo by Gilmour. © CM/Qobuz

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 

With a few lineup changes at the start, and a couple hiatuses since, the Feelies have been together for over 45 years now. The band upended traditional rock 'n' roll cliches and structure to arrive at their own beautiful jingle-jangle mourning, propelled by a submerged and insistent force—oh, let's just call it Jersey motorik. Their music is characterized by strict attention to volume, repetition, and the implementation of subtle changes in tempo and dynamics. Fans of the band have longed for a full-length live album for years; with their Springsteen-length sets and seemingly endless bursts of energy, the Feelies are among the greatest live bands in the world, after all. But the group was too perfectionist to ever allow such a thing to happen with their own songs. Here's a great solution, then: Some Kinda Love, a sprawling set of 18 Velvet Underground songs, recorded at Jersey City's White Eagle Hall in 2018.We all know the adage that, while it didn't sell too well upon release, every kid who bought the Velvet Underground's first album later went and started a band. And from their start in the late 1970s in a Haledon, New Jersey garage, the Feelies showed themselves to be a particularly smart, suburban variant of the Reedophile. They were of the punk era, and absolutely informed by it, especially in their first recordings. But they did so without making too much of a fuss at the hairdresser. With their buttoned-up intensity, emphasis on those quiet-loud shifts, ironic lyrics, and the sort of harmonic guitar solos one could sing along to note-for-note, the Feelies were a clear template for what became known in the 1980s as indie-rock, and were a huge influence on a swath of acts who came later, from REM to Sonic Youth, and Yo La Tengo to Galaxie 500.This recording is such a treat. The album starts with "Sunday Morning," the first song on VU's first album, then closes out with "Oh! Sweet Nuthin'," the last song on their final studio album, Loaded. Such attention to detail shows you that you are about to get taken to school, so sit down, shut up, and listen loud. Different band members take charge on lead vocals depending on the song, which is swell and is a nod to their extended family of bands the Trypes, Yung Wu, and Speed the Plough. Glenn Mercer's vocals at times channel the exact timbre of mid-to-late period Reed (especially on "New Age") that it feels like a seance. The Feelies know these songs so well, and they simply appropriate the structures and chord changes with love enough to perform them straight ahead here ("Sweet Jane," "What Goes On"), and stretched-into-just-shy-of-oblivion there ("All Tomorrow's Parties," "Oh Sweet Nuthin'"). They absolutely steamroll through and inject new life into songs you've heard a million times, like "I'm Waiting For My Man," "Run Run Run," and especially an amped-up "White Light/White Heat." Some Kinda Love might prove to be the best tribute record of the 2020s. The only thing missing from it is a half hour version of "Sister Ray." © Mike McGonigal/Qobuz

In December of 2019, rapper/songwriter Juice WRLD died at the height of fame, just days after his 21st birthday. This tragic loss came months after the rapper had taken his second studio album, Death Race for Love, to the top of the charts, his distinctive blend of emotionally vulnerable lyricism and infectious genre-bending songcraft becoming a ubiquitous sound unto itself. Posthumous album Legends Never Die arrived less than a year after his passing, and offers further evidence of the late artist's gifts for self-inspection and exceptionally constructed hooks. "Conversations" is as catchy as a song about demonic visions and mental disturbance gets, with soft synth lines and a booming trap beat underscoring Juice WRLD's anxious, depressive observations. "Tell Me U Love Me" gets some assistance from Trippie Redd and the gentle, heartbroken ballad "Life's a Mess" features vocals from Halsey. Juice WRLD's general subject matters -- despair, substance abuse issues, loneliness and searching for authentic happiness -- already make for emotionally weighty songs, and listening to him sing from beyond gives Legends Never Die an impenetrably somber atmosphere. Allegedly Juice WRLD recorded over 2,000 songs that were unreleased at the time of his death, and the ones that surface here are in some ways stronger than the often disjointed and sometimes overly dramatic material that made up the albums released while he was alive. Legends Never Die is as strong a collection of Juice WRLD songs as any, with already-searing songs made more intense by the shadow of their departed creator looming over the album.© Fred Thomas /TiVo

Oasis always thrived on tension between the Brothers Gallagher -- not the interpersonal squabbles but their conflict between instinct and discipline. Liam personified the former while Noel flew the flag for the latter and their distinct, differing definitions of rock & roll continued to churn out exciting rock & roll until the end, when Liam’s cavalier attitude toward work proved the final straw for the elder Gallagher. Unsurprisingly, the first solo projects from the two reflected this dichotomy: Liam’s Beady Eye is all big-legged swagger; Noel’s High Flying Birds is tasteful, mannered craftsmanship. Noel often griped how Liam would prevent Oasis from doing anything unexpected, thereby raising expectations of left turns on High Flying Birds, but the little brass flourishes peppered throughout the record don’t stop the album from playing like a succession of variations on “Don’t Look Back in Anger” and “The Importance of Being Idle.” Craftsman that he is, Gallagher does come up with several keepers -- the Oasis carryovers “Stop the Clocks” and “(I Wanna Live in a Dream in My) Record Machine,” “If I Had a Gun...,” “Everybody’s on the Run” -- but his success ratio is no greater than it was on the last two Oasis albums, where his best tunes were buttressed by good ones from his brother and Andy Bell. Take the highlights from Beady Eye’s Different Gear, Still Speeding and add them to the highlights from High Flying Birds, and you’ll wind up with a balanced, better record than either individual LPs -- and in a direct competition the elder Gallagher comes up just a little short, as he’s missing anything resembling rock & roll, skimping on quick tempos and loud guitars.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Maturity always seemed an alien concept to Oasis. The brothers Gallagher may have worshiped music made before their birth but there was no respect to their love: they stormed the rock & roll kingdom with no regard for anyone outside themselves, a narcissism that made perfect sense when they were young punks, as youth wears rebellion well, but the group's trump card was how their snottiness was leveled by their foundation in classic pop. This delicate balance was thrown out of whack after the phenomenal success of 1995's (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, when the group sunk into a pit of excess that they couldn't completely escape for almost a full decade. When Oasis did begin to re-emerge on 2005's Don't Believe the Truth they sounded like journeymen, purveyors of no-frills rock & roll. All this makes the wallop of 2008's Dig Out Your Soul all the more bracing. Colorful and dense where Don't Believe the Truth was straightforward, Dig Out Your Soul finds Oasis reconnecting to the churning psychedelic undercurrents in their music, sounds that derive equally from mid-period Beatles and early Verve. This is heavy, murky music, as dense, brutal, and loud as Oasis has ever been, building upon the swagger of Don't Believe and containing not a hint of the hazy drift of their late-'90s records: it's what Be Here Now would have sounded like without the blizzard of cocaine and electronica paranoia. Dig Out Your Soul doesn't have much arrogance, either, as Oasis' strut has mellowed into an off-hand confidence, just like how Noel Gallagher's hero worship has turned into a distinct signature of his own, as his Beatlesque songs sound like nobody else's, not even the Beatles. His only real rival at this thick, surging pop is his brother Liam, who has proven a sturdy, if not especially flashy songwriter with a knack for candied Lennonesque ballads like "I'm Outta Time." To appreciate what Liam does, turn to Gem Archer's "To Be Where There's Life" and Andy Bell's "The Nature of Reality," which are enjoyable enough Oasis-by-numbers, but Liam's numbers resonate, getting stronger with repeated plays, as the best Oasis songs always do. But, as it always does, Oasis belongs to Noel Gallagher, who pens six of the 11 songs on Dig Out Your Soul, almost every one of them possessing the same sense of inevitability that marked his best early work. Best among these are the titanic stomp of "Waiting for the Rapture" and the quicksilver kaleidoscope of "The Shock of the Lightning," a pair of songs that rank among his best, but the grinding blues-psych of "Bag It Up" and gently cascading "The Turning" aren't far behind, either. These have the large, enveloping melodies so characteristic of this work and what impresses is that he can still make music that sounds not written, but unearthed. These six tunes are Noel's strongest since Morning Glory -- so strong it's hard not to wish he wrote the whole LP himself -- but what's striking about Dig Out Your Soul is how its relentless onslaught of sound proves as enduring as the tunes. This is the sound of a mature yet restless rock band: all the brawn comes from the guitars, all the snarl comes from Liam Gallagher's vocals, who no longer sounds like a young punk but an aged, battered brawler who wears his scars proudly, which is a sentiment that can apply to the band itself. They're now survivors, filling out the vintage threads they've always worn with muscle and unapologetic style.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

More meticulously crafted than its predecessor Arc of a Diver and more musically adventurous than its follow-up, Roll with It, Back in the High Life represents the pinnacle of Steve Winwood's '80s pop output. High production values, interlocking percussion lines, R&B backing vocals, horns, synthesizers, and ideas borrowed from various world musics enhance and update Winwood's proclivity for blues, R&B, and rock. His distinctive blue-eyed soul vocals are, naturally, at the front of the mix as well.The runaway number one single, "Higher Love," with its syncopated groove, pan-African percussion, and slick Top 40 production, kicks off this accessible set. Elsewhere, the dance-gospel of "Wake Me Up on Judgment Day," the semi-acoustic title track, and the funk-touched "Split Decision" (which proves Winwood's R&B roots were still strong) keep the stylistic wheel turning. The record's success, sonically and commercially, should come as no surprise. Since his days in Traffic, Winwood has been a masterful stylistic synthesist, melding a range of aesthetics in ways that invariably connect with listeners. Back in the High Life is further proof of his remarkable abilities.© Rovi Staff /TiVo

The ringmaster of carnival metal makes a return to his classic sound on sixth outing The Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser. Retaining typical hallmarks of the Rob Zombie brand, listeners can expect a bucketload of B-movie schlock, intergalactic acid-industrial, and a whole grave-full of sex and violence. Propulsive and exciting, it's also Zombie's tightest album since 2001's Sinister Urge. Aside from the bonkers imagination that spawned such song titles as "The Hideous Exhibitions of a Dedicated Gore Whore" and "Super-Doom-Hex-Gloom, Pt. 1," Electric Warlock is also packed with entertainingly inscrutable lyrics that thrill with their nastiness and attract morbid curiosity like a backwoods freak show. Zombie and his band -- Piggy D. and former Marilyn Manson bandmates John 5 and Ginger Fish -- bring power and muscle on each proper song (there are a few moments of calm courtesy of spooky, sample-laden atmosphere pieces), churning on the epic vertigo of "Satanic Cyanide! The Killer Rocks On!," and pummeling on the brutal Hellbilly-redux "In the Age of the Consecrated Vampire We All Get High." The melodic hooks and jagged riffs maintain the energy, while the brevity of each song (eleven of twelve tracks clock in at under three minutes) create a breathless experience. Highlights include the aforementioned "Get High" and "Gore Whore" (which contains a melodic wink to Iron Butterfly's "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"); the Primus-esque rap-scat of the icky alien sex tale "Well, Everybody's Fucking in a U.F.O."; and the peppy glam stomper "Get Your Boots On! That's the End of Rock and Roll." Fans of Zombie's rockabilly occult schtick will appreciate this new volume -- not only for its respectful nod to his legacy -- but also because it's Zombie giving them what they want: freaky fun that entertains, shocks, and rocks.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

Having combined the Cali-reggae sound of Sublime with a jam band attitude years ago, Rebelution were well into their groove by the time Peace of Mind rolled around, and they had the sizable, loyal fan base to prove it, too. As such, this "on top of our game" album doesn't try hard to please, and when a rock-reggae group starts a song with "Woke up this morning" -- which happen here -- it's dangerously close to clichéd territory, but the enthusiasm, the musical skills, and the cottage industry love poured into this effort overcome the arguable shortcomings. When "Route Around" drives by with its pop ballad style and nylon-string guitar solo, the bar is raised and the horizon is broadened; then add a love of nature that's beautifully communicated through "Meant to Be" and Rebelution are much more than a bleach-blond crew stumbling out of a van telling all the "suits" to "chill." Still, they retain enough of that surfer dude mojo to be charming, and while Peace of Mind often leads with its "good vibes," there's a deep impact to be had here and there. Plus, "Comfort Zone" makes that "try to think of nothing" thing sound so good that any poignancy shoehorned in would really harsh its mellow.© David Jeffries /TiVo

For a while there, it seemed as though England's Thunder might follow in the footsteps of Def Leppard or Whitesnake and actually conquer America with their powerful melodic hard rock. But, when faced with the ever more hostile musical environment of the early ‘90s (read: Seattle), all they managed was a smattering of critical support and a number of hit singles in their homeland. Still, despite producing but one big hit in the infectious, horn-punctuated "Everybody Wants Her," Thunder's sophomore album, 1992's Laughing on Judgement Day, was anything but a slump, and may in fact have been the strongest all-around effort of the group's career. Among the highlights, "The Moment of Truth" and "Today the World Stopped Turning" packed massive, irresistible choruses, while "Low Life in High Places" and "Empty City" provided stunning showcases for the formidably soulful voice of singer Danny Bowes (a latter day David Coverdale, in the best sense). Even borderline sonic relics like the partly funky "The Moment of Truth" and "Fire to Ice" (which bordered on AOR) were meticulously constructed from the ground up -- not that this meant much in the face of grunge. So even though there was not a single obvious clunker among Laughing on Judgement Day's 14 tracks, Thunder's sound was sadly already yesterday's news, and the band would never again replicate the achievements of its early career.© Eduardo Rivadavia /TiVo