Only three years passed between the Stones’ debut and this follow-up record, but the siblings seem to have aged exponentially in the interim. While 2007’s A Book Like This found the two setting their own adolescence to a soundtrack of acoustic guitars and sparse percussion, Down the Way is a decidedly adult album, filled with textured arrangements and a wider array of influences. Angus and Julia handle their own production this time around, and the resulting songs jump from panoramic chamber pop -- often with a rootsy, Americana edge -- to bedroom folk songs, with both members trading off vocals and instrumental duties. Julia still sings in a soft, fairy tale voice, but her own songs are bolder than they once were, with tracks like “Hold On” taking much of their strength from the contrast between her gauzy, childlike croon and the nocturnal-sounding instruments that surround it. Even so, brother Angus gets the “most improved” award, having moved past the solo folk songs he favored on A Book Like This (although some of those show up here, too) in favor of lush, collaborative material. On “Draw Your Swords,” one of the album’s three tunes to stretch past six minutes, he rips into the final refrain with gusto, shouting the lyrics in a cracked baritone before adopting a Jeff Buckley-ish falsetto.© Andrew Leahey /TiVo

Collective wisdom tells us that in life, timing is everything. And that—the perfect moment in a varied career, the right amount of gravitas and nerve—seems to be the secret ingredient in the The Waylon Sessions. Asked to explain why this was the right time to make an album that simultaneously honors and amends the Waylon Jennings catalog Shannon McNally declared: "Maybe I hadn't done enough damage yet or lived enough to own that flat-footed-there's-the-door-if-you-don't-like-it kind of songs. I mean, I've always had a big personality but it wasn't that big. It wasn't West Texas big." McNally, the smoky, Americana-focused contralto who was born on Long Island and had stints in New Orleans and Los Angeles before settling in Nashville, shrewdly built a career out of connections with the likes of Dave Alvin, Dr. John, Jim Dickinson, and Rodney Crowell. To bring out what she calls the "feminine perspective" on Waylon's rollicking, testosterone-driven roadhouse songs McNally has assembled a talented supporting cast. Produced by the singer and recorded mostly in Nashville, The Waylon Sessions, dedicated to Waylon and Billy Joe Shaver, was captured by several engineers including the great Clarke Rigsby. Tasked with blending these sessions, mix engineer Trina Shoemaker finds a successful, punchy balance between McNally's voice and the band. And what a band! Led by primo Nashville session guitarist Kenny Vaughan, it includes West Texas keyboard player Bukka Allen and ex-Waylon bandmate, harmonica/pedal steel player Fred Newell. Guests Buddy Miller and Lukas Nelson both add harmony vocals. Chock full of can't miss Waylon's hits, McNally hews close to the tempos and arrangements of the originals in, "I've Always Been Crazy," "I'm a Ramblin' Man," and "Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line." In between, her female viewpoint brings new poignance to lesser-known numbers like "Out Among the Stars" and "Waltz Me To Heaven." Billy Joe Shaver's "Black Rose," with Buddy Miller on low strung guitar, is given a suitably rousing rendition. Though McNally tries her best to bring something new to the Urban Cowboy anthem "Mammas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys," it's the album's only stumble. (With so many other better choices why try and reheat this overexposed chestnut?) That aside, several numbers still manage to stand out in this collection of highlights including a heartfelt, "We Had It All," (written by the late great Donnie Fritts) and her bravura vocal performance on Kris Kristofferson's "Help Me Make It Through the Night." It's fitting given their long friendship that the knockout punch here is a rockin' version of Crowell's "I Ain't Living Long Like This" where the songwriter steps in to sing a verse. Kudos to McNally for sensing that the time was right—in the world and her career—to make this a triumph. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

Eleven returned from a five-year hiatus (during which the band's leaders, Alain Johannes and Natasha Shneider, produced and performed on Chris Cornell's Euphoria Morning, then joined Cornell on the ensuing tour) with the satisfying Avantgardedog. Taking the band into more esoteric and richly textured territory, the self-produced Avantgardedog tones down the behemoth guitars of its predecessors but expands the group's tonal palette with a wider array of acoustic and electric instrumentation and a greatly evolved production acumen. New drummer Greg Upchurch complements Eleven's highly articulate, prog-influenced instrumental attack with more detail than previous skinsman Jack Irons (who departed to join Pearl Jam in 1995), while ornate drum loops and other slices of electronica augment the album's rhythmic tapestries. As always, co-lead vocalists Johannes and Shneider use their rich pipes to deliver memorable hooks on "Cool Cruel Baby," "Verb," and especially "It's Okay," with its delightfully bouncy, Beatlesque vocal counterpoint. Elsewhere, the band's dark, brooding tendencies are more effective than ever, particularly on the album-closing "Watergun," the tense and exotic "Lucky One," and Shneider's beautiful, haunting "Strands of Rain." Eleven's curse is that its music -- while focused and accessible -- is simply too unusual to pigeonhole, and therefore doesn't fit into easy marketing categories; consequently, Eleven remains a highly cherished and well-kept secret to its fans.© Andy Hinds /TiVo

The Carpenters' radio-friendly soft rock virtually defined the genre in the early 1970s, and this album -- their third full-length -- was the group's ace card. Following on the heels of the wildly successful Close to You, Carpenters features more breezy melodies marked by rich arrangements and beautiful lead vocals, courtesy of siblings Richard Carpenter and Karen Carpenter, respectively. The record is most notable for two of the duo's strongest and best-loved singles. "Rainy Days and Mondays," written by soft pop gods Paul Williams and Roger Nichols, is a bittersweet pop masterpiece fleshed out by Richard's string orchestrations and smoothly produced backing vocals, while Leon Russell and Bonnie Bramlett's "Superstar," from its melancholic verse to its dramatic chorus, is equally hard to resist. (Both songs showcase Karen's sultry alto.) The rest of the album includes Richard's bubble-gum pop originals, another Williams-Nichols tune ("Let Me Be the One"), and a medley of Burt Bacharach-Hal David tunes. Even more commercially streamlined than its predecessors, Carpenters is a classic of early-'70s pop.© Rovi Staff /TiVo

Among Ella Fitzgerald's gigantic discography, the eight volumes of her Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Complete American Songbook form a sacred pantheon. The idea for these records came from producer Norman Granz, who managed the singer and was the boss of Verve. The first volume, Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook, which came out in 1956, was a runaway success with critics and the public alike. So much so that in that same year, Ella followed it up with Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook and then again in 1957 with Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook. This volume, which is given over to the songs of Irving Berlin, was conceived in sessions from 13 to 19 March 1958, with an orchestra directed by the classy and reserved Paul Watson. It's hard to sum up this double album in few words (it originally came out in two separate volumes) without breaking out reams of superlatives. Newcomers to her work can take this record as an easy base camp from which to ascend Ella Everest. Across a repertoire to die for (Berlin passed away in 1989 at the age of 101, having written more than 800 songs!), with light and gay numbers taking centre stage, Ella's voice picks out the great writer's romanticism, which never feels cloying. For fellow composer Jerome Kern, at the heart of Irving Berlin's writing was his faith in American vernacular: his songs were indivisibly linked with the country's history and image. Here, in ubiquitous favourites like Cheek to Cheek, in Watson's arrangements, in ambient swing, in freewheeling and sensual singing, we see the then-41-year-old American reaching the summit of perfection. This is one to play and play and play, again and again and again... © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Nearly forgotten by all but serious soul fans, Back Up Train is Al Green's debut. Released in 1967, when he was still billed as "Al Greene" and before he worked with producer Willie Mitchell, the record is a perfectly serviceable slice of slightly sweet period soul -- perhaps a little generic, but never less than pleasant. Much of the record was either written or co-written by the album's producers, Palmer E. James and Curtis Rodgers, who were not just part of Hot Line Records, but in the Creations, Green's previous backing band. Though they're fine as producers, they didn't have strong material as songwriters, never producing something as limber and memorable as Green's lone songwriting credit, "Stop and Check Myself." Musically, this number, along with a few other cuts, suggest the tight, sexy sound of his seminal Hi albums, but they're nowhere near as seductive as those slow grooves, nor are they as effortless. Still, it's possible to hear their roots throughout the record. Green's voice, while not as smooth as it would be just a few years later, shows enormous talent, he's equally comfortable with ballads and funky workouts, and the production, while dated, is quite appealing in how it falls somewhere between the grit of Memphis and the sweetness of Chicago soul. Back Up Train is good enough that if Green hadn't gone on to greater work, this would be the kind of record soul fanatics would treasure and trade, speculating on what might have happened if Green had been given another shot. Of course, Green went on to bigger, better things, and this stands as no more than a footnote to his career, but it's an interesting, enjoyable footnote all the same.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

"Mosquitoes can enjoy me/ I can't go inside," Mitski sings—lulls—on "Buffalo Replaced," a bottom-heavy grunge ballad from her seventh album that finds the singer revealing a nagging self-vexation. "I have a hope/ Though she's blind with no name/ She shits where she's supposed to feed herself when I'm away/ Sometimes I think it would be easier without her." Like Tori Amos, Kate Bush, or Frank Ocean, Mitski has a tendency to reveal so much wildness via a calming presence. Not that the weight isn't heavy; back in 2019, she announced her "last show indefinitely," later admitting that she was worn down by physical and mental exhaustion caused by the music business and its "super-saturated version of consumerism," but also the demands of representation. She has criticized always having her Asian American heritage pointed out; "It's like racism masked in progressive thought … I'm a symbol." Last year she told the BBC: "I needed to step away to get out of that mechanism and just learn how to be human again, I think." That break led Mitski to what she calls "my most American album … This land, which already feels inhospitable to so many of its inhabitants, is about to feel hopelessly torn and tossed again—at times, devoid of love. This album offers the anodyne." Drawing from influences including Ennio Morricone's high-drama spaghetti western scores and Carter Burwell's "tundra-filling Fargo soundtrack," The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We finds Mitski pairing her sometimes dark thoughts with music and sounds—an orchestra arranged and conducted by Drew Erickson, and a 17-voice choir—that convey turmoil. On "When Memories Snow," both piano and Mitski's vocals determine a marching pace while she presents a haunting internal scenario:  "When memories snow/ And cover up the driveway/ I shovel all those memories ... and when memories melt/ I hear them in the drainpipe/ Dripping through the downspout/ As I lie awake in the dark." Then the orchestral tension builds and explodes, horns and strings and choral voices elbowing each other for space. Opener "Bug Like an Angel" starts off like an acoustic campfire nod-along as Mitski sings, "As I got older, I learned I'm a drinker/ Sometimes a drink feels like family"—then, out of nowhere, a full-throated, big as Broadway choir trills "family!" She remains on even keel for "The Deal" as the music swirls like an atmospheric weather system, finally picking up to tornado strength, grabbing everything in its path and tossing it. It's not all chaos, though, as the anodyne settles in. Countrified "Heaven" is light with strings and Cowboy Junkies-esque. "My Love All Mine" is swoony romance, rich and full. And "Star" twinkles and explodes into a supernova, as Mitski convinces that lost love is never completely lost. At the end, "I Love Me After You," there is majesty—big buzz, crashing cymbals—as she performs a self-care routine (hydration, toner, brushing her hair) only to proclaim, "I love me after you/ King of all the land." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

One would be hard-pressed to name a rock album whose influence has been as broad and pervasive as The Velvet Underground & Nico. While it reportedly took over a decade for the album's sales to crack six figures, glam, punk, new wave, goth, noise, and nearly every other left-of-center rock movement owes an audible debt to this set. While The Velvet Underground had as distinctive a sound as any band, what's most surprising about this album is its diversity. Here, the Velvets dipped their toes into dreamy pop ("Sunday Morning"), tough garage rock ("Waiting for the Man"), stripped-down R&B ("There She Goes Again"), and understated love songs ("I'll Be Your Mirror") when they weren't busy creating sounds without pop precedent. Lou Reed's lyrical exploration of drugs and kinky sex (then risky stuff in film and literature, let alone "teen music") always received the most press attention, but the music Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker played was as radical as the words they accompanied. The bracing discord of "European Son," the troubling beauty of "All Tomorrow's Parties," and the expressive dynamics of "Heroin" all remain as compelling as the day they were recorded. While the significance of Nico's contributions have been debated over the years, she meshes with the band's outlook in that she hardly sounds like a typical rock vocalist, and if Andy Warhol's presence as producer was primarily a matter of signing the checks, his notoriety allowed The Velvet Underground to record their material without compromise, which would have been impossible under most other circumstances. Few rock albums are as important as The Velvet Underground & Nico, and fewer still have lost so little of their power to surprise and intrigue more 50 years after first hitting the racks.© Mark Deming /TiVo

Love it or hate it, Over-Nite Sensation was a watershed album for Frank Zappa, the point where his post-'60s aesthetic was truly established; it became his second gold album, and most of these songs became staples of his live shows for years to come. Whereas the Flo and Eddie years were dominated by rambling, off-color comedy routines, Over-Nite Sensation tightened up the song structures and tucked sexual and social humor into melodic, technically accomplished heavy guitar rock with jazzy chord changes and funky rhythms; meanwhile, Zappa's growling new post-accident voice takes over the storytelling. While the music is some of Zappa's most accessible, the apparent callousness and/or stunning sexual explicitness of "Camarillo Brillo," "Dirty Love," and especially "Dinah-Moe Humm" leave him on shaky aesthetic ground. Zappa often protested that the charges of misogyny leveled at such material missed out on the implicit satire of male stupidity, and also confirmed intellectuals' self-conscious reticence about indulging in dumb fun; however, the glee in his voice as he spins his adolescent fantasies can undermine his point. Indeed, that enjoyment, also evident in the silly wordplay, suggests that Zappa is throwing his juvenile crassness in the face of critical expectation, asserting his right to follow his muse even if it leads him into blatant stupidity (ironic or otherwise). One can read this motif into the absurd shaggy-dog story of a dental floss rancher in "Montana," the album's indisputable highlight, which features amazing, uncredited vocal backing from Tina Turner and the Ikettes. As with much of Zappa's best '70s and '80s material, Over-Nite Sensation could be perceived as ideologically problematic (if you haven't got the constitution for FZ's humor), but musically, it's terrific.© Steve Huey /TiVo