The Weeknd's career deserved a best of. Shortly after the release and the worldwide success of After Hours in 2020, and without a doubt one of his best projects, The Highlights is a synthesis of ten years of music, ten years spent defining modern pop. So, let's say it right away, there are no surprises here in terms of the track list. We find The Weeknd's hits, including the latest phenomenon, Blinding Lights, but also I Feel it Coming , a duet with Daft Punk, or The Hills, which truly transformed him into a global pop star in 2016. With no new material, this Greatest Hits allows you to retrace the Canadian's discography, but also to make some detours through projects other than his albums, in particular thanks to Earned It from the soundtrack to the film 50 Shades of Grey, to Pray For Me from Black Panther, or Love Me Harder, featuring Ariana Grande and released on the album My Everything by the latter in 2014. © Brice Miclet/Qobuz

The extent of the 2015 Weeknd commercial rebound, symbolized by platinum certifications for Beauty Behind the Madness and all four of its singles, didn't merely embolden Abel Tesfaye. On this follow-up's fourth track, a blithe midtempo cut where Tesfaye takes a swipe at pretenders while boasting about drinking codeine out of one of his trophies, the level of success is a source of amusement. He notes the absurdity in taking a "kids' show" award for "Can't Feel My Face," in which he was "talkin' 'bout a face numbin' off a bag of blow." The track actually lost to Adele's "Hello," but it clearly, somewhat comically, reached an unintended demographic. It comes as no surprise that Tesfaye, on his third proper album, doesn't attempt to optimize the reach of his biggest hit by consciously targeting youngsters. He sings of being a "Starboy" with access to a fleet of sports cars, but he's a "motherfuckin' starboy," one who is 26 years old and proud to observe his woman snort cocaine off his fancy table. While Starboy often reflects an increased opulence in the personal and professional aspects of Tesfaye's life -- from more upscale pronouns to expensive collaborations with the likes of Daft Punk (two) and "Can't Feel My Face" producers Max Martin and Ali Payami (four) -- the dark moments of vulnerability are pitch black. Lines like "I switch up my cup, I kill any pain" could have come from Tesfaye's mixtape debut, yet there are new levels of torment. In "Ordinary Life," he considers driving off a Mulholland Drive cliff, James Dean style, wishing he could swap everything for angel status. It's followed with "Nothing Without You," a ballad of toxic dysfunction. He asks his lover if she'd feel guilty for not answering his call if he happened to die that night. It's not all dread and depravity. There's some sense of joy in a one-night stand, and an echo of "Say Say Say" Michael Jackson, on the Luomo-ish house track "Rockin'." Contrition is shown in the slick retro-modern disco-funk of "A Lonely Night." Ironically enough, in the aching "True Colors," Tesfaye sounds a little insecure about a lover's past. The album's lighter, comparatively sweeter parts -- the Tears for Fears-sampling/Romantics-referencing "Secrets" and the breezy and only slightly devilish "I Feel It Coming" among them -- are all welcome highlights. When pared down to its ten best songs, Starboy sounds like Tesfaye's most accomplished work.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

The extent of the 2015 Weeknd commercial rebound, symbolized by platinum certifications for Beauty Behind the Madness and all four of its singles, didn't merely embolden Abel Tesfaye. On this follow-up's fourth track, a blithe midtempo cut where Tesfaye takes a swipe at pretenders while boasting about drinking codeine out of one of his trophies, the level of success is a source of amusement. He notes the absurdity in taking a "kids' show" award for "Can't Feel My Face," in which he was "talkin' 'bout a face numbin' off a bag of blow." The track actually lost to Adele's "Hello," but it clearly, somewhat comically, reached an unintended demographic. It comes as no surprise that Tesfaye, on his third proper album, doesn't attempt to optimize the reach of his biggest hit by consciously targeting youngsters. He sings of being a "Starboy" with access to a fleet of sports cars, but he's a "motherfuckin' starboy," one who is 26 years old and proud to observe his woman snort cocaine off his fancy table. While Starboy often reflects an increased opulence in the personal and professional aspects of Tesfaye's life -- from more upscale pronouns to expensive collaborations with the likes of Daft Punk (two) and "Can't Feel My Face" producers Max Martin and Ali Payami (four) -- the dark moments of vulnerability are pitch black. Lines like "I switch up my cup, I kill any pain" could have come from Tesfaye's mixtape debut, yet there are new levels of torment. In "Ordinary Life," he considers driving off a Mulholland Drive cliff, James Dean style, wishing he could swap everything for angel status. It's followed with "Nothing Without You," a ballad of toxic dysfunction. He asks his lover if she'd feel guilty for not answering his call if he happened to die that night. It's not all dread and depravity. There's some sense of joy in a one-night stand, and an echo of "Say Say Say" Michael Jackson, on the Luomo-ish house track "Rockin'." Contrition is shown in the slick retro-modern disco-funk of "A Lonely Night." Ironically enough, in the aching "True Colors," Tesfaye sounds a little insecure about a lover's past. The album's lighter, comparatively sweeter parts -- the Tears for Fears-sampling/Romantics-referencing "Secrets" and the breezy and only slightly devilish "I Feel It Coming" among them -- are all welcome highlights. At 18 tracks, the album is a "contracted edition" playlist toolkit. The songwriting credits list just under 40 composers, and the productions -- the majority of which involve Doc McKinney and/or Cirkut, low-lighted by maneater dance-punk dud "False Alarm" -- are roughly as variable in style as they are in quality. When pared down to its ten best songs, Starboy sounds like Tesfaye's most accomplished work.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

The press may have dubbed Barry White "the walrus of love," but he was certainly the guru of something for many star crossed lovers across his Love Unlimited Orchestra output. While White rocketed up the charts with his solo "I'm Gonna Love You Just a Little Bit More" in 1973, it was that same year's smash single "Love's Theme" that shot Love Unlimited Orchestra right up alongside him. Mostly instrumental, all orchestral, and packed with "that" tchka tchka guitar and full-fledged disco sound well before the genre reached maturity, Rhapsody in White set the stage and showcased the sounds that would shortly inspire a generation of producers, arrangers, and performers to start a million mirror balls spinning the world over. This album, in all its admitted smarminess, is a triumph. From the opening bars of "Barry's Theme," Rhapsody in White unleashes a groove which really keeps it all mellow. And even though we have to listen through three tracks to first hear White's trademarked vocal come-on on "Midnight and You" it's well worth the wait. He gets a little more vocal on side two, across "Don't Take It All Away" and again at the beginning of "Baby Blues," which has shag rug in front of a fireplace written all over its arrangement. But the masterful finale, of course, is "Love's Theme." The song's lush strings and smooth wah-wah guitars not only typified a genre, they also became an aural catchphrase for an entire generation of clubbers. And because this is, underneath it all, a Barry White album, the teaser for the nightcap is delicious.© Amy Hanson /TiVo

Just as rap music was reaching its toughest, darkest, grimmest period yet, following the assassinations of 2Pac and Biggie in the late '90s, along came DMX and his fellow Ruff Ryders, who embodied the essence of inner-city machismo to a tee, as showcased throughout the tellingly titled It's Dark and Hell Is Hot. Unlike so many other hardcore rappers who are more rhetorical than physical, DMX commands an aggressive aura without even speaking a word. He showcases his chiseled physique on the arresting album cover and trumpets his animalistic nature with frequent barking, growling, and snarling throughout the album. He also collaborates with muscular producers Swizz Beatz and Dame Grease, who specialize in slamming synth-driven beats rather than sample-driven ones. Further unlike so many other hardcore rappers from the time, DMX is meaningful as well as symbolic. He professes an ideology that stresses the inner world -- characterized by such qualities as survival, wisdom, strength, respect, and faith -- rather than the material one that infatuates most rappers of his time. It helpes that his album includes a few mammoth highlights ("Ruff Ryders' Anthem," "Get at Me Dog," "Let Me Fly," and "I Can Feel It") as well as a light, mid-album diversion ("How's It Goin' Down"). The long running length of It's Dark and Hell Is Hot does wear you down after a while, since nearly every song here sans "How's It Goin' Down" hits hard and maintains the album's deadly serious attitude. Even so, It's Dark and Hell Is Hot is a tremendous debut, laying out DMX's complex persona with candor, from his faith in God to his fixation with canine motifs, and doing so with dramatic flair. © Jason Birchmeier /TiVo

Released two days before the Weeknd provided the halftime entertainment at Super Bowl LV, The Highlights also happened to arrive near the tenth anniversary of House of Balloons, the singer's debut mixtape. Considering where he's gone in that time, from a shadowy unknown to a global pop star, there's no knocking the impulse to look back. In February 2021, the Weeknd was still deep in the promotional cycle for After Hours, but it's nonetheless surprising that more selections are from that album -- including three singles that went Top Ten in his native Canada and the U.S. -- than any other Weeknd release. Beauty Behind the Madness and Starboy, the two previous number one albums, are also well represented, leaving the remainder to be drawn from House of Balloons and the My Dear Melancholy, EP (while the second and third tapes and Kiss Land are shut out). This also gathers the hits that originated on the soundtracks for Fifty Shades of Grey and Black Panther, plus the Ariana Grande duet "Love Me Harder." The Highlights is a well-selected point of entry. That it rarely dips into album cuts and doesn't include all of the major singles speaks to the depth of the catalog.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

Showbiz has been in Gwen Stefani's blood since the start of her career, which is the reason why she, unlike many '90s alt-rock veterans, can seem at home within the confines of the televised musical competition The Voice. Her very presence on The Voice, one of the last genuinely popular franchises on network television in the 2010s, guaranteed the existence of an album like You Make It Feel Like Christmas, one that's pitched directly in the mainstream. You Make It Feel Like Christmas plays upon her romance with co-host Blake Shelton, making her bouncy duet with the country singer the album's title track and first single. "You Make It Feel Like Christmas" bops along to a Motown beat, just one of many intentional nostalgic nods at the past -- "Never Kissed Anyone with Blue Eyes" grooves to a simmering '60s soul groove, her version of "Santa Baby" has a mid-century swing, Wham!'s "Last Christmas" is given drippy strings that turn it into a girl group number -- but the record is surprisingly heavy on new material for a holiday album. Occasionally, this means Stefani veers into territory that doesn't feel strictly seasonal: "When I Was a Little Girl" plays like a diary entry, not a memory of Christmases past, "My Gift Is You" is a love song bearing the faintest hint of mistletoe, and "Never Kissed Anyone with Blue Eyes" has only a tangential relationship with Christmas. They don't seem out of place, since they're given the same bells and whistles as "Let It Snow" and "White Christmas," but they also diminish the album, making it seem smaller than the season. Still, the moments that work have a coquettish charm that is appealing, which is reason enough to warrant a listen.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The extent of the 2015 Weeknd commercial rebound, symbolized by platinum certifications for Beauty Behind the Madness and all four of its singles, didn't merely embolden Abel Tesfaye. On this follow-up's fourth track, a blithe midtempo cut where Tesfaye takes a swipe at pretenders while boasting about drinking codeine out of one of his trophies, the level of success is a source of amusement. He notes the absurdity in taking a "kids' show" award for "Can't Feel My Face," in which he was "talkin' 'bout a face numbin' off a bag of blow." The track actually lost to Adele's "Hello," but it clearly, somewhat comically, reached an unintended demographic. It comes as no surprise that Tesfaye, on his third proper album, doesn't attempt to optimize the reach of his biggest hit by consciously targeting youngsters. He sings of being a "Starboy" with access to a fleet of sports cars, but he's a "motherfuckin' starboy," one who is 26 years old and proud to observe his woman snort cocaine off his fancy table. While Starboy often reflects an increased opulence in the personal and professional aspects of Tesfaye's life -- from more upscale pronouns to expensive collaborations with the likes of Daft Punk (two) and "Can't Feel My Face" producers Max Martin and Ali Payami (four) -- the dark moments of vulnerability are pitch black. Lines like "I switch up my cup, I kill any pain" could have come from Tesfaye's mixtape debut, yet there are new levels of torment. In "Ordinary Life," he considers driving off a Mulholland Drive cliff, James Dean style, wishing he could swap everything for angel status. It's followed with "Nothing Without You," a ballad of toxic dysfunction. He asks his lover if she'd feel guilty for not answering his call if he happened to die that night. It's not all dread and depravity. There's some sense of joy in a one-night stand, and an echo of "Say Say Say" Michael Jackson, on the Luomo-ish house track "Rockin'." Contrition is shown in the slick retro-modern disco-funk of "A Lonely Night." Ironically enough, in the aching "True Colors," Tesfaye sounds a little insecure about a lover's past. The album's lighter, comparatively sweeter parts -- the Tears for Fears-sampling/Romantics-referencing "Secrets" and the breezy and only slightly devilish "I Feel It Coming" among them -- are all welcome highlights. When pared down to its ten best songs, Starboy sounds like Tesfaye's most accomplished work.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

The extent of the 2015 Weeknd commercial rebound, symbolized by platinum certifications for Beauty Behind the Madness and all four of its singles, didn't merely embolden Abel Tesfaye. On this follow-up's fourth track, a blithe midtempo cut where Tesfaye takes a swipe at pretenders while boasting about drinking codeine out of one of his trophies, the level of success is a source of amusement. He notes the absurdity in taking a "kids' show" award for "Can't Feel My Face," in which he was "talkin' 'bout a face numbin' off a bag of blow." The track actually lost to Adele's "Hello," but it clearly, somewhat comically, reached an unintended demographic. It comes as no surprise that Tesfaye, on his third proper album, doesn't attempt to optimize the reach of his biggest hit by consciously targeting youngsters. He sings of being a "Starboy" with access to a fleet of sports cars, but he's a "motherfuckin' starboy," one who is 26 years old and proud to observe his woman snort cocaine off his fancy table. While Starboy often reflects an increased opulence in the personal and professional aspects of Tesfaye's life -- from more upscale pronouns to expensive collaborations with the likes of Daft Punk (two) and "Can't Feel My Face" producers Max Martin and Ali Payami (four) -- the dark moments of vulnerability are pitch black. Lines like "I switch up my cup, I kill any pain" could have come from Tesfaye's mixtape debut, yet there are new levels of torment. In "Ordinary Life," he considers driving off a Mulholland Drive cliff, James Dean style, wishing he could swap everything for angel status. It's followed with "Nothing Without You," a ballad of toxic dysfunction. He asks his lover if she'd feel guilty for not answering his call if he happened to die that night. It's not all dread and depravity. There's some sense of joy in a one-night stand, and an echo of "Say Say Say" Michael Jackson, on the Luomo-ish house track "Rockin'." Contrition is shown in the slick retro-modern disco-funk of "A Lonely Night." Ironically enough, in the aching "True Colors," Tesfaye sounds a little insecure about a lover's past. The album's lighter, comparatively sweeter parts -- the Tears for Fears-sampling/Romantics-referencing "Secrets" and the breezy and only slightly devilish "I Feel It Coming" among them -- are all welcome highlights. At 18 tracks, the album is a "contracted edition" playlist toolkit. The songwriting credits list just under 40 composers, and the productions -- the majority of which involve Doc McKinney and/or Cirkut, low-lighted by maneater dance-punk dud "False Alarm" -- are roughly as variable in style as they are in quality. When pared down to its ten best songs, Starboy sounds like Tesfaye's most accomplished work.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

James Brown and His Famous Flames scored an R&B Top Ten hit in 1956 with "Please, Please, Please," but Brown's next nine singles for Federal Records flopped. It was the next, "Try Me," his third single of 1958, that finally scored. That was when King Records (Federal's parent label) assembled this, Brown's debut album, out of some of those singles sessions. You can hear the sound of a group and its enthusiastic singer looking for a hit, sometimes in the rock & roll of "Chonnie-On-Chon" (1957) or the 1956 B-side "I Feel That Old Feeling Coming On," sometimes by remaking "Please, Please, Please" under another name, such as "I Don't Know" (1956), sometimes by tackling Coasters-like novelty material such as "That Dood It" (1958), sometimes by aping the smooth Sam Cooke, as on the 1958 B-side "That's When I Lost My Heart," and once by rewriting "My Bonnie (Lies Over the Ocean)" as the 1958 B-side "Baby Cries over the Ocean." Only the two hits were really memorable, but the album presented the sound of a major star-to-be in search of his sound.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo