On their fifth album, Eurythmics moved away from the austere synth-pop of their previous work and toward more of a neo-'60s pop/rock stance. "Missionary Man" (which went Top 40 as a single in the U.S. and charted in the U.K.) featured a prominent harmonica solo, while "Thorn in My Side" had a chiming guitar riff reminiscent of the Searchers and a fat sax solo. Of course, the primary element in the group's sound remained Annie Lennox's distinctive alto voice, which was still impressive even if the material was slightly less so. Revenge was a successful album, reaching the Top Ten in the U.K. and going gold in the U.S., but it was a disappointment compared to their last three albums. And creatively, it was a step down as well -- there was nothing here that they hadn't done a little better before.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Johnny Cash's first album, released on Sun in 1957, is a little more folkloric and traditional than what he put on most of his singles, though not pronouncedly so. In fact, four of the tracks ("I Walk the Line," "Cry! Cry! Cry!," "So Doggone Lonesome," and "Folsom Prison Blues") had already been hit singles. For the rest of the set, Cash drew on some older folk ("Rock Island Line," "The Wreck of the Old '97"), country ("[I Heard That] Lonesome Whistle," "Remember Me [I'm the One Who Loves You]"), prison ("Doin' My Time"), and spiritual ("I Was There When It Happened") songs. Filling out the set is a good, rollicking Cash original, "Country Boy," and a rather sassy tune by the young Jerry Reed, "If the Good Lord's Willing." It's a good, solid record that's very much in the mold of his classic early Sun sound, with spare accompaniment that nevertheless often approaches a rockabilly-country bounce.© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

Along with her Rodgers and Hart collection, this is one of the best of Ella Fitzgerald's songbooks. Fitzgerald's assured and elegant voice is a perfect match for Mercer's urbane lyrics and Nelson Riddle's supple arrangements. In light of this decorous setting, it's not surprising that Mercer's swagger-heavy numbers like "I Wanna Be Around" and "One More For My Baby" are skipped in favor of more poised selections such as "Early Autumn" and "Skylark." Even traditionally hard-swinging numbers such as "Day In Day Out" and "Something's Gotta Give" are kept in check with Riddle's vaporous, flute-heavy backing and Fitzgerald's velvet tone. Slower numbers like "Laura" and "Midnight Sun" add dramatic contrast with their enigmatic tonal backdrops and elongated vocal phrasing. Fitzgerald's Mercer songbook has become something of an overlooked gem partly because of the popularity of her Cole Porter and Gershwin collections. It's a shame, because this songbook is beautifully executed by Fitzgerald and Riddle and contains wonderful Mercer collaborations with, among others, Harold Arlen and Hoagy Charmichael. This is definitely one for any Fitzgerald fan and not a bad introduction to her vast catalog.© Stephen Cook /TiVo

Prefab Sprout was always too good for the radio. Hearing the band's immaculate, gorgeously crafted pop songs alongside disposable, unimaginative records seemed like blasphemy. Perhaps many American radio programmers felt the same way, as most of this best-of compilation is obscure to U.S. listeners. While Two Wheels Good and From Langley Park to Memphis are superior purchases, A Life of Surprises is an engaging introduction to a group that is nowhere near as bizarre as its name. Much has been said about Paddy McAloon's warm, comforting voice, but like Paul Heaton of the Housemartins and the Beautiful South, his soothing croon can sometimes hide some pretty depressing lyrics. "When Love Breaks Down" is classic '80s new wave heartache: teary-eyed synthesizers, downtrodden basslines, and McAloon's whispery talk create a film noir atmosphere of deep sadness. The lyrics are sharpened by his adult observations. "When love breaks down/You join the wrecks/Who leave their hearts for easy sex," McAloon sings. The brutal honesty of those lines easily elevate "When Love Breaks Down" to the top class of breakup songs. Even more powerful is "Goodbye Lucille No. 1 (Johnny Johnny)," sung from the perspective of a man trying to make a close friend get over a girl who has rejected him. The words are frank and painfully realistic as McAloon doesn't sugarcoat the dialogue. McAloon rips into his buddy's futile romantic fantasies and lets the hard light of reality shine upon him: "Ooh Johnny Johnny Johnny you won't make it any better/Ooh Johnny Johnny Johnny you might well make it worse." If this sounds dreary it should be noted that Prefab Sprout isn't one of those grim British raincoat bands. The group has a number of wonderfully upbeat moments, such as on the exhilarating "Hey Manhattan!" and "Cars and Girls," a clever commentary on Bruce Springsteen's preoccupation with automobiles and women.© Michael Sutton /TiVo

Unlike many covers albums, Songs from the Last Century is a cohesive, enjoyable diversion. With the help of co-producer Phil Ramone, George Michael has crafted a warm, intimate album built around a small combo of piano, guitar, bass, and drums. Orchestras, big bands, harps, and on one occasion, a rock band augment the basic combo, yet the flourishes never change the essential, close-knit nature of the group. For the first time ever, Michael sounds relaxed. He's lying back, singing songs he loves, not worrying about chart success, and the end result is quite fetching, even if it isn't perfect. The main flaw with Songs from the Last Century is that it's so smooth, it's occasionally a little sleepy, a trait that's emphasized by Michael's fairly predictable taste in covers -- "Brother Can You Spare a Dime," "My Baby Just Cares for Me," and "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," among others. Nevertheless, he does bring style and sophistication to these standards, even such often-covered yet still difficult tunes as "Wild as the Wind." When his selections are idiosyncratic -- whether it's a jazzy reading of "Roxanne," the brassy "Secret Love," the little-remembered "I Remember You," or a revelatory reading of "Miss Sarajevo," a song commonly dismissed as a U2 side project -- the album is delightful. Certainly, Songs from the Last Century isn't a major work; it's a way for Michael to decompress and have some fun, and the diehards who stuck with him through the turbulent '90s are likely to be charmed.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Mortality is on Bob Seger's mind on I Knew You When, an album dedicated to his departed friend Glenn Frey. I Knew You When contains two tributes to Frey -- the sepia-toned title track and "Glenn Song," the latter available only on the album's Deluxe Edition -- but the onetime Eagle isn't the only dead rock star to haunt the album. Seger covers Lou Reed and Leonard Cohen, both selections -- "Busload of Faith" and "Democracy" -- nodding to the American mess of 2017, another element that adds a sense of immediacy to the record. Despite these undercurrents of sentiment and politics, I Knew You When can't quite be called a meditative, melancholy record, not with roughly half the record devoted to fist-pumping arena-fillers that feel piped in from several different eras. "Runaway Train" is confined by a robotic pulse that channels "Shakedown," "The Highway" is dressed with '80s synths, and "The Sea Inside" is a clumsy nod to Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir," sounds that not only fight with Seger's protests and tributes but fight with each other. These old-fashioned album rockers are so loud and awkward, they overshadow the excellent singer/songwriter album that lurks at the core of I Knew You When. Such imbalance makes I Knew You When a bit incoherent, yet in its quietest and angriest moments, it offers some of the best music Seger has made in the 21st century.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Back in 2002, it seemed easy to discern which of the Midwestern minimalist blues-rock duos was which: the White Stripes were the art-punks, naming albums after Dutch art movements, while the Black Keys were the nasty primitives, bashing out thrilling, raw records like their 2002 debut The Big Come Up and its 2003 follow-up Thickfreakness. Six years later, the duos appear to have switched camps, as Jack White leads the Stripes down a path of obstinate traditionalism while the Black Keys get out, way out, on their fifth album, Attack & Release. Evidently, their 2004 mini-masterpiece Rubber Factory represented the crest of their brutal blues wave, as ever since singer/guitarist Dan Auerbach and drummer Patrick Carney have receded from the gnarled precision of their writing and the big, brutal blues thump, they started to float into the atmosphere with their 2006 EP-length tribute to Junior Kimbrough, Chulahoma. Ever since then, the Black Keys have emphasized waves of sound over either ballast or song, something that should be evident from the choice of Danger Mouse as the producer of Attack & Release, a seemingly unlikely pair that found common ground in the form of Ike Turner. Danger Mouse worked with the rock & roll renegade when he produced the Gorillaz's Demon Days and the plan was to have the Black Keys cut an album with Ike but Turner's death turned the project into a full-fledged Keys album. That's the official story, anyway, but the timeline doesn't quite seem to fit -- Ike died December 12, 2007 and a finished copy of Attack & Release was out in February, which is an awfully short turnaround to complete an album -- nor does the sound of the album seem to fit that timeline, either, as it's elliptical, open-ended, and reliant on the spacy sonics the Black Keys have sketched out since Rubber Factory, so it's hard to imagine where Turner would have fit into this. But it's not hard at all to see how avant guitarist Marc Ribot fits into this elastic mix, as this is the kind of restless, textural roots-aware rock reminiscent of the spirit, if not quite the sound, of Elvis Costello and Tom Waits, two mavericks Ribot has played with in years past. This shift to sound over song has been so gradual for the Black Keys that Ribot's cameo doesn't seem intrusive, nor does Danger Mouse's hazy production feel forced upon the band, it's filled with details so sly they're almost imperceptible. As always, Danger Mouse encourages the band to intensify what's already there, and so Attack & Release willfully drifts, as dreamy, artfully sonic sculptures are punctured by Auerbach's rumbling guitars and Carney's clattering drums. But where the interplay of the Auerbach and Carney always felt immediate in their earliest work, there's a bit of a remove here, with the riffs used as paint brushes instead of blunt objects. The same can be said of the songs, where even the most immediate tunes -- "Psychotic Girl," the B-side "Remember When" -- don't grab and hold like those on the group's earliest records, and they're not really growers either, as the point here is not the individual tunes but rather the greater picture, as everything here weaves together to create a mood: one that shifts but doesn't stray, one that's nebulous but not formless, one that's evocative but not haunting. To be sure, it's an accomplishment and one that showcases the Black Keys' deepening skills but at times it's hard not to miss how the duo used to grab a listener by the neck and not let go.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Blue Haze documents two Prestige sessions from May 1953 and March 1954 (plus "I'll Remember April," with altoist Davey Schildkraut, from the April 3, 1954 session that yielded half of Walkin'). During this time, a resurgent Miles Davis began to zero in on his own style and sound, taking significant steps away from the rhythmic and harmonic devices of his mentor Dizzy Gillespie. Paralleling his recorded work for Blue Note, Davis was also working with some of the greatest rhythm players in the history of jazz. Blue Haze finds Davis the lone featured horn. "When Lights Are Low" is one of Benny Carter's most famous melodies, and the song-like cadences suit the ripe, chipper tone of Davis' horn. John Lewis' Monk-ish chords signal the sprightly head to "Tune Up," as Percy Heath and Max Roach groove manfully along. "Miles Ahead" is derived from Davis' earlier "Milestones" (neither of which should be confused with subsequent titles and tunes for Columbia). Davis' loping solo illustrates his leisurely ease in constructing a melody, but his dancing eights with Roach illuminate what fires simmer beneath the surface. Cut by cut, this set documents the trumpeter's search for his ideal rhythm mates. Thanks to Heath, Art Blakey, and especially Horace Silver, Davis here sounds far more relaxed, swinging, and rhythmically complex on his famous melody "Four." Their interplay on "Old Devil Moon" is a study in give and take, tension and release. And aroused as he is by Heath's booming blues beat, Blakey's ghostly sizzle cymbal, and Silver's taut accompaniment, Davis turns the title tune into as expressive a film noir blues as you're likely to hear this side of Raymond Chandler.© TiVo

The Colour of My Love follows the same pattern as Celine Dion's eponymous breakthrough, and while the songs aren't quite as consistent this time around, the record is nevertheless quite successful, thanks to the careful production, professional songwriting (highlighted by "When I Fall in Love," "The Power of Love," and "Think Twice") and Dion's powerhouse performances.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

A trio of childhood friends who had been playing music together since they were middle-schoolers, Wallows made their debut under the moniker with a handful of stand-alone singles in 2017. The first one, "Pleaser," went viral and was followed by a major-label recording contract. These quick successes were almost certainly helped along by press coverage surrounding lead singer/guitarist Dylan Minnette, who had just premiered as the lead in the first season of the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. (Bandmate Braeden Lemasters is also an experienced screen actor.) On their full-length debut, Nothing Happens, the group prove that they're more than mere dilettantes with a combination of memorable melodies, catchy rhythms, often stirring harmonic progressions, and just enough lyrical depth to silence many doubters. An exception to the latter may be the playful "Scrawny," whose repeated "I'm a scrawny motherfucker with a cool hairstyle" serves as the chorus. Led by Minnette's deadpan, take-it-in-stride delivery, its self-depreciating, hooky power pop and weightier verses may still win over many put off by its anthem. Other songs grapple with saying the right thing, trying to connect, finding a place in the world, and other anxieties of young adulthood that don't necessarily get better with age. In the two years since "Pleaser," they've doubled down on influences including post-punk (the infectious "Only Friend"), power pop, and the Strokes but minus all the attitude. Lead single and album highlight "Are You Bored Yet?" features bedroom pop starlet Clairo and neatly combines '80s-evoking keyboard timbres, a sweet melody, existentialism, and a plea for honesty in an under-three-minute package seemingly addressed to Generation Z. Taken together, though, Nothing Happens is relatable to a Zeitgeist as much as an age group and shouldn't be missed by those with a certain melancholy-pop sensibility.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo