There is no overestimating the historical power and influence of Shania Twain's Come on Over. You can hear it in the music of Taylor Swift (all the way up through 1989, easily), as well as Carrie Underwood, Kelsea Ballerini, Carly Pearce, Kelly Clarkson, Maren Morris, latter day The Chicks, even Harry Styles. Its success—40 million copies sold and counting—freed up boundaries (for better or worse) for countless country acts, from Rascal Flatts to Dan + Shay, to be unashamed of going pop. The album's production, by Twain's now-ex husband Mutt Lange (who was previously best known for his work with AC/DC and Def Leppard), is an epoch in the country music timeline—much the way Chet Atkins' Nashville Sound was. While some of those production flourishes sound a bit dated on the three-disc remaster (including domestic and international versions plus a grab bag of collaborations and remixes) of Come on Over, these are still killer songs that would tear it up on country and/or pop radio today. "Man! I Feel Like a Woman!" packs an even bigger dose of serotonin. Every aspect—guitar, fiddle, vocals—of "Love Gets Me Every Time" sounds so crisp and clear on both the US version and its international compatriot, famously stripped of the hollering fiddle at the front of the mix. Freshened-up "You're Still the One" glistens, the pedal steel sharp as ever against the gooey cloud of backing vocals. But want something different? There's also a fun 1999 live duet with Elton John turning his twang up to 11, as well as several thumping dancefloor remixes and a largely superfluous version from Twain's 2022 Las Vegas residency, with Coldplay's Chris Martin on piano. There's both the spirited and clicky original of "I'm Holdin' On to Love (To Save My Life)" and a more down-home take with Alison Krauss. The bluegrass queen makes a second appearance on a duet of "From This Moment On," from the Up! Close and Personal live album, offering a warmer, rounder take on the pristine original with Bryan White. A 1999 Miami concert collab on the song with Backstreet Boys puts everyone's vocal acrobatics on display. "Honey, I'm Home," always one of the most countrified tracks on the album, is slick as a whistle, and cowbell positively vibrates on "That Don't Impress Me Much" (and the line "OK, so you're Brad Pitt/ That don't impress me much" still holds up). And while remastering highlights how cheesy Lange's Eurovision-style production is on "Come On Over," Twain just sounds terrific. Viva Shania. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Three years and a pandemic between releases, Niall Horan turns the heartbreak around on his vibrant, matured The Show. His third full-length, the quick ten-track burst finds the former One Directioner in a period of positive growth, leaving his twenties behind and grounding himself in a more comfortable space where he can play with genres and have some fun. The mood is set on the irresistible opener "Heaven," a bright, life-affirming anthem that nods to the Beach Boys with the repeated "God only knows" and that group's trademark sunny vocal harmonies. Meanwhile, "Meltdown" and "Save My Life" amp up the energy with breezy choruses and '80s pop/rock vibrancy that's not too far off from his former bandmates Harry Styles' and Louis Tomlinson's contemporaneous output. Digging in deeper, he contemplates the passage of time and its effects on love on the tender "Never Grow Up" and dips into Tame Impala psych-groove on "If You Leave Me." Later, he slows things down with the acoustic guitar-and-harmonica "You Could Start a Cult," a sweet ode to a love that could sway the masses, and the piano-and-strings ballad "Science." The centerpiece title track is a sweeping showcase that builds atop swelling, orchestral drama, reaching a grand apex on the bridge, where Horan hits the most shiver-inducing vocal heights yet heard on one of his solo efforts. With each subsequent album, Horan just gets better and better. The Show is his most immediate and engaging set to date, endlessly listenable and full of heart and charm.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

Shania Twain's second record, The Woman in Me, became a blockbuster, appealing as much to a pop audience as it did to the country audience. Part of the reason for its success was how producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange -- best-known for his work with Def Leppard, the Cars, and AC/DC -- steered Twain toward the big choruses and instrumentation that always was a signature of his speciality, AOR radio. Come on Over, the sequel to The Woman in Me, continues that approach, breaking from contemporary country conventions in a number of ways. Not only does the music lean toward rock, but its 16 songs and, as the cover proudly claims, "Hour of Music," break from the country tradition of cheap, short albums of ten songs that last about a half-hour. Furthermore, all 16 songs and Lange-Twain originals and Shania's sleek, sexy photos suggest a New York fashion model, not a honky tonker. And there isn't any honky tonk here, which is just as well, since the fiddles are processed to sound like synthesizers and talk boxes never sound good on down-home, gritty rave-ups. No, Shania sticks to what she does best, which is countrified mainstream pop. Purists will complain that there's little country here, and there really isn't. However, what is here is professionally crafted country-pop -- even the filler (which there is, unfortunately, too much of) sounds good -- which is delivered with conviction, if not style, by Shania, and that is enough to make it a thoroughly successful follow-up to one of the most successful country albums by a female in history.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Shania Twain's second record, The Woman in Me, became a blockbuster, appealing as much to a pop audience as it did to the country audience. Part of the reason for its success was how producer Robert John "Mutt" Lange -- best-known for his work with Def Leppard, the Cars, and AC/DC -- steered Twain toward the big choruses and instrumentation that always was a signature of his speciality, AOR radio. Come on Over, the sequel to The Woman in Me, continues that approach, breaking from contemporary country conventions in a number of ways. Not only does the music lean toward rock, but its 16 songs and, as the cover proudly claims, "Hour of Music," break from the country tradition of cheap, short albums of ten songs that last about a half-hour. Furthermore, all 16 songs and Lange-Twain originals and Shania's sleek, sexy photos suggest a New York fashion model, not a honky tonker. And there isn't any honky tonk here, which is just as well, since the fiddles are processed to sound like synthesizers and talk boxes never sound good on down-home, gritty rave-ups. No, Shania sticks to what she does best, which is countrified mainstream pop. Purists will complain that there's little country here, and there really isn't. However, what is here is professionally crafted country-pop -- even the filler (which there is, unfortunately, too much of) sounds good -- which is delivered with conviction, if not style, by Shania, and that is enough to make it a thoroughly successful follow-up to one of the most successful country albums by a female in history.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Reba McEntire published Not That Fancy: Simple Lessons on Living, Loving, Eating, and Dusting Off Your Boots in 2023, accompanying the book's release with Not That Fancy, a 14-song collection of acoustic versions of her biggest hits as produced by Dave Cobb that featured the new song "Seven Minutes in Heaven." The bulk of these versions are pulled from the "Revisited" disc of 2021's triple-CD Revived Remixed Revisited, so hardcore fans will be familiar with them, but these stripped-back interpretations are enjoyable in any context.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Dropped by a major label in 2018, The Wombats could have sunk like a stone. Instead, the Liverpool-formed trio has come out of that dilemma as energized as ever on their last two albums, including the new Fix Yourself, Not the World. In fact, they seem to take the title to heart: The record is the sound of a pessimist becoming a realist and trying to make the best of what they have (not exactly optimism, but baby steps). Which is pretty impressive considering the members were in three different countries during the recording sessions. "Ready for the High" starts off as a bottom-heavy monster, with dark-cloud, give-up lyrics about feeling stuck. "You can scream like a banshee and still nothing comes/ You can buy a heart balloon and watch the sky grow dull," Matt "Murph" Murphy sings. But then the whole thing opens up at the bridge, giving way to a sea of swaying trumpets symbolizing the true meaning: "The song is about being engulfed in a bad place, but rather than accepting this as immutable, acknowledging that it is only temporary and that better times are closer than they (currently) appear," Murph has said. "People Don't Change People, Time Does" sends a similar message, even if it's from a skewed perspective. "Everything I love is going to die/ So baby keep your big mouth shut and stop wasting my time," go the lyrics, reminding you to hold tight onto the raft you have. Sometimes, though, that cling wrap can look a bit like desperation. Depending on your view, bop "If You Ever Leave, I'm Coming With You" either promises or threatens, "I'm forever locking myself in the glass of your rearview." Throughout, the muscular synth comes on like, well, not quite Duran Duran—maybe more like the ⅗ Duran side project Arcadia—with exuberant, dancefloor-ready pop beats. "Wildfire" has a mid-tempo swagger that cruises on a funk groove and finds Murph putting his falsetto to good use. "Work Is Easy, Life Is Hard" shimmies and shakes. "Flip Me Upside Down" is as frenetic as Friday rush-hour city traffic. And "Don't Poke the Bear" could be a Parklife-era Blur melody. Sometimes songs sound so alike as to blend one into the other, but it's a good schtick—even when the outlook slips back into old habits: "it's not paranoia if it's really there," Murph frets on "Worry," its chorus like careening on a rain-slick road. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Doubling down on the blue-eyed soul that’s always been their cornerstone, Maroon 5 up the ante on Hands All Over, stripping their rock to the bare minimum, giving every song, even the power ballads, an immaculate tight groove. It is the exact opposite move expected from the hiring of superstar producer Robert John “Mutt” Lange, the man responsible for some of the greatest hard rock and heavy metal albums in history, but Lange has a knack for focusing on the elements that define a band’s core character, and with Maroon 5 he’s realized how Adam Levine possesses a relative lack of lead singer ego. He is undoubtedly the superstar of the outfit -- the skinny pretty boy with the high voice -- but all things considered, he disappears within his band, co-writing much of the album with keyboardist Jesse Carmichael, letting the song and vibe take precedence over performance. Lange preserves this dynamic, turning Maroon 5 into a clean, efficient machine. There is no fat on Hands All Over -- in its standard edition, its 12 songs run a crisp 40 minutes, with no song cresting over the four-minute mark -- and the sound is blindingly bright, almost incandescent in its spotless surfaces. As pristine as the sound is, Hands All Over is not sterile and Lange retains the group’s sense of soul. If anything, his precision is an asset, as it not only accentuates Maroon 5’s essential character as well-tailored lovermen, his focus echoes down to the songs themselves. Some of the cuts may not sink their hooks in immediately, but track for track Hands All Over is Maroon 5’s best album, capturing their character and craft in a cool, sleek package.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Maxi Jazz, the maestro behind Faithless, is well titled as "the grand oral disseminator." The tales he spins make this album a manifesto, religious experience, sexual escapade, and 24-hour rave all rolled up into one tightly constructed package. As Jazz explored hip-hop through the 1980s and his path converged with dub superstar Jah Wobble, the ultra funky Jamiroquai, and the Soul II Soul amalgamation (among others), the foundation was laid for the delicious blend of genres and sounds that would break through in the mid-'90s. Reverence is the culmination of all those experiences, as Jazz unleashes a fat packet worth of songs that are really an acid house tapestry in disguise. This album is best heard in one sitting, where all its styles work together to tell the story. But break it apart, peel the layers back, and the songs stand alone as well. The hypnotic title track serves nicely as an introduction, before it's waylaid by the downtempo soul ballad "Don't Leave," which is replete with needle, pops, and skips throughout. "Salva Mea," "Insomnia," and "Dirty Ol' Man," three very different songs, tangle themselves together and pick up the thread from "Reverence." "Angeline," meanwhile, emerges as a perfectly impassioned love song. The U.S. release includes the bonus "Monster Mix Radio Edit" of "Insomnia." Maxi Jazz hits a deep chord with this album. It's clubby enough for the kiddies, but is incredibly complex beyond the dancefloor. The songs are great, the beats are compelling, and it's almost impossible to not bounce around the room while listening. But this album is also a collection of shadows, of mirror images, where songs mimic one another before spinning off to do their own thing. Moments are caught and lost, tangled, and straightened out. Really, it's brilliant.© Amy Hanson /TiVo

Was soul music better before? No!" answers Aaron Frazer's debut album. Spotted as the drummer and co-singer of Durand Jones & the Indications, this young soul brother from Baltimore, now living in Brooklyn, launches his solo career with Introducing..., an impeccable opus with a vintage flavour, produced by the legendary Dan Auerbach. In Nashville's Easy Eye Sound Studio, home to the Black Keys, Frazer's celestial falsetto, influenced by Smokey Robinson and Curtis Mayfield, resounds to perfection. Both conscious and amorous, like all the great fifties and sixties soul singers, he juggles pure love songs and politically charged numbers with ease. His soft voice is a divine whisper, modern and ageless at the same time. A trans-generational cast supports Frazer, ranging from old hands like the Memphis Boys (who made their mark on Dusty Springfield's Son of A Preacher Man and Aretha Franklin's (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman) to the youngest virtuosos of the Daptone label - Big Crown Records... Gospel, doo-wop, funk and Northern Soul (Over You and its addictive up-tempo beat), Frazer even conjures up the ghosts of Marvin Gaye and Gil Scott-Heron on the smooth and funky Bad News. He knows and masters his classics, but his magnificent Introducing... is still very much an album from 2021, not 1961. Like his contemporaries Mayer Hawthorne and Curtis Harding, Aaron Frazer transposes his passion for vintage music into his time. He knows that the beauty of soul is that it cries with you, rejoices with you, makes you want to dance and can also make you think consciously and socially, whether it's 1961 or 2021! © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Looking back on 20 years of creative growth since the electro-pop band's inception, The OMD Singles is logically and chronologically arranged. The earliest recordings, 1980's "Electricity" and "Messages," prove electric messages were being channeled from such German pioneers as Kraftwerk and Neu! These English boys were enamored of melody, though, and it was not long before such dulcet, song-like structure became self-evident, as in 1984's "Tesla Girls." From then on, it is a steady climb in coherence, with synth rhythms downplayed in order to bring the melodic theme to the front. The pinnacle of this progression is OMD's memorable "So in Love" (1985) and "If You Leave" (from 1986's Pretty in Pink). The album closes with their last hit, 1996's glam-influenced autobiography "Walking on the Milky Way." The last original member, Andy McCluskey, has blessed this greatest-hits package as the final swan song for the long-lived group. Originating in post-punk synth experimentation and closing in dated, but still strong, pop productions, The OMD Singles is an excellent time line of the band whose sound covered in a single career that same territory explored by the Human League, Erasure, Yaz, New Order, and beyond.© Tom Schulte /TiVo

The starring roles in Once, the little movie that could by writer/director John Carney, are played by the Frames' Glen Hansard and Czech singer/songwriter Markéta Irglová. The songs, representing those of the character Guy and his collaborator Girl, are made up of simple and attractive acoustic pop, full of guitars, piano, a small drum kit, and electric bass, with some supplemental instruments. Sung by one, the other, or the two musicians together, they offer a sweet and moving little soundtrack to this quirky film that offers no easy answers and asks plenty of questions. Interestingly enough, Hansard and Irglová are real life musical partners who recorded an album together in 2006 called Swell Season. Five of the 13 tunes on this soundtrack originally appeared on that album. For the film, however, additional tweaks to the original material (and the recording of supplemental songs written specifically for the movie) was done in a studio in Ireland. While the film has garnered a sizeable audience for such a small budget project, the soundtrack may have a more difficult time. It's not because the songs are so personal, but because they are so small in and of themselves. Fans of the Frames may score copies, and those who are charmed by the film might like the music enough to be curious, but it's one of those recordings you have to be specifically in the mood for. The wispy nature of much of this material makes for an intimate listen and one that is as skeletal yet elegant as the film itself.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

From 1981, this was J.J. Cale's sixth album (following the succinctly titled NUMBER 5, and returning to his tradition of single-word album titles). Though Cale didn't use one constant band throughout the album, it's got a remarkably unified feeling. This is in part due to the great musicians on hand (pianist Bill Payne, drummers Jim Keltner and Russ Kunkel, and guitarist James Burton among others), but primarily to Cale himself. His songs and his overal approach to music are all-encompassing; the seductive and laid-back grooves his rhythm sections empower are written into the very fabric of the songs. "Carry On," "Pack My Jack"--these are songs of simple, sturdy strengths, succinctly written and concisely rendered. There are never any stray notes or decorative filigrees. Friendly and inviting, SHADES sounds good in any season and at any time of day (and may be some of the best hangover cure music around).© TiVo

Bobby Hutcherson recorded frequently for Blue Note in the 1960s, though this session remained unissued until 1999. The first half features the vibraphonist in a cooking hard bop session with Joe Henderson and Duke Pearson, starting with an energetic take on the normally slow ballad "If Ever I Would Leave You" and a sizzling Hutcherson original, "For Duke P." Guitarist Grant Green is added for the second half, beginning with the first recording of Henderson's "The Kicker," which became well known from it's later rendition on Horace Silver's highly successful release Song for My Father. Because this is part of Blue Note's limited-edition Jazz Connoisseur series, don't delay in picking it up.© Ken Dryden /TiVo

Forget that it's awfully hard to call this live recording Unplugged. Unlike the early installments of the MTV series, which focused on a performer accompanied only with an acoustic guitar, resulting in unsurprisingly simple affairs, Alicia Keys' Unplugged is big, splashy, and immodest -- even if her guitarist is playing acoustic and she plays a piano, not a synth, the extra vocalists, horn section, strings, and full rhythm section complete with electric bass makes this anything but "unplugged." But that doesn't really matter, since this is presented and marketed as a live album more than an acoustic record, and, as a live album, it's OK. Certainly, Keys and her 16 supporting musicians are professionals and they deliver tight, polished grooves, giving her plenty of space to improv and vamp, which is in contrast to her controlled studio albums. But that's not the only way Unplugged differs from Keys' other two albums. This, more than either Songs in A Minor or The Diary, illustrates why Alicia Keys fits into the post-hip-hop soul world: she places groove and feel above the song. Nowhere is this more evident than her version here of Prince's "How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore" (which she straightens out and truncates to "How Come You Don't Call Me") where she speeds along to the bridge after singing the first verse, then just dispenses with the song altogether, spending the rest of the time vamping, occasionally going back to the bridge. Since she sounds good and the band sounds good, this works pretty well on a sheer sonic level -- it's good late-night mood music -- but there's no sense of storytelling or momentum to her performances: she starts the song in one place and stays there riding in circles until the end. With the exception of her duet with Maroon 5's Adam Levine on the Rolling Stones' "Wild Horses" -- duets, by their very nature, necessitate that they be performed as complete songs -- that's true of nearly every cut here, whether they're originals or covers; the songs are stripped down to their hooks and grooves. Over these rhythmic vamps, Keys does have some impressive vocal runs where she departs from the original melody and glides by on the sheer sound of her voice, but when the songs are reduced to the their bare essence, her vocalizing doesn't become a way of telling a story, it becomes the reason she's playing music in the first place. While that doesn't make for a bad listen -- she has genuine talent as a singer and her band is sleek and skilled, so they can sell this supple, seductive sound quite well -- it doesn't make for a particularly compelling one, either.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Maxi Jazz, the maestro behind Faithless, is well titled as "the grand oral disseminator." The tales he spins make this album a manifesto, religious experience, sexual escapade, and 24-hour rave all rolled up into one tightly constructed package. As Jazz explored hip-hop through the 1980s and his path converged with dub superstar Jah Wobble, the ultra funky Jamiroquai, and the Soul II Soul amalgamation (among others), the foundation was laid for the delicious blend of genres and sounds that would break through in the mid-'90s. Reverence is the culmination of all those experiences, as Jazz unleashes a fat packet worth of songs that are really an acid house tapestry in disguise. This album is best heard in one sitting, where all its styles work together to tell the story. But break it apart, peel the layers back, and the songs stand alone as well. The hypnotic title track serves nicely as an introduction, before it's waylaid by the downtempo soul ballad "Don't Leave," which is replete with needle, pops, and skips throughout. "Salva Mea," "Insomnia," and "Dirty Ol' Man," three very different songs, tangle themselves together and pick up the thread from "Reverence." "Angeline," meanwhile, emerges as a perfectly impassioned love song. The U.S. release includes the bonus "Monster Mix Radio Edit" of "Insomnia." Maxi Jazz hits a deep chord with this album. It's clubby enough for the kiddies, but is incredibly complex beyond the dancefloor. The songs are great, the beats are compelling, and it's almost impossible to not bounce around the room while listening. But this album is also a collection of shadows, of mirror images, where songs mimic one another before spinning off to do their own thing. Moments are caught and lost, tangled, and straightened out. Really, it's brilliant.© Amy Hanson /TiVo