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Insight (Music from the Motion Picture)
Lisa Gerrard
New Age - Released August 17, 2011 | Lisa Gerrard & Marcello De Francisci
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Before The Flood
Bob Dylan
Pop/Rock - Released June 20, 1974 | Columbia - Legacy
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Mecca And The Soul Brother
Pete Rock & CL Smooth
Hip-Hop/Rap - Released May 26, 1992 | Rhino
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The Qobuz Ideal Discography
It would have been hard to match the artistic success of their debut EP on a full-length recording, but Pete Rock & C.L. Smooth did just that on Mecca and the Soul Brother, and they did so in the most unlikely way of all after the succinctness of All Souled Out -- by coming up with a sprawling, nearly 80-minute-long album on which not a single song or interlude is a throwaway or a superfluous piece. Granted, 80 minutes is a long stretch of time for sustained listening, but the music is completely worthy of that time, allowing the duo to stretch out in ways that their EP rendered impossible. Again, the primary star is Pete Rock's production acumen, and he ups the ante of rock-solid drums, steady cymbal beats, smooth-rolling bass, and fatback organ, not to mention his signature horn loops. C.L. Smooth is the perfect vocal match for the music. He is maybe one of the few MCs capable of rapping a fairly credible love song, as he does on "Lots of Lovin'." "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)," a tribute to friend and Heavy D. dancer Trouble T-Roy, who was accidentally killed, packs a poignant emotional weight, but it is Smooth's more direct and conscientious -- and frequently autobiographical -- side which ultimately carries the album lyrically. The songs are connected and the album is propelled forward by Rock's quick, soul-tight interludes; these are usually bits of old R&B and soul tunes but sometimes they're spoken pieces or spontaneous, freestyle sessions. These interludes provide a sort of dense spiritual tone and resonance in the album that is not religiously based at all, but fully hip-hop based, emerging from the urban altars that are the basements and rooftops of the city.© Stanton Swihart /TiVo
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And It’s Still Alright
Nathaniel Rateliff
Pop - Released January 8, 2020 | Stax
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The day that Nathaniel Rateliff signed his contract with Stax will probably stick with him forever, considering the significance that the music label has for him. The Denver native, either under his own name or with his band The Night Sweats, has always been the perfect ambassador for sweltering, Southern soul music, much like that which was created in the legendary Memphis studio at the end of the 1960s. Yet with this album And It’s Still Alright, he seems to have switched entirely away from soul, instead aiming for a more introspective folk sound. Dedicated to his friend Richard Swift who had worked with him on his Night Sweats albums and who passed away in 2018, this solo album, his first for seven years, touches on themes of loss and perseverance. Rateliff’s voice is impressive in the way it plays on these nuance but manages to avoid becoming overly plaintive. “I think I always want to see hope in the darkness, and I like to try to share that… I always try to write from a perspective of trying to approach everything very honestly, even if it leaves me vulnerable. But overall, it’s almost like I’m a different character when I’m writing for myself. I think this album is a reminder that we all go through hardship, but regardless of the hardship everything ends up where it’s supposed to.” The recording process would also prove to be a highly emotional process as Nathaniel Rateliff returned to Richard Swift’s studio, National Freedom at Cottage Grove in Oregon, joined by two co-producers, Patrick Meese (Night Sweats drummer) and James Barone (Beach House drummer). Conceived with the additional help of Tom Hagerman (a violinist with DeVotchKa), Luke Mossman (guitarist from The Night Sweats), Elijah Thomson (a bassist from band Everest), Daniel Creamer (keyboards in Texas Gentlemen) and Eric Swanson (pedal-steel guitarist for Israel Nash), And It’s Still Alright sheds a new light on this soul singer that certain fans will not have expected. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz
Music For A While
Revolver
Pop - Released June 1, 2009 | Parlophone (France)
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Revolver are a band from France with a serious jones for mid-period Beatles, as you might have inferred from their choice of band name. It's hard to imagine why anyone would list the Fab Four as a major influence at this point in pop history. While these guys clearly have a gift for charming melodies, the chance of any young band matching the energy, creativity, and exuberance of the Beatles is close to nil. That said, there are a few cuts here that do capture that mid-'60s Brit-pop flavor without falling too flat. The cello-dominated track "Leave Me Alone" has a vague resemblance to "Can't By Me Love" and sports some glorious harmonies. "Balulalow" echoes the sound of Rubber Soul with its jaunty rhythm and piano fills that suggest the guitar of George Harrison. "Luke, Mike & John" has a bouncy McCartney-ish melody, the lilt of a country tune, more lush harmony singing, and another Harrison solo, this time on guitar. They stretch a bit on the lazily titled swing tune "Untitled No. 1"; "Do You Have a Gun?," which sounds a bit like the Zombies gone acoustic, although the vocals lack the unique quality of Colin Blunstone; and "Get Around Town," a swing tune with a vaudevillian feel and a lyric that suggests the Brecht/Weill standard "Alabama Song." Most of the lyrics here are fairly derivative and awkward, too. Perhaps because English isn't their first language, they often seem to be an afterthought, although they manage to avoid the obvious clichés that often plagued ABBA.© j. poet /TiVo
Revolver are a band from France with a serious jones for mid-period Beatles, as you might have inferred from their choice of band name. It's hard to imagine why anyone would list the Fab Four as a major influence at this point in pop history. While these guys clearly have a gift for charming melodies, the chance of any young band matching the energy, creativity, and exuberance of the Beatles is close to nil. That said, there are a few cuts here that do capture that mid-'60s Brit-pop flavor without falling too flat. The cello-dominated track "Leave Me Alone" has a vague resemblance to "Can't By Me Love" and sports some glorious harmonies. "Balulalow" echoes the sound of Rubber Soul with its jaunty rhythm and piano fills that suggest the guitar of George Harrison. "Luke, Mike & John" has a bouncy McCartney-ish melody, the lilt of a country tune, more lush harmony singing, and another Harrison solo, this time on guitar. They stretch a bit on the lazily titled swing tune "Untitled No. 1"; "Do You Have a Gun?," which sounds a bit like the Zombies gone acoustic, although the vocals lack the unique quality of Colin Blunstone; and "Get Around Town," a swing tune with a vaudevillian feel and a lyric that suggests the Brecht/Weill standard "Alabama Song." Most of the lyrics here are fairly derivative and awkward, too. Perhaps because English isn't their first language, they often seem to be an afterthought, although they manage to avoid the obvious clichés that often plagued ABBA.© j. poet /TiVo
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Avantgardedog
Eleven
Rock - Released January 1, 2000 | A&M
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
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Conversations with Christian
Christian McBride
Jazz - Released November 8, 2011 | Mack Avenue Records
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Conversations with Christian is an unusual release, as it features the veteran bassist playing duets with a number of good friends. The vocal meetings include Angélique Kidjo, Sting, and Dee Dee Bridgewater (the latter with a hilarious, funky cover of the Isley Brothers' signature song "It's Your Thing"). The pairings with musicians of McBride's generation (trumpeter Roy Hargrove, tenor saxophonist Ron Blake, and guitarist Russell Malone) all exceed expectations. There are several enjoyable duets with pianists, one featuring Latin jazz master Eddie Palmieri, a duo improvised tango by Chick Corea and the leader, plus an all too rare acoustic outing by the talented George Duke (who tears up the keyboard with his hard-charging "McDukey Blues"). But McBride's meetings with Dr. Billy Taylor (playing his beautiful "Spiritual" with some potent arco playing by the bassist) and the elegant, swinging meeting with the gifted jazz master Hank Jones ("Alone Together") remain moments to savor, as they are among the final recordings by the two jazz greats, both of whom died in 2010. The last track is a funky blues just for laughs, with actress Gina Gershon joining the bassist by playing a Jew's harp, and featuring lots of comic spoken exchanges between the two. Throughout it all, Christian McBride plays with the chameleon-like adaptability of a Milt Hinton or Ray Brown. In the two-plus decades since arriving on the jazz scene, Christian McBride has demonstrated that he is a jazz master in the making, and this is easily one of his most compelling sets.
© Ken Dryden /TiVo
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The Essential Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Rock - Released October 31, 2000 | Columbia
A double-disc set released for the holiday season of 2000, The Essential Bob Dylan is a fine choice for the casual listener that just wants all the songs they know on one collection -- it's Dylan's equivalent of Beatles One. Outside of the remastering and the previously non-LP (and very good) "Things Have Changed," there's nothing here for collectors, but, then again, that's not who this was designed for. This collection is for the listener that wants "Blowin' in the Wind," "Like a Rolling Stone," "All Along the Watchtower," "Quinn the Eskimo," "Lay Lady Lay," and "Tangled Up in Blue" in one tidy place. Yes, it's easy to find great songs missing, but for those casual fans, and for those looking for a fairly comprehensive yet concise entry point, The Essential Bob Dylan comes close to living up to its title.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo
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The Journey, Pt. 1
The Kinks
Rock - Released March 24, 2023 | BMG Rights Management (UK) Ltd
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HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I
Michael Jackson
Soul - Released June 16, 1995 | Epic
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Love Is Here To Stay
Tony Bennett & Diana Krall
Vocal Jazz - Released September 14, 2018 | Verve
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Two generations. Two styles. Two voices. And an album in common… For about twenty years, crooner Tony Bennett and singer and pianist Diana Krall had produced a few duos here and there, but never an entire album. With this Love Is Here To Stay, they jumped right in and involved another five-star tandem in their enchanted parenthesis of refined vocal jazz: George and Ira Gershwin. They went digging through the vast repertoire of the most famous brothers of 20th American popular music to create this album that seems from another time, produced with the trio of impeccable pianist Bill Charlap, Peter Washington on the double bass and Kenny Washington on drums… Tackling the Great American Songbook is always a redeeming and almost necessary baptism of fire for any worthy jazz singer. And these two didn’t wait for 2018 to do it. Here, each one excels in what they do best, even if, at 92 years of age, Tony Bennett obviously doesn’t have the same organ as he did when he sung I Left My Heart In San Francisco, which made him popular in 1962. Sinatra’s favourite singer knows it, and manages to find a range in line with his vocal condition. The result is particularly touching. A great professional, Diana Krall adapted her singing to the New Yorker, turning their exchanges into endearing, slightly retro flirting. The 38 years between them become the main asset of an old-fashioned yet delightful album. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz
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My Generation
The Who
Rock - Released January 1, 1965 | Geffen
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An explosive debut, and the hardest mod pop recorded by anyone. At the time of its release, it also had the most ferociously powerful guitars and drums yet captured on a rock record. Pete Townshend's exhilarating chord crunches and guitar distortions threaten to leap off the grooves on "My Generation" and "Out in the Street"; Keith Moon attacks the drums with a lightning, ruthless finesse throughout. Some "Maximum R&B" influence lingered in the two James Brown covers, but much of Townshend's original material fused Beatlesque hooks and power chords with anthemic mod lyrics, with "The Good's Gone," "Much Too Much," "La La La Lies," and especially "The Kids Are Alright" being highlights. "A Legal Matter" hinted at more ambitious lyrical concerns, and "The Ox" was instrumental mayhem that pushed the envelope of 1965 amplification with its guitar feedback and nonstop crashing drum rolls. While the execution was sometimes crude, and the songwriting not as sophisticated as it would shortly become, the Who never surpassed the pure energy level of this record.© Richie Unterberger /TiVo
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Handel: L'Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato
Les Arts Florissants
Classical - Released June 23, 2023 | harmonia mundi
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Handel's L'allegro, il penseroso, ed il moderato, HWV 55, is an underrated work. Composed in 1740 as he was beginning to turn decisively toward English-language music, it was based on a pair of contrasting pastoral poems by Milton. Handel mixed these together and had his librettist, Charles Jennens (soon to write the text of Messiah, HWV 56), add a third part, Il Moderato, as a kind of synthesis at the end. It sounds thrown together, but the music is brilliant and has much in common with that of Messiah; the chorus has a lot to do, great care is taken with the accompanied recitatives, and the solos are full of tunes that are, given the chance, just as memorable as that of the famed later oratorio. The durable William Christie, 78 years old when this album appeared in 2023 and vaulted onto classical best-seller lists, generally specializes in French music with his group Les Arts Florissants, but he has been performing this ode in concert, and it is wonderful to find that he has gotten around to recording it. It is a wonderful reading that captures and highlights the dramatic contrasts in the work, which really plays to Christie's strengths in handling a complex score, selecting the right soloists who may not be at the top of the charts, and finding the excitement in unfamiliar Baroque scores. He excels across the board here. Among the soloists are a couple of standouts, soprano Rachel Redmond and boy soprano Leo Jemison. Christie takes brisk tempos, grabbing the listener's attention right at the top with the quick introduction to the recitativo accompagnato "Hence with vain deluding joys." The proportions in everything are just right, with a choir of 20 and an orchestra of 28 deployed so as to reflect vividly the contrasts in the text. Listeners unfamiliar with this work could not ask for a better introduction to it. Harmonia Mundi's sound at the Paris Philharmonie keeps the texts clear, even in densely polyphonic music.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Zappa In New York
Frank Zappa
Rock - Released October 29, 1977 | Frank Zappa Catalog
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Zappa in New York was recorded in December 1976 at the Palladium and originally intended for release in 1977. It was held up due to arguments between Frank Zappa and his then-record label, Warner Bros. When the two-LP set finally appeared in March 1978, Warner had deleted "Punky's Whips," a song about drummer Terry Bozzio's attraction to Punky Meadows of Angel. The Zappa band, which includes bassist Patrick O'Hearn, percussionist Ruth Underwood, and keyboard player Eddie Jobson, along with a horn section including the two Brecker brothers, was one of the bandleader's most accomplished, which it had to be to play songs like "Black Page," even in the "easy" version presented here. Zappa also was at the height of his comic stagecraft, notably on songs like "Titties & Beer," which is essentially a comedy routine between Zappa and Bozzio, and "The Illinois Enema Bandit," which features TV announcer Don Pardo.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo
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Ella Fitzgerald Sings The George And Ira Gershwin Song Book
Ella Fitzgerald
Vocal Jazz - Released January 1, 1959 | Verve Reissues
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During the late '50s, Ella Fitzgerald continued her Song Book records with Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, releasing a series of albums featuring 59 songs written by George and Ira Gershwin. Those songs, plus alternate takes, were combined on a four-disc box set, Sings the George and Ira Gershwin Song Book, in 1998. These performances are easily among Fitzgerald's very best, and for any serious fan, this is the ideal place to acquire the recordings, since the sound and presentation are equally classy and impressive.© Leo Stanley /TiVo
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I Watch You Sleep
Claire Martin
Jazz - Released March 29, 2023 | Stunt Records
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Awake (Édition Studio Master)
Skillet
Rock - Released August 21, 2009 | Atlantic Records
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The highest-charting Christian album on the Billboard charts since 2006, Awake could be tagged as Skillet's mainstream breakthrough on that fact alone. Certainly, the band's monster modern rock does sound like it could slip onto an active rock playlist -- maybe not quite in 2009, but earlier in the decade, when metallic rockers heavy on the guitar downstrokes and power ballads with chant-along vocals were relatively common. That's not to say that Skillet sound out-of-step with the times -- there's still a gleam to the Howard Benson production that sounds modern -- and they do mange to imprint their own identity on this sometimes generic brand of contemporary rock, thanks to their communal vocals, with male and female voices trading off and skyscraper hooks. Skillet also don't always focus solely on religion, as many of their songs are grounded in inspirational positivity, so that's another reason why Awake finds the band poised to break into the mainstream.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo
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Live at the Old Quarter, Houston, Texas
Townes Van Zandt
Country - Released March 28, 1977 | Fat Possum
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