Off the Wall was a massive success, spawning four Top Ten hits (two of them number ones), but nothing could have prepared Michael Jackson for Thriller. Nobody could have prepared anybody for the success of Thriller, since the magnitude of its success was simply unimaginable -- an album that sold 40 million copies in its initial chart run, with seven of its nine tracks reaching the Top Ten (for the record, the terrific "Baby Be Mine" and the pretty good ballad "The Lady in My Life" are not like the others). This was a record that had something for everybody, building on the basic blueprint of Off the Wall by adding harder funk, hard rock, softer ballads, and smoother soul -- expanding the approach to have something for every audience. That alone would have given the album a good shot at a huge audience, but it also arrived precisely when MTV was reaching its ascendancy, and Jackson helped the network by being not just its first superstar, but first black star as much as the network helped him. This all would have made it a success (and its success, in turn, served as a new standard for success), but it stayed on the charts, turning out singles, for nearly two years because it was really, really good. True, it wasn't as tight as Off the Wall -- and the ridiculous, late-night house-of-horrors title track is the prime culprit, arriving in the middle of the record and sucking out its momentum -- but those one or two cuts don't detract from a phenomenal set of music. It's calculated, to be sure, but the chutzpah of those calculations (before this, nobody would even have thought to bring in metal virtuoso Eddie Van Halen to play on a disco cut) is outdone by their success. This is where a song as gentle and lovely as "Human Nature" coexists comfortably with the tough, scared "Beat It," the sweet schmaltz of the Paul McCartney duet "The Girl Is Mine," and the frizzy funk of "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)." And, although this is an undeniably fun record, the paranoia is already creeping in, manifesting itself in the record's two best songs: "Billie Jean," where a woman claims Michael is the father of her child, and the delirious "Wanna Be Startin' Something," the freshest funk on the album, but the most claustrophobic, scariest track Jackson ever recorded. These give the record its anchor and are part of the reason why the record is more than just a phenomenon. The other reason, of course, is that much of this is just simply great music.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

In 1982, The Boss amazed everyone with Nebraska. Leaving his powerful rock’n’roll band (the E Street Band) to one side, Springsteen went in the opposite direction; much to everyone's surprise, he released a masterpiece of all-acoustic purity, crafted from a guitar and a harmonica... How would he follow this album up two years later? By bringing out the heavy artillery! Leaving his acoustic guitar and cheap magneto in the basement, The Boss and his E Street Band returned with a bang: lumberjack drums, howling saxophones, bulging guitars and stadium anthems galore. Springsteen found his calling as a spokesman for the marginalised. Tackling themes such as unemployment, poverty, the aftermath of Vietnam and general doom and gloom, the electric poet from New Jersey made new sparks fly with his no-frills rock'n'roll, his relentless melodies and his choruses that packed a punch. There’s nothing chauvinistic on Born In The USA (what a title… and what an album cover!), just a deep instinct to be the voice for the marginalised masses, the neglected proletarians, all the people who make up the starred banner; even when it is rather wrinkled... © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Always on the cutting edge of new technologies since his beginnings in the 70s at Pierre Schaeffer's GRM (the  music research group of the French Broadcasting and Television Office, where concrete and electronic music were born), Jean-Michel Jarre has conceptualized an augmented reality concert to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Palace of Versailles. The French artist, who had already given a concert in virtual reality for 2020's Fête de la Musique (a French music celebration that takes place on June 21st each year), set up his machines and donned his virtual reality headset once again in the famous Hall of Mirrors for an hour-long show on Christmas Day, December 25th, 2023. A limited audience was able to attend the "concert-production hybrid" live at the palace, but it was also broadcast to the metaverse to be watched via virtual reality.For Versailles 400, Jarre took an understated approach, with a concert lasting precisely an hour, a duration undoubtedly linked to the exceptional conditions imposed by the location. He starts off with music evocative of Jean-Baptiste Lully, using a harpsichord and vocals modified via a talk-box ("Le Château"), before going on to the hit "Epica Oxygène," delivering a rather rhythmic show, slowly but surely transforming the Hall of Mirrors into a techno rave or a new wing of the ISS. After the Egyptian pyramids and the Red Square, Jean-Michel Jarre can check yet another historical site off his list. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

After performing his second-to-last selection, "White Light/White Heat," a tune by Lou Reed, the songwriter who most influenced Ziggy Stardust, David Bowie's enduring and indelible persona, Bowie dropped this little nugget on his fans (and bandmates): "Not only is it the last show of the tour, but it's the last show that we'll ever do. Thank you." He then went into a magnificent version of "Rock & Roll Suicide," a song that gives a glimpse of where Bowie could have gone, not to suicide, but to the style of rock & roll that a long-term band can provide. Had Bowie kept the Spiders from Mars together, unique flashes like the version of "Let's Spend the Night Together" or the striking "All the Young Dudes" would have continued, a tight little rock & roll band providing a balance that dissipated when the artist branched out on his own. The other unnerving thing about this double-LP soundtrack of a concert taped in 1973 and finally released in 1982 is that there are bootlegs which have more to offer sonically. The thin recording is shameful: don't expect Pink Floyd's Delicate Sound of Thunder or even the Rolling Stones' wonderfully sludgy "Get Your Ya Ya's Out." The remix of this only official live album from the Ziggy Stardust shows is dreadful. Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture doesn't have the electric excitement of the Live in Santa Monica '72 boot, and that's the fault of the remix by Mike Moran, Bruce Tergeson, Tony Visconti, and Bowie. Another bootleg, David Bowie with the Spiders from Mars, London, July 3, 1973, is the exact same Ziggy performance, but it comes across better, much better. According to Pimm Jal de la Parra's book David Bowie: The Concert Tapes, the bootleg was issued from the ABC TV 1974 broadcast. The bootleg also has "Jean Genie and "Love Me Do," which feature Jeff Beck on guitar, Beck's performances being absent from the official RCA soundtrack release. The shame of it all is that this double disc was released after David Live and Stage, and while the upside is it makes for a rare, three double-live sets from one performer, the downside is that the best of those three albums has the worst mix on official record. Also, had RCA released the October 1, 1972 Boston Music Hall show -- which was brilliant, despite Bowie having a cold that night -- or this July 3, 1973 London Hammersmith Odeon program back in the day, it could have had an enormous effect on Bowie's career. At that point in time, the fans wanted more Ziggy, and the timing of this release only shows how important it is to get the material out while it's hot. Just ask Peter Frampton, Bob Seger, and the J. Geils Band, who solidified their audiences with double-live sets at crucial points in their careers. Nonetheless, everything here is essential David Bowie; it is a great performance, and you definitely need it for your Bowie collection. The only thing better would be Lou Reed himself finally releasing the September 1973 first gig of his Rock 'n' Roll Animal Band, which was, as they say, the real thing.© Joe Viglione /TiVo

Khruangbin's  A LA SALA is billed as a return to basics. Made with minimal overdubs and in only the company of the band's longtime engineer Steve Christensen, the mostly-instrumental trio's fourth record is a quieter, more introspective affair. The measured first track "Fifteen Fifty-Three," which starts with crickets and ends with birds chirping, sets the tone for an album where several tunes include ambient or found sounds. In the sweet and gentle flow of "May Ninth," bassist Laura Lee Ochoa quietly sings, "Oh what a dream to me/ Memory burned and gone/ A multicolored grey/ Waiting for May to come/ Happy for the rain." Her whispers can be heard in several tracks including "Pon Pón," a classic example of the instinctual way that the trio mind meld into a groove—here spiced with a dash of West African bounce.Khruangbin have routinely sought out vocal collaborators (like fellow Texan Leon Bridges) but have now mastered the art of adding ghostly, often near wordless  background vocals.  Lee purrs in the sinuous "Todaviá Viva," a funk jam paced by drummer Donald "DJ" Johnson's rim shots and high hat.  "Hold Me Up (Thank You)" is firmly in the pocket from the opening notes, with Speer darting in and a more assertive Lee singing simple lyrics that conclude with, "Thank your father, thank your mother/Hold me up." With his instantly recognizable guitar tone always submerged in reverb, Mark Speer continues to refine his playing, trending more towards the jazz improvisations while also being able to savor shorter, less challenging moments like in "Caja de la Sala."  He stretches a solo into a song in the dance track "A Love International."  A LA SALA (a phrase Lee used as a child to summon her family into the same place) closes on the slow, reflective "Les Petits Gris," set to a repeated keyboard phrase before it dissolves into the sound of crickets in full thrall.  Khruangbin continue to find new ways to make instrumental-centered music consequential. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

There are several Michael Jackson greatest-hits compilations out there, each one its own take on what should be the definitive portrait of the gloved one's career. The Ultimate Collection, The Essential Collection (different from the one here), and Number Ones have all surfaced in 2003 and 2004, and HIStory a few years prior. Each one of these collections, while commendable in its attempt to thoroughly document Jackson's accomplishments, has fallen woefully short in one aspect or another. This has finally been rectified with this installment of Sony's outstanding Essential collection. Starting with his campaign with his brothers in the Jackson 5, this two-disc set tours through every important single and every important fan favorite short of including his duet with Paul McCartney on "Say Say Say" (the Beatle does, however, make an appearance here on "The Girl Is Mine"). From Off the Wall to Dangerous, it's all here in one concise package, making it the ideal reference point from which exploration into his deeper catalog can begin. While die-hard fans will already have every single song contained herein and may be weary to purchase another greatest-hits compilation short of a greatest-hits compilation including his backing vocals on Rockwell's "Somebody's Watching Me," this may be the only one fans and casual listeners will ever have to purchase to get their fill of the King of Pop's magic.© Rob Theakston /TiVo

With this 2023 release, the cycle of Mozart's mature piano concertos by pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, with the Manchester Camerata under conductor Gabor Takács-Nagy, reaches its end. The series, with a modern piano but an economical approach that shows some influence from the historical performance movement, has found both critical and popular success, and this finale will not disappoint. Bavouzet is a technically clean pianist who can impress with the elegance of any given phrase, but what strikes the listener considering his Mozart work as a whole is the way he approaches each piece as an individual. His Mozart is entirely different from his Haydn, as revealed in a long series of fine piano sonata recordings, and he is very sensitive to the development of Mozart's style, capturing subtle interaction between piano and winds in the big middle-period concertos and backing off to a simpler melodicism in these late ones. In the Piano Concerto No. 26 in D major, K. 537 ("Coronation"), he prepares his own version of the incompletely notated left-hand part, and he adds some light ornamentation to the rather bare, slow movement. Bavouzet's Mozart albums have included overtures from the period of the concertos involved, and here, one gets no fewer than three from the last three Mozart operas. Takács-Nagy integrates these with the concertos beautifully, and the program as a whole has a satisfying effect that brings to mind Mozart's remark about the connoisseurs and the amateurs; the album can be appreciated at multiple levels. Chandos' engineering work at the Stoller Hall in Manchester is once again exemplary. This release made classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023.© James Manheim /TiVo

‘Virtual reality applied to sound’ is the theme for the insatiable Jean-Michel Jarre’s 22nd album with Sony. Conceived in 3D spatialised audio, the record conjures up some extraordinary sensations, with sounds coming from every direction. Credits are shared with Pierre Henry, the French pioneer of musique concrète, known for his avant-garde hit ‘Psyché Rock’. Both Henry and Jarre have history with Pierre Schaeffer, the founder of GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales de l’ORTF), where the first French electronic music experiments took place. Pierre Henry was never part of the GRM, carrying out his experiments in parallel, but he was still very close to Schaeffer in the 50s.Jarre worked an internship at GRM during the late 60s, where he idolised Shaeffer. A collaboration between Jarre and Henry had been suggested in 2015 for the album Electronica, but Pierre Henry’s faltering health and subsequent death in 2017 meant that the project never came to fruition. Nevertheless, Henry left a series of sounds to Jean-Michel Jarre, which he used to create Oxymore - a tribute to the late composer, whose signature sound becomes apparent right from the first track. This is a pretty catchy record, Jarre clearly deciding to make the most of the kick pedal on ‘ZEITGEIST’ and ‘BRUTALISM’. The influence of musique concrète is plainly evident, with lots of Pierre Henry-esque noises swirling through the tracks. The fusion of these two electronic pioneers is enjoyable (though inevitably unbalanced), with excellent highlights such as the meta-disco ‘SONIC LAND’ and the trippy ‘SYNTHY SISTERS’: tracks where Jarre sounds like he’s having more fun than ever before. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

The "Mozart, Made in Manchester" series from pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and the Manchester Camerata under conductor Gábor Takács-Nagy has been a joy from the start. It is not that Bavouzet does anything so radical. He plays a modern piano, although there is an overall sparse approach that probably traces itself to the historical performance movement. These are just impressively sensitive performances that bring out the individuality of each work. Here, Bavouzet takes on three Mozart concertos from the early years of his life in Vienna as he broke free from the stultifying circumstances he had experienced in Salzburg. These three piano concertos are brimming over with formal experimentation that Bavouzet brings out in full; sample the tempo-shifting Rondeau finale of the Piano Concerto No. 13 in C major, K. 415. The Manchester Camerata, with some youthful musicians taken on from the city's Chetham's School, offers lively playing that conductor Takács-Nagy calibrates beautifully to Bavouzet's detailed readings. Releases in this series have included a Mozart overture, and here, one gets a vigorous, almost rollicking Overture to Die Entführung aus dem Serail, K. 384, which emphasizes the battery of Turkish percussion in the piece. This unusually satisfying Mozart recording made classical best-seller lists in early 2024.© James Manheim /TiVo

Forty years after its release on the 30th of November 1982, people still name Thriller as one of Michael Jackson’s greatest albums. To mark the occasion, Sony is rolling out the red carpet for the anniversary edition of this masterpiece, including 25 bonus tracks! For this record, which was released in the same year as the Compact Disc, the 24-year-old star once again teamed up with Quincy Jones. The era was also marked by the rise of MTV—which was only a year old at the time—and Michael dreamed of reaching funk lovers as well as rock and pop fans. However, Thriller became what we know it to be because it was essentially a compilation of strong, perfect songs. As Quincy would later say: 'If an album reaches number one, it’s because the songs are perfect to begin with!'Emphasising the role of sound engineer Bruce Swedien and songwriter Rod Temperton, who’d already been involved in Off the Wall, the producer told Rolling Stone magazine in 2009: 'Michael didn’t create Thriller. It takes a team to make an album. He wrote four songs, and sang his ass off, but he didn’t conceive it. That’s not how an album works.' ‘The Girl Is Mine’, the duet with Paul McCartney, was released as a single on the 18th of October 1982, a good month after the album. By joining forces with the ex-Beatles member again, Michael Jackson showed the way. He broke down racial boundaries even further, building bridges between America and Europe and blurring the lines between musical genres. His label, Epic–like everyone involved–knew that this album was going to be unlike anything else the world had ever seen.To link the album to Off The Wall, Thriller is logically opened by ‘Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'’. With its sample of Manu Dibango’s ‘Soul Makossa’ (the Cameroonian saxophonist would only claim royalties in 2008), it was the perfect way to satisfy Michael’s lifelong fans. However, the lyrics were already less smooth than they had been in the past, revealing that the star had hardened up and freed himself from his child-artist image. Of course, the heart of this colossal album is in its three major songs: ‘Thriller’, ’Beat It’ and ‘Billie Jean’. With creaking doors, werewolf screams, a long instrumental intro (Michael’s voice only appears at the one-minute mark) and a monologue by 50s, 60s and 70s horror star Vincent Price, ‘Thriller’ (and its video) remains a pop culture megalith. With a pyrotechnic guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen (who, according to legend, burned out the studio speakers during the recording), ‘Beat It’ is a relentless, ultra-rhythmic rock song, just what Quincy Jones was hoping for since he’d fantasised about placing a song similar to The Knack’s ‘My Sharona’ (1979) at the heart of the album. However, the stand-out track from Thriller, of course, is the record-shattering hit ‘Billie Jean’. This is an excellent reissue of a true masterpiece.© Marc Zisman/Qobuz

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Ziggy Stardust wrote the blueprint for David Bowie's hard-rocking glam, and Aladdin Sane essentially follows the pattern, for both better and worse. A lighter affair than Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane is actually a stranger album than its predecessor, buoyed by bizarre lounge-jazz flourishes from pianist Mick Garson and a handful of winding, vaguely experimental songs. Bowie abandons his futuristic obsessions to concentrate on the detached cool of New York and London hipsters, as on the compressed rockers "Watch That Man," "Cracked Actor," and "The Jean Genie." Bowie follows the hard stuff with the jazzy, dissonant sprawls of "Lady Grinning Soul," "Aladdin Sane," and "Time," all of which manage to be both campy and avant-garde simultaneously, while the sweepingly cinematic "Drive-In Saturday" is a soaring fusion of sci-fi doo wop and melodramatic teenage glam. He lets his paranoia slip through in the clenched rhythms of "Panic in Detroit," as well as on his oddly clueless cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together." For all the pleasures on Aladdin Sane, there's no distinctive sound or theme to make the album cohesive; it's Bowie riding the wake of Ziggy Stardust, which means there's a wealth of classic material here, but not enough focus to make the album itself a classic.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Just after his live performance in Houston to celebrate NASA's anniversary, Jean-Michel Jarre released Rendez-Vous, an appropriately cosmic-sounding album of glittering synth pop. It consists of the same music heard at the Houston concert and shows Jarre moving closer to conventional rock territory, though still with his distinct blueprint. The final track, "Last Rendez-Vous: Ron's Piece," was composed by Jarre for astronaut Ron McNair and was intended to be the first musical piece played and recorded in space. McNair's historic duty was cut short, however, by the Challenger shuttle disaster of January 1986.© John Bush /TiVo

On the first departure of his career since 1977's Oxygène, Jean Michel Jarre combined an actual band and processed vocal samples -- recorded in 25 different languages -- with his rich, melodic synthesizer pop. The rhythm is often propelled by guttural vocal snippets, as on "Ethnicolor" and "Zoolookologie." That's not half as disconcerting for those used to his previous work as the album's art-funk backing: Adrian Belew on guitar, Marcus Miller on bass, and Yogi Horton on drums, plus Laurie Anderson on one track. Though Zoolook is interesting throughout, the tracks with Jarre alone are often the best, reprising the classic Oxygène sound.© John Bush /TiVo