The group's second album was virtually a re-creation of its predecessor, only slightly more sophisticated in its range of songs and the manner of playing them, and the in-house writing had improved, though the latter also became highly derivative. Steppenwolf the Second embraces everything from hard rock to psychedelia to blues, and the band is in excellent form, playing very hard and edgy, except on the deliberately lyrical, reflective "Spiritual Fantasy," a rare acoustic number for the group. Much more to the point of the group was the single "Magic Carpet Ride," the ultimate psychedelic pop dance number of the decade, and the marijuana anthem "Don't Step on the Grass, Sam," the pounding "28," and the album-opener "Faster Than the Speed of Life." Side two of the original LP was a great achievement in its own right, opening with "Magic Carpet Ride," which leads into a nonstop extended array of hard-rocking numbers, mostly in a blues idiom: "Disappointment Number (Unknown)," "Lost and Found by Trial and Error," "Hodge Podge, Strained Through a Leslie," and "Resurrection." The playing was as good as the first album, and though there's nothing quite comparable to "Born to Be Wild" here in terms of cultural impact, the level of the surrounding numbers is higher.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

Download not available

Download not available

Frequently classified as the first album by the group Mountain, which was named after it, Leslie West's initial solo album featured bass/keyboard player Felix Pappalardi, who also produced it and co-wrote eight of its 11 songs, and drummer N.D. Smart II. (This trio did, indeed, tour under the name Mountain shortly after the album's release, even performing at Woodstock, though Smart was replaced by Corky Laing and Steve Knight was added as keyboard player for the formal recording debut of the group, Mountain Climbing!, released in February 1970.) Pappalardi had been Cream's producer, and that power trio, as well as the Jimi Hendrix Experience, were the models for this rock set, which was dominated by West's throaty roar of a voice and inventive blues-rock guitar playing. Though West had led the Vagrants for years and cut a handful of singles with them, this was his first album release, and it made for an auspicious debut, instantly establishing him as a guitar hero and setting the style of Mountain's subsequent recordings. [Originally released in July 1969 as Windfall 4500, Mountain was reissued on CD on April 16, 1996, as Columbia/Legacy 66439.]© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Download not available

Singer/actor Leslie Odom, Jr.'s eponymous debut is a set of graceful vocal jazz interpretations of show tunes and popular song. The album was originally self-released in 2014 with nine tracks. He reworked the song list after his success (and Tony Award) as Aaron Burr in the original Broadway cast of the blockbuster musical Hamilton, cutting three songs and replacing them with four new selections for a 2016 re-release with S-Curve. Gone are Simon & Garfunkel's "Song for the Asking," a tune from the musical Civil War, and the title track from the 1957 film Wild Is the Wind, originally recorded by Johnny Mathis. Additions include Willie Nelson's "The Party's Over" and the Kosma-Mercer classic "Autumn Leaves," an album highlight.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

Having recorded a wide-ranging batch of interpretations and a holiday set, Leslie Odom, Jr.'s natural next move was to work with fresh material. The Tony-winning actor and singer does just that with his third album, released a week after the biographical film Harriet, in which Odom portrays writer and abolitionist William Still. There's a little thematic connection here, specifically in "Remember Black," where Odom nimbly reflects with pain, perseverance, and pride over a grand production that at various moments evokes a jazz club, soul revue, and HBCU halftime show. The album as a whole is similarly sweeping in style, moving through big band, intimate acoustic jazz, could-be show tunes, boogaloo-laced Latin pop, and a fair amount of adult contemporary pop and R&B, with some songs either blending or switching between modes. Odom co-wrote all the originals (11 of the 13 songs) and smoothly navigates the curves and turns, singing mostly about one-on-one matters -- infatuation, exasperation, devotion -- with much more flash and a little more fire than he did on his first release. The stirring ballads "Cold" and "Lose It," and the easygoing dancefloor cut "U R My Everything," are unequivocally modern R&B and wouldn't be out of place on LPs from Brian McKnight, Tank, and Ne-Yo. Those highlights don't deviate from Odom's past enough to repel those who admire him most for his theater work. Opting to work with album co-producer Theron Feemster among a handful of other stylistically flexible R&B specialists paid off.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

Simply Christmas is the first holiday album from show biz triple threat Leslie Odom, Jr. It appears just three months after the S-Curve release of his reworked solo debut, Leslie Odom, Jr., which in turn arrived a year after the TV actor, singer, and stage performer originated the role of Aaron Burr in the Broadway smash Hamilton: An American Musical. Though fans of the chart-topping cast album certainly aren't excluded here, Simply Christmas should especially please admirers of his jazz-styled eponymous album, as he presents similarly elegant versions of seasonal favorites ranging from Schubert's "Ave Maria" to 2008's "Winter Song" by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson. Arranged mainly for piano throughout, with bass, drums, acoustic guitar, and rare keyboards and trombone, it's got small dinner parties and nostalgic winter evenings in front of the fireplace in mind. He and his accompaniment manage to make moving renditions of overplayed tunes such as "The First Noel." They do so with restrained performances that showcase the singer's interpretive ability, which honors a consistently wistful tone over grandstanding. Even knowledgeable jazz audiences needn't wince at seeing "My Favorite Things" on the track list; Odom's refined take on the oft-covered show tune-turned-jazz standard features a piano solo by Tommy King that's the most vibrant moment in a rendition that simmers with longing. Later, a light touch by vocals, bass, and acoustic guitar makes for an equally poignant version of the Carpenters' "Merry Christmas Darling." On record saying that he made Simply Christmas after getting requests for a Christmas album "a few times a week," Odom may need to brace himself for ongoing harassment after this exquisite set.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

The release date and presentation made Ryan Leslie's self-titled album seem somewhat anticlimactic. When it came out, Cassie's mainstream blitz, engineered in many ways by the always visible Leslie, was two and a half years in the past, and a pair of lead-up singles had already fallen off the charts, released up to just over a year prior to the final product. Ryan Leslie came out in February 2009 with strikingly low-profile presentation: a simple black-and-white cover shot and a no-frills booklet with track credits and nothing else, not necessarily what was expected from a flashy and shrewd self-promoter who hired a staff of videographers to document his moves for a well-stocked archive of YouTube clips. And the album did, indeed, nearly shoot its wad before it became a physical object. Those first two singles, "Diamond Girl" and "Addiction" (neither of which cracked the Top 30 of the R&B/Hip-Hop chart), are the best of the set, easily the standouts. Instrumentally all synth trills, fillips, and bullfrog croaks, with charmingly clownish boasts on top, "Diamond Girl" also leads off the album, and it is followed by "Addiction," a crafty post-Neptunes production rooted in a barely present kick-drum pattern and synthetic hand percussion patter, ribboned in wavering (and practically queasy) synth flossing. What follows is not a series of radio killers but plenty of depth warranting repeat plays, led by "Quicksand," featuring Neptunes/N.E.R.D accessory Brent Paschke on guitar and bass. It's a slick update of In Search Of…'s springy pop-R&B (a la the album's original mix), one with a clever breakdown where the song slips abruptly into a swirl of synthesizers and Leslie's falsetto refrain. As a singer, Leslie is passable, slightly nasally, just skilled enough to pull off a falsetto without sounding silly; it's certainly the melodies and production flourishes, not the voice, that stick in the memory. And that is a blessing in disguise since the lyrics are sometimes flat-out clumsy. It could be that he was too busy with everything else and determined, after running some figures through a formula (he graduated from Harvard at the age of 19), that his creative energies could be optimized by spending more time on hooks and high-hat sounds. On five of the album's 12 songs, he plays and sings everything, while the others tend to involve no more than one additional musician (a not-exactly-heterogeneous crew including Hall & Oates and Saturday Night Live band alum T-Bone Wolk and fashion model slash rumored Leslie love interest Chanel Iman). Enjoyment of the album will be heightened if you are down with Leslie's brainiac schemer persona, but it is not a requirement. Bottom line: the album is one of the stronger pop-R&B releases of the last few years.© Andy Kellman /TiVo