Divinely Uninspired to a Hellish Extent is the debut studio LP from Scottish singer/songwriter Lewis Capaldi. Composed of heartwarming lyrics, huge singalong choruses, and crystalline pop production, the effort features the singles "Grace" and "Hold Me While You Wait."© Rob Wacey /TiVo

The sixth full-length effort from the veteran alt-rockers, It's the End of the World, But It's a Beautiful Day sees the Jared and Shannon Leto-led ensemble deliver an assured set of prog-, pop-, and electronic-leaning songs that play to all the band's strengths. Inspired by the sounds of '70s and '80s electronic music, the album is the group's first effort, apart from their debut, to not feature guitarist Tomo Miličević, who left the fold in 2018. The 11-song set includes the streaming hits "Stuck," "Life Is Beautiful," and "Get Up Kid."© TiVo

The 12th studio effort from the Welsh rock survivors -- a double-disc -- follows 2022's Torpedo and completes a trilogy begun with that 2022 album. Co-produced, recorded, and mixed once again by Tim Roe (Coldplay, Bryan Ferry, Prince), it is deliberately presented on two discs as "a musical production with an interval." At times reminiscent of latter-day Bush, it features another dose of the duo's trademark blend of heaviness, melody, and epic scope.© TiVo

Say this for David Bowie: he has a flair for drama. This abiding love of the theatrical may not be as evident in the production of The Next Day as it is in its presentation, how Bowie sprung it upon the world early in 2013 following a decade of undeclared retirement. Reasons for Bowie's absence were many and few, perhaps related to a health scare in 2004, perhaps due to a creative dry spell, perhaps he simply didn't have songs to sing, or perhaps he had a lingering suspicion that by the time the new millennium was getting into full swing he was starting to be taken for granted. He had settled into a productive purple patch in the late '90s, a development that was roundly ignored by all except the devoted and the press, who didn't just give Hours, Heathen, and Reality a pass, they recognized them as a strong third act in a storied career. That same sentiment applies to The Next Day, an album recorded with largely the same team as Reality -- the same musicians and the same producer, his longtime lieutenant Tony Visconti -- and, appropriately, shares much of the same moody, meditative sound as its predecessor Heathen. What's different is the reception, which is appropriately breathless because Bowie has been gone so long we all know what we've missed. And The Next Day is designed to remind us all of why we've missed him, containing hints of the Thin White Duke and Ziggy Stardust within what is largely an elegant, considered evocation of the Berlin Bowie so calculating it opens with a reworking of "Beauty & The Beast," and is housed in an artful desecration of the Heroes LP cover. Unlike his Berlin trilogy of the late '70s, The Next Day is rarely unsettling. Apart from the crawling closer "Heat" -- a quiet, shimmering, hallucination-channeling late-'70s Scott Walker -- the album has been systematically stripped of eeriness, trading discomfort for pleasure at every turn. And pleasure it does deliver, as nobody knows how to do classic Bowie like Bowie and Visconti, the two life-long collaborators sifting through their past, picking elements that relate to what Bowie is now: an elder statesman who made a conscious decision to leave innovation behind long ago. This persistent, well-manicured nostalgia could account for the startling warmth that exudes from The Next Day; even when a melody sighs with an air of resigned melancholia, as it does on "Where Are We Now?," it never delves into sadness, it stays afloat in a warm, soothing bath. That overwhelming familiarity is naturally quite appealing for anyone well-versed in Bowie lore, but The Next Day isn't a career capper; it lacks the ambition to be anything so grand. The Next Day neither enhances nor diminishes anything that came before, it's merely a sweet coda to a towering career.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

After spending the 1980s moving in an increasingly pop-friendly direction, 1991's We Can't Dance marked a return to earlier aesthetics for Genesis. Edgier with more prominent guitars and live drums than on Invisible Touch, the record was the band's strongest musical statement in over a decade. With "Driving the Last Spike" and the dark "Dreaming While You Sleep" the group revisited one of their forgotten strengths, telling extended stories. That's not to say the album is a return to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway or Trick of the Tail. Indeed, while there are several extended pieces on the record, there is none of the eccentricities, odd meters, or extended virtuoso solos of the band's progressive heyday. The album's closer, "Fading Lights," comes the closest, featuring an outstanding instrumental mid-section. Unfortunately, the record also contains some gutless ballads and paeans for world understanding that sound miles away from any immediacy. However, the surprisingly gritty singles "No Son of Mine," "Jesus He Knows Me," and "I Can't Dance" help make up for the album's weaker moments.© Geoff Orens /TiVo

Essentially a harder-rocking reprise of Every Picture Tells a Story, Never a Dull Moment never quite reaches the heights of its predecessor, but it's a wonderful, multi-faceted record in its own right. Opening with the touching, autobiographical rocker "True Blue," which finds Rod Stewart trying to come to grips with his newfound stardom but concluding that he'd "rather be back home," the record is the last of Stewart's series of epic fusions of hard rock and folk. It's possible to hear Stewart go for superstardom with the hard-rocking kick and fat electric guitars of the album, but the songs still cut to the core. "You Wear It Well" is a "Maggie May" rewrite on the surface, but it develops into a touching song about being emotionally inarticulate. Similarly, "Lost Paraguayos" is funny, driving folk-rock, and it's hard not to be swept away when the Stonesy hard rocker "Italian Girls" soars into a mandolin-driven coda. The covers -- whether a soulful reading of Jimi Hendrix's "Angel," an empathetic version of Dylan's "Mama, You Been on My Mind," or a stunning interpretation of Etta James' "I'd Rather Go Blind" -- are equally effective, making Never a Dull Moment a masterful record. He never got quite this good ever again.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

A cloud of smooth jazz, a foam of funk, droplets of soul, a few hip-hop scratches, a velvet layer of pop and boatloads of groove. Tom Misch’s universe holds all of these features at once. With Geography, the young artist from London is releasing a hedonist album oscillating between D’Angelo style (sort of 2010s Jamiroquai) and Calvin Harris or John Mayer’s. In case a few deaf ears have missed to clearly identify his interests, Misch inserts right in the middle of his album a small instrumental cover of Stevie Wonder’s Isn’t She Lovely… In any case, the young man already possesses his own sound, voice and style, this little something that makes him an artist to follow very closely indeed. Finally the contribution of De La Soul, GoldLink, Lloyle Carner and Poppy Ajudha to this final product is a true testament to his talent’s power of attraction. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz

After a long career full of many course corrections and detours, it seemed like Kylie Minogue was locked into being a shiny, glittery dance pop icon for life. A label change and some personal turmoil in the form of a soul-shattering breakup sent Minogue looking for something new musically. When planning her first album for BMG, a label rep asked if she had ever thought of recording country music in Nashville and she jumped at the chance. For 2018's Golden, Minogue went to Music City, got to work writing songs with some seasoned pros, and ended up co-writing all the songs on the record. It's heartbreaking and uplifting in turn as she makes sense of where her heart has taken her, set to the tune of fiddles, guitars, and woodsy backing vocals along with the more traditional synths, drum machines, and club beats one usually hears on a Minogue album. She and her team of musicians, writers, and producers straddle the line between twang and glitter on just about every song; sometimes, it leans more in favor of line dancing, sometimes the glitter ball takes over, especially on the shimmering "Raining Glitter." Sometimes, like on "Live a Little" or the very hooky single "Dancing," it's the best of both worlds. It's an interesting mix that puts her in line with much of what's happening in mainstream country. Certainly, the difference between most of Golden and, say, Kacey Musgraves' 2018 album is almost non-existent. The amazing thing about the album, and about Minogue, is that she pulls off the country as well as she's pulled off new wave, disco, electro, murder ballads, and everything else she's done in her long career. Her voice may not have the depth of some of the great Nashville singers, but she has tons of personality, and when she cuts loose there's more than a little Dolly Parton in her artistic DNA. She also does a fine job on ballads -- letting the heartbreak flow on "Radio On" and sounding like both Tegan and Sara on "Sincerely Yours." Golden is an odd detour for Minogue, and it's hard to imagine that the record will get much traction on the country side of the equation -- there's a strong chance her less devoted fans might find the new sound a little too much. As an artistic statement, it's pretty darn bold, though, and proves that she's still game for just about anything and able to make whatever she does sound exactly like herself.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

Dirty Loops' full-length debut album, 2014's Loopified, showcases the Swedish trio's ambitious jazz, prog rock, R&B, and electronic dance-inflected pop music. Formed in 2008, Dirty Loops feature the talents of vocalist/keyboardist Jonah Nilsson, bassist Henrik Linder, and drummer Aaron Mellergårdh. All three members studied jazz and classical music in college and spent several years working as session musicians before forming Dirty Loops as an outlet to express their own eclectic, far-reaching musical vision. Working with manager/producer Andreas Carlsson (as well as executive producer David Foster), the group has put together an album that's one part jazz fusion trio, one part electronic dance outfit, and one part contemporary pop act. Impressively, it also ends up being much more than the sum of its parts. Dirty Loops certainly have chops to spare and layer each track with enough jazz-informed chord progressions, arpeggiated six-string basslines, frenetic drum fills, and melismatic vocal breakdowns to fill any number of Stevie Wonder albums (to name-drop an obvious influence). Thankfully, they also don't forget to bring the pop melody, and cuts like the leadoff "Hit Me," the energetic club anthem "Sexy Girls," and the buoyant "Take on the World" grab you with immediately infectious hooks built largely around Nilsson's highly resonant, charismatic croon. In reality, the tracks on Loopified aren't really all that dissimilar to any number of modern pop hits from Justin Timberlake or Bruno Mars. The difference is primarily in Dirty Loops' high level of technical skill and jazz-infused progressions that lend a deeper harmonic nuance and maturity to their songs, even when they are singing about "sexy girls in the club." Ironically, besides a few cheeky lyrical asides, there's not too much that's very dirty or even musically messy about Dirty Loops here. On the contrary, Loopified is an innovative, pure musical vision of jazzy, infectious, crystalline-produced, club-ready pop.© Matt Collar /TiVo

"The feeling isn't over," Jack Antonoff sings at one point on Gone Now, and it's a lyric that sums up his aesthetic perfectly. Whether working with Fun., clients like Taylor Swift and Lorde, or on his own, the enduring power of memories and emotions drives Antonoff's music. However, he saves his most potent blend of vulnerability and slickness for Bleachers, and that goes double for the project's second album. In Antonoff's world, you can't move forward without looking back. On Gone Now, he revisits 2001, the year he turned 18 -- a pivotal time in most peoples' lives, and especially for Antonoff, whose sister died of cancer shortly after the 9/11 attacks. He doesn't just create a wall of sound on Gone Now -- the album's emotional and musical depth is more like a room, a haven for his confessional creativity (Antonoff even premiered the album in a replica of his childhood bedroom). Even more vivid and detailed than Strange Desire, this is advanced Bleachers, with Antonoff plunging listeners into hyper-literate stream-of-consciousness meditations that are barely disguised as pop songs. Gone Now's songs are linked to each other with lyrical motifs that ripple out like memories unlocking other memories; meanwhile, the music echoes Prince ("Hate That You Know Me"), Bruce Springsteen ("Goodmorning"), and synth poppers like Naked Eyes ("I Miss Those Days") on an almost subliminal level. As on Strange Desire, Antonoff brandishes his insecurities so boldly that they become strengths, whether the situation is a beginning ("Let's Get Married"), an ending ("Goodbye"), or somewhere in between ("Don't Take the Money"). Gone Now's production and arrangements are as emotive as he is, with prominent samples and found sounds adding to the feeling that the album is spontaneously happening. Meanwhile, the mix ebbs and flows, pulling back as memories overtake Antonoff and swelling up as emotions overcome him, as on the hazy opening track, "Dream of Mickey Mantle." But even when the album reaches a fever pitch on "I'm Ready to Move On/Mickey Mantle Reprise," it never feels anything less than genuine. Though it's hard to believe it's possible, Antonoff shares even more of himself on Gone Now than on Bleachers' debut, and it makes for some of his most immersive and satisfying music yet.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Following Tinderbox's success but still not working as well with John Valentine Carruthers as they could have, Siouxsie and the Banshees kept him on for one further album -- a covers collection, much in the vein of band inspiration David Bowie's Pin-Ups. Through the Looking Glass is more than a time killer but less than a total success -- if anything it's seen more now as a chance for the band to refocus before ditching Carruthers and creating the stunning Peepshow. But there have been far worse efforts from other performers in this vein, and there's a cool, giddy fun at work throughout that makes it a fine listen. The inspired range of covers reaches from glam-era landmarks (Roxy Music's "Sea Breezes," John Cale's "Gun") to Billie Holiday's sorrowful touchstone "Strange Fruit" to, in one of the best such efforts ever (and a year before Hal Willner's Stay Awake project), a Disney classic -- namely the slinky "Trust in Me," originally from The Jungle Book and given a spare, mostly-Budgie backing that could almost be a sparkling Creatures outtake. Some takes are more or less direct clones without much to add -- Sparks' "This Town Isn't Big Enough for Both of Us" misses the sheer hysteria that Russell Mael brought to the original, but Iggy Pop's "The Passenger" adds a bit of horn-section punch and lets Siouxsie demonstrate her ability with calm, dismissive cool. Turning Kraftwerk's empty, haunted "Hall of Mirrors" into a much more propulsive, Morricone guitar-tinged number makes for a fine reinvention, though, while Bob Dylan-via-Julie Driscoll's "This Wheel's on Fire" made for an enjoyable, string-touched single from the album. And if anyone needed proof that the Banshees were obsessive fan types when they started, the concluding cover of Television's debut obscurity "Little Johnny Jewel" would provide it.© Ned Raggett /TiVo