The debut album from British pop vocalist Mae Muller, Sorry I’m Late sees the London-born singer/songwriter deliver her first major artistic statement. Preceded by big singles like the smash hit “Better Days,” the project is primarily pop-driven, focusing on the hooky, high-energy anthems at the core of the genre. It was released on Capitol/EMI/Universal in September 2023.© David Crone /TiVo

Back in 2014 when 5 Seconds of Summer were a punky boy-band upstart opening for One Direction, the Australian quartet's name evoked a sun-soaked blast of irreverent teen giddiness -- like cranking Green Day's Dookie out of your car's speakers on the final trip to the beach with your friends before school started. As they've matured and embraced more elements of contemporary pop and electronic dance music, the group's name has felt more akin to spending languid days in one's room or walking the beach alone after a rough breakup. It's a particularly ruminative and introspective vibe they sink into on their streamlined fifth album, 2022's wryly titled 5SOS5. Gone are the crunchy electric guitars and snarky, nose-ringed sassiness that marked early hits like "She's Kinda Hot." Instead, the band craft sad romantic anthems built on shimmering synths, pulsing beats, and, in the case of the lead-off track "Complete Mess," a warmly arpeggiated bassline and R&B-esque fingersnaps over which singer Luke Hemmings croons about heartbreak and the fleeting evanescence of Heaven. Much of the album brings to mind the Weeknd's distinctive brand of atmospheric pop -- songs shot through with a yearning, after-hours regret and spiritual modern-rock uplift. Interestingly, while never explicitly addressing religion, cuts like "Me Myself & I," "Take My Hand," and "Bad Omens," conjure an emotional midway point between songs about faith and songs about relationships. There are also some nice hooks here, and tracks like the gothy, electro-inspired "You Don't Go to Parties" and the shoegaze-leaning "Haze" reveal the group's continued interest in mining '90s alt-rock sounds.© Matt Collar /TiVo

Though she comes from Quebec, Pascale Picard isn't exactly a French singer. She's something more -- an artist -- as evidenced by the songs of her platinum-selling debut, Me, Myself & Us. Along with the Pascale Picard Band, Picard paints a dazzlingly beautiful, emotional picture that fills the listener with feelings of contentment. Me, Myself & Us, should it have to be classified as one genre, would be considered a folk album; however, the team that Picard works with has seamlessly blended this album to create something more diverse, with a heavy emphasis on rock. The music and instruments are lush and layered throughout, with Picard's unique voice taking center stage on all of them. Almost innately, Picard globally incorporates the listener into her own personal setting. Singing about what's important to her, such as her favorite television programs (truth!), she creates an intimate world, yet doesn't bore anyone to tears with personal details. Rather, she splits off and manages to produce musically exciting rock tracks. The tracks have a galactic feel to them; as if you were listening to something that couldn't even be conceived on this planet. On "A While," Picard really lets loose, and through slick guitar licks and sour vocals, epitomizes the word "shocking" in a terrific moment of glory. While nothing matches "A While" on diversity, Picard can slow the tempo down no problem on soothing coffeeshop tunes such as "When at the End of the Road" or jazz it up on the radio smash "Gate 22." Because Picard's voice is so refreshingly unique, she simply rocks the house on nearly every track. Every beat, every note, every melody is different and more exciting than the last, and by the end, listeners are foaming at the mouth for more from this Canadian beauty.© Matthew Chisling /TiVo

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Among Ella Fitzgerald's gigantic discography, the eight volumes of her Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Complete American Songbook form a sacred pantheon. The idea for these records came from producer Norman Granz, who managed the singer and was the boss of Verve. The first volume, Ella Fitzgerald Sings The Cole Porter Songbook, which came out in 1956, was a runaway success with critics and the public alike. So much so that in that same year, Ella followed it up with Sings the Rodgers & Hart Songbook and then again in 1957 with Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook. This volume, which is given over to the songs of Irving Berlin, was conceived in sessions from 13 to 19 March 1958, with an orchestra directed by the classy and reserved Paul Watson. It's hard to sum up this double album in few words (it originally came out in two separate volumes) without breaking out reams of superlatives. Newcomers to her work can take this record as an easy base camp from which to ascend Ella Everest. Across a repertoire to die for (Berlin passed away in 1989 at the age of 101, having written more than 800 songs!), with light and gay numbers taking centre stage, Ella's voice picks out the great writer's romanticism, which never feels cloying. For fellow composer Jerome Kern, at the heart of Irving Berlin's writing was his faith in American vernacular: his songs were indivisibly linked with the country's history and image. Here, in ubiquitous favourites like Cheek to Cheek, in Watson's arrangements, in ambient swing, in freewheeling and sensual singing, we see the then-41-year-old American reaching the summit of perfection. This is one to play and play and play, again and again and again... © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

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Double-CD compilation that includes all three of the albums King recorded for Leon Russell's Shelter label in the early 1970s, as well as some other cuts (half a dozen of which were previously unissued) recorded around the same period. King's vocal and guitar-playing skills remained intact when he joined Shelter, but these recordings aren't among his best. That's partially because he was playing with rock-oriented sidemen, and partially because the material--divided between covers of blues standards, contemporary rock and soul items, and songs written by Leon Russell--wasn't especially exciting or sympathetic. Most crucial was the near-total absence of material from the pen of King himself. Although this set isn't bad, when you want to turn to classic King, you'll go elsewhere, particularly to the sides he recorded for the King label in the '60s.© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

When Pink Floyd bassist-turned-solo artist Roger Waters announced plans to re-imagine the band's iconic Dark Side Of The Moon, puzzled looks rightly ensued.  He even said to Variety, "We all thought I was mad but the more we considered it, the more we thought 'isn't that the whole point?'" Waters, who wrote much of Dark Side and is no stranger to controversy, has offered that Redux's relation to the original is, "Not to supersede it or to replace it, but to remember it, and as an adjunct to it, and to progress the work of the original concept of the original record and all those original songs."  Opener "Speak to Me" now features spoken text that is actually the lyrics from "Free Four," which appears on Pink Floyd's 1972 album Obscured By Clouds: "The memories of a man in his old age, are the deeds of a man in his prime/ You shuffle in the gloom of the sick room and talk to yourself as you die/ For life is a short, warm moment and death is a long, cold rest." "On The Run" is prefaced with "Today, I awoke from a dream/ It was a revelation, almost Patmosian, whatever that means/ But that's evidently another story/ It began with some standard bullshit fight with evil/ In this case, an apparently all-powerful hooded and cloaked figure," which was something Waters wrote down after waking up from a dream in July, 2021.  A number of talented musicians join Waters, among them: Gus Seyffert on bass, guitar, backing vocals; Joey Waronker on drums; Jonathan Wilson on guitars and synth.  In the case of the original single "Money," once an indictment of capitalism, Waters slows the pace, adds cello accents and a menacing piano part, and switches into a whispery Tom Waits-Leonard Cohen conspiratorial growl. The new lyrics are about a heavyweight boxing match, the devil, and a Faustian deal. One of rock's enduring masterpieces has now become the backdrop for a spoken word piece where Waters imparts the perspective he's gained since the album's original release in 1973. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

A spellbinding fadeout for the band, climaxing with their legendary rooftop concert.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

When you Google Julian Lage's name, one of the FAQs that pops up is: How is Julian Lage so good? But maybe the better question to ask is, How does he do it all? The former child prodigy of guitar, now in his mid-30s, has released 15 albums since 2009—not counting his extensive side work with John Zorn, as well as Gary Burton, Dave Douglas, Yoko Ono, Nels Cline, David Grisman and others. His fourth (in as many years) for Blue Note is never strictly jazz, which may rankle some protective fans. Lage is aware, and nonplussed. "Throughout my life, I've always responded to music that has a narrative quality to it," he has said of Speak to Me's boundary breaking. "I believe there is a kind of connective tissue that music has, and it's important, and it's fun to cultivate." "Northern Shuffle" is a muscular six minutes of effortlessly showy blues riffs that punch and dart, like a boxer; Lage even dips into groovy, almost surf-like flourishes, as Levon Henry's tenor sax hollers. The last minute slides into a well-earned confident strut. Warm and acoustic-led, "Omission" has an Allman Brothers feel. Kissed with zither and Wurlitzer, "76" is charged with a juke-joint vibe: Lage brightly, tautly running blues riffs while Kris Davis kills it on keys. Producer Joe Henry—who has worked with the likes of Loudon Wainwright III, Rodney Crowell, Solomon Burke, Bonnie Raitt, Allen Toussaint and Rhiannon Giddens—is a good match for this wide-ranging, playful spirit. Lage and Co. sometimes even traverse a few different terrains within a single song. "Vanishing Points" lets Davis' piano and Henry's alto clarinet run wild, Jorge Roeder (a captivating force throughout) takes a thoughtful solo, and Lage briefly flirts with a Spaghetti Western posture. "South Mountain" starts out on a more experimental, icy landscape then grows into a folky groove; at a point, Lage and his acoustic step out, allowing the rest of the band to noodle in a fashion that's more angular than aimless. "Myself Around You," meanwhile, simply lets Lage do all the lifting, his acoustic notes descending like Alice sliding into Wonderland, then covering as much ground as possible while skipping right back up. "Serenade" conjures a blue-moodiness, "Two And One" buzzes with improv electricity, and the nostalgic title track—a melange of jazz, blues-funk and good humor—smirks with a comical cinematic mystery. And when Lage leans all the way into jazz, as on the rich acoustic ballad "As It Were," it's like he's conducting the weather via guitar: a silver, soft fog that moves over and around you. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Proving that she's both fearless and capable of almost anything musically, Dolly Parton has taken her induction in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame seriously and made a rock album built from a slew of favorite mainstream covers and several originals she wrote for the occasion. The respect she commands as a worldwide celebrity is reflected by the massive guest list whose vocal tracks were recorded elsewhere and mixed together in Nashville by producer Kent Wells and a veritable horde of engineers. Vocalists who make an appearance on the songs that they originally made famous include Sting ("Every Breath You Take"), Steve Perry ("Open Arms"), Elton John ("Don't Let the Sun Go Down"), Debbie Harry ("Heart of Glass"), and Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr ("Let It Be"). The voice of Lynyrd Skynyrd lead vocalist Ronnie Van Zant returns from the grave to sing a verse and duet on the choruses in the epic and appropriate closer, "Free Bird."  While Parton could have allowed a smile to peak out here or there on this massive undertaking, she plays it straight throughout.  Not surprisingly, women receive commendable attention as songwriters and guest players with performances by Ann Wilson, Parton's goddaughter Miley Cyrus, Stevie Nicks, Joan Jett, Lizzo and others. There are also flashes where Parton stops playing rock star. Her original "World on Fire" is a plea for unity and common sense to will out: "Now tell me what is truth/ Have we all lost sight/ Of common decency/ Of the wrong and right/ How do we heal this great divide/ Do we care enough to try?" What makes these 30 tracks work is that no one can sell it quite like Parton. While her voice strains on some  numbers—she's always been more of a careful interpreter than a furious belter—she's full of old pro wiles and is the soul of authenticity throughout; she gives her all to every number. In the rousing "(I Can't Get No) "Satisfaction" with P!nk and Brandy Carlile, Parton's between-line exhortations are heartfelt and spot on. Rather than arty re-interpretations or an empty marketing concept, this is an abundance of what Parton does best: feel the songs she's singing.  © Robert Baird/Qobuz