Almost immediately after he became an international superstar with 1987's Faith, George Michael developed a complex that he was not taken seriously as an artist. He was right -- he wasn't being taken seriously, but at the height of their success, mainstream pop stars rarely are; it's only after they've been around for a while that critics and audiences alike appreciate the craft behind their best work. Elton John and Madonna both are pop icons who earned good reviews after they proved their lasting power, but Michael, for want of a better phrase, didn't have enough patience to wait to be regarded as an artist, not just a pop star. So, he followed Faith with 1990's Listen Without Prejudice, Vol. 1, whose very title was a plea to skeptics to shed their preconceived notions of him and hear the music anew. At the time, it seemed like this was temporary hiccup, a somber exorcism Michael needed to work through as an artist, but over the years, it's clear that this was the blueprint for his solo career. Not that there have been that many albums since then, of course. Michael took six years to deliver Older, a delay that was initially blamed on a vicious battle with his record company, Sony, but its own successor, Patience, didn't appear for another eight years, a time which not only had no spats with the label but also saw him re-signing to Sony. Those long, long separations between albums suggest that Michael is a painstaking perfectionist in the studio, and Patience sure sounds like the work of a musician who spent every day of those eight years working on these 14 tracks (12 on the U.S. version; the anti-Bush and -Blair "Shoot the Dog" was excised for the American CD, presumably because it would be too controversial, but who knows why the reprise of "Patience" was cut). While there are unifying lyrical and musical themes throughout the album, each track is its own entity, scrubbed, polished, and manicured without regard to how it fits alongside the next. There's an excessive attention to detail to each song, and that tunnel vision means each song runs about a minute or two longer than it should, which ultimately makes Patience seems twice as long as its actual running time. That's unfortunate because the core of the album is quite good: it's hard not to admire his studiocraft, there's a starkly confessional streak in his writing that's disarmingly direct, and, as an album, it balances the moody ballads and sleek neo-disco better than Older, feeling much brighter than that claustrophobic affair. If there's a lack of incessantly catchy hooks or undeniable rhythms -- in other words, singles as indelible as those on Faith, or even Listen Without Prejudice -- that feels like a conscious decision by Michael, as if any concession to chart-bound pop would cheapen his music and diminish his chances of being taken seriously. They would have lightened the mood of the decidedly somber and portentous Patience, which is clearly not what Michael wants, since by stretching out each song and burying his hooks beneath the album's shiny surfaces and preponderance of mid-tempos, he's forcing listeners to work to understand his intentions. For some fans, it's worth the effort, particularly since it's his best album since Listen Without Prejudice (not saying much since it's only his second album of original material since then), but it's hard not to hear it and think that Michael's ultimate ambitions would be better served if he tightened up and lightened up just a little bit.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Issued without advance notice 17 days after Kendrick Lamar's riveting 2016 Grammy Awards performance, untitled unmastered. consists of eight demos that are simply numbered and dated. Apart from segments previewed at the Grammys and late-night television appearances, there was no formal promotion. A postscript, it's (artfully) artless in presentation -- not even basic credits appear on the Army green liner card in the compact disc edition -- yet it's almost as lyrically and musically rich as To Pimp a Butterfly. The dates indicate that the majority of the material was made during the sessions for that album, and the presence of many of its players and vocalists is unmistakable. This was assembled with a high level of care that is immediately evident, its components sequenced to foster an easy listen. Track-to-track flow, however, is about the only aspect of this release that can be called smooth. After an intimate spoken intro from Bilal, the set segues into an urgent judgment-day scenario with squealing strings and a resounding bassline as Lamar confronts mortality and extinction with urgent exasperation. He observes terrifying scenes all the while sensing possible relief ("No more running from world wars," "No more discriminating the poor"). untitled unmastered. offers this and other variations on the connected themes of societal ills, faith, and survival that drove the output it follows, with Lamar at his best when countering proudly materialistic boasts with ever-striking acknowledgments of the odds perilously weighted against his people. Remarkably, this hits its stride in the second half. The stretch involves a rolling, ornamented retro-contemporary production from Adrian Younge and Ali Shaheed Muhammad (with vocal assists from Bilal and Cee Lo Green), a stitched suite that is alternately stern and humorously off the cuff (featuring Egypt, five-year-old son of Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz, as co-producer and vocalist), and a finale of Thundercat-propelled funk. Even while coasting over the latter's breezy and smacking groove, Lamar fills the space with meaning, detailing a confrontation with sharp quips and stinging reprimands. While Lamar referred to these tracks as demos, and not one of them has the pop-soul appeal of "These Walls" or the Black Lives Matter protest-anthem potential of "Alright," untitled unmastered. is no mere offcut dump. It's as vital as anything else its maker has released.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

There was a time when you could walk into your average record store and find the singles section by spotting the big block of black rows. These rows signaled the whereabouts of the Ds and tended to eat up a disproportionate space of the singles section. In 2004, the Mute label condensed all of these releases into Remixes 81-04, which itself was ironically (or fittingly) presented in multiple versions. This particular version is a triple-disc set that attempts to function as a representative sampling of Depeche Mode's innumerable remixes. It does an admirable job, making a point to highlight glorified extended versions and radical reworkings alike. François Kevorkian, for instance, uses his invaluable understanding of the inner workings of both disco and dub to extend and sensitively tweak "Personal Jesus" for the dancefloor, transforming it into something that he would likely spin while DJing. Air, however, alter "Home" to the point where it sounds like one of their own moody, downcast productions -- Martin Gore plays guest instead of host. One of the most thrilling remixes shows no respect to the source material; Adrian Sherwood's decimation of "People Are People," from 1984, is a succession of jackhammering beats, agitated noise fragments, bizarre vocal interjections. In order to entice hardcore fans who already have the old remixes on the original single releases (or the six exhaustive box sets), a handful of new remixes were commissioned. Most of these appear in the latter half of the third disc, and at least half deserve to be in the company of the better-known reshapes. "Clean" is turned into a bristly acid gallop by Colder, and the new rhythm winds up coming close to mirroring "Personal Jesus." Rex the Dog reaches all the way back to "Photographic," providing layer upon layer of bursting synth. Ironically (or fittingly), Paul Morley -- who, as one of the tricksters behind the ZTT label (Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Propaganda), came up with the idea that you could never have a track remixed too many times -- pens the liner notes.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

More electronic-based than his previous seven albums, Robots Apres Tout is the 2005 release from French actor, director, and singer/songwriter Philippe Katerine. With a title inspired by Daft Punk's Human After All, it features contributions from Canadian musician Gonzales and Renaud Letang (Manu Chao), and includes the singles "100% VIP" and "Louxor J'Adore."© Jon O'Brien /TiVo

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