Abel Tesfaye, aka The Weeknd, is back with his anticipated fourth album After Hours, an intoxicating R&B record that feels like a natural progression from its predecessors. After 2016’s Starboy and the EP My Dear Melancholy 2 years later, the chart-topping singer made his acting debut in the Netflix thriller Uncut Gems alongside Adam Sandler. This may have been behind the inspiration for this new character the singer portrays with a broken nose, leather gloves and deep red tux in the album cover and the music video for lead single Blinding Lights, reminiscent of A-Ha’s Take On Me, the new wave from the 1980s and its synthwave revival. “I don’t like to leave my house too much. It’s a gift and a curse but it helps me give undivided attention to my work… It distracts from the loneliness, I guess”, confesses the Canadian. Unlike Starboy, there are no features on this album, The Weeknd choosing instead to invite a range of top tier producers to refine the music: Metro Boomin on the epilogue Until I Bleed Out, Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker on Repeat After Me (Interlude), the loyal Illangelo, vaporwave pioneer Oneohtrix Point Never for Scared to Live and even hitmaker Max Martin (Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Britney Spears) for the pop-sounding Save Your Tears, resulting in 14 tracks that blend soul, R&B and new wave nuances. ©️ Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

Those who come from Louisiana always have a good ear for music. Always! Soul, blues, zydeco, rock, jazz, R&B, funk, pop or country, no one native to the New Orleans area worries about labels or genres. There is only good music and bad music. Period. Brittany Guerin, known as Britti, is the latest proof of this. Born in Baton Rouge, the singer, discovered by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, masters every style that resounds within the unique groove of the American South. And as Britti dresses her songs in a certain classicism, she is often reminiscent of classic soul singers that have come before her. Hints of her idols Diana Ross (“Save Me”) and Dolly Parton (“Keep Running”), as well as Norah Jones, Erykah Badu and Amy Winehouse (albeit less dreamy) can be heard on her debut album Hello, I’m Britti., a title that clearly references Dolly Parton’s first album from 1967, Hello, I’m Dolly… But even though the influence is apparent, it never limits Britti’s own inspiration, style or personality. An expert in 20th-century equipment and vintage sounds, Auerbach brings the perfect production, with just the right amount of sepia. He was clearly the one who assembled a team of studio legends around the singer, including bassist Nick Movshon (Amy Winehouse, Wu Tang Clan and a whole selection of albums for the label Daptone), guitarist Tom Bukovac (Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks), and Mike Rojas (Ricky Skaggs, Yola, Miranda Lambert), a wizard on the keys. Supported by this glittering cast,  Hello, I’m Britti. navigates soul vignettes, country pop interludes and R&B daydreams with immense ease and a certain class. Building a solid bridge between New Orleans and Nashville, this Qobuzissime has already declared itself one of the great albums of 2024. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

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I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got became Sinéad O'Connor's popular breakthrough on the strength of the stunning Prince cover "Nothing Compares 2 U," which topped the pop charts for a month. But even its remarkable intimacy wasn't adequate preparation for the harrowing confessionals that composed the majority of the album. Informed by her stormy relationship with drummer John Reynolds, who fathered O'Connor's first child before the couple broke up, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got lays the singer's psyche startlingly and sometimes uncomfortably bare. The songs mostly address relationships with parents, children, and (especially) lovers, through which O'Connor weaves a stubborn refusal to be defined by anyone but herself. In fact, the album is almost too personal and cathartic to draw the listener in close, since O'Connor projects such turmoil and offers such specific detail. Her confrontational openness makes it easy to overlook O'Connor's musical versatility. Granted, not all of the music is as brilliantly audacious as "I Am Stretched on Your Grave," which marries a Frank O'Connor poem to eerie Celtic melodies and a James Brown "Funky Drummer" sample. But the album plays like a tour de force in its demonstration of everything O'Connor can do: dramatic orchestral ballads, intimate confessionals, catchy pop/rock, driving guitar rock, and protest folk, not to mention the nearly six-minute a cappella title track. What's consistent throughout is the frighteningly strong emotion O'Connor brings to bear on the material, while remaining sensitive to each piece's individual demands. Aside from being a brilliant album in its own right, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got foreshadowed the rise of deeply introspective female singer/songwriters like Tori Amos and Sarah McLachlan, who were more traditionally feminine and connected with a wider audience. Which takes nothing away from anyone; if anything, it's evidence that, when on top of her game, O'Connor was a singular talent.© Steve Huey /TiVo

Following the piano compositions from Piano & A Microphone 1983 released in 2018, we now have a second posthumous, princely album. Originals is centred around the 1981-1991 decade which was particularly prolific for Prince and so there is a beautiful unity throughout the album which mainly comprises of recordings of songs written for others. Rogers Nelson was first and foremost a very accomplished, versatile artist who could play all the instruments in Purple Rain just as well as he performed on stage, like his idol James Brown, for whom he composed numerous songs. He also composed songs for many other outstanding performers in the “Prince world” and among the fifteen tracks in this album are The Glamorous Life written for Sheila E, the Bangles’ Manic Monday, Martika’s Love Thy Will Be Done and You’re My Love for country crooner Kenny Rogers. With its priceless, unreleased tracks, Originals gives a sneak-peak behind the scenes of the studio in which this legendary icon produced some of the very best melodies and sang them with real panache, without really knowing what would become of them. The perfect example of this has to be Nothing Compares 2 U, the real emotional peak of this opus. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

Gravity is the debut studio album from Gryffin, an American EDM producer, songwriter, and DJ who broke through with remixes of hits by Tove Lo and Maroon 5 before moving on to composing his own material. His songs typically add pianos and guitars to melodic house and future bass rhythms, and all of them feature guest vocalists. He's released over a dozen charting singles since 2016, and most of them appear on Gravity, including collaborations with Carly Rae Jepsen ("OMG"), Aloe Blacc ("Hurt People"), and Gorgon City and AlunaGeorge ("Baggage"). Supported by an extensive North American tour, Gravity was released by Darkroom/Geffen in October 2019. The album reached the top spot on Billboard's Dance/Electronic Albums, and charted at number 92 on the Billboard 200.© TiVo

The first two singles off After Hours were released within three days of each other in November 2019. "Heartless," a boastful belter made with Metro Boomin, Illangelo, and Dre Moon, ticked all the boxes to please Abel Tesfaye's base. Pills, cars, fame, women, and the hard-fought reward for all the overindulgence -- a ruthless world view to keep the cycle going -- were all in the mix. "Never need a bitch, I'm what a bitch need/Tryin' to find the one that can fix me," contradictory and confused as ever, made the song entirely on brand. Then came the Max Martin-produced isolation anthem "Blinding Lights," an instance of Tesfaye reanimating mid-'80s Euro-pop like he did with "Wanderlust." These contrasting previews didn't give away the fact that After Hours is, above all else, a breakup album. Tesfaye fills much of this neatly sequenced, ballad-heavy set with penitence and longing. He sets the tone with an escapist fantasy that turns into a nightmarish relapse, and is tormented for much of the duration by seeking and receiving salvation and ruination from the same relationship. Some of Tesfaye's most vivid and piercing lines are herein. Mere minutes after dropping the superbly dispirited "I saw you dancing in a crowded room/You look so happy when I'm not with you," he taunts with "You don't love him, you're just f*ckin'," repeating it like he's convincing himself that he's not jealous. You know he's got it bad when he says he "don't even wanna get high no more." In addition to supplying familiar trap-styled prowling backdrops and some other '80s flashbacks, Tesfaye and his varying team of co-producers refer to some softer points in the U.K. hardcore continuum dating back to the late '90s -- drum'n'bass on "Hardest to Love," 2-step garage and early dubstep on "Too Late" -- modernizing them with finesse. Tesfaye and Martin venture farthest when they meet synthesizer wiz Daniel Lopatin in a dead mall, down by the old Tape World, for "Scared to Live," an adult contemporary number that alludes to '70s Elton John but has more in common with '80s love themes by Phil Collins and Lionel Richie. It's so clean and down the middle that it resembles a box-office crossover bid from an artiste swallowing his pride to record a tame song he didn't write. It happens to be one of Tesfaye's best performances, his voice soaring and swooping, signifying numbness and codependency, sorrowful about wasted time while encouraging emotional convalescence. It fits into the album and is a Weeknd song as much as the one in which Tesfaye rap-sings of self-harm and addiction, providing financial support for family and friends, and giving his woman "Philip K. dick."© Andy Kellman /TiVo

Chris Cornell spent a portion of 2016 recording a covers album, assembling a ten-song sequence for a record that would be released at a later date. Cornell died in 2017, so the covers album wound up as No One Sings Like You Anymore, a record released in 2020 as a tribute to the departed singer. As posthumous albums go, No One Sings Like You Anymore may not bear any great revelations, yet it's an effective, even moving, testament to his skills as a singer and musician. Cornell does revisit several quite familiar tunes -- classic rock staples from Harry Nilsson ("Jump into the Fire"), John Lennon ("Watching the Wheels"), Electric Light Orchestra ("Showdown"), and Guns N' Roses ("Patience") anchor the album -- but he also digs up Terry Reid's "To Be Treated Right," adds a selection from Austin's electronica act Ghostland Observatory, and cuts three songs from the Jerry Ragovoy songbook, including "Get It While You Can" and "Stay with Me Baby." Collected, the songs are simultaneously familiar and surprising -- a blend that always was among the chief attractions in Cornell's work -- and while there are echoes of the original recordings here, he shapes each tune to fit his voice and contemplative bent. The inherent power in Cornell's voice can still be heard, but what lasts is the passion and intelligence, emotions that make this a bracing if bittersweet experience.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Those who come from Louisiana always have a good ear for music. Always! Soul, blues, zydeco, rock, jazz, R&B, funk, pop or country, no one native to the New Orleans area worries about labels or genres. There is only good music and bad music. Period. Brittany Guerin, known as Britti, is the latest proof of this. Born in Baton Rouge, the singer, discovered by Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, masters every style that resounds within the unique groove of the American South. And as Britti dresses her songs in a certain classicism, she is often reminiscent of classic soul singers that have come before her. Hints of her idols Diana Ross (“Save Me”) and Dolly Parton (“Keep Running”), as well as Norah Jones, Erykah Badu and Amy Winehouse (albeit less dreamy) can be heard on her debut album Hello, I’m Britti., a title that clearly references Dolly Parton’s first album from 1967, Hello, I’m Dolly… But even though the influence is apparent, it never limits Britti’s own inspiration, style or personality. An expert in 20th-century equipment and vintage sounds, Auerbach brings the perfect production, with just the right amount of sepia. He was clearly the one who assembled a team of studio legends around the singer, including bassist Nick Movshon (Amy Winehouse, Wu Tang Clan and a whole selection of albums for the label Daptone), guitarist Tom Bukovac (Sheryl Crow, Stevie Nicks), and Mike Rojas (Ricky Skaggs, Yola, Miranda Lambert), a wizard on the keys. Supported by this glittering cast,  Hello, I’m Britti. navigates soul vignettes, country pop interludes and R&B daydreams with immense ease and a certain class. Building a solid bridge between New Orleans and Nashville, this Qobuzissime has already declared itself one of the great albums of 2024. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz