Supertramp came into their own on their third album, 1974's Crime of the Century, as their lineup gelled but, more importantly, so did their sound. The group still betrayed a heavy Pink Floyd influence, particularly in its expansive art rock arrangements graced by saxophones, but Supertramp isn't nearly as spooky as Floyd -- they're snarky collegiate elitists, an art rock variation on Steely Dan or perhaps a less difficult 10cc, filled with cutting jokes and allusions, best heard on "Bloody Well Right." This streak would later flourish on Breakfast in America, but it's present enough to give them their own character. Also present is a slight sentimental streak and a heavy fondness for pop, heard on "Dreamer," a soaring piece of art pop that became their first big hit. That and "Bloody Well Right" are the concise pop moments on the record; the rest of Crime of the Century is atmospheric like Dark Side of the Moon, but with a lighter feel and a Beatles bent. At times the album floats off into its own world, with an effect more tedious than hypnotic, but it's still a huge leap forward for the group and their most consistent album outside of that 1979 masterwork, Breakfast in America.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Before Moroder, Jarre and Kraftwerk, there was Tangerine Dream. Started in 1967 as an experimental rock band by German Edgar Froese, Tangerine Dream became the first big electronic music group, and a cult name for amateurs of psychedelic music - leading the renowned rock critic Lester Bangs to say “I saw God and/or Tangerine Dream” in a legendary article detailing one of their concerts in 1977 New York. Signed by Virgin in 1974 when the New Age was in full swing, TD introduced synths and sequencers on successful albums such as Phaedra and Stratosfear. But since 2015, the group has been without its creator, who recorded his last song, Zero Gravity, with Jean-Michel Jarre for the album Electronica 1: The Time Machine. The remaining trio, Thorsten Quaeschning (keyboards, drums, vocals, guitar), Hoshiko Yamane (violin, cello) and Ulrich Schnauss (keyboards, piano) decided to pursue Froese’s vision, who’s final idea consisted of combining quantum physics and music, resulting in the 2017 album Quantum Gate, partly based on his last recordings. For Recurring Dreams, the concept is the same, but is applied to older recordings from the band, from every era and with “every generation of synthesiser and sequencer” along with some new arrangements. The album has tracks from the 70s (Sequent C, Phaedra), the 80s (Tangram, Horizon, Yellowstone Park) and the 90s (The Claymore Mine / Stalking), a compilation of cosmic classics which should delight even the most sceptical of fans. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

Named after the address of his childhood home in North Carolina, J. Cole's third studio effort was released with no supporting singles, and there are no featured artists, either, because 2014 Forest Hills Drive is one of those personal, conceptual, and "heavy" albums. Most importantly, it's admirable bordering on excellent, sure to inspire returning fans to herald it as a classic even if it doesn't woo the skeptical, casually wandering out of its intro with two smooth and soulful numbers that are so free, they're just shy of being clumsy. Key cut "January 28th" puts gut-wrenching hard truths of the Pusha-T type ("What's the price for a black man's life?/I check the toe tag, not one zero in sight") next to wobbly wordplay that could have been lifted off some old Digable Planets LP ("Flow is bananas/Here, peel this back"), while "Wet Dreamz" finds J. Cole the producer offering a beat that's rather Alchemist or 9th Wonder inspired, and then slathering it in plush strings for a perfect single on an album that refuses singles. Later, "No Role Modelz" mixes a tribute to the late actor James Avery ("Rest in peace Uncle Phil"), with a bubbling beat that's a variation on cloud-rap (co-produced by Phonix Beats and Cole), and a snarky, snappy set of put downs that are like an elevated Fergie ("I don't want no bitch from reality shows/Out of touch with reality hos"), but all these flights of fancy fly freely since the album lacks an anchor. 2014 Forest Hills Drive comes off as a great, experimental, and advancing mixtape, but it's insider to a fault, as slight as that fault might be. © David Jeffries

There's something to be said for Daniel Caesar choosing to not play it safe on his third full-length, his first for Republic. Never Enough does contain a sizable portion of the alternately stimulating and soporific balladry with which the singer made his name. A few of the songs here in that vein are among his finest. He's yearning for release in the sighing "Let Me Go," creepily seductive in "Valentina," and not too proud to plead in the charmingly dazed "Do You Like Me" -- fortunately making "Will you have my kids? You better" sound like light-hearted flirtation instead of a threat. For every familiar move, there's an unexpected turn. "Shot My Baby Down" is a dustbowl hip-hop soul murder ballad. Minus an "F"-bomb, "Always" could be mistaken for an update of a strong album cut by a mid-'70s sorta-country singer/songwriter. Most peculiar is the sluggish "Vince Van Gogh," on which Caesar's voice is variably modulated to sound either extra faded or monstrous. He muses "Used to be ugly, now I'm a handsome Charlie Manson wrapped in a Snuggie" after confessing "My words come out clumsy" and being informed that "the psilocybin is hitting." Odder still is that Never Enough is both a dispirited post-fame album and a major-label debut. Caesar sounds categorically docile observing "Now I'm a product that must turn a profit" but at least spins it with a memorable aphorism ("Pain is inevitable, misery's a choice"). He often gets wistful, bemoaning the passing of time and longing to rewind nine years, back when "The future was alluring," or even earlier, catching a glimpse of himself as a kid enjoying his own company. Hopefully he doesn't become so disenchanted that he stops making open, messy, and fascinating albums such as this one. © Andy Kellman /TiVo

In the book that accompanies Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994-2014, a four-disc collection of rare and non-LP recordings by Wilco, former Reprise Records publicist Bill Bentley admits that no less a legend than Doug Sahm thought he was making a mistake when, after Uncle Tupelo abruptly and acrimoniously broke up, Bentley opted to work with Jeff Tweedy's new band rather than Son Volt, Jar Farrar's post-UT project. "Come on, Bentley, you gotta go with the other guy," Sahm said, "he's gonna happen." Which was certainly the conventional wisdom when Wilco and Son Volt launched in 1994 -- most fans seemed certain that Farrar was going to go on to a brilliant career on his own, and Tweedy's band would be a fine but lesser commodity. But those bets were off after Wilco released their ambitious, game-changing second album, Being There, in 1996, and in the years that followed, it became clear that Tweedy was a stronger songwriter, a more imaginative sonic visionary, and a keener judge of collaborators than he'd had the chance to show in Uncle Tupelo. Two decades on from their debut, Wilco have created a large and impressively diverse body of work, and Alpha Mike Foxtrot is a massive odds-and-sods collection, bringing together 77 tracks from singles, promo releases, movie soundtracks, bonus discs, and downloads from Wilco's website. Alpha Mike Foxtrot plays like an alternate history of Wilco, and most of what's here is every bit as satisfying as what the band delivered on its first eight studio albums, if more idiosyncratic; it traces the evolution of the band from early solo cassette demos Tweedy cut in his living room to extended workouts from the lineup that solidified after the release of A Ghost Is Born, as Wilco grew from a spirited alt-country combo to a rock band as adventurous and eager to innovate as it was engaging and tuneful (Tweedy's simple but powerful way with a melody is the surest unifying factor that holds these songs together). And the plentiful live tracks here demonstrate how willing Tweedy and his bandmates have been to give their songs new shapes on-stage (a ten-minute live recording of "Spiders [Kidsmoke]" is a tremendous showcase for Nels Cline's stellar guitar work), and there's a fistful of studio tracks that didn't fit on an album but sound splendid in this context, especially the Replacements-styled "Student Loan Stereo," the soulful "The Thanks I Get," and the faux-live pop/rocker "The Good Part." In the strictest sense, nothing on Alpha Mike Foxtrot is unreleased, but there's a lot here that's never been available for general public consumption, and while the sheer bulk of this set means it's most likely to be heard by hardcore fans, anyone with a genuine interest in Wilco will find a lot of great music that fell between the cracks on this set, as well as a fascinating map of the many roads Wilco did and didn't take.© Mark Deming /TiVo

Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds remain one of the most prolific adventures of the post-punk era. Since the middle of the 1980s, the vast magnetism of the Australian singer has swirled through violent paroxysms, fulminating covers, piano ballads and sweaty rock'n'roll. Across many years and many recordings, Cave became more and more of a crooner, somewhere between a punk Sinatra and an austere Johnny Cash. This impeccable compilation, published in Spring 2017 not only allows the listener to get a sense of the length of the road they have travelled, but also to enjoy an excellent introduction to the art of this gang that stands apart from contemporary rock. The 45 songs of this Deluxe edition are spread out between three periods: fifteen titles dug out from between 1984 and 1993, fifteen others from between 1994 and 2003 and a final fifteen selected from between 2004 and 2013... Starting with From Her To Eternity (1984) and going up to Push The Sky Away (2013), Lovely Creatures offers a perfect mix of poisonous ballads (Into My Arms), rollocking epics (The Mercy Seat), stripped-down, violent rock (Deanna), apocalyptic cabaret (The Carny), unexpected duets (Where The Wild Roses Grow with Kylie Minogue)  and selected covers. (In The Ghetto). Nestled between the Gothic prose of American authors of the 20th Century, the musical heritage of giants like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, Nick Cave has found his own style, often chambrist, but always sombre and possessed by the spirit of the Old Testament... © MZ/Qobuz

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

Wilco are a band who have shown that in the 21st century, a band can succeed creatively and commercially on their own terms, even without what would be considered a hit single, especially impressive since Wilco often seemed to be doing well despite their presence on a major-label rather than because of it. Which is why What's Your 20? Essential Tracks 1994-2014 is at once a welcome and curious release: it's essentially a greatest-hits album from a band that's never had a hit single, collecting 38 songs that have made some impression on non-commercial radio and become fan favorites during the band's first two decades. At the same time, What's Your 20? is also a fine "Beginner's Guide to Wilco," as the track listing gracefully charts their progress from a scrappy but heartfelt alt-country band that rose from the ashes of Uncle Tupelo to a thoughtful and imaginative pop/rock band with some outstanding players and an eagerness to experiment. What's Your 20? includes representative selections from Wilco's eight studio albums, as well as the two Mermaid Avenue albums they cut in collaboration with Billy Bragg and, along with a bunch of great songs, it offers a map to the emotional peaks and valleys of Jeff Tweedy's songwriting, from the country-influenced rock of "I Must Be High" and "Casino Queen," into the bold explorations of "Misunderstood" and "Sunken Treasure," and the cool, pitiless self-analysis of "A Shot in the Arm" and "I Am Trying to Break Your Heart," a remarkable musical journey that took less than seven years. The album also offers a satisfying summary of the band's best and most stable lineup that coalesced after A Ghost Is Born, and delivered warmer but genuinely exciting songs like "Hate It Here," "Impossible Germany," and "I Might." What's Your 20? was released at the same time as Alpha Mike Foxtrot: Rare Tracks 1994-2014, a four-disc box set for serious fans featuring outstanding Wilco tracks that didn't appear on one of their albums; this album is the opposite, a more concise (but still hefty) sampling of the band's best known and most accepted work, and this is most easily recommended to casual fans and folks looking for an introduction to the group's music. However, those listeners will certainly be well-served by this outstanding selection of tunes, and if we did live in a world where Wilco regularly scaled the charts, there's little doubt these songs would have earned the band plenty of gold and platinum plaques. And who knows, they may yet some day.© Mark Deming /TiVo