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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

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

Nearly a year-and-a-half after Chris Cornell's death, a career-spanning retrospective collection captured the breadth of his varied career as a solo artist and vocalist of Soundgarden, Audioslave, and Temple of the Dog. That massive vinyl box set was pared down into a tight greatest hits simply titled Chris Cornell. Arranged in chronological order as a highlight reel of his iconic career, this self-titled compilation offers a bittersweet reminder of just how much Cornell accomplished in roughly 30 years on the scene, from a '90s Seattle grunge icon to a fearless late-era singer/songwriter. Front-loaded with his mainstream alt-rock touchstones, Chris Cornell starts close to the beginning with "Loud Love" from Soundgarden's 1989 sophomore effort, Louder Than Love. While his signature vocal delivery was still in its nascent stage, hints of his inimitable howl can be heard percolating beneath the towering, metal-influenced attack of his bandmates. Yet once "Outshined" (from 1991's Badmotorfinger) kicks in, the power of Cornell's growls and wails are properly cemented. From here, it's a play-by-play of all of his major eras. Temple of the Dog's singular 1991 hit, "Hunger Strike," is paired with a soaring rendition of that band's "Call Me a Dog," which was recorded in 2011 for Cornell's live album, Songbook. Respectfully, the collection doesn't lean too much upon his time with Soundgarden: aside from 1994's Grammy-winning classic "Black Hole Sun" and 2012's swan song "Been Away Too Long," debut Ultramega OK and 1996's platinum-certified Down on the Upside are ignored. A pair of Audioslave's early-2000s alternative chart-toppers -- which have aged well in retrospect -- also appear, but the collection mostly sticks to his solo work. From his first solo song ("Seasons" from 1992's Singles soundtrack) to his very last recordings, these offerings are the true attractions on Chris Cornell. Additional soundtrack selections include his 2006 Bond theme, "You Know My Name," and the Grammy-nominated 2017 single from the film of the same name, "The Promise." Each of his albums is granted at least one inclusion, even 2009's oft-misunderstood collaboration with Timbaland, Scream, whose "Long Gone" is featured here as a "rock version" stripped of the hip-hop producer's signature sound. In addition to that deep cut, other highlights include a searing cover of Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" (from 2007's Carry On); the folksy plucking of "Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart" (from his fourth and final solo album, 2015's Higher Truth); and a heartbreaking acoustic cover of "Nothing Compares 2 U," which delivers the biggest gut punch on the album. The grand finale, previously unreleased song "When Bad Does Good," is a mournful dirge wherein Cornell sings with a weary rasp, "Standing beside an open grave/Your fate decided, your life erased." It's an all-too-real end to the collection, both cathartic for mourners and an unfair taunt to those still processing this heavy loss. Chris Cornell is a reverential capstone that charts the tortured artist's highs and lows, providing an ideal first step for anyone wishing to dive deeper into the impressive catalog of one of rock's loudest and most emotive voices.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

Although Prince was never able to perform this poignant ballad on stage, which he composed in 1984 for The Family (the group and the album of the same name). Nothing Compares 2 U is still too often considered to be a song by Sinéad O 'Connor. But “we must return to Prince what belongs to Roger Nelson”, this is what is probably thought by the people who manage the patrimony of the musician under the tag “Prince Estate”. Without doubting the merit of the Irish singer, Prince probably would have had similar success, if he had released it under his name and not under one of his parallel projects that didn't garner much promotion. Just after the recording of his seventh album, Around The World In A Day, this major “musicaholic” had already laid down all the foundations for the first album of The Family, at the Flying Cloud Drive Warehouse Studio in Eden Prairie. It was the very first album of another project that he marketed on his label, Paisley Park Records, and far from a temporary whim, he saw the opportunity to give himself greater musical freedom. With The Family, he wanted more freedom to record more open pop songs that let him express his  jazz and classical influences… But, as often is the case, the group was never truely one and despite all of the talent of its members and contributors ( Paul “St. Paul” Peterson, vocals and keyboard, Susannah Melvoin, vocals, Eric Leeds, saxophone, Clare Fischer, orchestrations, Wendy Melvoin, guitar, Jellybean Johnson, drums, Jerome Benton, chorus, Miko Weaver, guitar and chorus, Alan Flowers, bass, Jonathan Melvoin, keyboard, Bill Carrothers, keyboard, Wally Safford, chorus and Greg Brooks, chorus), The Family did not last long after their first album and a single concert (August 13, 1985).Marketed extremely "discreetly" in the summer of 1985, the album was not even reissued when Sinéad O'Connor shot to number one in numerous countries with Nothing Compares 2 U. A song that had not even been released as a single in 1985, as Warner Bros, the record label distributing Paisley Park Records, had thought that The Screams of Passion and High Fashion had much more potential commercially. Reformed briefly in 2003 and then renamed fDeluxe, the band added four albums to their discography without ever trying to capitalize on the masterpiece, to which he was the first performer. A live version recorded with The New Power Generation, duet with Rosie Gaines, was already around in 1993 on the compilation The Hits/ The B-Sides, and Prince Estate had integrated it in 4Ever, Prince's first best of, which was posthumously released in 2016.Beyond his keyboard intro that we believe was borrowed from I am The Walrus by The Beatles, this is a studio version that we would call an "alternative" for The Family, already with its orchestral arrangements, its saxophone solo and its omnipresent choir. But more notably with the voice of Prince, as expressive and inspired as his guitar playing. A promising first taste of the famous archives that the Prince Estate has promised to unveil widely in a time frame that we hope is extremely short. © Jean-Pierre Sabouret / Qobuz

3 stars out of 5 - "...Prince is a crack bandleader in addition to being an ace performer, and he marshals all the skills in this lean - just bass, keys and drums, with four horns - edition of the NPG..."© 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

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