Love it or hate it, Over-Nite Sensation was a watershed album for Frank Zappa, the point where his post-'60s aesthetic was truly established; it became his second gold album, and most of these songs became staples of his live shows for years to come. Whereas the Flo and Eddie years were dominated by rambling, off-color comedy routines, Over-Nite Sensation tightened up the song structures and tucked sexual and social humor into melodic, technically accomplished heavy guitar rock with jazzy chord changes and funky rhythms; meanwhile, Zappa's growling new post-accident voice takes over the storytelling. While the music is some of Zappa's most accessible, the apparent callousness and/or stunning sexual explicitness of "Camarillo Brillo," "Dirty Love," and especially "Dinah-Moe Humm" leave him on shaky aesthetic ground. Zappa often protested that the charges of misogyny leveled at such material missed out on the implicit satire of male stupidity, and also confirmed intellectuals' self-conscious reticence about indulging in dumb fun; however, the glee in his voice as he spins his adolescent fantasies can undermine his point. Indeed, that enjoyment, also evident in the silly wordplay, suggests that Zappa is throwing his juvenile crassness in the face of critical expectation, asserting his right to follow his muse even if it leads him into blatant stupidity (ironic or otherwise). One can read this motif into the absurd shaggy-dog story of a dental floss rancher in "Montana," the album's indisputable highlight, which features amazing, uncredited vocal backing from Tina Turner and the Ikettes. As with much of Zappa's best '70s and '80s material, Over-Nite Sensation could be perceived as ideologically problematic (if you haven't got the constitution for FZ's humor), but musically, it's terrific.© Steve Huey /TiVo

Laurie Anderson was raised in Glen Ellyn, a suburb of Chicago. But when she was composing the material that would become Big Science, she was a New York-based performance artist who was spending a lot of time playing in Europe. "I always felt that Europeans saw the United States as a version of their own future," she said in the notes that accompanied the album's second CD edition. Nearly four decades after its release, that convergence of distanced and Midwestern perspectives seems remarkably prescient. The album begins with a plane crash and ends with a building burning down, which is hard to beat as a metaphor for contemporary life's endless loop of disaster. In between, Anderson tells stories that confront people who talk like they've stepped out of old TV shows being confronted by a technologically advancing world that feels alien and, if you pay attention to the man behind the curtain, quite disturbing. While the harmonized vocal loop that runs through "O Superman (For Massenet)," the novelty hit that launched her career, sounds charmingly primitive now, the picture it paints of a corporate surveillance environment that seems pretty confident that it knows you better than you know yourself feels like life today. And since life in such a scenario can feel like a waking dream, the tracks that used keyboard ambience and spoken narration to evoke dream states haven't aged a bit even though the technology used to make them has. But Big Science is not relentlessly dystopian; the deadpan humor and understated wonder in Anderson's delivery soften its sting. © Bill Meyer/Qobuz

Following the belated surprise success of La Sexorcisto, Astro-Creep: 2000 carried the weight of high expectations, something that White Zombie wasn't familiar with before. Unsurprisingly, the band plays it safe on Astro-Creep, never straying from their white-trash-on-acid metal. While it's undeniably campy, the band genuinely love the trash they sing about, so they fit right into the tradition of tongue-in-cheek heavy metal bands from Alice Cooper to Kiss. Where those bands relied on songcraft beneath their shtick, White Zombie relies on a full-throttled roar. Borrowing such techniques as distorted vocals and drilling riffs from pseudo-industrial metal like Ministry, the band beefs up their basic sound, making it powerful enough to disguise the lack of solid song structures and memorable riffs. Sonically, Astro-Creep delivers the initial goods, yet it never develops into trash as substantial as "Thunder Kiss '65."© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Colin Meloy and his brave Decemberists made the unlikely jump to a major label after 2005's excellent Picaresque, a move that surprised both longtime fans and detractors of the band. While it is difficult to imagine the suits at Capitol seeing dollar signs in the eyes of an accordion- and bouzouki-wielding, British folk-inspired collective from Portland, OR, that dresses in period Civil War outfits and has been known to cover Morrissey, it's hard to argue with what the Decemberists have wrought from their bounty. The Crane Wife is loosely based on a Japanese folk tale that concerns a crane, an arrow, a beautiful woman, and a whole lot of clandestine weaving. The record's spirited opener and namesake picks off almost exactly where Picaresque left off, building slowly off a simple folk melody before exploding into some serious Who power chords. This is the first indication that the band itself was ready to take the loosely ornate, reverb-heavy Decemberists sound to a new sonic level, or rather that producers Tucker Martine and Chris Walla were. On first listen, the tight, dry, and compressed production style sounds more like Queens of the Stone Age than Fairport Convention, but as The Crane Wife develops over its 60-plus minutes, a bigger picture appears. Meloy, who along with Destroyer's Dan Bejar has mastered the art of the North American English accent, has given himself over to early-'70s progressive rock with gleeful abandon, and while many of the tracks pale in comparison to those on Picaresque, the ones that succeed do so in the grandest of fashions. Fans of the group's Tain EP will find themselves drawn to "Island: Come and See/The Landlord's Daughter/You'll Not Feel the Drowning" and "The Crane Wife, Pts. 1 & 2," both of which are well over ten minutes long and feature some truly inspired moments that echo everyone from the Waterboys and R.E.M. to Deep Purple and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, while those who embrace the band's poppier side will flock around the winsome "Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)," which relies heavily on the breathy delivery of Seattle singer/songwriter and part-time Decemberist Laura Veirs. Some cuts, like the English murder ballad "Shankill Butchers" and "Summersong" (the latter eerily reminiscent of Edie Brickell's "What I Am"), sound like outtakes from previous records, but by the time the listener arrives at the Donovan-esque (in a good way) closer, "Sons & Daughters," the less tasty bits of The Crane Wife seem a wee bit sweeter.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

After years of playing bass with Chicago legends like Muddy Waters and Otis Spann, not to mention a stint in the Soul Train house band (he was also one of the show's producers) and a contribution to the theme of Sanford and Son, Mac Arnold moved back to his South Carolina home. But you can't keep a good bluesman down, and after his friends and neighbors kept asking him to perform, he put together his first band, Mac Arnold & Plate Full o' Blues. The musicians may be neighbors, but they're all first-rate players, and on their third album, produced by another Muddy Waters' alum, Steady Rollin' Bob Margolin, they range from folky love songs and country-blues to Chicago urban sizzlers and blues-rock shuffles. Arnold fronts the band with a warm, bluesy voice somewhere between Waters' shout and the low-down growl of Howlin' Wolf. He leaves most of the music to his bandmates, but they're up to the task. "I Ain't Sugar Coatin'" opens this up with a straightforward sardonic look at modern life, laying down the law to fathers who leave their families amidst rising prices and young men who wear their jeans so low you can see their underpants. Austin Brashier's guitar switches between rhythmic, fuzz-drenched chords and brittle lead lines. Margolin's lead guitar adds some fire to "Too Much," a blues-rock tune that sings the praises of a woman who's just too damn hot. Arnold's shouted vocal is full of gritty sexuality. Arnold's famous for his homemade gas can guitars, instruments that have a surprisingly rich sound despite their humble origin. He plays a killer hook on "Cackalacky Twang," a bouncy dance number then turns in a short, sharp solo that showcases the instrument's high but surprisingly rich, treble-drenched sound. Arnold then does Waters' "Screamin' and Cryin'' country style, with his weathered vocal and Margolin's acoustic guitar taking things back to their roots. The album closes with the instrumental "Swing Me Back Home," and Country Man has just done that. letting the boys in the band show off their chops with Brashier's aggressive, stinging guitar and Arnold's jazzy, inventive bass playing stealing the show.© j. poet /TiVo

Although he had played with some very renowned blues names back in the 1960s (and later served as the original associate producer for Soul Train), bluesman Mac Arnold did not get around to issuing his own album until 2006, with the arrival of Nothin' to Prove. Unlike his next album, 2008's Backbone and Gristle, Arnold sticks mostly to singing here (with some bass work as well), as his trademark "gas can guitar" does not make any appearances. But for expertly played modern-day blues-rock, Arnold (along with his backing band, Plate Full o' Blues) has automatically leapfrogged to the front of the line with this inaugural release. Arnold also proves to possess a truly authentic blues-worthy voice, as heard on such standouts as the title track and the autobiographical "Ghetto Blue." Arnold has learned the blues first-hand by some of the genre's all-time greats, and his musical lessons have not been forgotten, as evidenced throughout Nothin' to Prove. © Greg Prato /TiVo

Following an unsatisfying three-year stint at Mercury Records, Chuck Berry returned home to Chess in 1969, just like Phil Chess predicted. Heading home didn’t necessarily mean retreating, as the four-disc Have Mercy: His Complete Chess Recordings 1969-1974 illustrates. During his time at Mercury, Chuck followed the kids wherever they went, aligning himself with the psychedelic ‘60s in a way none of his peers did. This shift is immediately apparent on “Tulane,” the very first song he cut upon his return to Chess. An ode to a couple of kids who dealt dope underneath the counter of a novelty shop, “Tulane” puts Chuck on the side of the counterculture, and over the next five years, he never strayed back to the other side of the fence, often singing about getting stoned, dabbling with a wah-wah pedal, rhapsodizing about rock festivals, cheerfully telling smutty jokes. All these elements, along with his propensity for playing with pickup bands -- he cut 1971’s San Francisco Dues with amiable garage rockers the Woolies outside of Lansing, MI, and roped Elephant's Memory into the studio to knock out much of 1973’s Bio -- defined the last act of Chuck’s career. But the big difference between the five years documented here and what came afterward is that Berry was still active as a writer and record-maker during the first years of the ‘70s, conscious of his legacy but not encumbered by it, still attempting to graft new fads onto his three-chord boogie while spending more and more time playing the blues and ballads of his youth. Have Mercy chronicles all of this and more, putting his final Chess recordings into CD circulation for the first time, and adding 22 unreleased cuts to the mix. If there are no major revelations among this unheard material there are at least minor ones in the form of a studio version of “My Ding-A-Ling,” which is lighter in touch and marginally more charming than the live hit, and the preponderance of loose, instrumental blues jams culminating in an extended studio version of “Turn on the Houselights,” the song he used to play toward the end of concerts. All these blues -- and there are many with vocals, too, including a very good take on Elmore James’ “Dust My Broom” and a ripping live version of Big Joe Turner’s “Roll ‘Em Pete” -- find Berry coasting somewhat, preferring to rework standards instead of write new ones, which is a sentiment that also applies to how “My Ding-A-Ling” re-jiggers Dave Bartholomew’s song, but Chuck always did turn blues tropes into something of his own, so what’s new is how infrequently Berry was writing during this final stretch. The originals may not have flowed freely, but he did pen a handful of classics: “Tulane,” its slow sequel “Have Mercy Judge,” the dreamy spoken poem “My Dream,” and the cracking autobiography “Bio” all belong in his canon. But the thing about Have Mercy is that it proves that an artist as great as Chuck Berry has pleasures that lay outside the canon, that his sly touch invigorates classics from “Jambalaya” to “Swanee River Rock”; that it’s good to hear him just lay back and riff, that there’s a delight in hearing him affect an absurd Mexican accent on “South of a Border.” Sure, these are pleasures only for the committed, but in light of the lack of new recordings following this -- just 1979’s Rock It, which did produce the minor classic “Oh What a Thrill” -- it’s easier to cherish this music for the minor, yet lasting, pleasures it provides.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo