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

Ever since Moon Safari was hailed as an instant classic, Air have swung back and forth between the experimental and accessible sides that Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel united so perfectly on their debut. 10,000 Hz Legend might have been too grandiose and aggressively experimental for some Air fans, but Talkie Walkie sometimes felt as if the duo was presenting the most widely palatable version of their music possible. On Pocket Symphony, Dunckel and Godin find a balance between pretty and inventive that they haven't struck since, well, Moon Safari, even though it isn't nearly as immediate -- even by Air's standards, this is an extremely introspective and atmospheric album. It's beyond clichéd to call the duo's music filmic; nevertheless, "Space Maker" and "Night Sight" play like the album's opening titles and ending credits, bracketing a set of songs that are sadder and wiser than anything Air has done since The Virgin Suicides (particularly "Lost Message," which could have easily appeared on that soundtrack). Made around the same time Dunckel and Godin were working with Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon (who also appear here) on Charlotte Gainsbourg's 5:55 and Dunckel was recording his solo project Darkel, Pocket Symphony could be seen as part of a loose trilogy; if so, it's more in line with 5:55's moody romanticism than Darkel's hyper-pop (where, apparently, any lighter-hearted tracks along the lines of Talkie Walkie's "Alpha Beta Gaga" or "Surfing on a Rocket" ended up). However, Pocket Symphony doesn't feel as serenely untouchable as some of Air's previous work, and these darker cracks and wrinkles give it character. These songs are often unsettling, but gently so, like dreams that are still vivid but hard to explain upon waking. The Neil Hannon-sung "Somewhere Between Waking and Sleeping" is the most obvious example of Pocket Symphony's fever dream atmosphere, but there are plenty of others: "Photograph," a quintessentially sensuous Air track, gives the impression of something a little sinister occurring just out of frame; "Redhead Girl" is a lush meditation on unrequited love so paralyzing that time itself stops. The entire album deals with toxic love and its fallout, but Dunckel and Godin alternate between romanticizing heartbreak and showing just how dreary it can be -- although, skilled mood-makers that they are, they manage to make dreary sound pretty romantic, too. The deceptively delicate single "Once Upon a Time" darkens its fairy tale imagery with the fact that once upon a time might be never, while the outstanding "One Hell of a Party," which features Jarvis Cocker on vocals, presents a breakup as a hangover (a sentiment Cocker also explored brilliantly on Pulp's This Is Hardcore). Pocket Symphony pairs Air with producer Nigel Godrich, which is an inspired choice -- not just because Godrich has a similarly atmospheric touch and adds lots of fascinating sonic details, but because he helps Air keep the album intimate, not polished into a state of distant perfection. "Left Bank," which blends humming with a cello and captures Godin's acoustic guitar so clearly it sounds like he's strumming it behind you, is a gorgeous example of how well this collaboration works. The Japanese influence on Talkie Walkie and Air's music for Lost in Translation is deepened on Pocket Symphony, with shamisen and koto (which Godin spent a year learning to play) adding to its ethereal beauty, particularly on "Mer du Japon." Musically and thematically, this is some of Air's most elegant, mature music; it does what it does so compellingly that any attempts to be "poppy" would miss the point. © Heather Phares /TiVo

Left without a drummer after Jimmy Chamberlin's dismissal, the Smashing Pumpkins took the opportunity to revamp their sound slightly -- which is what Billy Corgan claimed they were going to do on their fourth album anyway. Adore, however, isn't a drastic departure. Using dream pop ballads and the synthetic pulse of "1979" as starting point, the Pumpkins have created a hushed, elegiac album that sounds curiously out of time -- it's certainly an outgrowth of their previous work, but the differences aren't entirely modern. Whenever synthesizers are added to the mix, the results make the band sound like a contemporary of the Cure or Depeche Mode, not Aphex Twin. That's not necessarily a problem, since Adore creates its own world with layered keyboards, acoustic guitars, and a rotating selection of drummers and machines. There's none of the distorted bluster that cluttered Mellon Collie and none of the grand sonic technicolor of Siamese Dream. Adore recasts the calmer moments of those albums in a sepia tone, in an attempt to be modest and intimate. Only Billy Corgan would consider a 74-minute, 16-track album a modest effort, but compared to its widescreen predecessors, it does feel a bit scaled down. Still, Corgan's ambitions reign supreme. This is no mere acoustic album, nor is it electronica -- it is quiet contemporary art rock, playing like a concept album without any real concept. Its very length and portentousness tend to obscure some lovely songs, since all the muted production tends to blend all the songs together. But even with its flaws, Adore is an admirable record that illustrates the depth of the Pumpkins' sound, even if it ultimately isn't a brave step forward.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Miles Davis' final official collaboration with arranger Gil Evans resulted in their weakest project. There were only 27 minutes of music on the original Quiet Nights LP, and six minutes were taken up by a quintet performance of "Summer Night." The six remaining tracks are enjoyable enough (highlighted by "Once Upon a Summertime" and "Corcovado"), but rather brief, making one wonder why Evans could not have been persuaded to write more material.© Scott Yanow /TiVo

Oscar Peterson's series of recordings for Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer during the 1960s and early '70s are one of many high points in his long career. With George "Jiri" Mraz on bass and Ray Price on drums, Peterson's flashy romp through "I Love You" (complete with a humorous detour into the opera "Pagliacci") and mid-tempo walk through "All of You" salute Cole Porter in style on Walking the Line. "Rock of Ages" isn't the old hymn but a lively, gospel-inflected Peterson original that will easily get any congregation swinging and swaying to the music. His mastery of the ballad form is heard in his sensitive interpretation of "Once Upon a Summertime," which showcases Mraz's gorgeous tone, as Price sits out this one.© Ken Dryden /TiVo

The contents of this release, which landed on classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2023, are a bit different from what the graphics suggest. The Postcards from Italy title might connote a light crossover or pop atmosphere, and the presence of a saxophone seems to indicate heavily arranged music designed to highlight the soloist, soprano saxophonist Marco Albonetti. Certainly, listeners in search of mellow saxophone music will enjoy the album, but there is also a lot here to interest serious fans of film music. For one thing, Albonetti's program focuses closely on just two composers, Ennio Morricone and Nino Rota. There is one piece by the arranger here, Paolo Silvestri, and one by saxophonist Gato Barbieri, an excerpt from the Last Tango in Paris soundtrack; otherwise, it is all Morricone and Rota. One is struck by the difference in style between the two giants. Morricone builds his atmospheric constructions from simple material, stated at the beginning of a cut, while Rota draws on a range of materials, many of them of popular origin. Hear the Love Theme from The Godfather, which takes on new resonances in this context. Further, the saxophone arrangements are less of an alteration than they may seem; the saxophone generally just takes up the main melody of the piece. Chandos engineers, working at the Forum Studios in Rome, drench the sound in close-up sentiment, which works well considering the material. Ultimately, Albonetti sets a mood and explores it thoroughly on an album that may be recommended to listeners of various kinds.© James Manheim /TiVo

Along with his producer, Ernest Altschuler, and his arranger/pianist, Ralph Sharon, Tony Bennett had been searching for a repertoire and a musical approach beyond his long-gone pop work with Mitch Miller of the early '50s and his artistically pleasing but commercially dicey jazz work of the mid- to late '50s. It seemed to be a combination of Broadway songs and other contemporary material, carefully selected and arranged to show off Bennett's now-burnished vocals, which, as he approached the end of his thirties, were starting to be located in a more comfortable range closer to a baritone than a tenor. With this album, they found the key, not only by happening across a signature song in the title track, but also in the approach to songs like "Once Upon a Time," a gem from the flop musical All American, and Cy Coleman and Carolyn Leigh's "The Best Is Yet to Come," which Bennett helped make a standard. (Frank Sinatra didn't do it until two years later.) From here on until the world changed again toward the late '60s, Bennett would not have to feel that he had to compromise his art for popularity, making up-tempo singles in an attempt to meet the marketplace while longing to do ballads and swing material instead. I Left My Heart In San Francisco, a gold-selling Top Ten hit that stayed in the charts almost three years, demonstrated that he could have it all. (Tony Bennett won two 1962 Grammy Awards for the title song: Record of the Year and Best Solo Vocal Performance, Male.)© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

The Wonderland in the title of this release by the young pianist Alice Sara Ott is merely the music of Grieg, well-worn favorites of which are sampled here. To add to the sum total of interpretive knowledge for the Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, is a tall order, but Ott delivers here in a live performance with the Bavarian Radio Symphony under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen. From her brilliant first note, her reading is a series of sharp markers filled in with liquid, lyrical episodes. The whole thing is carefully shaped, yet has the essential energy of live performance. In the short selections from the various books of Lyric Pieces and from the Peer Gynt Suite Ott is a little more conservative, but her gossamer, web-like technique in lyrical passages is never less than enjoyable to hear. There are reasons for the buzz surrounding this young artist, and this well-recorded program is an excellent place to start exploring what those reasons are.© TiVo

For twenty years Marco Serino was Ennio Morricone’s violinist, the soloist on his film soundtracks and on world tours where they were reworked for the concert hall. In January 2020, after what proved to be his last public concert, at the Italian Senate in Rome, Morricone finished the transcription of this magnificent and unpublished collection, which recasts the themes of his most famous scores in suites transcribed for violin and orchestra. The work was carried out in close collaboration with Marco Serino and dedicated to him as a fruit of the artistic partnership between the two men. The collection alternates between pieces already performed in concert and others that are heard in this version for the first time. A year and a half after the composer’s death, this extraordinary document, a testimony to friendship and professional esteem, now becomes a recording project with the collaboration of Andrea Morricone, the composer’s son, who conducts the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and Trento. © Alpha Classics

When Ice Cube split from N.W.A after the group's seminal Straight Outta Compton album changed the world forever, expectations were high, too high to ever be met by anyone but the most talented of artists, and at his most inspired. At the time Cube was just that. With AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted the rapper expanded upon Compton, making a more full-bodied album that helped boost the role of the individual in hip-hop. Save the dramatic intro where a mythical Ice Cube is fried in the electric chair, his debut is filled with eye-level views of the inner city that are always vivid, generally frightening, generally personal, and sometimes humorous in the gallows style. Ripping it quickly over a loop from George Clinton's "Atomic Dog," Cube asks the question that would be central to his early career, "Why there more niggas in the pen than in college?," while sticking with the mutual distrust and scare tactics N.W.A used to wipe away any hopes of reconciliation ("They all scared of the Ice Cube/And what I say what I portray and all that/And ain't even seen the gat"). "What I'm kicking to you won't get rotation/Nowhere in the nation" he spits on the classic "Turn Off the Radio," which when coupled with the intoxicating Bomb Squad production and Cube's cocksure delivery that's just below a shout, makes one think he's the only radio the inner city needs. The Bomb Squad's amazing work on the album proves they've been overly associated with Public Enemy, since their ability to adapt to AmeriKKKa's more violent and quick revolution is underappreciated. Their high point is the intense "Endangered Species," a "live by the trigger" song that offers "It's a shame, that niggas die young/But to the light side it don't matter none." This street knowledge venom with ultra fast funk works splendidly throughout the album, with every track hitting home, although the joyless "You Can't Fade Me" has alienated many a listener since kicking a possibly pregnant woman in the stomach is a very hard one to take. Just to be as confusing as the world he lives in, the supposedly misogynistic Cube introduces female protégé Yo-Yo with "It's a Man's World" before exiting with "The Bomb," a perfectly unforgiving and visceral closer. Save a couple Arsenio Hall disses, AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted is a timeless, riveting exercise in anger, honesty, and the sociopolitical possibilities of hip-hop.© David Jeffries /TiVo

Riding the coattails of the John Hughes flick The Breakfast Club, Simple Minds finally broke into America with their theme song "Don't You Forget About Me," and their 1985 release Once Upon a Time captured the heart-wrenching excitement found in bands such as U2. They were now one of the biggest names in music, and Jim Kerr's thirsting vocals became the band's signature. Once Upon a Time, featuring producer Jimmy Iovine (U2, Stevie Nicks, Bruce Springsteen), showcased more of a guitar-driven sound. The band's heavy synth pop beats had relaxed a bit and Charlie Burchill's charming playing style was most noticeable. Also enlisting the choir-like beauty of Robin Clark, Simple Minds' popularity was expounded on songs such as "Alive & Kicking" and "Sanctify Yourself." This album was one of their best, most likely leading the pack in the band's album roster, because it exuded raw energy and solid composition not entirely captured on previous albums.© MacKenzie Wilson /TiVo