The Backstreet Boys were the first and best of the boy bands of the great teen pop bands of the late '90s/early 2000s, even if 'N Sync eventually usurped their title of "the biggest boy band." Their reign seemed long, but it really wasn't -- only three albums before the bottom started to fall out with 2000's Black & Blue. If everything had gone right, Black & Blue would have ruled the charts for about two years, but about a year after its release, the group and their label unleashed The Hits: Chapter One, a sure sign not only that Black & Blue didn't perform to expectations, but they were worried about the shifting tastes of their audience. Instead of reviving interest in the group, the collection instead felt like it was closing the door on their period of dominance (and it initially sold that way, too, barely making a dent on the charts). Even if it is a bit of an inadvertent last will and testament, it's a hell of a summation of the group's glory days, offering definitive proof that the group wasn't just the best of their breed (boy bands, that is; thrushes like Britney, Christina, Mandy, and Jessica are not taken into account here), but that their best moments transcend their era -- and there's really no other way to describe such lovely pop tunes as "I Want It That Way," "As Long As You Love Me," and "Quit Playing Games (With My Heart)," three songs that would have sounded perfect in any era (and their vocals would have worked in any era, too). Those are just the ballads -- the dance-pop numbers may be more tied to their era, but "Everybody (Backstreet's Back)" and "Larger Than Life" are infectious pop nonetheless. If the rest of the singles that fill out this 13-track collection aren't quite as good as those five songs (although "Show Me the Meaning of Being Lonely" is), they nevertheless are well-crafted, and those aforementioned singles are among the best mainstream pop of its time -- which is not only reason enough for this collection to exist, it's reason enough for pop lovers of any age or generation to have this as part of their library.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Note : The last track "Un Día (One Day)" is not available in 24-bit, you should download the album through your Qobuz application for PC / Mac.

Jordan: The Comeback is Prefab Sprout's largely successful attempt to embrace the breadth of popular music; wisely reuniting with producer Thomas Dolby, Paddy McAloon freely indulges his myriad ambitions and obsessions to weave a dense, finely textured tapestry closer in spirit and construction to a lavish Broadway musical than to the conventional rock concept LP. Over the course of no less than 19 tracks, McAloon chases his twin preoccupations of religion and celebrity, creating a loose thematic canvas perfect for his expanding musical palette; quickly dispensing with common pop idioms, the album moves from tracks like the samba-styled "Carnival 2000" to the self-explanatory "Jesse James Symphony" and its companion piece "Jesse James Bolero" with remarkable dexterity. Dolby's atmospheric production lends an even greater visual dimension to the songs, which -- with their tightly constructed narratives and occasional spoken-word passages -- seem almost destined to someday reach the stage; indeed, Jordan: The Comeback is like an original cast recording minus the actors, or a rock opera without the silliness and bombast -- a truly inspired work.© Jason Ankeny /TiVo

The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys marked the commercial and artistic apex of the second coming of Traffic, which had commenced in 1970 with John Barleycorn Must Die. The trio that made that album had been augmented by three others (Ric Grech, Jim Gordon, and "Reebop" Kwaku Baah) in the interim, though apparently the Low Spark sessions featured varying combinations of these musicians, plus some guests. But where their previous album had grown out of sessions for a Steve Winwood solo album and retained that focus, Low Spark pointedly contained changes of pace from his usual contributions of midtempo, introspective jam tunes. "Rock & Roll Stew" was an uptempo treatise on life on the road, while Jim Capaldi's "Light up or Leave Me Alone" was another more aggressive number with an unusually emphatic Capaldi vocal that perked things up on side two. The other four tracks were Winwood/Capaldi compositions more in the band's familiar style. "Hidden Treasure" and "Rainmaker" bookended the disc with acoustic treatments of nature themes that were particularly concerned with water, and "Many a Mile to Freedom" also employed water imagery. But the standout was the 12-minute title track, with its distinctive piano riff and its lyrics of weary disillusionment with the music business. The band had only just fulfilled a contractual commitment by releasing the live album Welcome to the Canteen, and they had in their past the embarrassing Last Exit album thrown together as a commercial stopgap during a temporary breakup in 1969. But that anger had proven inspirational, and "The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys" was one of Traffic's greatest songs as well as its longest so far. The result was an album that quickly went gold (and eventually platinum) in the U.S., where the group toured frequently.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Just at the moment Mott the Hoople were calling it a day, David Bowie swooped in and convinced them to stick around. Bowie spearheaded an image makeover, urging them to glam themselves up. He gave them a surefire hit with "All the Young Dudes," had them cover his idol's "Sweet Jane," and produced All the Young Dudes, the album that was designed to make them stars. Lo and behold, it did, which is as much a testament to Bowie's popularity as it is to his studio skill. Not to discount his assistance, since his production results in one of the most satisfying glam records and the title track is one of the all-time great rock songs, but the album wouldn't have worked if Mott hadn't already found its voice on Brain Capers. True, Dudes isn't nearly as wild as its predecessor, but the band's swagger is unmistakable underneath the flair and Ian Hunter remains on a songwriting roll, with "Momma's Little Jewel," "Sucker," and "One of the Boys" standing among his best. Take a close look at the credits, though -- these were all co-written by his bandmates, and the other highlight, "Ready for Love/After Lights," is penned entirely by Mick Ralphs, who would later revive the first section with Bad Company. The entire band was on a roll here, turning out great performances and writing with vigor. They may not be as sexy as either Bowie or Bolan, but they make up for it with knowing humor, huge riffs, and terrific tunes, dressed up with style by Ziggy himself. No wonder it's not just a great Mott record -- it's one of the defining glam platters.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

This live album, originally released as a double-record set, succeeds in capturing the raw power and high energy that the group can actually attain in performance. Although a few songs were lost in the move from record to compact disc, the band's greatest hits are retained from their '84-'85 tour, from ballads such as "Holiday" to rock anthems like "Blackout." The album is never tedious, and all of the fourteen songs on the recording are captured with excellent authenticity. World Wide Live is by far the Scorpions' best live release, and is a must for fans of their music.© Barry Weber /TiVo

Listening to Katy Perry's litany of belched alphabets, fruity boyfriends, Vegas hangovers, and lesbian lip-locks on her debut, One of the Boys, it's easy to assume she'll do anything for attention, and a close read of her history proves that suspicion true. Prior to her transformation into a teen tart, Perry was a Christian singer operating under the name Katy Hudson -- an appellation a little bit too close to Kate Hudson, so she swapped last names and started working with big-name producer after big-name producer, cutting sessions with Glen Ballard and then the Matrix. That was enough to get buzz touting her as a next big thing in 2004, but not enough to actually get a record into the stores, a nicety that often proves invaluable for wannabe pop stars. Given this long line of botched starts, maybe it makes sense that the 24-year-old starlet is singing with the desperation of a fading burlesque star twice her age, yet Perry's shameless pandering on One of the Boys is startling, particularly as it comes in the form of some ungodly hybrid of Alanis Morissette's caterwauling and the cold calculation of Britney Spears in her prime. This fusion is no accident, as Perry works once again with Ballard, the producer behind Morissette's breakthrough Jagged Little Pill, and Max Martin, the writer/producer of "Baby One More Time" -- and that's just for starters. She also brings aboard Desmond Child to give "Waking Up in Vegas" an anonymous, anthemic pulse, Dave Stewart to give "I'm Still Breathing" a Euro sheen, and Butch Walker to amp up the amplifiers, giving her a different sound for every imaginable demographic.All the pros give One of the Boys a cross-platform appeal, but there's little question that its revolting personality is all down to Perry, who distills every reprehensible thing about the age of The Hills reality show into one pop album. She disses her boyfriend with gay-baiting; she makes out with a girl and she's doesn't even like girls; she brags to a suitor that he can't afford her, parties till she's face-down in the porcelain, drops brands as if they were weapons, curses casually, and trades under-the-table favors. In short, she's styled herself as a Montag monster. Perry is not untalented -- she writes like an ungarbled Morissette and has an eye for details, as when she tells her emo metrosexual boyfriend to hang himself with his H&M scarf on "Ur So Gay" -- but that only accentuates how her vile wild-child persona is artifice designed to get her the stardom she craves. Maybe if the music were as trashy as the style, she could get away with it, as it would have a junky thrill, but that's where all the high-thread-count producers actually work against One of the Boys. They flatten everything out, turning the stomping Gary Glitter beat of "I Kissed a Girl" into a leaden stumble and burying Perry's voice underneath Pro Tools overdubs so it all winds up as a faceless wash of sound designed to be placed in TV shows, movie trailers, and malls -- which is of course part of the plan, as this is music designed to be everywhere after Perry's taboo flirtations break down doors. The problem is not with Perry's gender-bending, it's that her heart isn't in it; she's just using it to get her places, so she sinks to crass, craven depths that turn One of the Boys into a grotesque emblem of all the wretched excesses of this decade.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Listening to Katy Perry's litany of belched alphabets, fruity boyfriends, Vegas hangovers, and lesbian lip-locks on her debut, One of the Boys, it's easy to assume she'll do anything for attention, and a close read of her history proves that suspicion true. Prior to her transformation into a teen tart, Perry was a Christian singer operating under the name Katy Hudson -- an appellation a little bit too close to Kate Hudson, so she swapped last names and started working with big-name producer after big-name producer, cutting sessions with Glen Ballard and then the Matrix. That was enough to get buzz touting her as a next big thing in 2004, but not enough to actually get a record into the stores, a nicety that often proves invaluable for wannabe pop stars. Given this long line of botched starts, maybe it makes sense that the 24-year-old starlet is singing with the desperation of a fading burlesque star twice her age, yet Perry's shameless pandering on One of the Boys is startling, particularly as it comes in the form of some ungodly hybrid of Alanis Morissette's caterwauling and the cold calculation of Britney Spears in her prime. This fusion is no accident, as Perry works once again with Ballard, the producer behind Morissette's breakthrough Jagged Little Pill, and Max Martin, the writer/producer of "Baby One More Time" -- and that's just for starters. She also brings aboard Desmond Child to give "Waking Up in Vegas" an anonymous, anthemic pulse, Dave Stewart to give "I'm Still Breathing" a Euro sheen, and Butch Walker to amp up the amplifiers, giving her a different sound for every imaginable demographic.All the pros give One of the Boys a cross-platform appeal, but there's little question that its revolting personality is all down to Perry, who distills every reprehensible thing about the age of The Hills reality show into one pop album. She disses her boyfriend with gay-baiting; she makes out with a girl and she's doesn't even like girls; she brags to a suitor that he can't afford her, parties till she's face-down in the porcelain, drops brands as if they were weapons, curses casually, and trades under-the-table favors. In short, she's styled herself as a Montag monster. Perry is not untalented -- she writes like an ungarbled Morissette and has an eye for details, as when she tells her emo metrosexual boyfriend to hang himself with his H&M scarf on "Ur So Gay" -- but that only accentuates how her vile wild-child persona is artifice designed to get her the stardom she craves. Maybe if the music were as trashy as the style, she could get away with it, as it would have a junky thrill, but that's where all the high-thread-count producers actually work against One of the Boys. They flatten everything out, turning the stomping Gary Glitter beat of "I Kissed a Girl" into a leaden stumble and burying Perry's voice underneath Pro Tools overdubs so it all winds up as a faceless wash of sound designed to be placed in TV shows, movie trailers, and malls -- which is of course part of the plan, as this is music designed to be everywhere after Perry's taboo flirtations break down doors. The problem is not with Perry's gender-bending, it's that her heart isn't in it; she's just using it to get her places, so she sinks to crass, craven depths that turn One of the Boys into a grotesque emblem of all the wretched excesses of this decade.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The Cure could be found in a mix of holding pattern and seemingly constant activity in 2011, with an irregular series of world-wide performances of the band's first three albums and a slew of guest appearances and one-offs by Robert Smith on his own and with other performers standing in for either new or reissued albums. But there was also a one-off headlining performance at the Bestival in the U.K. that summer, resulting in the band's first official live album since the Show and Paris releases of 1993. Feeling more like a souvenir than anything else, it's above all a portrait of a band that has the knack of handling a career-spanning catalog down cold, something with both positive and negative sides to it. On the one hand, besides a thankfully clear mix that feels like a brisk soundboard recording, there's the treat of hearing a then-unique quartet lineup of Smith, Simon Gallup, and Jason Cooper matched with the then-recently returned Roger O'Donnell adding keyboards for the first time in some years. If it's not quite Seventeen Seconds all over again, performances of "Play for Today" and the inevitable "A Forest" do happily nod in that direction. Smith himself still sounds in astonishingly well-preserved voice, only occasionally stepping aside from some high notes while sounding as moodily powerful as ever on guitar -- not to mention as half-understandable as ever on his occasional song introductions. On the other hand, Smith and company have been playing this kind of set for years upon years when it comes to general or festival audiences, emphasizing the big hits of the first 15 years of their career. Out of 32 songs, literally only three of them couldn't have appeared on either Show or Paris -- happily one of them being the underrated "The Hungry Ghost" from 4:13 Dream -- while the remainder of the selections leans much more toward the hits and singles than the album cuts, stalwarts like "Plainsong," "Push," and "Disintegration" aside. (Though the appearance of "The Caterpillar" is a fun surprise, having never been played for a full-on show by the band once since 1984.) Bestival Live 2011 is an understandably honest reflection of the Cure in the popular mind as their commercial high point recedes further into the past, but given Smith and the band's other contemporaneous activities, it's an incomplete portrait.© Ned Raggett /TiVo

The Backstreet Boys finally broke (and broke big) in America during 1998, as if by design. They had been Euro sensations for a couple of years, but it wasn't until Backstreet's Back was unleashed in the U.S. in 1997 that they had a presence in the States, and it was no small presence, either -- after selling over ten million copies, the album remained in the Top 40 on the eve of the release of its sequel, Millennium. And sequel is the appropriate word -- Millennium has no pretense of being anything other than an album for the moment, delivering more of everything that made Backstreet's Back a blockbuster. There's a familiar blend of ballads and dance-pop, a similar shiny production, a reliance on the Boys' charisma that brings to mind the debut. If Millennium were anything other than big, glossy mainstream pop, such calculation may be a little unseemly, but in this context, it can be rather fun. True, the album doesn't pack as much punch as its predecessor -- there's a number of good songs, but more filler than before, and the Backstreet sound isn't as fresh as it was the first time around -- but it does deliver what fans want: more of the same. And since there are singles as infectious as "I Want It That Way" and a handful of good ballads, that will be enough to satisfy anyone craving more, more, more.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Kris Roe, leader of the Ataris, would seem a little young for nostalgia, but So Long, Astoria (its title referring to Astoria, OR, the town in the 1985 film The Goonies) is his musical version of a memory play, a series of reflections on his youth in the late '70s and '80s. Roe, who grew up in Anderson, IN, and moved to Santa Barbara, CA, to pursue his rock & roll dreams, reminisces fondly about adolescence in songs like "Summer '79" and addresses his own young fans in "My Reply." The Ataris' fourth full-length album of new material and their major-label debut on Columbia Records, So Long, Astoria is, musically, another collection of typical speed punk tunes, virtually indistinguishable from the work of Green Day and blink-182, not to mention dozens of other similar bands. It is only Roe's lyrical identity that makes the band's songs stand out, and you only pick up on those lyrics on repeated listenings. When you do, Roe's sentimentality stands in contrast to the music's aggression, but he doesn't really have much insight into his memories. The idea of covering Don Henley's "The Boys of Summer" as a punk anthem has promise, but when Roe revises the famous line about the "Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac" by referring to Black Flag, he strikes a false note. Henley's observation was telling because it was true; Roe's is only cute because it scans. There's the problem when your memories are so infused with the movies you watched and the music you listened to -- they tend to sound secondhand. And when you set it to music already slavishly imitative of your betters, the problem is compounded.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Because they work in a field that isn't usually taken seriously, the Pet Shop Boys are often ignored in the rock world. But make no mistake -- they are one of the most talented pop outfits working today, witty and melodic with a fine sense of flair. Very is one of their very best records, expertly weaving between the tongue-in-cheek humor of "I Wouldn't Normally Do This Kind of Thing," the quietly shocking "Can You Forgive Her?," and the bizarrely moving cover of the Village People's "Go West." Alternately happy and melancholy, Very is the Pet Shop Boys at their finest.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Clocking in at 26 minutes, Weather feels more like an EP than an LP, but there's a reason for the brevity. While Huey Lewis & the News were completing their first album of original material in nearly 20 years, Lewis was diagnosed with Meniere's disease, an affliction that effects hearing. Meniere's meant Huey could no longer hear notes clearly, which meant that he had to retire from performing, which in turn meant that the music the News completed for their new album would in effect be their final album. Since Huey Lewis & the News wrote and recorded Weather without planning it as a goodbye, the album has a light, breezy tone, and that amiability is actually a fitting farewell for a group who always were a hard-working rock & soul combo. Weather finds the News favoring the soul side of that equation, which should come as no surprise considering how their last album a decade prior was a tribute to Stax Records. If the album's production is a shade too precise and polished, the quality of the originals and the presence of a cover of Eugene Church's "Pretty Girls Everywhere" more than compensate. With one notable exception, the tracks are firmly songs for a sunny afternoon, with the opening "While We're Young" carrying not a note of bittersweetness. The exception is the closing "One of the Boys," a sweetly nostalgic, twangy stroll through the past that feels like a nod to the group's country-rock beginnings as Clover. Arriving at the end of this cheerful set of rock & soul, it seems like the one time the News are taking stock of their mortality, but the rest of the record captures them at their best, delivering good-time music with a smile.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Pet Shop Boys followed the release of 1993's Very (their only album to top the U.K. charts) with their third world tour, which brought them to Australia, Singapore, and Latin America for the first time. A particularly electric concert in Rio de Janeiro was filmed by a local television crew and released on VHS and Laserdisc as Discovery: Live in Rio in 1995. Inspired by the vibrancy of New York City nightlife, the duo focused the tour on uptempo dance songs, and embraced spontaneity more than they did on their earlier tours, which were more staged and theatrical. They're joined on-stage by a quartet of free-spirited dancers, a pair of percussionists, and charismatic backing singer Katie Kissoon. The energy is more than reciprocated by the audience, who scream, cheer, and sing along throughout the entire show. The arrangements totally embrace the type of hyper-glitzy Euro-dance which was everywhere at the time, and older singles like "Always on My Mind" and "Domino Dancing" sound absolutely huge. Early B-side "Paninaro" is given a reggae-disco remake, sounding even more charged-up than the version released as a single around the same time as Discovery. Elsewhere, PSB nod to several then-current dance hits -- the crowd goes wild when "One in a Million" slides into Culture Beat's "Mr. Vain," as well as the medley of "Left to My Own Devices" and Corona's glorious "Rhythm of the Night." They also perform Blur's cheeky alt-dance classic "Girls & Boys," which they had previously remixed, fully transforming an already PSB-indebted song into one of their own. Wisely, the duo know when to dial the energy down a notch from time to time, so that everyone involved avoids the risk of short circuiting and burning out. In this manner, even "West End Girls" feels like a bit of a comedown. Joking that they were never asked to appear on MTV Unplugged, they offer largely acoustic versions of "Rent" and "Suburbia," which only leave more room for the crowd to shout along. Of course, there's no way they couldn't do this show without ending it with a bang, and the final sequence includes "I Will Survive" into "It's a Sin," an Olympic-sized "Go West," and of course the poignant fan favorite "Being Boring." Long confined to obsolete formats, Discovery was given a long-overdue CD/DVD reissue in 2021.© Paul Simpson /TiVo