An escapee from the collective Bargou 08, Tunisian electro musician Sofyannn Ben Youssef took on the pseudonym Ammar 808 to release his hair-raising first album. As with 808 State, English pioneers of the Manchester acid movement, the name is a reference to the legendary TR 808 drum machine, which was the pride of any electro or hip-hop producer's arsenal in the late 1980s and early 1990s. And while this machine teams up with traditional North African instruments (guembri lute, gasba flute, zukra pipes), it doesn't impose a dominant retro feel on the album. The crafty producer has also brought along a few of the most remarkable voices of the North African scene: his compatriot Cheb Hassen Tej (Ichki lel Bey, El Bidha Wessamra), the Moroccan Mehdi Nassouli (Boganga & Sandia, Layli), found here alongside Titi Robin, and the Algerian Sofiane Saïdi (Zine Ezzine), with whom Ammar 808 pursues a fruitful dialogue, which was begun in the company of Mazalda on the very winning album El Ndjoum. Ammar 808 lines up covers of traditional pieces, but dresses them in futurist combinations. Already excited by the good surprises thrown up by the electro chaabi movement, and by the Acid Arab collective, this Maghreb United shows that in the aftermath of the Arab Spring, clubbers will still be filling the dancefloors. © Benjamin MiNiMuM/Qobuz

Since emerging in the late 2010s, hyperpop duo 100 gecs' sound has been somewhere between pop and panic attack, chaotically combining the most extreme versions of multiple styles and then speeding everything up to near breaking points. It's fun, funny, knowingly and brazenly ridiculous music and would be easy to write off as simple obnoxious experimentalism if the songs weren't so fantastically catchy. Their 2019 debut 1000 Gecs sounded like club bangers made by psychedelic cartoon characters, and sophomore LP 10,000 Gecs (a "long-player" in name alone as its ten songs clip by in just under 27 minutes) expands the duo's cultural collaging to include cannibalizations of Limp Bizkit-style nu-metal, pop-punk, '90s alt-funk, ska, and anything else that captures the gecs' fleeting attention. "Hollywood Baby" sounds like blink-182 with the entire mix filtered through Auto-Tune, but the 8-bit feel somehow enhances the impact of the song's hooks. The album quickly detours between legitimately strong blasts of energy like the slap-bass weirdness of "Doritos & Fritos" or the computerized thrash metal of "One Million Dollars" to goofy Kidz Bop childishness like "Frog on the Floor" or the third wave ska send-up "I Got My Tooth Removed." Somehow 100 gecs take things even more over the top on 10,000 Gecs than they did on their already mind-boggling debut. The very nature of the group's hyperbolic and perpetually exploding design means they're still inherently polarizing, love-it-or-hate-it kind of music. For those who love it, 10,000 Gecs offers more -- so much more, always more -- to love.© Fred Thomas /TiVo

As early as his first official studio release, 2011’s Section.80, Kendrick Lamar’s albums have been intricate and conceptual, constructed more like ambitious theatrical narratives than mere collections of songs. Fifth album Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers follows this trajectory as a double-album’s worth of interconnecting statements that are relentlessly complex, emotionally dense, and sometimes uncomfortably raw. Unlike the lush, spacious sonics of DAMN. or the life-affirming funk of To Pimp a Butterfly, Mr. Morale is scattered both in terms of musical approaches and lyrical perspectives. The album’s first half is particularly messy, with themes of trauma, grief, society, and Kendrick’s own uneasy relationship with fame all overlapping. His technical abilities are stunning and versatile as ever, but the frantic flows and jarring beat switches of “United in Grief” begin an angsty catharsis that runs throughout many of the tracks. “N95” is a seething cultural critique where Lamar spits bile in multiple directions over a bleakly catchy, bass-driven instrumental. Issues with lust addiction and infidelity are put under a microscope on the tense and minimal “Worldwide Steppers,” and Lamar depicts his troubled relationship with his father in painful detail on “Father Time,” which features a gorgeous vocal performance by Sampha on the hook. There’s further exploration of deeply personal family history on “Auntie Diaries,” which chronicles Lamar coming to understand the experiences two of his relatives had with transitioning gender identities. Throughout the album he funnels all of these experiences inward, seeking to grow through his own changes and the changes he sees around him. This shows up as a dismissal of celebrity on “Rich Spirit” or as striving for self-acceptance on “Count Me Out.” The album’s quick musical and thematic shifts can make for an uneven flow. The floating R&B instrumental and tender introspection of “Die Hard” come just a few tracks before cacophonous swirls of piano on “Rich - Interlude” and the jagged cosmic hip-hop of Ghostface Killah and Summer Walker collaboration “Purple Hearts.” The album’s intensity reaches a full boil on “We Cry Together,” a song that sounds like live audio footage of the most vicious couple’s argument imaginable, and reaches the same levels of ugliness as Eminem’s “Kim,” a clear reference point. As always, the production is immaculate and Lamar is joined by a host of industry giants, with contributions coming from Baby Keem, Thundercat, and even a vocal cameo from Portishead’s Beth Gibbons on the stunning sadness of “Mother I Sober.” While not as immediately accessible as some of the work that came before it, there’s value in both the harrowing and enlightening moments here. Lamar puts everything on the table with Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, trying to get closer to his unfiltered personal truth, and creating some of his most challenging, expectation-defying work in the process. While not always an easy listen, the album shows more of its intention as it goes, and ultimately makes sense as the next logical step forward in Lamar’s increasingly multi-dimensional artistic evolution.© Fred Thomas /TiVo

Predating Metallica's self-titled blockbuster by 11 years, Judas Priest's British Steel was a similarly pitched landmark boasting many of the same accomplishments. It streamlined and simplified the progressive intricacies of a band fresh off of revolutionizing the entire heavy metal genre; it brought an aggressive, underground metal subgenre crashing into the mainstream (in Priest's case, the NWOBHM; in Metallica's, thrash); and it greatly expanded the possibilities for heavy metal's commercial viability as a whole. Of course, British Steel was nowhere near the sales juggernaut that Metallica was, but in catapulting Judas Priest to the status of stadium headliners, it was the first salvo fired in heavy metal's ultimate takeover of the hard rock landscape during the 1980s. Packed with strong melodic hooks, British Steel is a deliberate commercial move, forsaking the complexity of the band's early work in favor of a robust, AC/DC-flavored groove. It's a convincing transformation, as Priest prove equally adept at opening up their arrangements to let the rhythms breathe (something Iron Maiden, for all their virtues, never did master). The album is built around the classic singles "Breaking the Law" and "Living After Midnight," both big hits in the U.K., which openly posit Priest as a party band for the first time. But British Steel is hardly a complete break from the band's past. There are still uptempo slices of metallic mayhem bookending the album in "Rapid Fire" and "Steeler," plus effective moodier pieces in "Metal Gods" (ostensibly about gods literally made of metal, though you know full well the band wanted a nickname) and the crawling menace of "The Rage," which features arguably the best Rob Halford vocal on the album. Not everything on British Steel quite holds up today -- the British hit "United" is a simplistic (not just simplified) football-chant anthem in the unfortunate tradition of "Take on the World," while "You Don't Have to Be OId to Be Wise" wallows in the sort of "eff your parents, man!" sentiments that are currently used to market kids' breakfast cereals. These bits of blatant pandering can leave more than a whiff of unease about the band's commercial calculations, and foreshadow the temporary creative slip on the follow-up, Point of Entry. Still, on the whole, British Steel is too important an album to have its historical stature diluted by minor inconsistencies. Rather, it sealed Judas Priest's status as genre icons, and kick-started heavy metal's glory days of the 1980s. It went Top Five in the U.K. and became their first Top 40 album in the U.S., going platinum in the process and paving the way for countless imitators and innovators alike.© Steve Huey /TiVo

With Índia, Gal Costa completely abandoned the absurd, screaming guitars and wild drumming for some of the lushest, most sophisticated, and most complex arrangements of her career. Her voice is clear and inviting as always, sitting perfectly with the strings, accordions, horns, reeds, and percussion that swirl around, effortlessly punctuating the romance in every track. With Gilberto Gil alongside on acoustic guitar and musical director, the arrangements definitely glow with his polyphonic personality, but these songs have a feel all their own -- sounding as if they blossomed out of necessity and the sharp edge of elegance. Índia seems as if it were conceived with ideas walled off to past influences and future aspirations, holding a timeless quality, leaving one to wonder if Costa and Gil were at all aware of what they were producing while it was happening or if they were completely swept up in the magic of the moment. Even though the hugely influential Tropicalia movement was over by the time of this release, Índia unquestionably shows that Costa's inventiveness was still unfolding and impulsive and should be considered by the wave of Tropicalia collectors as a worthy addition to the assortment of recordings in that it shows how a major player in that movement transferred her ambitions to a completely different direction without forsaking her class or drive.© Gregory McIntosh /TiVo

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Presidents of the United States of America employed a bit of synergy on Election Day 2004, releasing lovingly remastered, expanded editions of their 1995 debut and the 2000 LP Freaked Out and Small. It was the debut that blew up originally, positing the Presidents in the midst of the mid-'90s grunge explosion with singles like "Peaches," "Lump," and "Kitty." With their modified lineup -- vocalist Chris Ballew played a "basitar," while cohort Dave Dederer rocked the "guitbass" -- PUSA couldn't create the thick sonics of their fellow Seattle grungers. But their quirky take on punk-pop did help expand the palette of MTV and alternative radio, and make their oddball singles part of the enduring sound of the era. This expanded edition arrives via Ballew, Dederer, and drummer Jason Finn's own PUSA imprint. It includes the original album in its entirety, as well as 12 bonus tracks and demos dating from the same era. (And mindset, as "Carolyn's Booty" proves. "I caught a glimpse of Carolyn's booty/As she was going from the bathroom into my bedroom....") Presidents fans will dig the demos, especially. Taken from Ballew's four-track cassette demos, they're a gloriously weird jumble of muffled Mellow Gold-era Beckisms ("Stranger" and "Boll Weevil," particularly) and the kind of loopy humor that would bloom on Presidents itself. If that's not enough bonus material, this "Ten Year Super Bonus Special Anniversary" edition includes a "Super Bonus Thrillpack DVD," with videos, live material, and commentary from the band. Vote yes on the Presidents!© Johnny Loftus /TiVo

On their debut album for Astralwerks/Source, Phoenix applies a slick electronica aesthetic to traditional pop/rock songwriting, resulting in a quite adventurous album capable of re-organizing perceptions about 1980s-style verse-chorus-verse guitar pop. Of course, the fact that the group members come from France gives them the necessary perspective on commercial American pop/rock from the past. With this perspective, they bring fresh life to something that grew stale fast, primarily with their textural approach to songwriting. For instance, the catchy vocal hook from "Too Young" seems far too melodic for its own good, mostly from the pristine production that brings an uncanny gleam to Thomas Mars' already warm voice. Furthermore, one can pick pretty much any instrument in any given song and appreciate the way the sounds come alive in ways that few pop/rock songs are capable of: the percussion gently rattles far too crisply, the bass guitar sounds more like a house bassline than an actual guitar riff, and the subtle guitar sounds seem just too little like the oft-stale sounds that have been associated with guitars over the years. In sum, the album sounds great, but the allure goes deeper than just production. The band understands how to write catchy songs that manage to retain an innocent aura of simplicity and accessibility without coming off contrived. To just think of United as an album of slick pop/rock postmodernism would be cheapening; think of the album as an uncanny yet earnest showcase of what makes pop/rock pop without the gaudy trendiness that now makes the 1980s seem so distasteful.© Jason Birchmeier /TiVo