Cat Power—Chan Marshall—wanted to mark the moment in 1966 that "informs everything …  this precipice of time that changed music forever": Bob Dylan's "Royal Albert Hall Concert" (actually played at the Manchester Free Trade Hall), the one when he switched from acoustic to electric midway through—prompting an incensed folk purist to yell out "Judas!" Fifty-six years after that concert, Marshall delivered a sublime song-for-song re-creation of the set, at the actual Royal Albert Hall. "I'm not being Bob … I'm just recreating it, that's all. But not making it mine," she has said. Inevitably, though, the songs do become hers. It's evident right away, from "She Belongs to Me" (and shortly after, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"), the influence Dylan has long had on Cat Power's music. But with her husky voice, so like Nico's now and far from Dylan's youthful reediness, revealing traces of her Georgia upbringing ("She don't look baaaaack") and contrasting the clean acoustic guitar and shiny harmonica, she owns it. "Desolation Row" is a twelve-and-a-half minute marvel. The guitar is not blindingly bright like Charlie McCoy's flamenco flavor, but that works well with Marshall's more serious/less jaunty air here. Without aping Dylan, she hits his inflections, putting exuberant emphasis on the ends of lines ("And the good Samaritan! He's dressing!"). Her "Visions of Johanna" underscores the prettiness of the melody, while the way she sings the name "Jo-hanna" make it feel so much more exotic than it is. She gets playful with the familiar phrasing on the chorus of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and sings "Just Like a Woman" beautifully, offering a softer, less angular version of Dylan's classic. At 50, she was twice the age of Dylan when he recorded the song for Blonde on Blonde, and you can hear—feel—the extra tread on her heart. When electrified "Tell Me Momma" kicks in like the Wizard of Oz Technicolor moment, it's as thrilling as it's supposed to be, the first word of the titular line bitingly crisp each time. "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" plays up the soulful grooviness that always feels a little buried on Dylan's live recording, while "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" expertly captures his wild-eyed edginess. Marshall's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is more elegant, even with its raw edges, than Dylan's young-man machismo. She does not recreate things down to the between-song patter but there is a moment, just before "Ballad of a Thin Man" (so slinky, so powerful), when someone yells out "Judas!"—and Marshall, serenely, responds, "Jesus." "I wasn't expecting the audience to recreate their part of the original show as well, but then I wanted to set the record straight—in a way, Dylan is a deity to all of us who write songs," she has said. And, as it did in 1966, closer "Like a Rolling Stone" sounds like liberation; maybe even like Marshall knows some part of this is hers now. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

If you’d told David Gahan and Martin Gore a year before the release of this latest album (which was still in the making at that time) that its title would be somewhat foreboding, the pair would likely have agreed, but for a rather different reason. Memento Mori roughly translates to ‘remember you’re going to die’—that’s what was on Gahan’s mind having just entered his sixties, whilst also remembering his stepfather, the man who raised and cared for him, who had died at just 61. But fate would prove both twisted and cruel when, without warning, it would take the life of Andy Fletcher on 26th May 2022. Depeche Mode’s third man was just 60 years old.However, this sudden death was not what primarily guided the somber, melancholic content of the record. Most of it was composed during the pandemic, which must have forced the band to ask themselves countless questions about their existence, their future and how these doubts would be manifested within their music (though Fletcher’s death would inevitably alter their approach to these same compositions). This all gives rise to a record which, whilst rejecting any semblance of ‘joie-de-vivre’, is a real return to more gothic, vintage and organic sounds. The album’s quasi-industrial opener, ‘My Cosmos is Mine’, sets the tone for the darker journey to come. The album takes a more stripped-back approach to the melodies, where Gahan’s sobering voice steers clear of all excess.In the midst of this darkness, the emphasis on synthesized sounds from a seemingly bygone era strikes a nostalgic chord without losing its edge (‘Wagging Tongue’, ‘Never Let Me Go’). These textures are accompanied by more saturated tones, taking us right back to their flirtations with rock in the 90s (‘My Favourite Stranger’). Memento Mori sounds like a kind of condensed version of the band’s more delicate songs without becoming a simple reconstruction of them. It has a subtle beauty which surely highlights the expertise of the musicians behind it, despite being somewhat overshadowed by the erratic nature of their discography over the last twenty years. Light filters through the cracks here and there on this album however, like the song ‘People are Good’, reminiscent of the classic ‘People are People’ released almost forty years ago. Remember that you’re meant to enjoy it… © Chief Brody/Qobuz

Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe aren't often discussed as one of pop music's great songwriting teams, but the wonderfully eclectic body of work they've created as Pet Shop Boys speaks for itself. Since crashing into the mainstream with 1985's chart-topper, "West End Girls," the London duo have delivered a remarkably consistent barrage of tightly crafted synth pop singles that fuse dance culture with trenchant cultural commentary and an undeniable sense of melodic grace. Each of their 14 albums has reached the U.K. Top Ten, and they've sent an astonishing 42 singles into the Top 30, including number ones like "It's a Sin" and "Heart." A bevy of compilations have celebrated Pet Shop Boys' highlights over the years, and 1991's Discography: The Complete Singles Collection was a significant number three hit itself. 2023's Smash: The Singles 1985-2020 is essentially an update of the aforementioned collection and contains, in chronological order, each of their singles from this 35-year period. In unpacking its 55-song sequence, the first thing one notices is the uniform quality of their songs: elegantly constructed, dense with pop nutrients, undeniably catchy, yet ever so smart. Tennant is an underrated vocalist who has continually pushed his range over the years, balancing wry asides and spoken word sections with his reedy and surprisingly nimble tenor. Lowe's ear for a catchy hook is another defining element and ranges from subtle (1990's droll standout "Being Boring") to grandiose (2013's marvelous banger "Love Is a Bourgeois Construct"). What's more, the pair has assembled this durable catalog almost without interruption, reliably delivering singles, albums, remixes, and EPs almost annually since their debut. Work ethic and quality don't always go hand in hand, but Pet Shop Boys have both in spades.© Timothy Monger /TiVo

Countdown to Ecstasy wasn't half the hit that Can't Buy a Thrill was, and Steely Dan responded by trimming the lengthy instrumental jams that were scattered across Countdown and concentrating on concise songs for Pretzel Logic. While the shorter songs usually indicate a tendency toward pop conventions, that's not the case with Pretzel Logic. Instead of relying on easy hooks, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen assembled their most complex and cynical set of songs to date. Dense with harmonics, countermelodies, and bop phrasing, Pretzel Logic is vibrant with unpredictable musical juxtapositions and snide, but very funny, wordplay. Listen to how the album's hit single, "Rikki Don't Lose That Number," opens with a syncopated piano line that evolves into a graceful pop melody, or how the title track winds from a blues to a jazzy chorus -- Becker and Fagen's craft has become seamless while remaining idiosyncratic and thrillingly accessible. Since the songs are now paramount, it makes sense that Pretzel Logic is less of a band-oriented album than Countdown to Ecstasy, yet it is the richest album in their catalog, one where the backhanded Dylan tribute "Barrytown" can sit comfortably next to the gorgeous "Any Major Dude Will Tell You." Steely Dan made more accomplished albums than Pretzel Logic, but they never made a better one.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Songs in the Key of Life was Stevie Wonder's longest, most ambitious collection of songs, a two-LP (plus accompanying EP) set that -- just as the title promised -- touched on nearly every issue under the sun, and did it all with ambitious (even for him), wide-ranging arrangements and some of the best performances of Wonder's career. The opening "Love's in Need of Love Today" and "Have a Talk with God" are curiously subdued, but Stevie soon kicks into gear with "Village Ghetto Land," a fierce exposé of ghetto neglect set to a satirical Baroque synthesizer. Hot on its heels comes the torrid fusion jam "Contusion," a big, brassy hit tribute to the recently departed Duke Ellington in "Sir Duke," and (another hit, this one a Grammy winner as well) the bumping poem to his childhood, "I Wish." Though they didn't necessarily appear in order, Songs in the Key of Life contains nearly a full album on love and relationships, along with another full album on issues social and spiritual. Fans of the love album Talking Book can marvel that he sets the bar even higher here, with brilliant material like the tenderly cathartic and gloriously redemptive "Joy Inside My Tears," the two-part, smooth-and-rough "Ordinary Pain," the bitterly ironic "All Day Sucker," or another classic heartbreaker, "Summer Soft." Those inclined toward Stevie Wonder the social-issues artist had quite a few songs to focus on as well: "Black Man" was a Bicentennial school lesson on remembering the vastly different people who helped build America; "Pastime Paradise" examined the plight of those who live in the past and have little hope for the future; "Village Ghetto Land" brought listeners to a nightmare of urban wasteland; and "Saturn" found Stevie questioning his kinship with the rest of humanity and amusingly imagining paradise as a residency on a distant planet. If all this sounds overwhelming, it is; Stevie Wonder had talent to spare during the mid-'70s, and instead of letting the reserve trickle out during the rest of the decade, he let it all go with one massive burst. (His only subsequent record of the '70s was the similarly gargantuan but largely instrumental soundtrack Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants.)© John Bush /TiVo

Note to Clapton lovers: here comes the Super Deluxe edition of an expanded compilation of his best tracks, played at the Royal Albert Hall, in London, in 1990 and 1991. It was released in the form of a double LP of fifteen tracks at the time. London’s prestigious concert hall hosted 32 of his Slowhand concerts, 18 of which were performed in succession - breaking his own record - and with four different groups. This new box set of 47 titles, three-quarters of which were previously unreleased, is this time divided into three parts (the first edition was divided into four parts); “Rock”, “Blues”, and “Orchestral”. At the time, Clapton had been accompanied by some high-flying musicians. On the first record, we find Phil Collins on drums for covers of Bob Marley’s I Shot The Sheriff , and Bob Dylan’s Knockin' On Heaven's Door. On the second record, we find Buddy Guy, Robert Cray, and Jimmy - on guitar. Jimmy is the older brother of Stevie Ray Vaughan, who died in a helicopter crash in August 1990. More reserved, performed with the National Philharmonic Orchestra, and conducted by Michael Kamen, the third record offers 10-minute-long scintillating and highly-charged versions of Crossroads, by Robert Johnson, and Layla. Almost six hours of enjoyable listening. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

Few albums can say that they have defined a generation, but (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? is undoubtedly among that elite crowd. Recorded over the course of just 15 days in 1995, the album catapulted Oasis from crossover indie act to worldwide pop phenomenon, flooding the charts with retro-rock riffs and unforgettable hooks. To say that its impact was titanic would be an understatement. It became the fastest-selling album in the UK since Michael Jackson’s Bad. It has sold over 22 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. And it was the knockout blow in the battle of Britpop, being twice as successful as their rival Blur’s contemporaneous album The Great Escape.Following up from the incredibly popular Definitely Maybe was no mean feat, but Oasis pulled it off without a hitch. The idealistic hope-against-the-odds message from their beginnings was replaced with realism and reflection. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Noel Gallagher commented that while their first album “was all about dreaming of being a pop star in a band, the second album is about actually being a pop star in a band”. They had reached where they wanted to be, and were wondering what lay beyond fame and fortune. The Mancunians had clearly enjoyed enough sex, drugs and rock’n’roll to yield four sides of vinyl, though they never limited themselves purely to counter-culture clichés. Noel Gallagher’s songwriting took on a notably more introspective tone, nestled in amongst jauntier tracks like She’s Electric and Roll With It. His philosophising shone through perhaps most obviously on Cast No Shadow, a song which was dedicated to The Verve’s frontman Richard Ashcroft and details the struggle that songwriters (and more universally, all of us) face when they desperately try to say the right thing and it keeps coming out wrong. Elsewhere, we find the attitude and aloofness that Oasis do so well. The cocaine anthem Morning Glory rides along a continuous wave of stadium-filling guitars as Liam Gallagher sings “All your dreams are made / When you’re chained to the mirror and the razor blade”. And then of course, there are Oasis’ biggest hits: Don’t Look Back In Anger, which urges the listener to live regret-free; Champagne Supernova, which despite its famously nonsensical lyrics (Slowly walking down the hall / Faster than a cannonball we’re looking at you) resonates with people the world over; and the often-imitated-never-replicated Wonderwall, where you’d be hard-pressed to find any Brit who doesn’t know all the words. Being more than just wedding dancefloor fillers and karaoke classics, the three tracks brilliantly capture the band’s skill for drawing complexity from simplicity. Ultimately, this album marked the beginning of the long-drawn-out end for Oasis and the albums that followed never quite lived up to the glorious rock and carefree euphoria found here. But then that’s another story… © Abi Church/Qobuz

At 23 years of age, Stevie Wonder’s music is in its innovative stages in Innervisions, released on August 3, 1973. Playing all kinds of instruments, featuring musicians such as Jeff Beck, Ray Parker Jr., David Sanborn and Buzz Feiten, and touching on a range of themes from drugs, ghetto, spirituality, politics, racism and of course love with a big L, Michigan’s musical genius manages to create the ultimate fusion of soul, rhythm’n’blues, funk and pop. The sound of his synthesisers was unprecedented at the time and works well with this spiritual soul music that is full of crazy melodies. Innervisions provides the perfect soundtrack for difficult times in America, like in Living for The City where Stevie recalls the trials and tribulations of a young black man from Mississippi who went to New York for a job he would never get, before ending up behind bars (to make his 7-minute composition even more realistic, he incorporates street recordings, siren sounds and arrest-dialogues). With He’s Misstra Know-It-All, Stevie takes a thinly-veiled dig against the incumbent president, Richard Nixon. This album is the perfect addition to Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On released two years earlier as we leave the blues behind and embrace the broken American dream instead. It’s also very personal for Stevie Wonder, who has the original Innervisions cover engraved in braille, “This is my music. It’s all I have to say to you and all that I feel. Know that your love helps mine to stay strong”. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

It goes without saying that this second album was hotly anticipated. Having shot to international superstardom with When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and having already taken five Grammy Awards, Billie Eilish has flipped the script without changing the fundamentals. Her tortured dark pop has evolved with the ironically-titled Happier Than Ever. "Almost none of the songs on this album are joyful", she points out. Take the cover, where she poses as Our Lady of Sorrows, this gifted but tearful icon chooses to clothe yesterday's sorrows in soft and voluptuous pop sounds. Where the last album was all about nightmarish fiction, this more intimate work takes a realist turn. Very eclectic musically, sometimes vintage, sometimes futuristic, its sixteen tracks rack up one surprise after another: Billie is never where you expect her to be.The sequences are carefully worked-out. Eilish oscillates between slow tempos (Getting Older, Billie bossa nova) and haunting EDM beats on Oxytocin – the hormone of love – or minimalist sounds (as on OverHeated), making for an amazing mix of genres. Thus, among Grimes-like syncopated choruses (GOLDWING), autotuned R'N'B (NDA) in the style of 070 Shake, folk ballads (Halley's Comet) and spartan soundscapes (Not My Responsibility), she manages to slip in the guitar-vocals number "Your Power", an emotional peak on which she speaks about suffering abuse. Accompanied by her brother, Finneas O'Connell, an enjoying a slick production job, Billie Eilish has created a masterful record which she hoped would prove timeless. That ambition is easy to understand when she mentions Frank Sinatra, Antonio Carlos Jobim and Julie London as influences. "It was the most enriching and deepest experience I have ever had with my music," she says. Fortunately, at just 19, there are likely to be many more. © Charlotte Saintoin / Qobuz

OMD haven’t changed much in five decades but the pioneers of synthpop have warned that this 14th album – the fourth since coming back together in 2006 – would undoubtedly be their last. Well into their sixties, Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys plan to hang up the hat after one final tour with this Bauhaus Staircase in order to enjoy a well-deserved retirement. For this final studio project, OMD does what they do best, with a dozen unadulterated synth pop tracks, bringing everything full circle. Echoing their worldwide 1980 hit “Enola Gay,” which spoke out against the horror of the atomic bomb, their desire to protest can be felt in what they consider to be their “most political album to date".It’s true that they seem to be more inspired when they’re speaking out against something, as on “Kleptocracy,” addressed to Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Boris Johnson. The Englishmen also seem very concerned about the future of the human race, as on “Anthropocene,” which would’ve ignited Ibiza at the end of the 80s with its Balearic melody, or the excellent “Evolution of Species,” a clear homage to Kraftwerk, a key group in Andy McCluskey’s imaginary since he saw them in 1975 at the age of 16 in Liverpool - “the concert that changed his life.” OMD then finishes off with “Healing,” a magnificent synth ballad that sublimely brings to an end the adventure of this key international pop group. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

Singing standards, trying to bring something different to or imprint your style on a tune made famous by Sinatra, Garland or Holiday, is a brave venture in the 21st century. The eclectic and unpredictable Rickie Lee Jones, has also always been a sneakily talented, genre-spanning songwriter who approaches covers with the same determination she brings to her own songs. Jones has carefully built a proud though underappreciated career that now gives her the gravitas to have a little fun on the aptly named Pieces of Treasure. As she did for a selection of rock and pop covers on 2019's Kicks, Jones leans into well-known (and well-worn) pop music standards like Jimmy McHugh's' bouncy "Sunny Side of the Street" or Kurt Weill's enchanting ode to age, "September Song." Rather than drowning these chestnuts in sentimentality, she works her nimble vocal way at leisurely tempos that encourage finely detailed renditions, the kind she's always been fabulous at finding. The opener "Just in Time" is an on- target success as is her easy, swinging run through of George and Ira Gershwin's "They Can' Take That Away From Me" where just a bit of scatting is added. While the late Jimmy Scott will always own the Jimmy Van Heusen/Sammy Cohen knockout "All The Way," Jones gives her all here. Set against just an acoustic guitar, she earnestly wends her way through a warm version of "On the Sunny Side of the Street" in which the last note is held for more than a beat. Working again with Russ Titelman who, along with Lenny Waronker, produced her 1979 debut album, Jones says this album made her feel young again and was like a reunion with herself.  Titelman has said of Pieces of Treasure's sessions, "I adore the young Rickie Lee, but I love even more the old dame I watched pour her heart out every time she got in front of a microphone." Recorded with the very spare accompaniment of mostly just pianist Rob Mounsey, with appearances by guitarist Russell Malone and vibraphonist Mike Mainieri, Pieces of Treasure was tracked in New York City at Bass Hit Studio, whose owner Dave Darlington was one of four engineers, and also mixed the album.) As befits the project, Jones is close-mic'd and the instrumentalists are tastefully kept in the background. Rickie Lee Jones sounds reinvigorated by this trip down Tin Pan Alley. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

When Meteora landed in 2003, Linkin Park were on top of the rock world with a debut that would go on to become one of the best-selling albums of the 21st century and a mountain of pressure for a follow-up. So when critics got hold of what they considered Hybrid Theory 2.0, it might have seemed like the group couldn't live up to the early hype. However, Meteora was another globe-dominating smash that expanded their sonic boundaries and added a slew of hits to their repertoire, offering a matured, fully realized vision of the Linkin Park sound. That winning collision of alternative metal, electronic production, and old school hip-hop was expanded to epic scope, taking everything that worked on the first pass, amplifying it, and setting the stage for their various forays in the decade to come. In the eye of the storm whipped up by drummer Rob Bourdon, guitarist Brad Delson, bassist Dave Farrell, and producer/artistic mastermind Joe Hahn, the band's heart -- vocalist Chester Bennington and rapper Mike Shinoda -- delivers what are arguably the finest examples of their trademark vocal back-and-forth. On lead single "Somewhere I Belong," Bennington pivots between pensive whispers and anguished cries as Shinoda tries to cleanse himself of the relatable self-doubt and fear that connected the band to a legion of listeners. That inner turmoil was key to making them such a generational voice, and those emotions were pushed to further extremes across tracks like the towering "Lying from You" (home to one of Bennington's bloodiest throat-shredders); the menacing, riff-packed assault "Hit the Floor"; and the soaring "From the Inside," a stadium-sized combo of "Crawling" and "My December." Beyond these familiar moments, the band also made fearless jumps into new territory, dropping an East Asian shakuhachi flute into the Shinoda rap showcase "Nobody's Listening," joining strings and programmed loops on the skittering, near-electronica "Breaking the Habit," and hinting at future soundtrack work with the atmospheric turntable extravaganza "Session." Two tracks in particular have made this a classic in the Linkin Park catalog. From the first notes of the sampled string loop, it was clear that "Faint" was unlike anything they'd done before. Atop galloping riffs and that repeated melody, it energized Meteora with a bright freshness that was smashed by a lurching drop and another one of Bennington's toe-curling death roars. On the other end of the spectrum, "Numb" built upon the desperation and frustration of "In the End," amplified by a melodic keyboard riff, pensive production, a chest-caving guitar-and-drum attack, and one of Bennington's most impassioned deliveries. As every element gels together at the close, he wails, "And I know I may end up failing too/But I know you were just like me with someone disappointed in you," releasing a pain so palpable that the catharsis almost feels good. Selling that pain with a side of hope generated another international hit that cemented the group as one of the top acts of their generation. Although they'd soon switch things up with far different results, Meteora stands tall as the most refined representation of the "classic" Linkin Park sound, an enduring statement that helped the young band capture lightning in a bottle for a second time.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

True Blue is the album where Madonna truly became Madonna the Superstar -- the endlessly ambitious, fearlessly provocative entertainer who knew how to outrage, spark debates, get good reviews -- and make good music while she's at it. To complain that True Blue is calculated is to not get Madonna -- that's a large part of what she does, and she is exceptional at it, but she also makes fine music. What's brilliant about True Blue is that she does both here, using the music to hook in critics just as she's baiting a mass audience with such masterstrokes as "Papa Don't Preach," where she defiantly states she's keeping her baby. Her real trick here, however, is transcending her status as a dance-pop diva by consciously recalling classic girl group pop ("True Blue," "Jimmy Jimmy") to snag the critics, while deepening the dance grooves ("Open Your Heart," "Where's the Party"), touching on Latin rhythms ("La Isla Bonita"), making a plea for world peace ("Love Makes the World Go Round"), and delivering a tremendous ballad that rewrites the rules of adult contemporary crossover ("Live to Tell"). It's even harder to have the entire album play as an organic, cohesive work. Certainly, there's some calculation behind the entire thing, but what matters is the end result, one of the great dance-pop albums, a record that demonstrates Madonna's true skills as a songwriter, record-maker, provocateur, and entertainer through its wide reach, accomplishment, and sheer sense of fun.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

It was do or die for Toto on the group's fourth album, and they rose to the challenge. Largely dispensing with the anonymous studio rock that had characterized their first three releases, the band worked harder on its melodies, made sure its simple lyrics treated romantic subjects, augmented Bobby Kimball's vocals by having other group members sing, brought in ringers like Timothy B. Schmit, and slowed down the tempo to what came to be known as "power ballad" pace. Most of all, they wrote some hit songs: "Rosanna," the old story of a lovelorn lyric matched to a bouncy beat, was the gold, Top Ten comeback single accompanying the album release; "Make Believe" made the Top 30; and then, surprisingly, "Africa" hit number one ten months after the album's release. The members of Toto may have more relatives who are NARAS voters than any other group, but that still doesn't explain the sweep they achieved at the Grammys, winning six, including Album of the Year and Record of the Year (for "Rosanna"). Predictably, rock critics howled, but the Grammys helped set up the fourth single, "I Won't Hold You Back," another soft rock smash and Top Ten hit. As a result, Toto IV was both the group's comeback and its peak; it remains a definitive album of slick L.A. pop for the early '80s and Toto's best and most consistent record. Having made it, the members happily went back to sessions, where they helped write and record Michael Jackson's Thriller.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

The Allman Brothers came first, but Lynyrd Skynyrd epitomized Southern rock. The Allmans were exceptionally gifted musicians, as much bluesmen as rockers. Skynyrd was nothing but rockers, and they were Southern rockers to the bone. This didn't just mean that they were rednecks, but that they brought it all together -- the blues, country, garage rock, Southern poetry -- in a way that sounded more like the South than even the Allmans. And a large portion of that derives from their hard, lean edge, which was nowhere more apparent than on their debut album, Pronounced Leh-Nerd Skin-Nerd. Produced by Al Kooper, there are few records that sound this raw and uncompromising, especially records by debut bands. Then again, few bands sound this confident and fully formed with their first record. Perhaps the record is stronger because it's only eight songs, so there isn't a wasted moment, but that doesn't discount the sheer strength of each song. Consider the opening juxtaposition of the rollicking "I Ain't the One" with the heartbreaking "Tuesday's Gone." Two songs couldn't be more opposed, yet Skynyrd sounds equally convincing on both. If that's all the record did, it would still be fondly regarded, but it wouldn't have been influential. The genius of Skynyrd is that they un-self-consciously blended album-oriented hard rock, blues, country, and garage rock, turning it all into a distinctive sound that sounds familiar but thoroughly unique. On top of that, there's the highly individual voice of Ronnie Van Zant, a songwriter who isn't afraid to be nakedly sentimental, spin tales of the South, or to twist macho conventions with humor. And, lest we forget, while he does this, the band rocks like a motherf*cker. It's the birth of a great band that birthed an entire genre with this album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

As both an accomplished collaborator and a striking solo artist, Nils Lofgren is too talented to fit into any easy category.  He began as a classical accordionist at age five, but switched to guitar later in his youth, formed the rock band Grin, and played on Neil Young's After the Goldrush. While Lofgren has also been an on-and-off member of Crazy Horse since the early '70s, he's best known for his tenure as a member of Bruce Springsteen's E Street Band—joining in 1984 for the Born in the U.S.A. Tour. Those years with Bruce are audible in a version of the Springsteen original, "Back in Your Arms," which comes complete with backing from the Howard Gospel Choir. Another mass of voices beefs up the jumpiness of "We Better Find It," a tune with musical echoes of the 1980s. "Ain't the Truth Enough," another Bruce-like number, opens the album with the emotional reach that marks the E Streeter's best work.  Charged with a thumping beat and low-end menace, "Only Ticket Out" is the doleful tale of a tortured man who "Blacked out cold in an alley/ Full of NyQuil and stale dope." Later "Won't Cry No More," which chugs along with a steady groove, is dedicated to the late Rolling Stones drummer, Charlie Watts. In "Nothin's Easy (For Amy)," Lofgren pays tribute to his titular wife who's listed as co-producer on the album: "As I walk the hurt in this world/ People searchin' with no clue/ I take comfort in one truth/ Nothin's easy 'cept you." "Dream Killer," bathed in 1980's styled reverb, showcases Lofgren's still-supple voice and continued ability to hit the high notes in each chorus. Although the lyrics he sings are sappy—"Queen of mercy heal us with your love/ Cleanse this wasted world"—he lets loose with the album's vocal highlight on the closer, "Angel Blues." Calling a musician "a pro" is high praise and few deserve that compliment more than Nils Lofgren. © Robert Baird/Qobuz

Becoming an adult ultimately means accepting one's imperfections, unimportance, and mortality, but that doesn't mean we stop striving for the ideal, a search that's so at the center of our very being that our greatest works of art celebrate it, and often amplify it. Anguish and despair rightfully earn more Grammys, Emmys, Tonys, and Pulitzer Prizes than sweetness and light ever do, but West Coast rapper Kendrick Lamar is already on elevated masterwork number two, so expect his version of the sobering truth to sound like a party at points. He's aware, as Bilal sings here, that "Shit don't change 'til you get up and wash your ass," and don't it feel good? The sentiment is universal, but the viewpoint on his second LP is inner-city and African-American, as radio regulars like the Isley Brothers (sampled to perfection during the key track "I"), George Clinton (who helps make "Wesley's Theory" a cross between "Atomic Dog" and Dante's Inferno), and Dr. Dre (who literally phones his appearance in) put the listener in Lamar's era of Compton, just as well as Lou Reed took us to New York and Brecht took us to Weimar Republic Berlin. These G-funky moments are incredibly seductive, which helps usher the listener through the album's 80-minute runtime, plus its constant mutating (Pharrell productions, spoken word, soul power anthems, and sound collages all fly by, with few tracks ending as they began), much of it influenced, and sometimes assisted by, producer Flying Lotus and his frequent collaborator Thundercat. "u" sounds like an MP3 collection deteriorating, while the broken beat of the brilliant "Momma" will challenge the listener's balance, and yet, Lamar is such a prodigiously talented and seductive artist, his wit, wisdom, and wordplay knock all these stray molecules into place. Survivor's guilt, realizing one's destiny, and a Snoop Dogg performance of Doggystyle caliber are woven among it all; plus, highlights offer that Parliament-Funkadelic-styled subversion, as "The Blacker the Berry" ("The sweeter the juice") offers revolutionary slogans and dips for the hip. Free your mind, and your ass will follow, and at the end of this beautiful black berry, there's a miraculous "talk" between Kendrick and the legendary 2Pac, as the brutalist trailblazer mentors this profound populist. To Pimp a Butterfly is as dark, intense, complicated, and violent as Picasso's Guernica, and should hold the same importance for its genre and the same beauty for its intended audience.© David Jeffries /TiVo