All the heavy lifting of his comeback finished, Morrissey settles into a robust middle age on Years of Refusal, an evocation of his thick Your Arsenal sound that doesn't feel like a conscious re-creation -- rather, this just is who Moz is, an old brawler who refuses to hang up his gloves or settle a grudge. The sound remains the same but the songs don't quite: although this is also produced by Jerry Finn, this isn't the deliberate revival of You Are the Quarry, all sharp edges and metallic sheen, the better to rope in the young emo kids who came of age after Maladjusted, nor is it the gentle prog pretensions of the Tony Visconti-produced Ringleader of the Tormentors. Years of Refusal is comfortable in its settled nature, in its roaring guitars and swaying melodies, sometimes ratcheting up the aggression -- especially so on the tight, compacted opener, "Something Is Squeezing My Skull" -- but often just riding along, assured in its might and wit, never feeling the need to change for change's sake. Such conservatism has long been part of Morrissey's makeup -- when everybody pined for a synthesized future in the Thatcher/Reagan years, he sought refuge in the past -- and now that he has people paying attention again, he's fine with not changing the sound and writing songs about his happy middle-aged miserablism, a miserablism that increasingly feels like a device to fuel Morrissey's satire. Morrissey has never been reluctant to turn his wit upon himself but he relishes sending up his moping persona and advancing age here, resulting in some excellent quips and asides, along with some nicely honed ballads like "You Were Good in Your Time." Along with "That's How People Grow Up," where the perennially broken-hearted Moz acknowledges that there are worse things in life than never being someone's sweetie, this song is the best example of how Morrissey is feeling his years -- contrary to the implications within the album's title, he's not fretting about his age but throwing his arms around it, giving Years of Refusal a nicely comfortable feel that's welcome after the slightly strident overtones of its predecessors. Nothing here is surprising, of course, but Years of Refusal is a full-bodied, full-blooded album that also happens to be fully realized -- even if it is on a rather modest scale.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

"I do one thing/I do it well," Philip Anselmo hoarsely screams to start the "Symptom of the Universe"-inspired "The Man That Follows Hell," but the fact is he's sorely mistaken on one count. The erstwhile Pantera prowler does a heck of a lot more than only one thing, as evidenced by his numerous side projects, of which Down is the most prominent. As for doing it well -- not to say that the long-awaited sophomore disc is a waste of time, but Down II lacks the precision punch of NOLA. Perhaps that's the fault of the debut, which saw the supergroup supersede even the lofty expectations brought about by the pedigree, but even on its own, the second outing suffers from way too much Black Sabbath meets Black Oak (and not nearly enough Black Flag), which wouldn't in and of itself be a bad thing necessarily, except for the one-dimensional portrayal of said influences. The blame, oddly enough, doesn't belong to Anselmo. Even though the mouthpiece is the most prominent, his pipes generally show the range that has allowed the New Orleans native to reach demigod status among metal aficionados, gutturally blasting out tortured-soul lyrics that all seem to address his state of mind and body (legend has it the disc was recorded in a rural Louisiana swamp under the influence of quite a few narcotics). Pepper Keenan's shtick is a holdover from the last couple of Corrosion of Conformity discs, and except for the fact that Anselmo is a much better singer than Keenan and the material is far darker than he usually takes his main project lyrically, much of Down II could have appeared on a new Corrosion of Conformity album and few would have blinked an eye. Which means his contribution to the music is great, but a push in terms of the quality of said roughage. However, the rhythm section of Pantera bass-mate Rex Brown (who replaced Todd Strange for this album) and Jim Bower is the main failing. The thing that made Sabbath and the '70s Southern rock legends great was having prominent rhythm sections that were unique and able to stand on their own. These two are content to provide only the basic, minimal amount of contributions, and merely providing a solid backbeat is not enough to lift the disc from the doldrums. A few tracks stand out, like the almost psychedelic "Beautifully Depressed," which revels in its contradiction, and the closing "Landing on the Mountains of Meggido," a nearly eight-minute epic which is reminiscent Led Zeppelin if they were truly evil and didn't just play the part on TV. But too much of Down II is stuck in somewhat-speedier-than-stoner rock mid-tempos that all run together to form an album that doesn't go nowhere fast or somewhere slow, but just meanders without really ever starting the journey.© Brian O'Neill /TiVo

Millie Jackson's debut is one of the freshest albums of her career, her style remarkably mature and the sound an infectious blend of '60s soul influences (from Motown to Stax to early Philly soul). Jackson's just as tough and aggressively honest here as she would be on her breakout, 1974's Caught Up, and songs like "I Ain't Giving Up" and "I Miss You Baby" are of the same high caliber. She injects the perfect measure of anger and genuine confusion into the hypocrisy fable "A Child of God (It's Hard to Believe)" (her first R&B hit) and has no trouble switching gears for the affectionate "My Man, a Sweet Man," with a driving bassline and handclaps making direct connections to the classic Motown sound. The biggest hit here was another love song, the swinging "Ask Me What You Want," her second R&B Top Ten entry. Even though it never came together quite like Caught Up, Jackson's first LP introduced a major talent to the R&B world.© John Bush /TiVo

Although his recording career only lasted five years, from 1962 through 1967 (seven studio albums in all), with his biggest hits coming in the last two years of that time, and his only number one, "(Sittin' On) The Dock of the Bay," after his death, Otis Redding is still widely considered the greatest performer of the classic soul era, a designation he undoubtedly deserves. A dynamic performer and a more than competent songwriter ("Dock of the Bay," for instance, is a Redding original), he brought the energy and directness of gospel into the secular world with a fervor and passion that made his songs, and particularly his live versions of them, into gritty sermons on the joy, loss, pain, and yearning that attends being in love. It helped, too, that his backing outfit on most of his tracks was the great Stax Records house band the MG's, who knew how to punch in and stomp it and also when to lay back in a quiet storm behind him, and the band and Redding together were an unstoppable force. There have been plenty of Redding compilations over the years, with this one, The King of Soul, being yet another one, but it is distinctive for its breadth, tracking the arc of Redding's career through 92 tracks arranged chronologically over four discs, and because it also, particularly when covering the early years, includes mono mixes, which often carried more tightly focused punch than the stereo ones. Appearing during the 50th anniversary year of the release of Redding's debut album, Pain in My Heart, this set tells the story of the King of Soul as well as any other compilation out there. Everything essential is here, and with Otis Redding, it's pretty much all essential. He was that kind of artist.© Steve Leggett /TiVo

George Harrison had two periods of great commercial success, separated by 15 years and two record labels. This extended gap is the chief reason there hasn't been a career-spanning Harrison collection until 2009's Let It Roll: Songs By George Harrison, the first-ever disc to gather songs from George's stints at both Apple and Dark Horse, and only his third-ever hits collection, following 1976's Beatles-heavy The Best of George Harrison and The Best of Dark Horse, released in 1989 in the afterglow of Cloud Nine's comeback success. Let It Roll balances these two periods, swapping any Beatles-era song ("Something," "Here Comes the Sun," "While My Guitar Gently Weeps") for a live version from The Concert for Bangladesh, then mixing it all up chronologically, so the set starts with the pristine bounce of "Got My Mind Set on You" before giving way to "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)" If anything jars, it's the sounds of times, as Jeff Lynne's clean, manicured arrangements don't necessarily fit with Phil Spector's lush, magisterial productions, but that's a minor quibble about a useful compilation that consolidates all of Harrison's signature tunes on one very enjoyable disc.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

On 19 June 2006, someone called Taylor Swift released her first single, Tim McGraw, a straightforward homage to the country singer of the same name. She was only 17 and stood out as a potential future queen of country pop... A good decade later, queen she is: but of pop tout court! The Disney cowgirl getup is gone, replaced by the pop R&B icon who has conquered the heights of the charts, but who, above all, has been able to impose her style and her writing as a canonical part of the modern genre. With Reputation, her royal crown never threatens to fall from her head. On the contrary. With this sixth album, Taylor Swift certainly has not equalled 1989, her most accomplished record released in 2014, though she confirms that she is to her times what Madonna was to the 80s and 90s. Really, it should be enjoyed for what it is: great pop, with catchy choruses, pumped–up production (the Swedish pairing of Max Martin/Shellback as well as the American Jack Antonoff are in charge here) and her autobiographical lyrics which juggle with looove, liiife, fruuustration, saaadness, haaappiness, etc. Here, Taylor Swift unburdens her soul, in particular about how the limelight can burn, especially on Call It What You Want where she explains that she isn't what she's said to be… this saccharine orgy concludes with an even more melancholy piano ballad, New Year’s Day. We leave Reputation realising that the star has pulled clearly away ahead of Katy Perry, Lady Gaga and Miley Cyrus. © CM/Qobuz

On Paramore's first album in five years, singer Hayley Williams is worn out by the world—but weariness has never sounded more appealing. Opener "This Is Why" serves up disco-diva vocals and liquid-gold Chic-style bass for a tune about paranoia ("This is why I don't leave the house/ You said the coast is clear/ But you won't catch me out") and the encroaching dangers of social media. "If you have an opinion/ maybe you should shove it … might be best to keep it to yourself," sings Williams, who stepped away from Instagram a while back with the intention of  "looking up and out, rather than down." The suck of screen time—and how modern-day doom scrolling both brings us together as a community but also causes dissociation—is also the theme of "The News:" "So far from the faultline … I'm safe inside/ But I worry and I give money/ And I feel useless behind this computer," she sings, while the percussion skitters. Deliciously, it would've fit right in on the band's 2007 classic Riot! But they've learned a lot since that album, including how a velvet hammer is just as effective as nonstop thunderous bludgeoning. Songs like "Figure 8" and angular "You First" (featuring the great line "I'm both the killer and the final girl") mix emo hallmarks and more subtle, even lush dynamics. "Running Out of Time"—with its lament of there never being enough time to do everything you want or feel obligated to do—finds Williams trying on silky, Lisa Stansfield-style vocals on the verses and pure agitation elsewhere, against funky guitar and drum splashes. She also gets playfully experimental with "C'est Comme Ça," a punky track that finds the singer trying on an affect that is a little bit goth and a little bit Rockwell á la "Somebody's Watching Me:" "In a single year, I've aged one hundred/ My social life, a chiropractic appointment/ Sit still long enough to listen to yourself/ Or maybe just long enough for you to atrophy to hell." (That said, the singer has admitted that "I'm trying to get un-addicted to a survival narrative.") There's a floaty ballad ("Liar"), tense post-punk guitars contrasted with disco-ball dreaminess ("Big Man, Little Dignity") and a plush Cocteau Twins moment ("Crave"). Uneasy listening at its best. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Nancy Sinatra and the team at Light in the Attic knocked it out of the park with the 2021 compilation Start Walkin' 1965-1976, an absolutely top-shelf selection of twenty-three of singer's best cuts from her prime era that beautifully showcased her hits as much as it did the wide streak of weird that ran through much of her material during that time. That set was so good that one would be rightfully suspicious that this 2023 companion piece focused on deep cuts, rarities, and unreleased tracks would be a barrel-scraping exercise meant for completists only. Well, the barrel may be getting scraped, but Nancy Sinatra's output from the mid-'60s through the mid-'70s was a delightful combination of high-gloss AM radio perfection and freewheeling experimentation.  These tracks may not have had the same cultural impact as "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'" or "Some Velvet Morning" but are still rewarding in their own way.The collection starts off strong with the evocative pop-noir of "The City Never Sleeps at Night" (the bouncy b-side of "Boots") and "The Last of the Secret Agents," a dazzlingly goofy novelty number that served as the title theme for a 1966 parody of James Bond films starring Sinatra. Although there are a few weaker numbers scattered throughout—"Tony Rome" is atypically apathetic, and an inexplicable cover of the Move's "Flowers in the Rain" shows that baroque psychedelia may not have been Sinatra's forte—Keep Walkin' is more than balanced out by dizzyingly great numbers like the languid and louche "Easy Evil" (a 1972 demo that was previously only available on the 1998 Sheet Music compilation) that show how her willingness to be weird never abated.Sinatra's early '70s material is often overlooked. Not only did the cultural zeitgeist decidedly move on from her style—too square for the cool kids and too quirky to be "easy listening"—but she only released two albums during the decade, both in 1972. She nonetheless had a great run of non-LP singles between 1973 and 1976, and while some of those A-sides made their way onto the Start Walkin' collection, Keep Walkin' rounds out the tracklist by including her phenomenal cover of Lynsey De Paul's "Sugar Me" (as well as the B-side, a somewhat questionable cover of "Ain't No Sunshine") and the stunning "Kinky Love" from 1976. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Ella Fitzgerald had the ability to personalize some of the most recognizable material from the foremost songwriters in American popular music history. In this instance, the combination of Cole Porter's words and Fitzgerald's interpretation of them created one of the most sought after sessions in vocal history -- embraced by jazz and pop fans alike, transcending boundaries often associated with those genres. Originally released in 1956 on the Verve label, such standards as "Night and Day," "I Love Paris," "What Is This Thing Called Love," "I've Got You Under My Skin," "You're the Top," and "Love for Sale" secured one of Ella Fitzgerald's crowning moments. The success of these early Porter (and previous Gershwin) sessions brought about numerous interpretations of other songbooks throughout the next several years including those of Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, and Irving Berlin.© Al Campbell /TiVo

The first half of 2022's two solo releases from Jack White (acoustic Entering Heaven Alive is out in July), Fear of the Dawn is a solid reminder the rock 'n' roll isn't dead: Call it White's Sabbath era. "Taking Me Back" is as heavy, and as '70s, as anything he's done, layered with fuzzed-out guitar, underwater drums, and in-and-out effects that make the whole thing sound so big it's shorting out the system. The title track absolutely swings, its bass like an 18-wheeler plowing down a highway at midnight—steady while the guitar squalls, out of control and all over the place, refusing to between the lines. White works himself up into a tent-revival preacher froth—on the cusp of evangelism and madness—on "What's the Trick": "Stomping on a box that I thought was empty/ But there was something sharp inside," he rants as a guitar maniacally runs scales through a monster filter. And that's hardly the weirdest moment. White, a guy who has never seemed casual or like he takes his purpose lightly, is in a playful, experimental mood. "Into the Twilight" starts with a bit of Manhattan Transfer-style vocals, then leaps fearlessly into '70s funk and disco camp, throwing in a William S. Burroughs sample ("When you cut into the present, the future leaks out") and down-and-dirty keys. "Hi-De-Ho" kicks in with mystical vocalization before A Tribe Called Quest's Q-Tip rolls up with some '80s style rap—nodding to the obvious reference ("Hi-de-hi-de-ho is a Calloway vibe") and unleashing some fun top-of-their-game nonsense: "Hurting real bad, like Stevie Wonder with contusions/ It's a guitar chuck coming from Chuck Berry/ Hi-de-high tones from Minnie Rip, Mariah Carey/ Olajuwon post moves, Bron or Embiid/ Everybody got it in 'em, find yours and succeed."  "That Was Then, This Is Now" incorporates '70s bubblegum glam metal á la The Sweet, "Eosophobia" rides a jackhammer rhythm that slides sideways into The Edge-style atmospherics and laser-show effects, and "The White Raven" features both a pounding, industrial grind and haunted-house howls. "My camouflage is invisible … my armor is invincible," White sings, big, freewheeling and refreshed. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Paramore take a boldly inventive approach to the remix album on 2023's Re: This Is Why. A companion album to their Billboard 200 number two-charting seventh studio album, This Is Why, Re: This Is Why features all of the songs from the original, either remixed in the classic sense or re-recorded and reworked by other artists. This is the band's first album of the remix kind and nicely straddles the line between the dance traditions from which remix culture was born and the pop covers trend that emerged with the rise of social-media platforms. In this spirit, Paramore picked bands and artists who influenced them, or who were in turn influenced by them, or who they simply really like. Of the former group, British indie rock outfit Foals take on the title track, remixing the flagship single into a atmospheric club anthem that brings out even more of the '60s-style psychedelia at the core of the song. Yet more dance-oriented is DJ Zane Lowe's remix of "Running Out of Time." Lowe is a longtime supporter of the band, having interviewed them in-depth several times, and his spiraling, '80s-house-infused remix feels particularly celebratory. Of the re-recorded tracks, we get a fittingly post-punk version of "C’est Comme Ça" from England's Wet Leg that evokes their own "Chaise Longue." Equally inspired is Claud's intimately rendered acoustic take on the ballad "Crave" that brings out all of the song's yearning qualities. Also included is a previously unreleased demo of "Sanity," a song Paramore recorded during the This Is Why sessions but left off the album. That track, as with much of Re: This Is Why, is as artfully hooky and emotionally compelling as anything on the original album.© Matt Collar /TiVo

Her self-titled debut LP (later retitled Ain't No Mountain High Enough after the single became a hit) was arguably her finest solo work at Motown and perhaps her best ever; it was certainly among her most stunning. Everyone who doubted whether Diana Ross could sustain a career outside the Supremes found out immediately that she would be a star. The single "Reach Out and Touch (Somebody's Hand)" remains a staple in her shows, and is still her finest message track.© Ron Wynn /TiVo