Four years after the release of her previous album -- an eternity in her discography -- Ariana Grande made a graceful return to the spotlight with her revealing seventh set, Eternal Sunshine. Mostly a response to the headline-grabbing details of her relationships, as usual, the conceptual journey takes listeners through the dissolution of one union (which ended in divorce) and the slow healing that was aided along by the sparks of another (which generated no small amount of controversy). The bulk of the lyrics are a direct reference to the drama, with Grande taking the high road with poise and class, while leaning into any negative perceptions with a wink and some sass. Those tabloid-fodder moments (like "The Boy Is Mine" and "True Story") add some fuel to the flames; however, Grande makes a concerted effort to maintain focus on personal growth through introspection on tracks like the reflective "I Wish I Hated You" and "Don't Wanna Break Up Again," which humanize her into an everywoman promoting healthy self-care tactics like self-soothing and therapy. For those who had been expecting a full-on, house-influenced raver, an album packed with "Yes, And?" style bops won't be found here. Instead, Grande strikes a balance between the warm, lush R&B tones of Positions and Thank U, Next with the lighter, feel-good fare found on Sweetener. "Yes, And?" is indeed the energetic centerpiece of this album, a blissful dose of dancefloor magic that follows the "Express Yourself"/"Born This Way" lineage of ballroom-inspired empowerment anthems. Though not as buoyant, the shimmering "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" is a Robyn-esque slice of neon synths, twinkling production, and throbbing groove, which boosts the bittersweet vulnerability of her lyrics, while the sparkling kiss-off "Bye" keeps the disco revival train chugging along as Grande dances her woes away. Beyond that, Eternal Sunshine sticks close to impeccably produced midtempo songs that highlight her vocal range and the mountain of thoughts she has to get off her chest at such a pivotal stage in her life. It's anything but boring; rather, these tracks hypnotize (the reawakening of "Supernatural"), comfort ("Eternal Sunshine"), and nourish the soul like the titular rays of light ("Imperfect for You"). Closing with the horn-swelled "Ordinary Things," Grande calls on her grandmother Marjorie for some sweet, sage advice about making a relationship last, a touching bit of wisdom to frame the young artist's very adult breakup and the healing, however messy, that followed. After the late-2010s blitz that saw her conquering the charts on an annual basis with output of steadily decreasing quality, the years spent re-centering and growing up were clearly fruitful, resulting in one of her strongest, most cohesive efforts to date. Eternal Sunshine is Grande in peak form, a magical maturation that is elevated, resilient, and confidently restrained.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

For all those who have never quite recovered from Transistor Radio, one of his best albums undoubtedly (now 20 years old!), M. Ward has some good news. “I see this new album as a continuation [of Transistor Radio]”, he says. We’re therefore tuning in to Supernatural Thing with as much attention as it deserves. Calling upon the soft melodic melancholy, as reminiscent of the Beach Boys as it is of JJ Cale’s cool country tones and Jonathan Richman’s highly minimalistic style, the American songwriter continues along the alternative routes of American folk and pop. David Bowie and Daniel Johnston, (who he covers on Supernatural Thing), and many others, have also been sources of inspiration for the artist, but upon arrival, M. Ward only sounds like himself; with his threadbare velvet voice filtered through an old microphone, his pretty guitars, his dreamy production chemistry, and his tasteful guests. He duets with the likes of Neko Case, First Aid Kit, Jim James, and Shovels & Rope. His songs are rooted in 20th century Americana (including jazz and pop), yet they cast off on their own voyage. It’s almost as if they are crackling out of an abandoned vintage Cadillac’s car radio, or reaching our ears at the exact moment when we are about to fall into a dream. It’s like hearing a film soundtrack that you know you love, but can’t remember it for the life of you. M. Ward is an impressionistic magician, recycling and transforming music from the past into memory flashes, sensory memory experiments, and auricular persistence. Or, quite simply, great records which are as discreet as they are endearing. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz

Given all the overt literary references of Selling England by the Pound, along with their taste for epic suites such as "Supper's Ready," it was only a matter of time before Genesis attempted a full-fledged concept album, and 1974's The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway was a massive rock opera: the winding, wielding story of a Puerto Rican hustler name Rael making his way in New York City. Peter Gabriel made some tentative moves toward developing this story into a movie with William Friedkin but it never took off, perhaps it's just as well; even with the lengthy libretto included with the album, the story never makes sense. But just because the story is rather impenetrable doesn't mean that the album is as well, because it is a forceful, imaginative piece of work that showcases the original Genesis lineup at a peak. Even if the story is rather hard to piece together, the album is set up in a remarkable fashion, with the first LP being devoted to pop-oriented rock songs and the second being largely devoted to instrumentals. This means that The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway contains both Genesis' most immediate music to date and its most elliptical. Depending on a listener's taste, they may gravitate toward the first LP with its tight collection of ten rock songs, or the nightmarish landscapes of the second, where Rael descends into darkness and ultimately redemption (or so it would seem), but there's little question that the first album is far more direct than the second and it contains a number of masterpieces, from the opening fanfare of the title song to the surging "In the Cage," from the frightening "Back in NYC" to the soothing conclusion "The Carpet Crawlers." In retrospect, this first LP plays a bit more like the first Gabriel solo album than the final Genesis album, but there's also little question that the band helps form and shape this music (with Brian Eno adding extra coloring on occasion), while Genesis shines as a group shines on the impressionistic second half. In every way, it's a considerable, lasting achievement and it's little wonder that Peter Gabriel had to leave the band after this record: they had gone as far as they could go together, and could never top this extraordinary album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Four years after the release of her previous album -- an eternity in her discography -- Ariana Grande made a graceful return to the spotlight with her revealing seventh set, Eternal Sunshine. Mostly a response to the headline-grabbing details of her relationships, as usual, the conceptual journey takes listeners through the dissolution of one union (which ended in divorce) and the slow healing that was aided along by the sparks of another (which generated no small amount of controversy). The bulk of the lyrics are a direct reference to the drama, with Grande taking the high road with poise and class, while leaning into any negative perceptions with a wink and some sass. Those tabloid-fodder moments (like "The Boy Is Mine" and "True Story") add some fuel to the flames; however, Grande makes a concerted effort to maintain focus on personal growth through introspection on tracks like the reflective "I Wish I Hated You" and "Don't Wanna Break Up Again," which humanize her into an everywoman promoting healthy self-care tactics like self-soothing and therapy. For those who had been expecting a full-on, house-influenced raver, an album packed with "Yes, And?" style bops won't be found here. Instead, Grande strikes a balance between the warm, lush R&B tones of Positions and Thank U, Next with the lighter, feel-good fare found on Sweetener. "Yes, And?" is indeed the energetic centerpiece of this album, a blissful dose of dancefloor magic that follows the "Express Yourself"/"Born This Way" lineage of ballroom-inspired empowerment anthems. Though not as buoyant, the shimmering "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" is a Robyn-esque slice of neon synths, twinkling production, and throbbing groove, which boosts the bittersweet vulnerability of her lyrics, while the sparkling kiss-off "Bye" keeps the disco revival train chugging along as Grande dances her woes away. Beyond that, Eternal Sunshine sticks close to impeccably produced midtempo songs that highlight her vocal range and the mountain of thoughts she has to get off her chest at such a pivotal stage in her life. It's anything but boring; rather, these tracks hypnotize (the reawakening of "Supernatural"), comfort ("Eternal Sunshine"), and nourish the soul like the titular rays of light ("Imperfect for You"). Closing with the horn-swelled "Ordinary Things," Grande calls on her grandmother Marjorie for some sweet, sage advice about making a relationship last, a touching bit of wisdom to frame the young artist's very adult breakup and the healing, however messy, that followed. After the late-2010s blitz that saw her conquering the charts on an annual basis with output of steadily decreasing quality, the years spent re-centering and growing up were clearly fruitful, resulting in one of her strongest, most cohesive efforts to date. Eternal Sunshine is Grande in peak form, a magical maturation that is elevated, resilient, and confidently restrained.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

A Grand Love Story is an irresistible romp through the lighthearted, pastoral side of trip-hop by way of orchestral pop paragons like Bacharach, Gainsbourg, and Love. Songs like the single "Relaxin' With Cherry" and "She's My Lover" are beautiful pop songs, constructed mostly from sampled material with a few live guitar and basslines plus vocals by Prieur and the Pastels' Katrina Mitchell. If the '70s fixations of Air were shifted back a decade, the results would be quite close to A Grand Love Story.© John Bush /TiVo

Four years after the release of her previous album -- an eternity in her discography -- Ariana Grande made a graceful return to the spotlight with her revealing seventh set, Eternal Sunshine. Mostly a response to the headline-grabbing details of her relationships, as usual, the conceptual journey takes listeners through the dissolution of one union (which ended in divorce) and the slow healing that was aided along by the sparks of another (which generated no small amount of controversy). The bulk of the lyrics are a direct reference to the drama, with Grande taking the high road with poise and class, while leaning into any negative perceptions with a wink and some sass. Those tabloid-fodder moments (like "The Boy Is Mine" and "True Story") add some fuel to the flames; however, Grande makes a concerted effort to maintain focus on personal growth through introspection on tracks like the reflective "I Wish I Hated You" and "Don't Wanna Break Up Again," which humanize her into an everywoman promoting healthy self-care tactics like self-soothing and therapy. For those who had been expecting a full-on, house-influenced raver, an album packed with "Yes, And?" style bops won't be found here. Instead, Grande strikes a balance between the warm, lush R&B tones of Positions and Thank U, Next with the lighter, feel-good fare found on Sweetener. "Yes, And?" is indeed the energetic centerpiece of this album, a blissful dose of dancefloor magic that follows the "Express Yourself"/"Born This Way" lineage of ballroom-inspired empowerment anthems. Though not as buoyant, the shimmering "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" is a Robyn-esque slice of neon synths, twinkling production, and throbbing groove, which boosts the bittersweet vulnerability of her lyrics, while the sparkling kiss-off "Bye" keeps the disco revival train chugging along as Grande dances her woes away. Beyond that, Eternal Sunshine sticks close to impeccably produced midtempo songs that highlight her vocal range and the mountain of thoughts she has to get off her chest at such a pivotal stage in her life. It's anything but boring; rather, these tracks hypnotize (the reawakening of "Supernatural"), comfort ("Eternal Sunshine"), and nourish the soul like the titular rays of light ("Imperfect for You"). Closing with the horn-swelled "Ordinary Things," Grande calls on her grandmother Marjorie for some sweet, sage advice about making a relationship last, a touching bit of wisdom to frame the young artist's very adult breakup and the healing, however messy, that followed. After the late-2010s blitz that saw her conquering the charts on an annual basis with output of steadily decreasing quality, the years spent re-centering and growing up were clearly fruitful, resulting in one of her strongest, most cohesive efforts to date. Eternal Sunshine is Grande in peak form, a magical maturation that is elevated, resilient, and confidently restrained.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

Gary Moore's tribute to Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green, Blues for Greeny, is more of a showcase for Moore's skills than Green's songwriting. After all, Green was more famous for his technique than his writing. Consequently, Moore uses Green's songs as a starting point, taking them into new territory with his own style. And Moore positively burns throughout Blues for Greeny, tearing off licks with ferocious intensity. If anything, the album proves that Moore is at his best when interpreting other people's material -- it easily ranks as one of his finest albums.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

This double-disc CD features 1960s-era live recordings of guitarist and singer Peter Green's early (1970) performances with Fleetwood Mac, as well as his work with his later Splinter Group, formed upon his return from decades of relative inactivity. Early Fleetwood Mac hits such as "The Green Manalishi," "Man of the World," and "Albatross" are featured, as well as later covers of such Robert Johnson-penned blues classics as "I'm a Steady Rollin' Man," "When You Got a Good Friend," and "Me and the Devil Blues." Green's soulful guitar work on the earlier recordings juxtaposed with the later ones only serves to remind us just how much was lost when he abandoned music in the early '70s. His later, 1990s-vintage performances show a musician working his way back to something approaching his previous form, but they don't get there, making this a very quizzical release as a double album. Originally issued in 2007, it was re-released in 2010.© Steve Goulding & Thom Jurek /TiVo

Prog rock audiences have always been receptive to box sets, especially sets that include an abundance of rare material -- witness the success of the numerous King Crimson sets. When it came time to assemble their own box sets, Genesis chose to follow the path of rarities instead of merely rehashing their old hits. That means, of course, that Genesis Archives, Vol. 1: 1967-1975 is the province of hardcore fans and collectors, not casual listeners, since there is nothing but unreleased material on the four-disc set. The first two discs are devoted to a live performance of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on January 24, 1975; the third has a selection of live material from the London Rainbow Theatre on October 20, 1973, plus a handful of rare singles and a BBC session; the fourth has alternate mixes, BBC sessions, and demos from 1967-1969. It's a virtual cornucopia of rare material, much of which will be necessary to dedicated fans. However, for some listeners, the set may be frustrating, and not because it contains rarities -- it's because those rarities have been tampered with. Peter Gabriel recut some of his vocals for The Lamb in 1998, claiming that he didn't give his best possible performance because his elaborate costumes were constricting. Steve Hackett followed suit and "brushed up" some guitar lines. This may frustrate some fans who would prefer to have the original tapes preserved, but it may be a minor thing to collectors, who will likely delight in having all these rare recordings -- many of which are quite terrific -- in one place.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

"For those days you feel the call of the open road before you, there’s no better album in Animal Collective’s catalog." © TiVo

On her third album of adult R&B, new age princess Des'ree offers up more musical self-help tips and self-esteem makeovers for the chronically lovesick and spiritually downhearted. And while there's nothing as peacefully sublime as "You Gotta Be" (from 1994's I Ain't Movin') on Supernatural, the listen is a soothing one. Credit Brit Des'ree herself for this; her voice -- a reassuring tool that envelops everything around it -- has never been better. Working her softened tones around the mostly forgettable material (many of the songs try to rewrite "You Gotta Be" by essentially sticking with the same formula of making sophisticated urban soul), she creates a melodic new-age tone (complete with a cover of Bruce Springsteen's "Fire") that may not stick with you a lifetime, but it sure feels like the most tranquil place on earth for its 50 minutes.© Michael Gallucci /TiVo

For years, R.E.M. promised that their next album would be a rocker, an oath to fans that perhaps made sense during the early '90s, when they were exploring the pastoral fields of Out of Time and the gloomy folk of Automatic for the People, but in the years after Bill Berry's 1997 departure, the desire of longtime fans for the group to rock again was merely a code word for the wish that R.E.M. would sound like a band again. Apart from a few fleeting moments -- "The Great Beyond," their "Man in the Moon" re-write for the 1999 Andy Kaufman biopic, Man in the Moon; "Bad Day," a mid-'80s outtake revived for a greatest-hits album -- R.E.M. not only didn't sound like a band, but they seemed at odds with themselves and their very strengths, culminating in the amorphous, mummified Around the Sun, a record so polished and overworked it didn't sound a bit like R.E.M., not even like the art-pop outfit the band turned into after Berry's retirement. It was a situation so dire that the band recognized the need for corrective steering, so they stripped themselves down to bare-bones for 2008's Accelerate.In every way Accelerate is the opposite of Around the Sun: at 36 minutes, it's defiantly lean, it's heavy on Peter Buck's guitars and Mike Mills backing vocals, its songs don't drift, they attack. Even the songs constructed on acoustics feel like they're rockers, maybe because they hearken back to the eerie, ramshackle grace of "Swan Swan H" whose riff echoes through both "Houston" and "Until the Day Is Done." This is not the only time that R.E.M. deliberately refers to the past on Accelerate, but reverential self-reference is the whole idea of this project: they're embracing their past, building upon the legacy and the very sound of such underground rock landmarks as Lifes Rich Pageant and Document. Not that this album could be mistaken for an exhumed classic from the '80s: Michael Stipe's lyrics are forthright and never elliptical, and the same could be said about the music, as it's sonically streamlined and precise, hallmarks of a veteran band. One of the benefits of being veterans is knowing how to create a record this focused, and Accelerate benefits greatly from its concentrated blast of guitars, as the brevity of the album makes R.E.M. seem vital even as they're dredging up the past. By no longer denying the jangle and pop that provided a foundation for the group's success, they sound like a band again. Such praise dangerously threatens to oversell Accelerate, however, suggesting that the album has either the unearthly mystique of Murmur or the ragged enthusiasm of Reckoning when it has neither. This is a careful, studied album from a band that knew they were on the brink of losing their audience and, worse, their identity. Accelerate finds R.E.M. attempting to reconnect with their music, with what made them play rock & roll in the first place, instead of methodically resurrecting a faded myth. They reconnect handsomely, creating an album the can stand next to work from their peers, like Dinosaur Jr.'s exceptional comeback Beyond and Sonic Youth's casually vital Rather Ripped (whose "Incinerate" reverberates in the dissonant open-ended "Accelerate"). As comebacks go, that's relatively modest, but the very modesty of Accelerate is what makes it such a successful rebirth as R.E.M. no longer denies what they were or what they are, and, in doing so, they offer a glimpse of what they could be once again.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

If you had to own only one album by The Blackbyrds then Action should be it. All the elements came together for the Donald Byrd protégés on this scintillating certified gold album, which originally was issued in fall 1977. The sinewy Top 20 R&B hit "Supernatural Feeling" has bits of wisdom implanted in between its poppin' funk grooves. The enticing "Soft And Easy" slid into the R&B Top 20 with an ease that's equal to the gentle spoken seduction that is woven throughout this make out classic. The exotic radio-aired LP track "Something Special" features the nimble noodling of future smooth jazz favorite, pianist Kevin Toney. "Dreaming About You" is the perfect track to unwind during. Action was later issued as one of two LPs that was included on a single CD (the other being the George Duke-produced Better Days) in 1994 by U.K. label Ace Records.© Ed Hogan /TiVo