Sad, spare, and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Joni Mitchell's songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss (two words with relative meaning here) etched with stunning complexity; even tracks like "All I Want," "My Old Man," and "Carey" -- the brightest, most hopeful moments on the record -- are darkened by bittersweet moments of sorrow and loneliness. At the same time that songs like "Little Green" (about a child given up for adoption) and the title cut (a hymn to salvation supposedly penned for James Taylor) raise the stakes of confessional folk-pop to new levels of honesty and openness, Mitchell's music moves beyond the constraints of acoustic folk into more intricate and diverse territory, setting the stage for the experimentation of her later work. Unrivaled in its intensity and insight, Blue remains a watershed.© Jason Ankeny /TiVo

Spirit Power presents highlights from the former Smiths guitarist's solo career alongside "The Answer" and "Somewhere," two songs that are exclusive to this release. It takes 2013's The Messenger as its starting point -- therefore eschewing Marr's earlier work with the Healers, Modest Mouse, the Cribs, and other close collaborators -- choosing to focus on the decade that followed, encompassing work from 2014's Playland, 2018's Call the Comet, and 2022's Fever Dream, Pts. 1-4. Just as each of the aforementioned studio albums hit the U.K. Top Ten, so did this collection upon its release in November 2023.© James Wilkinson /TiVo

According to Joni Mitchell, Travelogue is her final recorded work, and if that is so, it's a detailed exploration of moments in a career that is as dazzling as it is literally uncompromising. Over 22 tracks and two CDs (and as stunning package featuring a plethora of photographs of Mitchell's paintings), Travelogue is a textured and poetic reminiscence, not a reappraisal, of her work -- most of it from the 1970s through the 1990s. A 70-piece orchestra, as well as jazz legends Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, and Kenny Wheeler, drummer Brian Blade, bassist Chuck Berghofer, producer Larry Klein, and organist Billy Preston, among others, accompanies her. It's true that Mitchell dabbled in this territory in 2000 on Both Sides Now, but that recording only remotely resembles this one. Cast in this way it is true that this is no easy cruise, but given the nearly 40 years of her sojourn in popular music, Mitchell's work, particularly from the mid-'70s on, has been difficult for many to grasp on first listen and always gives up its considerable rewards, slowly making her records age well over time; they are not disposable as much of the music from her peers is. These completely recast songs cover the entirety of her career, from her debut, Song From a Seagull, to Turbulent Indigo (with certain albums not being represented at all). It's true there aren't high-profile cuts here except for "Woodstock," which is radically reshaped, but it hardly matters. When you hear the ultrahip, be-bopping "God Must Be a Boogie Man," there is an elation without sentimentality; in the scathing and venomous "For the Roses" and "Just Like This Train," the bitterness and aggression in their delivery offers the listener an empathy with Mitchell's anger at the recording industry -- and anyone else who's crossed her. But while there is plenty of swirling darkness amid the strings here, there is also the fulfillment of prophecy; just give a listen to this version of "Sex Kills" that bears its weight in full measure of responsibility and vision. Her voice, aged by years of smoking, is huskier and is, if anything, more lovely, mature, deep in its own element of strength. The restatement of W.B. Yeats, "Slouching Toward Bethlehem," is more stunning now than ever before as is "Hejira." In "The Circle Game" and "Slouching Toward Bethlehem," you hear the ambition in Mitchell's musical direct as she has moved ever closer to the tone poem as a song form. Though it may not be as easy on first listen as Court and Spark, Travelogue will continue to unfold over time and offer, like her best work, decades of mystery and pleasure.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

In 1973, when the movie The Harder They Come was released, reggae was not on the radar screen of American pop culture. The soundtrack went a ways toward changing that situation. It is a collection of consistently excellent early reggae songs by artists who went on to thrive with reggae's increased popularity, and others for whom this is the most well-known vehicle. Jimmy Cliff is both the star of the movie and the headliner on the soundtrack. He contributes three excellent songs: the hymnal "Many Rivers to Cross," "You Can Get It If You Really Want," and "The Harder They Come" (the latter two are repeated at the end of the album, but you probably wanted to hear them again anyway). Interestingly, the better production values of his songs actually seems to detract from them when compared to the rougher, but less sanitized, mixes of the other tracks. All the songs on this collection are excellent, but some truly stand out. Toots & the Maytals deliver two high-energy songs with "Sweet and Dandy" and "Pressure Drop" (covered by the Clash among others). Scotty develops a mellow, loping groove on "Stop That Train" (not the same as the Wailers' song by the same name) and the Slickers prove on "Johnny Too Bad" that you don't have to spout profanity or graphic violence to convey danger. The Harder They Come is strongly recommended both for the casual listener interested in getting a sense of reggae music and the more serious enthusiast. Collections don't come much better than this.© Toby Ball /TiVo

Cliff with Strings: My Kinda Life is a compilation of Cliff Richard's greatest hits with a twist. This album features orchestral versions of songs from his extensive career, spanning seven decades of music. Cliff with Strings features renditions of "Summer Holiday," "Living Doll," and "Wired for Sound."© Liam Martin /TiVo

A victim of both overexposure and embracement from privileged hedonists around the globe, UB40's Labour of Love is still a near perfect album, one filled with warmth and an infectious love of the music it's covering. Then there's that reggae version of "Red Red Wine" that spills out of yachts, frat parties, soirees by the pool, water parks, and just about anywhere there are sun-seeking tourists. Delivered with a drunken sway, the band's cover of the Neil Diamond favorite also features a new toasted/rapped break in the middle, which comes courtesy of UB40 MC Astro and adds so much mirth and fun to the number that Diamond lifted it for his own live show. Even if omnipresence has since made it pop-reggae's "Don't Worry Be Happy," the U.K. crew's version is in the Jamaican tradition of covering sweet, soothing tunes that pre-date lovers rock, plus the rest of this all-cover-versions album sticks with the classic reggae songbook, as even the Impressions' "Keep on Moving" is done in a style that honors the 1973 recording from Bob Marley & the Wailers. If "Red Red Wine" is effortless almost to a fault, Jimmy Cliff's "Many Rivers to Cross" is performed with full heart and can rock the soul's foundation, while "Johnny Too Bad" is just spiky enough to bring reminders of the group's birth in the time and land of post-punk. Everything else is A- at worst, and the end-to-end LP flow is classic while recontextualizing "Red Red Wine" for the better. Put it on at a party and spill beer on it if you must, because the resilient Labour of Love is true sweetness and light.© David Jeffries /TiVo

The Best of Johnny Nash is a terrific collection of Johnny Nash's early-'70s pop-reggae crossover hits, highlighted by "Stir It Up" and "I Can See Clearly Now."© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Sam Cooke at the Copa was a frustrating record. One of a handful of live albums by a major soul artist of its era, it captured Cooke in excellent voice, and was well-recorded -- it just wasn't really a "soul" album, except perhaps in the tamest possible definition of that term. Playing to an upscale, largely white supper-club audience, in a very conservatively run venue where he had previously failed to impress either patrons or the management, Cooke toned down his performance and chose the safest material with which he could still be comfortable. In place of songs like "Feel It," "Bring It on Home to Me," or even "Cupid," which were part of his usual set, he performed numbers like "The Best Things in Life Are Free," "Bill Bailey," and "When I Fall in Love" here. True, his renditions may be the versions of any of those songs that an R&B fan will like best, but they always seemed a poor substitute for what's not here -- not just the songs that he didn't do, but the intense, sweaty presentation, as much a sermon as a concert, the pounding beat, and the crowd being driven into ever-more frenzied delight.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

Sad, spare, and beautiful, Blue is the quintessential confessional singer/songwriter album. Forthright and poetic, Joni Mitchell's songs are raw nerves, tales of love and loss (two words with relative meaning here) etched with stunning complexity; even tracks like "All I Want," "My Old Man," and "Carey" -- the brightest, most hopeful moments on the record -- are darkened by bittersweet moments of sorrow and loneliness. At the same time that songs like "Little Green" (about a child given up for adoption) and the title cut (a hymn to salvation supposedly penned for James Taylor) raise the stakes of confessional folk-pop to new levels of honesty and openness, Mitchell's music moves beyond the constraints of acoustic folk into more intricate and diverse territory, setting the stage for the experimentation of her later work. Unrivaled in its intensity and insight, Blue remains a watershed.© Jason Ankeny /TiVo

Rivers of Babylon: The Best of the Melodians 1967-1973 is an extraordinary 26-track collection that contains all of the group's hits and singles, from "Sweet Sensation" and "I'll Get Along Without You" to the classic "Rivers of Babylon." It may be a little too much music for neophytes, but there's little question that this is the definitive overview of their peak years.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Globally, Clegg is probably best recalled for "Scatterlings of Africa," understandably the leadoff track here. If not his manifesto (which was established long before his international fame), it makes his point, the mixing of rock and Zulu music, quite succinctly and wonderfully -- and he was doing it long before it became fashionable (indeed, while it was illegal under South Africa's apartheid laws). You can't say this is a perfect best-of, by any means, but it does include the lovely "Take My Heart Away" and "Great Heart," which would later be covered by Jimmy Buffett. The a cappella version of "Dela" highlights the gorgeous harmonies in a manner similar to Ladysmith Black Mambazo, while "Asimbonanga (Mandela)" is a tribute to the man who would be South Africa's new leader, and a real hero. So, even if this doesn't have seminal Clegg material like "Waza Friday" and "Impi," it's still a very decent collection. Johnny Clegg & Savuka were always about more than the music, however; they put it together politically, too, a huge act of defiance that was reflected in the lyrics and sound. As the man said, think and dance.© Chris Nickson /TiVo