One of her most pop-oriented albums, but also one of her best and most consistent. Most of the songs feature dramatic, swinging large-band orchestration, with the accent on the brass and strings. Simone didn't write any of the material, turning to popular European songsmiths Charles Aznavour, Jacques Brel, and Anthony Newley, as well as her husband, Andy Stroud, and her guitarist, Rudy Stevenson, for bluesier fare. There are really fine tunes and interpretations, on which Simone gives an edge to the potentially fey pop songs, taking a sudden (but not uncharacteristic) break for a straight jazz instrumental with "Blues on Purpose." The title track, a jazzy string ballad version of the Screamin' Jay Hawkins classic, gave the Beatles the inspiration for the phrasing on the bridge of "Michelle."© Richie Unterberger /TiVo

Home, for cellist Abel Selaocoe, is Sebokeng, a township to the south of Johannesburg, South Africa. But home means many things for Selaocoe, whether it's a physical location, such as Africa or Manchester (where he now resides), or the emotion of it that his cello provides. Selaocoe explores this abstract sense of home with his debut album Where is Home / Ha ke Kae, providing us with the results through his extraordinary musical gift. "As an African cellist, I've always been looking for a home. But home is not a geographical space, it's the places in life that empower you—and these are not always comfortable," Selaocoe said in an interview with The Guardian.Abel Selaocoe is not just a cellist, but a musical innovator. Where is Home / Ha ke Kae, draws on influences from every direction, from his birthplace to the musical haven that he found in works from the Baroque period. Selaocoe takes two forms of improvisational music—traditional African and Baroque compositions by Bach and Platti—and seamlessly blends them.  There are also two beautiful solo moments that explore the sonic complexity of Selaocoe's voice and his instrument.The whole album is just pure joy, from the moving arrangements of traditional African songs (the highlight being "Zawose (for Hukwe Zawose)" among many others) that feature cello melodies as well as Selaocoe's vocals, to the simply stunning and inventive renditions of the all-too-famous Cello Suites by Bach (specifically "Suites 3 and 5").  A peak moment is Selaocoe's arrangement of Platti's "Sonata No.7: I. Adagio", which puts aside the Baroque tradition of solo and continuo (usually another cello, harpsichord or lute) and instead incorporates baroque theorbo, double bass and the traditional West African kora—whose extensive improvisational lines blend sublimely with the organic improvisational nature of Baroque music. Without a doubt, Abel Selaocoe is one of the brightest stars in the musical world right now and will undoubtedly shape the future of classical music to come. The perfect Qobuzissime! © Jessica Porter-Langson / Qobuz 

As big a hit as it was -- and it was a multi-platinum blockbuster, spinning off several chart-toppers -- it’s not easy to think of Whitney Houston’s 1985 debut as the dawning of a new era, but it was. Arriving in the thick of MTV, when the slick sounds of yacht-soul were fading, Whitney Houston is the foundation of diva-pop, straddling clean, cheery R&B and big ballads designed with the adult contemporary audience in mind. Houston’s background lay in the former -- actually, it was even riskier, encompassing a stint with the experimental Bill Laswell outfit Material -- and her benefactor Clive Davis knew all about selling records to the masses. Appealing as this album is, Davis may never have imagined how Whitney Houston would shift tastes, pushing toward skyscraping ballads where the singer’s affectations, not the songs, were paramount -- a move that later led to hollow records, but on Whitney Houston the songs were as important as the immaculate productions. Certainly, the showstopping “Greatest Love of All” provided the blueprint for decades of divas, but it’s the only overblown moment here, with the rest of the ballads -- notably “Saving All My Love for You” and “You Give Good Love” -- burning slowly and seductively, but what really impresses some 20-plus years on are the lighter tracks, particularly the breakthrough single “How Will I Know” and the unheralded “Thinking About You,” a dance/R&B hit co-written by Kashif that remains one of Whitney’s purest pop pleasures. These joyful, rhythmic moments faded away from Houston’s later work -- and also rarely surfaced on the records of those who followed her -- but their presence on this debut turns this into a fully rounded record, the rare debut that manages to telegraph every aspect of an artist's career in a mere ten songs. [The 2010 25th anniversary edition of Whitney Houston is expanded with five bonus tracks -- remixes of “Thinking About You,” “Someone for Me,” “How Will I Know,” a live version of “Greatest Love of All” from 1990, and a superfluous a cappella mix of “How Will I Know” -- and a bonus DVD containing music videos from the album, new interviews, and -- best of all -- Whitney’s star-making 1983 performance on The Merv Griffin Show.]© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Phil Collins certainly has enough hits to fill out a double-disc compilation -- in the U.K. he had 25 Top 40 singles and he reached the Billboard Top 40 21 times in the U.S., with many of them overlapping -- but the 2016 set The Singles doesn't march through these hits in chronological order. Opening with "Easy Lover," his 1985 duet with Earth, Wind & Fire's Philip Bailey, this 33-track compilation happily hopscotches through the years. Such non-chronological sequencing does mean certain hits are saved for the greatest emotional impact -- naturally, "Take Me Home" closes out the proceedings -- but it also focuses attention on songs that weren't blockbusters, whether it's such meditative turn-of-the-'90s adult contemporary hits as "That's Just the Way It Is" or the brooding early single "Thru These Walls." Ultimately, this forced perspective is why The Singles is something more than just a collection of big hits: it helps illustrate that Collins' solo catalog ran deeper than "In the Air Tonight," "You Can't Hurry Love," "Sussudio," "One More Night," "Against All Odds," and "Another Day in Paradise."© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The 16-year stint between Since I Left You, the Avalanches' masterful and mind-blowing debut album, and their sophomore release Wildflower is likely to always be something of an inescapable plotline in the Australian group's career story. However, it should be noted that the mere four years that have elapsed between Wildlflower and We Will Always Love You, the group's third album, are both eminently reasonable by 21st century release standards and completely remarkable given the conceptual richness and production complexity at play here. (And that's leaving out the fact that principal member Robbie Chater had a stint in rehab during that time.) We Will Always Love You is an album that is absolutely full to bursting—with 25 tracks (a handful are sub-30-second interludes), more than 20 guest vocalists, and, yes, scores of richly layered samples, the sheer act of composing, recording, and compiling it could forgivably have taken much longer. However, in the case of WWALY, the group benefited from a clear-eyed concept inspired by Ann Druyan (whose face is on the cover). Druyan’s scientific and creative endeavors, her relationship with Carl Sagan, and how those things intersected most notably with her work on NASA's Golden Record project, actual gold-plated LPs sent into space aboard the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecrafts. The Avalanches have put together their own sort of cosmic mixtape, touching on a wide variety of styles and sounds. Guests range from Johnny Marr, Neneh Cherry, and Vashti Bunyan to Leon Bridges and Denzel Curry; sample sources include Steve Reich, Pat Metheny, Carlinhos Brown and Druyan herself. In keeping with its celestial theme, this is a remarkably adventurous and slightly diaphanous-sounding album, with cuts like the wispy and slightly psychedelic "Gold Sky" (featuring Kurt Vile and Wayne Coyne), the spooky and transcendent "Music is the Light" (with Cornelius and Kelly Moran) and the somewhat on-the-nose "Interstellar Love" (with Leon Bridges) standing as thematic tentpoles. Meanwhile, the more straightforward (and accessible) cuts like the disco groovy "Music Makes Me High," the bouncy and retro "We Go On," and pop/rock treading "Running Red Lights" (which manages to feature a Rivers Cuomo vocal and a David Berman lyric) provide plenty of reminders of terrestrial joy. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Fans of guitar master Joe Bonamassa will be delighted that 2011 was such a prolific year in his career. First came the fine, rootsy Dust Bowl, then 2, the second chapter in his Black Country Communion project's catalog. Don't Explain, a collection of soul, blues, and jazz-oriented covers in collaboration with vocal firebrand Beth Hart marks his third entry this year. The ten-song set of blues and soul is a logical extension of her vocal contribution to "No Love on the Street" from Dust Bowl. Opening is a thoroughly raucous contemporary blues reading of Ray Charles' "Sinner's Prayer," followed by a quirky version of Tom Waits' "Chocolate Jesus," and an unusual cover of contemporary jazz-pop singer/songwriter Melody Gardot's "You Heart Is as Black as Night." On this cut, a string orchestra adds a touch of perversity; it offers the impression of a femme fatale singing a Brecht-Weill number in a smoky cabaret in front of a moody string orchestra, buoyed by a brooding electric blues quintet. "For My Friends," a Bill Withers' tune, is a big, nasty, jagged blues number that keeps the funky groove intact. The title track, a number closely associated with Billie Holiday, falls flat. Hart tries too hard to employ Holiday's phrasing, the string orchestrations are overblown, and Bonamassa's crew is too reverent. This formula also mars the remake of Aretha Franklin's "Ain't No Way" that closes the set. Far better are readings of Etta James' signatories "I'd Rather Go Blind," and "Something's Got a Hold on Me." Hart's emotive, throaty delivery is perfectly suited to both songs, and she resists trying to ape James' phrasing. Since they follow one another directly, the musical difference between them also showcase's Hart's diverse abilities. The former is a soul burner, the latter a gospel blues. Bonamassa and band accent her every phrase with requisite rowdiness, sting, and grit. The pair's only vocal collaboration is a burning read of Delaney & Bonnie's "Well, Well." With Anton Fig's breaks and rim shots underscoring Arlan Scheirbaum's electric piano fills, Bonamassa's burning leads, the chunky, rhythmic foundation from guitarist Blondie Chaplin, and Carmine Rojas' bassline, Hart and the lead guitarist trade whip-smart call and response vocals with enough raw country-soul to bring the song to a new audience. While not a perfect recording, Don't Explain is a good one, whose strengths are numerous enough to warrant a second go round.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

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Drake’s highly anticipated follow up to the platinum Thank Me Later is full to the brim. Made up of beautiful contradictions, tender vocals, tight flows and big name collaborations, Take Care is a more than worthy successor to the Toronto rapper’s first studio album. Amongst the 19 tracks on the album are collaborations with the likes of Rihanna, The Weeknd, Kendrick Lamar, Rick Ross, Nicki Minaj, Lil Wayne and even Stevie Wonder (a harmonica solo on Doing It Wrong). Drake lays everything on the table here, displaying everything from sheer confidence (Headlines, HYFR) to mellow and fragile insights into his love life (Marvins Room, Doing It Wrong). The mix of deep, soulful singing and sharp rapping is what makes this album brilliant, and these two aspects don’t remain separated as Drake often combines the two in order to make his raps more melodic, something that has given him a more original sound during his rise to the top. Take Care also steps it up in terms of production with a team including T-Minus, 40, Jamie xx, Boi-1da, The Weeknd, Illangelo, Doc McKinney and Supa Dups. Despite the generally ambient style, the extensive list of producers makes for a reasonably diverse mix of techniques, influences (in terms of genre) and tempos.There are certainly some rap classics in waiting on Take Care, including the title track on which Drake and Rihanna play the love game by exchanging heartfilled verses over Jamie xx’s production. Headlines and Crew Love (featuring the Weeknd) have “hit” written all over them with their hard-hitting and confidence filled lyrics. Marvins Room soothes the soul with its tender vocals and jealousy driven lyrics, a classic emotionally charged (lost) love song. Drake and his mentor Lil Wayne shrug off all the meaningless questions coming their way on HYFR, a track radiating swagger. And finally he concludes the album with The Motto (featuring Lil Wayne and Tyga), a piece of pure rap brilliance. By the looks of things, Drake is settling into his status as a superstar nicely. © Euan Decourt/Qobuz

As a producer and songwriter, Ryan Tedder has remained atop contemporary trends since he began to ascend the industry ranks in the 2000s. Usually, that savvy eye and keen ear for what's hot has served him and his band OneRepublic well, amassing hit after hit in the pop mainstream. For their fifth studio set, 2021's Human, that approach mostly works. However, by including tracks that have been around since 2019, much of the effort feels like a time capsule of days gone by (especially in such an ever-changing genre) and, in a harsher sense, of dated material that can sound out of place when presented as a whole vision years later. Still, Tedder and company write such emotive and compelling songs that the asynchronous track listing can be overlooked by less critical listeners because they are so catchy. From their first single of 2019, "Rescue Me," to 2021's "Run," OneRepublic prove to be masters of the galloping, upbeat pop anthem, packing whistles, handclaps, throbbing basslines, and dance beats into every second of a song. Arenas, stadiums, clubs, and radio stations aren't safe from their motivational charms and affirmations, making uplifting moments like "Better Days" and "Someday" irresistible in their sheer optimism (if one is into that sort of positivity). For fans of the "classic" OneRepublic sound -- think 2013's globe-conquering Native -- the yearning "Distance" and soulful "Savior" are standouts. Also of note is the sweeping midtempo ballad "Somebody to Love," which was penned by JT Roach, the winner of the television songwriting competition Songland, which is hosted by Tedder and fellow producers Ester Dean and Shane McAnally. Overall, it's no surprise that there aren't many surprises on Human, just solid, inoffensive pop nuggets that soothe the soul and offer solace without challenging listeners with more than what real life throws at them each day. © Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

There wasn't much room for Beach House to improve on Devotion, so they improved the room in which they made Teen Dream. Recorded in a converted church with producer/engineer Chris Coady -- who has also worked with TV on the Radio and Blonde Redhead -- Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally's Sub Pop debut echoes with a dark lushness that's more like a beach mansion than a mere house. The slightly squalid sound quality of Beach House and Devotion had a cloistered charm, as if the band had to record those albums not just on the cheap, but in secret. On Teen Dream, however, the hugeness previously implied in Legrand's lyrics and luscious vocals is made real, like tuning in Beach House at their full frequency. The duo's mix of retro electronics and chiming guitars is still as dreamlike and distinctive as ever; if anything, the tinny taps and hisses of their drum machine are even more present in Teen Dream's pristine settings, making the contrast between them and the molten slide guitars and rippling keyboards on "Norway" even more vivid. Beach House's songwriting is also more focused, with Devotion highlights such as "You Came to Me" and "Heart of Chambers" serving as templates for the album's elegant longing. As Teen Dream's title implies, Scally and Legrand are wry and wise enough to know better about idealizing love, and romantic enough to still believe in it. "Zebra" positively swoons, while "Walk in the Park," with its graceful coda and chorus lament "In a matter of time/it will slip from my mind/In and out of my life/you would slip from my mind," makes losing sound beautiful, even if it's anything but a walk in the park. Despite the wintry sorrow that dominates songs like "Used to Be" and "Better Times," Beach House lets a little hope into the album with "10 Mile Stereo" and "Real Love." Beautiful and heartfelt, Teen Dream reaffirms that Legrand and Scally are among the best purveyors of languidly lovelorn songs since Mazzy Star.© Heather Phares /TiVo

In the year of his 90th birthday (which he would have celebrated on the 23rd of September 2020 had he not died in 2004), Ray Charles is honoured with a new 90-track compilation box set. Just another compilation like all the rest? Yes and no. Ray Charles is undoubtedly one of the most-compiled artists in the history of music. Published by Tangerine, the label that the musician set up at the end of the 50s to keep the rights to his songs, this box set starts out like all the others: with the post-Atlantic hits, Georgia On My Mind, Hit The Road Jack, One Mint Julep, Busted... These are timeless treasures of proto-soul, but there doesn't seem to be much novelty here. The rest is much more interesting, and much rarer: tracks recorded between the second half of the 1960s and the 2000s, many of which were only released on vinyl, never reissued on CD and until now unavailable on digital. This is the first time that Ray Charles' lesser-known years have been given the compilation treatment in this way, and it is a revelation. In the 90s and 2000s, the production of his songs had a synthetic feel, and they did not age too well. These rarer songs are often hidden gems of southern soul, flavoured with country and wrapped in sumptuous symphonic orchestrations. Whether he is singing the Muppets (It's Ain't Easy Being Green) or Gershwin (Summertime, a duet with Cleo Laine), Ray Charles is always deeply moving. Now, the dream is to hear reissues of all these albums in their entirety. © Stéphane Deschamps/Qobuz

Heavy lies the crown on Bruce Springsteen's head. Alone among his generation -- or any subsequent generation, actually -- he has shouldered the burden of telling the stories of the downtrodden in the new millennium, a class whose numbers increase by the year, a fact that weighs on Springsteen throughout 2012's Wrecking Ball. Such heavy-hearted rumination is not unusual for the Boss. Ever since The Rising, his 2002 return to action, a record deliberately tailored to address the lingering anger and sorrow from 9/11, Springsteen has eschewed the frivolous in favor of the weighty, escalating his dry, dusty folk and operatic rock in tandem, all in hopes of pushing the plight of the forgotten into public consciousness. Each of his five albums since The Rising have been tailored for the specific political moment -- Devils & Dust ruminated over forgotten Americans in the wake of the Iraq war; We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions was an election year rallying call; Magic struggled to find meaning in these hard times; Working on a Dream saw hope in the dawning days of Obama -- and it’s no mistake that Wrecking Ball fuses elements of all four into an election year state of the union: Bruce is taking stock of where we are and how we’ve gotten here, urging us to push forward. If that sounds a bit haughty, it also plays that way. Springsteen has systematically removed any element of fun -- "Mary’s Place" is the only original in the past decade that could be called a party song -- along with all the romance or any element of confessional songwriting. He has adopted the mantle of the troubadour and oral historian, telling tales of the forgotten and punctuating them with rallying calls to action. Wrecking Ball contains more of the latter than any of its predecessors, summoning the masses to rise up against fatcat bankers set to singalongs lifted from Seeger. There's an unshakable collectivist hootenanny feel on Wrecking Ball, not to mention allusions to gospel including a borrowed refrain from "This Train," but Springsteen takes pains to have the music feel modern, inviting Tom Morello to do aural paintings with his guitar, threading some trip-hop rhythms into the mix, and finding space for a guest rap on "Rocky Ground." As admirable as the intent is, the splices between old-fashioned folk protests and dour modernity become too apparent, possibly because there's so little room to breathe on the album -- the last recorded appearance of Clarence Clemons helps lift "Land of Hope and Dreams" above the rest -- possibly because the message has been placed before the music. Springsteen is so focused on preaching against creeping inequality in the U.S. that he's wound up honing his words and not his music, letting the big-footed stomps and melancholy strumming play second fiddle to the stories. Consequently, Wrecking Ball feels cumbersome and top heavy, Springsteen sacrificing impassioned rage in favor of explaining his intentions too clearly.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

A year before passing away in the spring of 2011, Gil Scott-Heron released an extraordinary future-blues album, one of the most beautiful works of his entire discography, when even his most loyal fans had stopped expecting anything new from their idol standing the test of life, dope and paranoia. With I’m New Here, his generation’s most out-of-this-world poet, singer, songwriter and jazzman, and the man who was considered by many as the godfather of hip-hop blended his politically charged prose with a stripped back instrumentation produced by Richard Russell, patron of the XL Recordings label who went to collect him from Rikers Island prison in New York so that they could work together. A year later, Jamie xx from the band The xx made We’re New Here which cleverly remixed the entire album and became a fascinating example of top-tier minimal electro… To celebrate ten years since I’m New Here, Russell has called on one of the most talked-about jazzmen of the moment, drummer Makaya McCraven, to ‘reimagine’ it in his own way. The result is surprising, and sheds a new light on the opus. The original simplicity has been shunned in favour of an orgy of pure jazz improvisation, paired with a huge level of groove. Makaya is the perfect candidate for finding the right level of playing to match the crepuscular flow emitted by Gil Scott-Heron. Striking a balance between honouring the departed soul brother and affirming his own voice, the drummer appears to highlight the link between Scott-Heron and percussion. Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, his first album released in 1970, was in fact only composed of vocals and percussion. Hopefully this beautiful project We’re New Again will incite the younger generation to rediscover Gil Scott-Heron’s work, some of the most underestimated music of the 20th century. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz