The extent of the 2015 Weeknd commercial rebound, symbolized by platinum certifications for Beauty Behind the Madness and all four of its singles, didn't merely embolden Abel Tesfaye. On this follow-up's fourth track, a blithe midtempo cut where Tesfaye takes a swipe at pretenders while boasting about drinking codeine out of one of his trophies, the level of success is a source of amusement. He notes the absurdity in taking a "kids' show" award for "Can't Feel My Face," in which he was "talkin' 'bout a face numbin' off a bag of blow." The track actually lost to Adele's "Hello," but it clearly, somewhat comically, reached an unintended demographic. It comes as no surprise that Tesfaye, on his third proper album, doesn't attempt to optimize the reach of his biggest hit by consciously targeting youngsters. He sings of being a "Starboy" with access to a fleet of sports cars, but he's a "motherfuckin' starboy," one who is 26 years old and proud to observe his woman snort cocaine off his fancy table. While Starboy often reflects an increased opulence in the personal and professional aspects of Tesfaye's life -- from more upscale pronouns to expensive collaborations with the likes of Daft Punk (two) and "Can't Feel My Face" producers Max Martin and Ali Payami (four) -- the dark moments of vulnerability are pitch black. Lines like "I switch up my cup, I kill any pain" could have come from Tesfaye's mixtape debut, yet there are new levels of torment. In "Ordinary Life," he considers driving off a Mulholland Drive cliff, James Dean style, wishing he could swap everything for angel status. It's followed with "Nothing Without You," a ballad of toxic dysfunction. He asks his lover if she'd feel guilty for not answering his call if he happened to die that night. It's not all dread and depravity. There's some sense of joy in a one-night stand, and an echo of "Say Say Say" Michael Jackson, on the Luomo-ish house track "Rockin'." Contrition is shown in the slick retro-modern disco-funk of "A Lonely Night." Ironically enough, in the aching "True Colors," Tesfaye sounds a little insecure about a lover's past. The album's lighter, comparatively sweeter parts -- the Tears for Fears-sampling/Romantics-referencing "Secrets" and the breezy and only slightly devilish "I Feel It Coming" among them -- are all welcome highlights. When pared down to its ten best songs, Starboy sounds like Tesfaye's most accomplished work.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

The extent of the 2015 Weeknd commercial rebound, symbolized by platinum certifications for Beauty Behind the Madness and all four of its singles, didn't merely embolden Abel Tesfaye. On this follow-up's fourth track, a blithe midtempo cut where Tesfaye takes a swipe at pretenders while boasting about drinking codeine out of one of his trophies, the level of success is a source of amusement. He notes the absurdity in taking a "kids' show" award for "Can't Feel My Face," in which he was "talkin' 'bout a face numbin' off a bag of blow." The track actually lost to Adele's "Hello," but it clearly, somewhat comically, reached an unintended demographic. It comes as no surprise that Tesfaye, on his third proper album, doesn't attempt to optimize the reach of his biggest hit by consciously targeting youngsters. He sings of being a "Starboy" with access to a fleet of sports cars, but he's a "motherfuckin' starboy," one who is 26 years old and proud to observe his woman snort cocaine off his fancy table. While Starboy often reflects an increased opulence in the personal and professional aspects of Tesfaye's life -- from more upscale pronouns to expensive collaborations with the likes of Daft Punk (two) and "Can't Feel My Face" producers Max Martin and Ali Payami (four) -- the dark moments of vulnerability are pitch black. Lines like "I switch up my cup, I kill any pain" could have come from Tesfaye's mixtape debut, yet there are new levels of torment. In "Ordinary Life," he considers driving off a Mulholland Drive cliff, James Dean style, wishing he could swap everything for angel status. It's followed with "Nothing Without You," a ballad of toxic dysfunction. He asks his lover if she'd feel guilty for not answering his call if he happened to die that night. It's not all dread and depravity. There's some sense of joy in a one-night stand, and an echo of "Say Say Say" Michael Jackson, on the Luomo-ish house track "Rockin'." Contrition is shown in the slick retro-modern disco-funk of "A Lonely Night." Ironically enough, in the aching "True Colors," Tesfaye sounds a little insecure about a lover's past. The album's lighter, comparatively sweeter parts -- the Tears for Fears-sampling/Romantics-referencing "Secrets" and the breezy and only slightly devilish "I Feel It Coming" among them -- are all welcome highlights. At 18 tracks, the album is a "contracted edition" playlist toolkit. The songwriting credits list just under 40 composers, and the productions -- the majority of which involve Doc McKinney and/or Cirkut, low-lighted by maneater dance-punk dud "False Alarm" -- are roughly as variable in style as they are in quality. When pared down to its ten best songs, Starboy sounds like Tesfaye's most accomplished work.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

When Jay-Z first made a series out of his best album, 2001's The Blueprint, it became a game of high expectations. The Blueprint of the first volume was Jay-Z as vital as he'd ever been, storming back to the hardcore after a few years of commercial success. The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse was a complete turn, a set of half-cocked crossovers, bloated to bursting with guest features that obscured his talents. The Blueprint 3 is somewhere between the two, closer to the vitality and energy of the original but not without the crossover bids and guest features of the latter (albeit much better this time). Kanye West is in the producer's chair for seven tracks, and it's clear he was reaching for the same energy level as the original Blueprint (which he produced). "What We Talkin' About" begins the album with a wave of surging, oppressive synth, while Jay-Z enumerates (with an intriguing lack of detail) what he's said and what's been said about him, ending with a nod not to the past but the future (and Barack Obama). West also produced the second, "Thank You," and while it starts with typical Jay-Hova brio, the last verse piles on the unrelenting criticism of unnamed rappers doomed to weak sales. There's plenty more lyrical violence to come, but most of the targets are much safer than they were eight years earlier. (Jay doesn't sound very convincing when he claims in "D.O.A. [Death of Auto-Tune]" that it's not "politically correct" to rail against one of the most reviled trends in pop music during the 2000s.) From there, he branches out with a calculating type of finesse, drawing in certain demographics via a roster of guests, from Young Jeezy (hardcore) to Drake (teens) to Kid Cudi (the backpacker crowd). The king of the crossovers here is "Empire State of Mind," a New York flag-waver with plenty of landmark name-dropping that turns into a great anthem with help on the chorus from Alicia Keys. The Blueprint 3 isn't a one-man tour de force like the first. Jay is upstaged once or twice by his guests, and while the productions are stellar throughout -- Timbaland appears three times, and No I.D. gets multiple credits also -- it's clear there's less on Jay's mind this time. Not tuned out like on Kingdom Come, but more content with his dominance as a rap godfather in 2009.© John Bush /TiVo

In parallel to the release of a single for Erased Tapes, Then Patterns, Nils Frahm is already thinking about his legacy with this Old Friends New Friends, a compilation of 23 unreleased tracks recorded between 2009, the time of his first albums Wintermusik and Bells, and 2021. The German pianist took advantage of recent lockdowns to sort out his archives and avoid a messy album made up of studio scraps being released after his death. “The nature of the mind—and a hard drive—is that you forget a lot of stuff, and I hate the idea that somebody might browse through my things trying to find something I’d forgotten.” So he decided to make the selection himself: “I’ll probably burn everything before I go,  but these are pieces I wanted to put out.”There's nothing dissonant in this "anatomy of all my ways of thinking musically and playing”, which starts with a tribute (lasting only 3 minutes 49) to John Cage's 4:33. But there are gems to be discovered, such as the very cinematic Berduxa, or All Numbers End, which is always on the verge of depression, the ritornello In the Making, or the otherworldly melody The Idea Machine, which is an exploration of what makes the pianist tick. The retrospective darkens towards the end, with that intimidating levitation on The Chords Broken Down while the Old Friends finale takes a more polarising turn. 80 minutes later, Nils Frahm's legacy is assured. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

Moderat is a project initiated back in 2003 between Apparat and the Modeselektor duo.  Their brand of electro integrates many elements – moving away from pure dancefloor beats for a kaleidoscope of melodies and innovative experimentation on this their third studio album release together. A cinematographical adventure like no other produced from the trio, and one fans old and new are sure to appreciate.

Heatmiser was an indie rock supergroup of sorts, featuring songwriters Elliott Smith and Neil Gust (No. 2), as well as Sam Coomes (Quasi) and the multitalented Tony Lash. The quartet's finest and final album, Mic City Sons features a decidedly more pop feel than its predecessors and marks Smith's maturation into the role of the band's visionary. From the opening notes of the swaggering, bass-heavy "Get Lucky" to conclusion of the album with a soothingly soft hidden track, Mic City Sons is an outstanding collection of diverse and invigorating tracks. Songs like "Plain Clothes Man" and "You Gotta Move" exhibit the interplay of soulful, smooth vocals over gentle guitar strumming that has been so evident in Smith's solo work. The Gust-penned tunes, like "Cruel Reminder" and "Eagle Eye" are more rugged and aggressive, but complement Smith's songs brilliantly. There are no weak tracks here - in fact, "Pop In G" and "See You Later" are two of the best indie rock songs of the '90s - and the album flows incredibly well. Despite the success Heatmiser's members have achieved since their disbanding, it's unfortunate that this collective decided to split up just when they had reached such a creative peak.© Michael Frey /TiVo

When Leslie Feist released her breakthrough album Let It Die, she became an indie icon almost instantly. Her pretty, sometimes melancholic love songs, her clear campfire voice, her vaguely jazz- and disco-influenced arrangements (highlighted no better than with her cover of the Bee Gees' "Inside and Out"), and her association with darlings Broken Social Scene wooed critics and music fans alike. Her follow-up, The Reminder, will serve as proof that Feist's success was no fluke, as the album contains more of the same sweet, introspective lyrics and chords that float around love and longing (or lack thereof) like cottonwood seeds in late spring. Because that's what The Reminder, like Let It Die, really is: a collection of warm, lazy music made for those summer afternoons that creep into evening before you realize it. Feist's voice is cleanly emotive as she sings lines like "There's a limit to your love/Like a waterfall in slow motion" (from "The Limit to Your Love"), "Piecemeal can break your home in half/A love is not complete with only heat" (from "Intuition"), or "Put your weight against the door/Kick drum on the basement floor" (from the upbeat "I Feel It All"), crooning confidently but with a weakness, a fragility that comes out during the most sentimental lines. But this can also be a drawback. At times, she borders on a kind of sappiness that seems better suited to Top 40 Matrix-produced pop songs than hipster-blog accolades. "We don't need to fight and cry/We, we could hold each other tight tonight," she breathes in the otherwise lovely "So Sorry," whose puerile rhymes are fortunately held up by the track's breezy sophistication. The same cannot be said however for "Brandy Alexander," which is too syrupy for its own sake (much like the drink on which it's based), with its repeated phrase "He's my Brandy Alexander" (juxtaposed with "I'm his Brandy Alexander") and "Goes down easy," as Motown-esque harmonies jump in to emphasize that last word. Why Feist, who displays her lyrical skills in tracks like "The Water," "My Moon My Man," and her reinterpretation of Nina Simone's "See-Line Woman" (incorrectly identified as "Sea Lion Woman"), "Sealion," believes it necessary to include such saccharine lines is confusing, and hints at the suspicion that while she undoubtedly enjoyed herself during the making The Reminder, she wasn't really challenging herself with the process. She follows the same path she took with Let It Die -- which, being as strong as it was, is certainly not the worst decision she could've made -- and does it well, which means that the album does end up a consistently good listen. But it also means that it's not much of a departure from what she's shown before. Who knows, Feist may be able to go on charming us by doing the same thing for eternity, but there may also come a point when we want something more, and it's still unclear if she'll be able to deliver it.© Marisa Brown /TiVo

The languid title track of I've Seen Everything is, like the amazing "Hayfever" single off that LP, no slouch either. So if you don't have the wonderful LP both A-sides are from, I've Seen Everything, here's another great taste. Of more importance, however, are the three non-LP B-sides found here. In fact, it's a shame the up-tempo "I'm the One Who Fainted" the equally brisk "Houseproud," and especially the truly delightful "Ask Davy," an outstanding track, from the I've Seen Everything EP, didn't make the LP. These songs are so immediately strong, with some of their most urgently catchy words and tunes, they easily defeat more than half of the tracks that made the LP, particularly the rash of quiet ones in a row in the middle of the album. Perhaps they were recorded after the LP since they're (very well!) self-produced.© Jack Rabid /TiVo