Montreal's Arcade Fire successfully avoided the sophomore slump with 2007's apocalyptic Neon Bible. Heavier and more uncertain than their nearly perfect, darkly optimistic 2004 debut, the album aimed for the nosebleed section and left a red mess. Having already fled the cold comforts of suburbia on Funeral and suffered beneath the weight of the world on Neon Bible, it seems fitting that a band once so consumed with spiritual and social middle-class fury should find peace "under the overpass in the parking lot." If nostalgia is just pain recalled, repaired, and resold, then The Suburbs is its sales manual. Inspired by brothers Win and William Butler's suburban Houston, Texas upbringing, the 16-track record plays out like a long lost summer weekend, with the jaunty but melancholy Kinks/Bowie-esque title cut serving as its bookends. Meticulously paced and conservatively grand, fans looking for the instant gratification of past anthems like "Wake Up" and "Intervention" will find themselves reluctantly defending The Suburbs upon first listen, but anyone who remembers excitedly jumping into a friend's car on a sleepy Friday night armed with heartache, hope, and no agenda knows that patience is key. Multiple spins reveal a work that's as triumphant and soul-slamming as it is sentimental and mature. At its most spirited, like on "Empty Room," "Rococo," "City with No Children," "Half Light II (No Celebration)," "We Used to Wait," and the glorious Régine Chassagne-led "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)," the latter of which threatens to break into Blondie's "Heart of Glass" at any moment, Arcade Fire make the suburbs feel positively electric. Quieter moments reveal a changing of the guard, as Win trades in the Springsteen-isms of Neon Bible for Neil Young on "Wasted Hours," and the ornate rage of Funeral for the simplicity of a line like "Let's go for a drive and see the town tonight/There's nothing to do, but I don't mind when I'm with you," from album highlight "Suburban War." The Suburbs feels like Richard Linklater's Dazed & Confused for the Y generation. It's serious without being preachy, cynical without dissolving into apathy, and whimsical enough to keep both sentiments in line, and of all of their records, it may be the one that ages the best.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

In 2010, Arcade Fire surprised everyone with The Suburbs. This third studio album was released in a Deluxe edition with two previously unreleased tracks: Culture War and Speaking In Tongues. Although the Canadian band caught the attention of audiences in the early 2000s with a slightly dark first album (Funeral), they avoided locking themselves into this macabre atmosphere. The Suburbs offer much different colours, as Win Butler went through his predecessors’ records to get inspired by influences ready to be modernised. With great affection for music rich in instrumentals and an undeniable gift for highlighting different musical phrases, The Suburbs marked a turning point. Arcade Fire matured, without turning to elitist and inaccessible music. Proof that their pop-coloured rock has far surpassed what their early days might have suggested. There is an English quality to their style, in the vein of Paul Weller or David Bowie, but also elements from T-Rex’s glam rock, particularly in the lyrics and the energy Butler brings. Rococo or Ready To Start look at childhood and give credit to what we may have experienced and thought in our younger years… Are Arcade Fire a little nostalgic of the good old days? It’s often what happens when one takes a new maturity leap and looks back to compare the past with the present. This Deluxe edition offers an arranged version of Wasted Hours and a cover of the Talking Heads’ Speaking In Tongues with David Byrne under the influence. An album inspired by the Butler brothers’ youth that will make you want to watch a Spike Jonze short, Scenes From The Suburbs, made for the first version of The Suburbs in 2011. © Clara Bismuth/Qobuz

Sparks on one side; Franz Ferdinand on the other. Two different generations and two different nationalities - but the two groups still have much in common. On FFS, the Californian '70s duo of the Mael brothers crosses blades with the British quartet to create an album which is part-glam, part-new wave and entirely eclectic. The guitars and synths are out in full force, but what is interesting about this joint venture is that no one group is more visible than the other, making this a true collaboration. Moments which seem distinctly Sparks meld seamlessly into vintage Fraz Ferdinand, with a permanent sense of fun and infectious humour. Pop, disco, post-punk; it's all perfection. © CM/Qobuz

Superficially, there's not much separating Ben Folds' first official solo album, Rockin' the Suburbs, from his records with Ben Folds Five. It's hard to note any difference, really, since he still works from the same vantage point, borrowing equally from new wave, '90s irony, and a love of classic pop. Still, there is a difference, even if it's hard to pinpoint -- perhaps it's an increased focus, perhaps it was a hot streak from Folds, or perhaps the Five really were more of a group than they seemed and he's benefited by working according to his own patterns. Regardless, Rockin' the Suburbs is as good a record as any he's made, possibly his best. It's still possible to hear his influences -- Joe Jackson still stands out, as do elements of Billy Joel and Todd Rundgren -- but there's no shame there, and he's accepted it as part of his musical personality so much that it sounds like him, even when it sounds familiar. Better still, he's tempered his tendency to be a collegiate wiseass -- it pokes through on the title track, but that's the rare time that it's brought to the forefront -- which helps his songs shine brighter. And while there are no surprises here to anybody familiar with his work, it's a remarkably consistent record, filled with great mid-tempo pop tunes and nicely sentimental ballads. It's simply a good, solid record that captures Ben Folds at his most engaging, and that's more than enough.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Sparks on one side; Franz Ferdinand on the other. Two different generations and two different nationalities - but the two groups still have much in common. On FFS, the Californian '70s duo of the Mael brothers crosses blades with the British quartet to create an album which is part-glam, part-new wave and entirely eclectic. The guitars and synths are out in full force, but what is interesting about this joint venture is that no one group is more visible than the other, making this a true collaboration. Moments which seem distinctly Sparks meld seamlessly into vintage Fraz Ferdinand, with a permanent sense of fun and infectious humour. Pop, disco, post-punk; it's all perfection. © CM/Qobuz

True to its subtitle, this 18-track collection compiles the finest moments of the band's two-year stay at Virgin Records (1979-1980). While this period was the strongest for the band, it would have been nice to include a track or two from their final album, Uprhythm, Downbeat, such as the near-hit "Working Girl."© Chris Woodstra /TiVo

Because Kim Wilde's original British label, RAK records, had been unable to establish the singer as an American star despite her 1981 semi-hit "Kids in America" -- her third album hadn't even found a U.S. distributor -- Wilde and her manager father (former '50s pop star Marty Wilde) moved to the multinational conglomerate MCA, which recast the young singer in an entirely new light. Gone was the new wave synth pop feel of her earlier work, replaced by a sleekly electronic Hi-NRG disco sound and a sexier image. Although the change in direction would reap rewards (financial ones, anyway) in the future, Teases & Dares is a limp, shaky record, probably the weakest of Wilde's career. Frustratingly, the best songs are those which hint at a more intriguing direction, that of a sort of new wave torch singer. Dramatic ballads like "Fit In," "Shangri-La," and "Thought It Was Goodbye" (all of which, interestingly, were written by Wilde herself, a new development) are much more listenable than soggy, repetitive dance tracks like "The Touch" and "The Second Time." However, both of those songs were hits, and so Wilde's future was sealed.© Stewart Mason /TiVo