The sophomore slump wasn't a problem for the Commodores. The band's first album, Machine Gun, was quite promising, but its sophomore album, Caught in the Act, is even stronger. This superb 1975 LP, which the Commodores produced and arranged with James Carmichael, is more diverse than its mostly up-tempo predecessor. There are plenty of up-tempo funk gems; anyone with a taste for hard, sweaty 1970s funk won't be disappointed by "Look What You've Done to Me," "Wide Open," or the hit "Slippery When Wet," which soared to number one on Billboard's R&B singles chart and urges unfaithful husbands to give up their adulterous ways. But Caught in the Act, unlike Machine Gun, doesn't neglect slower material; "You Don't Know That I Know" and "This Is Your Life" are first-rate soul ballads. Excellent from start to finish, Caught in the Act is among the Commodores' finest albums.© Alex Henderson /TiVo

She was set to be one of the revelations of 2020. But the pandemic got in the way, and Celeste Epiphany Waite postponed the planned release of her first album. Celeste is a new UK sensation. She received the Rising Star prize at the prestigious Brit Awards, an honour which has been bestowed upon such promising young people as Sam Smith or Adele, who went on to enjoy colossal success and international stardom. Add another nomination, for the BBC's Sound of 2020, and the growing interest in this newcomer to the global pop scene was clear. While waiting for the album, Celeste did not sit idly by. She provided some vocals for the high-flying soundtrack for Pixar's successful Soul, and for the series The Chicago Seven, which was broadcast on Netflix. In terms of musical education, Celeste was brought up almost exclusively on blues, jazz, and golden-age soul by James Brown, Aretha Franklin (whom Celeste worships), Nina Simone and Sarah Vaughan. A coppery, nonchalant voice, tinged with a hoarse fragility, Celeste instantly sounds like a little sister to Adele and Amy Winehouse. Finally, the album is here. With its nose-thumbing title, Not Your Muse is an impressive engine, perfectly conceived and calibrated to conquer airwaves around the world, and audiences too. From Strange's skin-tight tenderness to the old-school sixties throwback Love is Back, to the party number Tonight Tonight, all the ingredients are there to make this album a must-have for years to come. © Yan Céh/Qobuz

The Killers' great gift is that they -- and in particular their frontman, Brandon Flowers -- have utterly no recognition of the ridiculous. More than that, they're drawn to the ridiculous, piecing together sounds that don't belong together, reaching far beyond their grasp, aiming for profundity and slipping into silliness. All this weighed the band down mightily on Sam's Town, their convoluted Americana theme park of a sophomore album, all false façades and paper-thin pretension, but on its 2008 sequel, Day & Age, the Killers shrink the canvas and brighten their palette, opting for a big sound over big themes. Since the Killers are at their core poseurs and not prophets, style over substance is the right move and Day & Age has style for miles and miles, exceeding even their debut, Hot Fuss, in its stainless steel gleam. If anything, Hot Fuss was a little too monochromatic in its obsession with '80s synth rock, a criticism that can hardly be leveled at Day & Age, a record that stitches together sounds with an almost blissfully idiotic abandon. Anchored in dance-rock though they may be, the Killers no longer sound like mere disciples of New Order and Duran Duran: emboldened by the left turns of Sam's Town, no matter how misguided they may have been, the Killers will try anything, goosing "Losing Touch" with growling saxophones, creating a Strokes disco for "Joy Ride," flirting with worldbeat à la Vampire Weekend on "This Is Your Life," dancing the bossa nova on "I Can't Stay," and riding a tight soulful rock & roll groove on "The World We Live In," bringing it close to a mad fusion of Steve Miller's "Abracadabra" and Hall & Oates' "Private Eyes." Like before, it's impossible to tell if such improbable juxtapositions are intentional or accidental, but given the overall tightness of Day & Age, it feels as if the Killers do indeed mean to create these odd, often pleasing, pop pastiches. And the emphasis damn well should be on the sound and melody, for Flowers remains a downright goofy lyricist, whether he's misinterpreting Hunter S. Thompson on "Human" or recounting an alien abduction on "Spaceman." Ridiculousness is much harder to stomach in words than it is in music, but the nice thing about Day & Age is that not only is Flowers' voice relatively buried, the Killers are unwittingly comfortable with their ludicrous, outsized pop, which turns the album into terrifically trashy pop. Not the serious rock they yearn to be by any means, but these fashionable threads fit them better anyway.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The 1990s were a time when hip-hop infused with R&B became pop music, and at the forefront of this movement was En Vogue. Their most commercially and critically successful album, Funky Divas, stands as one of the best pop/R&B albums to emerge from that time, incorporating soul, hip-hop, pop, dance, and rock to create one of the era's most diverse, dazzling, and exciting pieces of work. The album, which is basically free of filler, scored no less than five hit singles, three of which became Top Ten pop hits. Additionally, several other album tracks became dance hits and received considerable airplay as well. These include the unstoppable "My Lovin' (You're Never Gonna Get It)," which combined perfect harmonies, street sass, and 1990s female assertion to create one of the biggest hits of 1992, as well as a catch phrase which became ubiquitous in popular culture. Other hits include their sophisticated, shimmering Top Ten remake of "Giving Him Something He Can Feel," a ghetto love fable initially popularized by Aretha Franklin, the doo wop good-feelin' "Give It Up Turn It Loose," the jazzy "Love Don't Love You," and the hard rock smash "Free Your Mind." The last was a hit which, following the summer of the Los Angeles riots, struck a chord with national audiences by coaxing people to let down their guards about racism and prejudice. Other highlights include the great opener "This Is Your Life," the hip-hop tracks "Hip Hop Lover" and "It Ain't Over Till the Fat Lady Sings," the house track "What Is Love," the sexy, Middle Eastern-influenced "Desire," and their wonderful, should-have-been-a-hit version of Curtis Mayfield's "Hooked on Your Love." Combining sass, elegance, and class with amazing vocals and perfect production, this delightful set stands as one of the 1990s definitive pop albums.© Jose F. Promis /TiVo

It might surprise those coming in late to their story that the original double-LP version of this album from 1974 was the first compilation devoted to the Moody Blues' work. That's seven years after their switch from R&B-based British Invasion rock & roll to psychedelic music, and ten years into their overall history, an awfully long time for a successful band to avoid the compilation route. That fact alone speaks volumes for how healthy their album sales were -- only the group's decision to take a hiatus seems to have prompted the assembling of this collection. The Moody Blues had actually had enough hits and charting singles between England and America since 1967 so that a good best-of could have been assembled, but the makers went far beyond that, encompassing LP tracks that had become favorites on FM radio between 1967 and 1973 and also ignoring the actual release order of anything here. So instead of a tour through their history, listeners get a kind of collage of most of their best work, the songs nicely representative of the various members' most important contributions to the group's work. That said, however, it should also be pointed out that so much of the band's music is connected, conceptually and thematically, with the surrounding songs on their albums that inevitably the listener will feel rushed through some of this history; additionally, there is one excellent number left off for every three that are included.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

The score to David Fincher's controversial, subversive film Fight Club was composed and performed by the Dust Brothers, whose production and remixing work with artists like the Beastie Boys, Beck, and the Chemical Brothers helped shape the sound of the '90s. Their music for Fight Club reflects their own hip-hop and dance roots, as well as the film's edgy, underground tone in its blend of trip-hop, drum'n'bass, and electro elements.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Recorded during Alter Bridge's two-night run at London's world-famous Royal Albert Hall, this collection sees the band run through 21 of their biggest hits. Backed by the 52-piece Parallax Orchestra, the album includes fan favorites such as "Blackbird," "Addicted to Pain," and "In Loving Memory."© Rich Wilson /TiVo

Shawn Mendes circumvented traditional routes to a recording contract by posting short clips of himself singing other people's songs on the video-sharing service Vine. These were no more than a few seconds -- Vine's restrictions set the limit at six seconds, which is hardly enough time to cover a chorus -- but it was enough to set some teenage hearts aflutter, which led to a contract with Island, which led to an EP in 2014, which led to the full-length debut Handwritten in 2015. That was a two-year march to an album, which should've been enough time for Mendes to learn how to engage a listener for at least 60 seconds, but Handwritten is pretty thin gruel. Some of this is down to material, songs that feel like a laboratory-generated fusion of Jason Mraz's singsong loverman schtick and Ryan Tedder's icy adult contemporary. Although he has songwriting credits on two-thirds of Handwritten, he can't be blamed for the rinky-dink tunes: his producers could've sharpened the hooks so they all stuck like those on "Stitches" and "Kid in Love." What he can be blamed for is the fact that he can't hold the audience's attention for any longer than on Vine, relying on his puppy-dog eyes and croon to get him through a song. Cute he may be, but he has charisma that lasts no longer than a GIF, as Handwritten makes painfully clear. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo