Once Adam Yauch discovered he had cancer in 2009, the Beastie Boys shelved their forthcoming The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1 and its companion volume, gradually reviving and revising the project once Yauch went into remission. At this point, they scrapped their convoluted plans to release concurrent complementary volumes of THSC and simply went forth with The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2, which retained the bulk of the track list from Pt 1. All this hurly-burly camouflages the essential truth of The Hot Sauce Committee: that the Beasties could sit on an album for two years to no ill effect to their reputation or the record’s quality. This doesn’t suggest they’re out of step so much as they’re out of time, existing in a world of their own making, beholden to no other standard but their own. Certainly, the Beasties stitch together sounds and rhymes from their past throughout The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2, laying down grooves à la Check Your Head but weaving samples through these rhythms, thickly layering the album with analog synths out of Hello Nasty, all the while pledging allegiance to old-school rap in their rhymes. Nothing here is exactly unexpected -- even the presence of Santogold on “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” isn’t new, it’s new wave -- yet The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 feels fresh because there is such kinetic joy propelling this music. Last time around, the Beasties weighed themselves down by creating retro-tribute to N.Y.C., taking everything just a little bit too seriously, but here they’re free of any expectations and are back to doing what they do best: cracking wise and acting so stupid they camouflage how kinetic, inventive, and rich their music is. And, make no mistake, The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 does find the Beastie Boys at their best. Perhaps they’re no longer setting the style, but it takes master musicians to continually find new wrinkles within a signature sound, which is precisely what the Beasties do here.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Once Adam Yauch discovered he had cancer in 2009, the Beastie Boys shelved their forthcoming The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 1 and its companion volume, gradually reviving and revising the project once Yauch went into remission. At this point, they scrapped their convoluted plans to release concurrent complementary volumes of THSC and simply went forth with The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2, which retained the bulk of the track list from Pt 1. All this hurly-burly camouflages the essential truth of The Hot Sauce Committee: that the Beasties could sit on an album for two years to no ill effect to their reputation or the record’s quality. This doesn’t suggest they’re out of step so much as they’re out of time, existing in a world of their own making, beholden to no other standard but their own. Certainly, the Beasties stitch together sounds and rhymes from their past throughout The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2, laying down grooves à la Check Your Head but weaving samples through these rhythms, thickly layering the album with analog synths out of Hello Nasty, all the while pledging allegiance to old-school rap in their rhymes. Nothing here is exactly unexpected -- even the presence of Santogold on “Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” isn’t new, it’s new wave -- yet The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 feels fresh because there is such kinetic joy propelling this music. Last time around, the Beasties weighed themselves down by creating retro-tribute to N.Y.C., taking everything just a little bit too seriously, but here they’re free of any expectations and are back to doing what they do best: cracking wise and acting so stupid they camouflage how kinetic, inventive, and rich their music is. And, make no mistake, The Hot Sauce Committee, Pt. 2 does find the Beastie Boys at their best. Perhaps they’re no longer setting the style, but it takes master musicians to continually find new wrinkles within a signature sound, which is precisely what the Beasties do here.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Cat Power—Chan Marshall—wanted to mark the moment in 1966 that "informs everything …  this precipice of time that changed music forever": Bob Dylan's "Royal Albert Hall Concert" (actually played at the Manchester Free Trade Hall), the one when he switched from acoustic to electric midway through—prompting an incensed folk purist to yell out "Judas!" Fifty-six years after that concert, Marshall delivered a sublime song-for-song re-creation of the set, at the actual Royal Albert Hall. "I'm not being Bob … I'm just recreating it, that's all. But not making it mine," she has said. Inevitably, though, the songs do become hers. It's evident right away, from "She Belongs to Me" (and shortly after, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"), the influence Dylan has long had on Cat Power's music. But with her husky voice, so like Nico's now and far from Dylan's youthful reediness, revealing traces of her Georgia upbringing ("She don't look baaaaack") and contrasting the clean acoustic guitar and shiny harmonica, she owns it. "Desolation Row" is a twelve-and-a-half minute marvel. The guitar is not blindingly bright like Charlie McCoy's flamenco flavor, but that works well with Marshall's more serious/less jaunty air here. Without aping Dylan, she hits his inflections, putting exuberant emphasis on the ends of lines ("And the good Samaritan! He's dressing!"). Her "Visions of Johanna" underscores the prettiness of the melody, while the way she sings the name "Jo-hanna" make it feel so much more exotic than it is. She gets playful with the familiar phrasing on the chorus of "Mr. Tambourine Man" and sings "Just Like a Woman" beautifully, offering a softer, less angular version of Dylan's classic. At 50, she was twice the age of Dylan when he recorded the song for Blonde on Blonde, and you can hear—feel—the extra tread on her heart. When electrified "Tell Me Momma" kicks in like the Wizard of Oz Technicolor moment, it's as thrilling as it's supposed to be, the first word of the titular line bitingly crisp each time. "I Don't Believe You (She Acts Like We Never Have Met)" plays up the soulful grooviness that always feels a little buried on Dylan's live recording, while "Baby, Let Me Follow You Down" expertly captures his wild-eyed edginess. Marshall's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues" is more elegant, even with its raw edges, than Dylan's young-man machismo. She does not recreate things down to the between-song patter but there is a moment, just before "Ballad of a Thin Man" (so slinky, so powerful), when someone yells out "Judas!"—and Marshall, serenely, responds, "Jesus." "I wasn't expecting the audience to recreate their part of the original show as well, but then I wanted to set the record straight—in a way, Dylan is a deity to all of us who write songs," she has said. And, as it did in 1966, closer "Like a Rolling Stone" sounds like liberation; maybe even like Marshall knows some part of this is hers now. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

The English duo have gone on a strange journey with their last two albums. Typhoons, released in 2021, which strongly favored electro and danceable rhythms à la French Touch, divided their original fanbase all while garnering a new, wider audience. Everyone expected the group to fully own their U-turn and throw themselves into new experiments in sound, but instead, we’re faced with a record that’s more rock, and unavoidably calls back to the two first albums spawned by Royal Blood. However…although everything starts off strong with massive, stoner rock (“Mountains at Midnight” as the opener, “Tell Me When It’s Too Late”), Back to the Water Below still possesses a certain sense of pop melody, notably on the vocals, which prevents this new release from being simply classified as a step backwards.     What remains constant is their amazing way of getting into the groove on every riff. Fun fact: although it’s hard not to compare certain songs from the first (or even the second) album to the work of the legendary Queens of the Stone Age, the parallel is, in a way, still valid, as the new tracks evoke again and again the atmosphere Josh Homme’s group have developed since their album …Like Clockwork. What may be missing is that little twist that hooks you in, which at times fails to transform certain melodies into real anthems, and fight against the monolithic side that’s in the group’s nature as a “mere” duo of bass and drums.Back to the Water Below is hardly lacking in more mainstream songs, as the two companions don't hold back from trying to give a little bit of The Beatles on songs like “There Goes My Cool,” which, like a number of the other tracks on the album, features a piano discreetly placed in the background. It goes to show it sometimes takes just a few more musicians to fill out a track. Doubling back to a sound that’s a bit more rock, Royal Blood nevertheless try to change things up, turning toward different sources of inspiration. Perhaps the real transition album is actually this one and not Typhoons, which, all of a sudden, seems more like a parenthesis. © Chief Brody/Qobuz

A new treat for Paul McCartney fans! McCartney himself has selected 160 tracks, including 65 singles and their B sides, to create one of the most ambitious box sets of his career. This collection is topped off with about fifteen unreleased singles on 45s and other demos/promos, all remastered and recorded in London’s iconic Abbey Road studios—where else? It’s perfect for the physical collector too: the box set is available in an alluring Redwood pine and Birch Ply wooden art crate.It’s a dizzying ten-hour journey through the biggest-selling albums of McCartney’s fifty-year solo career; a retrospective compilation, which kicks off with ‘Another Day’. This was his first single after the Beatles disbanded in 1970 and was co-written with his wife Linda during The Wings’ Ram sessions (an instant hit, reaching No. 2 in England and No. 5 in the USA). The collection ends with ‘Women and Wives’, taken from his last album McCartney III – a song he wrote and composed alone whilst on his Sussex farm during lockdown.In between these tracks, you’ll be treated to songs like ‘Live and Let Die’ (composed for the James Bond soundtrack in 1973), a live version of ‘The Mess’ (performed in The Hague), his proto-electronic hit ‘Temporary Secretary’, and his 80s hits with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson, ‘Ebony and Ivory’ and ‘Say Say Say’. This stunning compilation also features ‘Fuh You’ and ‘Come On to Me’, both taken from Egypt Station, his 2018 album that proved that even sixty years after his debut, McCartney hadn’t lost any of his flair for pop. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

If The Times They Are a-Changin' isn't a marked step forward from The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, even if it is his first collection of all originals, it's nevertheless a fine collection all the same. It isn't as rich as Freewheelin', and Dylan has tempered his sense of humor considerably, choosing to concentrate on social protests in the style of "Blowin' in the Wind." With the title track, he wrote an anthem that nearly equaled that song, and "With God on Our Side" and "Only a Pawn in Their Game" are nearly as good, while "Ballad of Hollis Brown" and "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll" are remarkably skilled re-castings of contemporary tales of injustice. His absurdity is missed, but he makes up for it with the wonderful "One Too Many Mornings" and "Boots of Spanish Leather," two lovely classics. If there are a couple of songs that don't achieve the level of the aforementioned songs, that speaks more to the quality of those songs than the weakness of the remainder of the record. And that's also true of the album itself -- yes, it pales next to its predecessor, but it's terrific by any other standard.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

After the breakup, Beatles fans expected major statements from the three chief songwriters in the Fab Four. John and George fulfilled those expectations -- Lennon with his lacerating, confessional John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, Harrison with his triple-LP All Things Must Pass -- but Paul McCartney certainly didn't, turning toward the modest charms of McCartney, and then crediting his wife Linda as a full-fledged collaborator on its 1971 follow-up, Ram. Where McCartney was homemade, sounding deliberately ragged in parts, Ram had a fuller production yet retained that ramshackle feel, sounding as if it were recorded in a shack out back, not far from the farm where the cover photo of Paul holding the ram by the horns was taken. It's filled with songs that feel tossed off, filled with songs that are cheerfully, incessantly melodic; it turns the monumental symphonic sweep of Abbey Road into a cheeky slice of whimsy on the two-part suite "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey." All this made Ram an object of scorn and derision upon its release (and for years afterward, in fact), but in retrospect it looks like nothing so much as the first indie pop album, a record that celebrates small pleasures with big melodies, a record that's guileless and unembarrassed to be cutesy. But McCartney never was quite the sap of his reputation, and even here, on possibly his most precious record, there's some ripping rock & roll in the mock-apocalyptic goof "Monkberry Moon Delight," the joyfully noisy "Smile Away," where his feet can be smelled a mile away, and "Eat at Home," a rollicking, winking sex song. All three of these are songs filled with good humor, and their foundation in old-time rock & roll makes it easy to overlook how inventive these productions are, but on the more obviously tuneful and gentle numbers -- the ones that are more quintessentially McCartney-esque -- it's plain to see how imaginative and gorgeous the arrangements are, especially on the sad, soaring finale, "Back Seat of My Car," but even on its humble opposite, the sweet "Heart of the Country." These songs may not be self-styled major statements, but they are endearing and enduring, as is Ram itself, which seems like a more unique, exquisite pleasure with each passing year.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

And Then There Were Three, more than either of its immediate predecessors, feels like the beginning of the second phase of Genesis -- in large part because the lineup had indeed dwindled down to Tony Banks, Mike Rutherford, and Phil Collins, a situation alluded to in the title. But it wasn't just a whittling of the lineup; the group's aesthetic was also shifting, moving away from the fantastical, literary landscapes that marked both the early Genesis LPs and the two transitional post-Gabriel outings, as the bandmembers turned their lyrical references to contemporary concerns and slowly worked pop into the mix, as heard on the closing "Follow You Follow Me," the band's first genuine pop hit. Its calm, insistent melody, layered with harmonies, is a perfect soft rock hook, although there's a glassy, almost eerie quality to the production that is also heard throughout the rest of the record. These chilly surfaces are an indication that Genesis don't quite want to abandon prog at this point, but the increasing emphasis on melody and tight song structures points the way toward the group's '80s work.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Over thirty years on from 1992's Gravity, the solo debut that let the world know Alejandro Escovedo was one of America's great songwriters, the man has little if anything to prove, and doesn't have to rest on his laurels if he's not so inclined. However, Escovedo has taken a truly idiosyncratic look at his own songbook on 2024's Echo Dancing, in which he's cut new, radically different versions of fourteen songs from his back catalog. Reportedly, Escovedo had traveled to Italy to cut a set of fresh tunes with Don Antonio and Nicola Peruch, who collaborated with Escovedo on his 2018 album The Crossing, but at the last minute he came up with the idea of re-interpreting some of his older compositions instead, though fans can be excused for not recognizing all of Escovedo's oldies. A few of these songs are genuinely obscure, but even the best known tracks get a truly thorough reworking, with scratchy guitars, lo-fi keyboards, and vintage drum machines often dominating the arrangements, making much of this seem like Escovedo's long-lost new wave or synth-punk LP. Tracks like "Sacramento & Polk" and "Wave" sound as if Escovedo, Antonio, and Peruch were aiming to be eccentric for their own sake (especially the former, which could pass as a B-side for the Normal's "Warm Leatherette"), though the more spare and atmospheric tone of "Outside Your Door" and "Last To Know" (dominated by droning keyboards and minimal electronic drones, confirming Escovedo's statement that Suicide was a major influence on him) fit the songs well while also casting them in a bold new light. The notion of Escovedo making a lo-fi junkshop electronic album sounds even more unlikely than him covering his own songs for a full album, and while Echo Dancing is uneven, the hits outnumber the misses by a margin that qualifies this as a successful experiment. That said, given how well he and his collaborators take to this approach, perhaps this would have been an even better LP if he'd come up with a set of original songs purpose built to these sounds. Escovedo is a great interpreter, but he's an even better songwriter.© Mark Deming /TiVo