Download not available

Download not available

Twenty years after its summer 1997 release, OK Computer re-emerges clothed in light. In this two-part reissue: a first disc with the remastered original album; a second, 11-track disc made up of B-sides and previously unreleased titles. The sort of release that has fans in a frenzy... After the admittedly perfect classicism of The Bends (1995), Radiohead took a sort of swan dive into the ocean of a distinctly more experimental type of rock. Like revisited prog rock, subtly undermined by snatches of electronic music, OK Computer is never a mere mad scientist's laboratory, experimenting just for the fun of it. Underneath the atmospheric layering, behind the patchworks of textures inherited from Pink Floyd, R.E.M. or even Teuton krautrock (Neu! and Can spring to mind), the Oxford group never lets its attention stray from the writing. Between Thom Yorke's tortured but often lyrical (Exit Music (For A Film)) and always distinctive voice (Karma Police) and Jonny Greenwood's avant-garde guitar lines (Subterranean Homesick Alien), this third album keeps listeners on their toes. OK Computer reached a pinnacle of inventiveness, with bold harmonies, groundbreaking production and inventive instrumentation. It left its mark on its time and will continue to influence masses of groups and musicians...The second disc in OK Computer OKNOTOK 1997 2017 contains eight B-sides (Lull, Meeting In The Aisle, Melatonin, A Reminder, Polyethylene (Parts 1 & 2), Pearly, Palo Alto and How I Made My Millions) and three previously unreleased tracks (I Promise, Man Of War and Lift). Recorded in March 1998 at the Abbey Road Studios in London, Man Of War was originally intended to be on the soundtrack of the big-screen adaptation of The Avengers with Uma Thurman and Ralph Fiennes, but the group was unhappy with the result and shelved the song. However glimpses of the title's recording footage can be seen in the documentary Meeting People Is Easy. Radiohead began performing on stage in 1996 with I Promise and Lift, on a US tour as the opening act for Alanis Morissette. Hard to fathom how Lift and its heady melody did not end up on the final tracklisting of OK Computer. © MD/Qobuz

Since the advent of acid jazz in the mid-'80s, the many electronic-jazz hybrids to come down the pipe have steadily grown more mature, closer to a balanced fusion that borrows the spontaneity and emphasis on group interaction of classic jazz while still emphasizing the groove and elastic sound of electronic music. For his second album, French producer Ludovic Navarre expanded the possibilities of his template for jazzy house by recruiting a sextet of musicians to solo over his earthy productions. The opener "Rose Rouge" is an immediate highlight, as an understated Marlena Shaw vocal sample ("I want you to get together/put your hands together one time"), trance-state piano lines, and a ride-on-the-rhythm drum program frames solos by trumpeter Pascal Ohse and baritone Claudio de Qeiroz. For "Montego Bay Spleen," Navarre pairs an angular guitar solo by Ernest Ranglin with a deep-groove dub track, complete with phased effects and echoey percussion. "Land Of..." moves from a Hammond- and horn-led soul-jazz stomp into Caribbean territory, marked by more hints of dub and the expressive Latin percussion of Carneiro. Occasionally, Navarre's programming (sampled or otherwise) grows a bit repetitious -- even for dance fans, to say nothing of the jazzbo crowd attracted by the album's Blue Note tag. Though it is just another step on the way to a perfect blend of jazz and electronic, Tourist is an excellent one.© John Bush /TiVo

Using the textured soundscapes of The Bends as a launching pad, Radiohead delivered another startlingly accomplished set of modern guitar rock with OK Computer. The anthemic guitar heroics present on Pablo Honey and even The Bends are nowhere to be heard here. Radiohead have stripped away many of the obvious elements of guitar rock, creating music that is subtle and textured yet still has the feeling of rock & roll. Even at its most adventurous -- such as the complex, multi-segmented "Paranoid Android" -- the band is tight, melodic, and muscular, and Thom Yorke's voice effortlessly shifts from a sweet falsetto to vicious snarls. It's a thoroughly astonishing demonstration of musical virtuosity and becomes even more impressive with repeated listens, which reveal subtleties like electronica rhythms, eerie keyboards, odd time signatures, and complex syncopations. Yet all of this would simply be showmanship if the songs weren't strong in themselves, and OK Computer is filled with moody masterpieces, from the shimmering "Subterranean Homesick Alien" and the sighing "Karma Police" to the gothic crawl of "Exit Music (For a Film)." OK Computer is the album that established Radiohead as one of the most inventive and rewarding guitar rock bands of the '90s.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Lively, ambitious, almost entirely successful debut album, made up of keyboard-dominated instrumentals ("The Barbarian," "Three Fates") and romantic ballads ("Lucky Man") showcasing all three members' very daunting talents. This album, which reached the Top 20 in America and got to number four in England, showcased the group at its least pretentious and most musicianly -- with the exception of a few moments on "Three Fates" and perhaps "Take a Pebble," there isn't much excess, and there is a lot of impressive musicianship here. "Take a Pebble" might have passed for a Moody Blues track of the era but for the fact that none of the Moody Blues' keyboard men could solo like Keith Emerson. Even here, in a relatively balanced collection of material, the album shows the beginnings of a dark, savage, imposingly gothic edge that had scarcely been seen before in so-called "art rock," mostly courtesy of Emerson's larger-than-life organ and synthesizer attacks. Greg Lake's beautifully sung, deliberately archaic "Lucky Man" had a brush with success on FM radio, and Carl Palmer became the idol of many thousands of would-be drummers based on this one album (especially for "Three Fates" and "Tank"), but Emerson emerged as the overpowering talent here for much of the public.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

Near the end of the old millennium, someone once rapped, "Being futuristic these days means being futuristic on your own terms," which is entirely fitting when said rapper records an album of solo piano instrumentals. (Perhaps less instructive is what said rapper went on to say: "Being futuristic means loving worms, saving your sperm, wearing your pubes in a perm.") The former Chilly Gonzales has a hint of Gershwin in his playing, an urbane, contemplative take on the blues that sometime turns into a wry smile. He also has a hint of Satie, the spare and haunted sound of a music box turning slowly to a halt as it comes to the end of its wind. But what he also has is entirely his own, which not only makes this the best album of solo piano instrumentals by a rapper extant but also one of the finest solo piano albums not by a jazz or classical performer. Obviously, there's a duality to any man who lit up stages with Peaches but also played with and produced Jane Birkin and Charles Aznavour, but Solo Piano is a disarmingly wonderful record.© John Bush /TiVo

The Official Archive Series, Vol. 2 captures Status Quo on their Quo Festive tour at London's O2 in December 2012. Featuring the lineup of Francis Rossi, Rick Parfitt, Andrew Bown, John Edwards, and Matt Letley, the set saw the band work through a barrage of classic Quo hits while also performing a medley of Christmas-themed songs, including "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" and "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree."© Rich Wilson /TiVo

Though Two Door Cinema Club's music is resolutely indie at heart, the band released its early singles on the hip, largely electronic imprint Kitsuné. After listening to Tourist History, what the label heard in them becomes clear: Two Door Cinema Club craft immaculate pop that is infectious almost to a fault. On songs like their calling card “Something Good Can Work,” nimble guitars and drums -- both live and programmed -- propel yearning verses and big, hopeful choruses perfect for shouting along to. Alex Trimble’s boyish vocals recall Phoenix’s Thomas Mars and the Postal Service’s Ben Gibbard, and indeed, Two Door Cinema Club is just as adept as those bands are at fusing rock and electronic sounds into a smooth, sleek whole. Whether it’s the laser-like synths that ricochet through “Come Back Home”’s verses or streaking textures on “Do You Want It All?,” this hybrid never feels contrived or overcooked. And unlike some of their contemporaries, a unique urgency runs through Tourist History: even when trying to slow down, as on “Undercover Martyn,” the band gets carried away and the song picks up to Two Door Cinema Club’s usual brisk pace. For most of Tourist History, they stay on the right side of the fine line between consistency and monotony, and as the album unfolds, the band throws some curves into its almost scientifically perfect pop songs. “Cigarettes in the Theatre”’s trumpet solo harks back to the mid-‘80s heyday of sophisti-pop, while “I Can Talk”’s playfully sampled backing vocals show a wit that extends to lyrics like “Eat That Up, It’s Good for You”’s “You would look a little better/Don’t you know/If you just wore less makeup.” While Two Door Cinema Club don't yet have the flawless style or emotional weight of some of their influences, Tourist History just gets catchier and more stylized as it goes on, offering a promising foundation for the band to embellish with even more personality next time.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Is Miranda Lambert our last great female country star? Since her 2001 self-titled debut, she has stayed true-blue to the genre, never veering into crossover territory. Partial credit goes to her beaut of an East Texas twang, which she doesn't try to flatten into something it's not. On her ninth studio album, Lambert plays around with rock 'n' roll and blues, but it's also so country. "I'm out in the Mojave, call me Ricky, call me Bobby," she dares on the muscular "Actin' Up," like a modern-day Jerry Reed. "Call me hotter than wasabi/ Cause I'm actin' up." Three of these songs were first heard on The Marfa Tapes, her acoustic, raw-to-the-bone 2021 collaboration with singer-songwriters Jon Randall and Jack Ingram. "In His Arms" gets a richer, rounder studio treatment, and "Waxahachie" is filled out with cool '80s guitar. "Geraldene" is even more of a hoot, alive with juke-joint fire and Keith Richards-style guitar. Outlaw fun in the tradition of Loretta Lynn's "You Ain't Woman Enough," it finds Lambert confidently stuttering the title as she delivers devastating couplets: "I could see you coming all the way from Amarillo/ Truck stop red lips pullin' on some nicotine/ Shining like the spoke on a brand new El Dorado/ You're trailer park pretty, but you're never gonna be Jolene." The singer also pulls out an unexpected, faithful cover of Mick Jagger's "Wandering Spirit," turning the rockabilly flair up to 11. "Strange" is an instant classic vibrant with Fleetwood Mac vibes, while "Country Money" has a cool '70s AOR feel—complete with Joe Walsh-esque guitar—and a winking storyline about getting rich without getting fancy: "Connie Johnson got a farm in Wisconsin and a diesel in the drive … and the best beef in the cheese state, baby"; "Carol Jean, she's the chicken-egg queen ... drives her hens around town in a Coupé de Ville." There's a Gene Autry lope to "If I Was a Cowboy," along with a modern-day attitude: "So mamas, if your daughters grow up to be cowboys, so what?" "Carousel" is an acoustic stunner with a tender music-box melody and a storyline full of rich symbolism—about "pretty Elena," who has a secret past life, her heart having been broken by a big-top man. "She walked the high wire back in the '80s … hanging from the top tent rafters 'til the spotlight disappeared… The way he earned her trust was on a 20-foot trapeze/ She fell so hard because he always let her fly/ 'Til he left her heart suspended in a cotton-candy sky." And "Music City Queen" might not hold up for a future "Best Of" record, but it's fun right now. Swirling in swamp-blues guitar, it features the B-52's on backing vocals—including  Fred Schneider doing a kitsch call-and-response—and witty lines (about a river boat!) like "She's had the same red carpet since '79 and she was 'ah, ah, stayin' alive.'" But this is not Lambert going pop; it's the B-52's bending to her will. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

You can anticipate objections to Sarah Jarosz's sophomore effort from a couple of different directions: those who saw her as someone who would make old-time country music attractive to the Twitter generation may feel that she's abandoned her sacred duty; others may suspect her of suffering from Elvis Costello Syndrome (which causes spoon-bendingly talented musicians to get tired of doing what their talents have made easy for them and to begin pushing the boundaries of their gifts, with sometimes embarrassing results). Neither objection would be correct. First of all, despite the fact that she plays clawhammer banjo and mandolin and is fluent in early-country vernacular, Jarosz's music has always been much more complicated than that; listen past the accent and the frailing on her debut album and you'll hear about eight or ten different musical genres jostling against each other. Second of all, on Follow Me Down, the drum-powered groove of "Come Around" and the newgrass jazziness of "Old Smitty" and the Radiohead cover are not so much departures from what she's done in the past as they are logical next steps. This isn't to say that everything succeeds perfectly; where "Gypsy" is slow and gorgeous and rocks like a tree swing on a summer evening, her version of "The Tourist" merely drags; where "My Muse" is lushly beautiful, "Come Around" is intense but not terribly tuneful. But virtually everything else comes perilously close to perfection, and each song sounds different from all the others. Jarosz's talent is wondrous and in no way normal, and her developing musical maturity continues to be a wonder to watch.© Rick Anderson /TiVo

The three-disc 1992-2012 anthology replaces the two-disc 1992-2002 as a generous overview of Underworld's lengthy second act. It was issued simultaneously with A Collection, a single-disc release featuring space-saving edits of the group's lengthier highlights. Bizarrely, this lacks some of the cuts included on A Collection -- namely "Beebop Hurry," "Downpipe," "The First Note Is Silent," and "King of Snake" -- and reserves the third disc for rarities, including B-sides, Japan-only bonus tracks, and compilation contributions. The cardboard foldout package is sturdy and holds a glossy, photo-packed booklet. Track information is minimal -- there's no release information whatsoever -- yet most of the photos have dates and locations. Like a lot of career overviews, this is somewhere between an introduction and a collector's item, but it initially retailed for the price of a single disc and holds an edge over the marginally less expensive A Collection.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

This two-disc compilation spans the solo career of the former Japan frontman, who in the last thirty years has gone from new romantic icon to avant-garde figurehead. This collection charts that course, ranging from the art rock of his early releases to the electronic experiments and pure free improv of his later work, featuring contributions along the way from some of the very biggest names in the world of experimental music.© TiVo

Old-timey Canadian alternative folk trio the Be Good Tanyas spent the turn of the 21st century crafting soulful, rustic tales of woe, wonder, happiness, and heartache in a style that was popular at the last turn of the century. Warm, spacious, wise, and often winsome, Frazey Ford, Trish Klein, and Samantha Parton, and for a time Jolie Holland, operated in the same sepia-toned universe as artists like fellow Dust Bowl disciples Gillian Welch and Freakwater, recharging old classics and building new songs on a foundation of traditional folk, blues, bluegrass, Appalachian, gospel, and early Americana music. A Collection features 16 tracks from the Vancouver-based group, most of which are culled from their three well-received studio albums, Blue Horse (2000), Chinatown (2003), and Hello Love (2006). Whether they were reinterpreting the traditional ("Oh Susanna," "Rain and Snow," "In My Time of Dying") or applying a traditional base to a contemporary tale ("Junkie Song," "The Littlest Birds," "Dogsong aka Sleep Dog Lullaby"), the band's tight, effortless harmonies, understated arrangements, and inventive, highly competent musicianship reigned supreme, imbuing even the slightest tale with a considerable weight. The addition of four previously unreleased songs, two of which are remixes, and two brand-new cuts, "Little Black Bear" and "Gospel Song," the latter of which closes out this fine retrospective on a lovely high and lonesome note, will likely please fans who have been waiting patiently for new material since the group went on hiatus in 2007.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo