Naming her long-awaited second album Trouble in Paradise might have been tempting fate if La Roux's Elly Jackson hadn't endured plenty of hardships between 2009's self-titled debut and its follow-up. Writer's block, the departure of collaborator Ben Langmaid, panic attacks that left Jackson unable to sing, and extensive recording sessions all delayed her return to the point that "where are they now?" stories seemed more likely than a second album. However, the lasting impact of La Roux's whip-smart synth pop -- which became a template for countless other '80s-worshiping acts during Jackson's absence -- proved her music could still be relevant five years later. She wastes no time reminding listeners of her charms with Trouble in Paradise's opening tracks: "Uptight Downtown" (which borrows starkly echoing guitars from David Bowie's "Let's Dance") and "Kiss and Not Tell" offer more of "Quicksand" and "Bulletproof"'s cleverly bouncy pop, minus some bite. Elsewhere, Jackson downplays the stiff electronics that made such an intriguing contrast with her emotive singing and lyrics on La Roux. She trades them for a warmer, disco and reggae-inspired sound that shines on "Tropical Chancer"'s electro-calypso hybrid (which also evokes Bananarama's similarly sunburnt and heartbroken "Cruel Summer") but often just isn't as distinctive as before; that a song called "Sexotheque" is merely pleasant is a dubious achievement. Jackson also uses this softer sound to explore more vulnerable songwriting territory: much of Trouble in Paradise teeters between independence and codependence, whether it's "Cruel Sexuality"'s stifled desire or the boundary setting of "Let Me Down Gently." Jackson's feisty side doesn't resurface until "Silent Partner," where the relentless bassline and expansive length seem to nod to the success La Roux's singles had as dance remixes. At other times, the album's rangy tracks just seem padded, particularly on the lulling ballad "Paradise Is You." While La Roux was so full of hits and should-be hits that almost anything that followed would pale by comparison, Trouble in Paradise might have fared better as an EP of the best songs here. However, the album's standouts also prove Jackson is still better than many of her contemporaries when it comes to making fizzy electro-pop. This may not be a thrilling return, but it's still a welcome one.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Having broken through into the pop Top Ten albums with producer Jay Graydon and Breakin' Away, Jarreau had found his commercial groove, and it was potent enough to sustain him at least through the eponymously titled follow-up album. Again, strong, often self-co-composed material, and catchy, radio-friendly arrangements with lots of synthesizers would be the strong suit of this album, front-loaded by two large-scale R&B hits, the cheery "Mornin'" and the footstomping "Boogie Down," that would be part of his concert repertoire forever more ("Save Me" is also in their league). The backing comes from a coterie of L.A. pros who kick in more energy than what one would normally expect; it must be the material that fired 'em up. In other words, this is a really good R&B album, almost a great one, with the one caveat being that Jarreau's unique vocal abilities aren't remotely challenged; this could conceivably have been cut by almost any skilled R&B singer.© Richard S. Ginell /TiVo

Despite its massive commercial success, Legend, the 1984 Bob Marley & the Wailers compilation, was not an impressive "best-of" of the group's full career. It was assembled to highlight Marley's U.K. hit singles of the late '70s and seriously underrepresented his early standards. You might think, therefore, that 11 years later, when Island Records finally got around to releasing what is, in essence, "Legend, Vol. 2," the label would redress the imbalance. No such luck. As its title, Natural Mystic: The Legend Lives On, suggests, this Marley "rest-of" has the same flaw as its predecessor. ("Natural Mystic," the leadoff track, is from 1977's Exodus, an album that had already provided five tracks to Legend.) Although there were few additional U.K. singles, this collection gathers them up, including "Iron Lion Zion" and the newly reconfigured "Keep on Moving," both posthumous tracks heavily overdubbed long after Marley's death that sound little like his classic style. The rest of the album scatters tracks from such later albums as Survival and Uprising, though there are three songs from Rastaman Vibration, an album ignored by Legend, one of them Marley's sole Billboard Hot 100 chart entry, "Roots, Rock, Reggae." Still, the absence of defining early-'70s songs like "Lively Up Yourself," "Concrete Jungle," "Stop That Train," "Burnin' and Lootin'," "Kinky Reggae," "Duppy Conqueror," and "Small Axe" from either compilation is so bizarre that the only explanation one can speculate is a financial one. Maybe due to recording or publishing contracts, Island has some reason to avoid putting Bob Marley & the Wailers' early classics on their compilations. In any case, Natural Mystic: The Legend Lives On adds to the frustration of fans who expect compilations to actually feature the highlights of the band's career.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Randy Newman began the slow process of transforming himself into a polished L.A. song-crafter on the album Little Criminals, and with Trouble in Paradise the metamorphosis was complete; by this time, Newman could make a record just as ear-pleasing as anything Paul Simon, Don Henley, or Lindsey Buckingham could come up with, and proved it by persuading all three to appear on the sessions. But no matter how polished the arrangements and smooth the production, Newman's songs don't sound like they're ready for radio, and he's too bright not to understand that songs about apartheid, self-pitying white bluesmen, and arrogant yuppies are poor prospects for the pop charts. Trouble in Paradise marked the high point of Newman's struggle between pop sheen and his satiric impulses, and the album is a significant improvement over Little Criminals and Born Again. The targets of Newman's satirical gaze are easy to skewer, and his pen is hardly subtle, but the overall tone is more respectful than on Born Again and the results are stronger. The bitter Afrikaner in "Christmas in Capetown" and the egocentric blowhard in "My Life Is Good" have at least earned Newman's disgust, and while many of the character studies ("Mikey," "I'm Different") and vignettes ("Miami," "Take Me Back") take a less than charitable view of their protagonists, like the losers and half-wits that populate Good Old Boys, they're human beings whose flaws reveal a hint of tragedy. And the closing number, "Song for the Dead," is a stunner in which a soldier explains to the bodies he's burying the purpose behind the war that took their lives. While too slick for Newman's core audience, Trouble in Paradise was his most intelligent and best realized work since Good Old Boys, and his finest album of the 1980s.© Mark Deming /TiVo

His tenth album overall, Unfollow the Rules signifies an emphatic return to pop for Rufus Wainwright following a recording of his first opera (2015's Prima Donna) and a set of Shakespeare sonnets set to music (2016's Take All My Loves). It also represents a career marker of sorts; returning to Los Angeles and specifically Sound City Studios, where Wainwright recorded his 1998 eponymous debut, the songwriter has described it as a bookend to the first part of his career. A lush, theatrical, nearly hourlong 12-track set recorded with legendary producer Mitchell Froom (Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello, Crowded House), it opens with the sleek pairing of Wainwright's vocals and a drum beat by Matt Chamberlain before "Trouble in Paradise" breaks open with dense, pointed vocal harmonies. A song reportedly inspired by fashionista Anna Wintour, its expanding instrumentation includes performances by the likes of Blake Mills, pianist Randy Kerber, and Rob Moose, who did string arrangements for the album. Horns, woodwinds, keyboards, and pedal steel guitar are among other components of the song's gorgeous, volatile textures. Though there are sparer moments that follow, even tracks like the piano ballad "Unfollow the Rules" and the ominous dirge "Early Morning Madness" -- a memorable piece that stands among Wainwright's best work -- eventually swell into something more rhapsodic or, in the case of the latter, devolve into cacophony as they progress. Perhaps the most easygoing track here is "You Ain't Big," which ventures into pre-rock country stylings for a playful take on one's status in the music industry if you fail to win over the heartland. Wistful closing track "Alone Time" features just one of the many elegant melodies on Unfollow the Rules and recalls to the rich vocal harmonies of the opener. While intended to hark back to the debut, at least in subtle ways (musicians including drummer Jim Keltner appear on both albums, and much of it was recorded live in the studio), Wainwright's growth as a composer/arranger and his experiences in the classical realm are apparent here. Though, to his credit as a tunesmith, his words and melodies remain center stage.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

Pip Blom—the 25-year-old frontwoman of the Dutch band of the same name—has said her 2019 debut, Boat, was largely influenced by the Blur and Oasis-era Britpop albums she grew up with. For the band's second album, Welcome Break, she once again turned to her childhood home in Amsterdam (literally, she wrote all the songs there), but this time around her inspirations stretch in other directions. With its kick-in-the-door chorus, "12" still has all the comforts of Britpop. But you can hear shades of the indie-pop bounce of '90s Massachusetts trio Papas Fritas in kinetic opener "You Don't Want This" and there's a bit of Sahara Hot Nights' Swedish intensity on songs like "Easy." Meanwhile, "It Should Have Been Fun" rides an easy head-nod beat and meandering melody that recalls Pavement’s Brighten the Corners album. The song's about being in a relationship where you can't stop bickering, even though you don't want to: "We got haunted minds, so tell me what went wrong?/ What I thought you said and what you said I did." Blom has described how, "When the track starts, it feels like it’s going to be a very sensitive, calm song. The verses capture the feeling of sadness, disappointment in yourself and someone else. But when the chorus starts, the energy switches. It’s more angry, being fed up, wanting to change something, like there’s a tipping point." The band adopts a similar emotional ascent for "I Know I'm Not Easy to Like"—which begins with Blom singing in a deadpan delivery, then going higher and edgier as the nervous guitars bear down on her, then screaming her way through the big, thick chorus. While most musical siblings play up the idea of perfect family harmonizing, Blom and younger brother Tender—the band's guitarist, joined by drummer Gini Cameron and bassist Darek Mercks—are all about the discord. During the bridge of the excellent "Keep It Together," they dive for different keys, while the chorus is almost like two songs happening at once as each sings their part. Tender's deep, hearty voice is also a great complement to his sister's sugar-sweet vocals on moody "Different Tune." It's weird, in the best possible way. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Naming her long-awaited second album Trouble in Paradise might have been tempting fate if La Roux's Elly Jackson hadn't endured plenty of hardships between 2009's self-titled debut and its follow-up. Writer's block, the departure of collaborator Ben Langmaid, panic attacks that left Jackson unable to sing, and extensive recording sessions all delayed her return to the point that "where are they now?" stories seemed more likely than a second album. However, the lasting impact of La Roux's whip-smart synth pop -- which became a template for countless other '80s-worshiping acts during Jackson's absence -- proved her music could still be relevant five years later. She wastes no time reminding listeners of her charms with Trouble in Paradise's opening tracks: "Uptight Downtown" (which borrows starkly echoing guitars from David Bowie's "Let's Dance") and "Kiss and Not Tell" offer more of "Quicksand" and "Bulletproof"'s cleverly bouncy pop, minus some bite. Elsewhere, Jackson downplays the stiff electronics that made such an intriguing contrast with her emotive singing and lyrics on La Roux. She trades them for a warmer, disco and reggae-inspired sound that shines on "Tropical Chancer"'s electro-calypso hybrid (which also evokes Bananarama's similarly sunburnt and heartbroken "Cruel Summer") but often just isn't as distinctive as before; that a song called "Sexotheque" is merely pleasant is a dubious achievement. Jackson also uses this softer sound to explore more vulnerable songwriting territory: much of Trouble in Paradise teeters between independence and codependence, whether it's "Cruel Sexuality"'s stifled desire or the boundary setting of "Let Me Down Gently." Jackson's feisty side doesn't resurface until "Silent Partner," where the relentless bassline and expansive length seem to nod to the success La Roux's singles had as dance remixes. At other times, the album's rangy tracks just seem padded, particularly on the lulling ballad "Paradise Is You." While La Roux was so full of hits and should-be hits that almost anything that followed would pale by comparison, Trouble in Paradise might have fared better as an EP of the best songs here. However, the album's standouts also prove Jackson is still better than many of her contemporaries when it comes to making fizzy electro-pop. This may not be a thrilling return, but it's still a welcome one.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Pedal steel ace B.J. Cole's Trouble in Paradise picks up where Stop the Panic, his collaboration with Luke Vibert, ended; it is another step toward the futurist exotica he began seeking on 1995's Heart of the Moment. Here he teams with a slew of DJs -- Groove Armada, Trash Palace, Fluid, Kumo, Banknote Rajah, Vibert, Laura B -- and other musicians; he gets further, deeper, harder, stranger on an aural road trip into the desperate side of the tourist travel paradise. It's like waking into a weird dream where everything is supposed to be fine, supposed to be groovy and relaxing, but is somehow freakish and even a bit frightening, but one can't figure out why. This isn't space-age bachelor pad music; it's more like tiki longue noir for the Blade Runner fan. It sits right in the speakers -- or better yet, oh so cool high-end headphones. Trash Palace kicks some restrained sound effects and cheap drum machine loops and breakbeats into the mix as Cole's pedal steel becomes an elastic band of sound that doesn't whine so much as snicker. "The Interloper" hosts Fluid, with his library of sampled loops of Indian percussion. Cole gets downright funky before the fully synthetic breaks pop in and a saxophone begins soloing somewhere in the background as spooky laughter and conversation float in and around the proceedings. It's creepy cool. A3 offers a vocal for the distorted pedal steel deep-toned loops in "Are You Ready for Some Country." (This could the new Sopranos if Tony and company relocated to the South Pacific.) The track has no country music in it, but is more in line with a hard-bitten, hard-billed future blues. Longtime keyboard and sequencing partner Guy Jackson is here helping out almost everywhere, and drum boss Neil Conti does so on the silvery, mercurial late-night lonesome of "Downtown Motel Blues," with a vocal by Geoff McIntire (aka Dempsey). Conti's rim shot kit work was processed into a killer loop and processed by Brian Eno. Cole's steel is strictly the atmospheric in this pre-dawn high lonesome as a harmonica whines through the edges, bringing to mind the Western scores of Morricone. Kumo's "East of Eden," with its live tables, sampled Jackson's keyboards, including a wonderful part for Cole's pedal steel processed to sound like a sitar, and Ben Davies' haunted cello is one of the most delightful things here. In all, Trouble in Paradise is a nice ride, a small sonic escape, a pleasant little nightmare that echoes -- in terms of feel -- the records of Stan Ridgway, though it's a steamier, more international kind of future blues. Cole's idiosyncratic and records infrequently. Trouble in Paradise is a weird stop in aural no man's land.© Thom Jurek /TiVo