The blockbuster sequel Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse has an impressive hit soundtrack, courtesy of producer Metro Boomin and a whole multiverse of guest stars. Aligned with the film's themes of heroism, destiny, duty, and love, these tracks complement the film perfectly, whether they're referencing the relationship between Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy or tackling the internal turmoil conflicting each of those main characters. Although more subdued than one might expect from an animated action flick, Metro Boomin captures the mood with confidence. Highlights include the menacing lead track "Annihilate" with Lil Wayne, Offset, and a returning Swae Lee (who delivered the first movie's smash "Sunflower"); the tender, atmospheric alt R&B "Hummingbird" with a lilting James Blake on vocals; and the towering epic "Nas Morales" by Morales' fellow Brooklynite, Nas. For fans in search of the frantic, blaring compositions that were set to the main action pieces in the movie, pop over to Daniel Pemberton's wonderful score; for those willing to dive into the heart and soul of the film's characters and struggles, Metro Boomin has you covered.© Neil Z. Yeung /TiVo

It may be far too obvious to even mention that Norah Jones' follow-up to her 18-million-unit-selling, eight-Grammy-winning, genre-bending, super-smash album Come Away with Me has perhaps a bit too much to live up to. But that's probably the biggest conundrum for Jones: having to follow up the phenomenal success of an album that was never designed to be so hugely popular in the first place. Come Away with Me was a little album by an unknown pianist/vocalist who attempted to mix jazz, country, and folk in an acoustic setting -- who knew? Feels Like Home could be seen as "Come Away with Me Again" if not for that fact that it's actually better. Smartly following the template forged by Jones and producer Arif Mardin, there is the intimate single "Sunrise," some reworked cover tunes, some interesting originals, and one ostensible jazz standard. These are all good things, for also like its predecessor, Feels Like Home is a soft and amiable album that frames Jones' soft-focus Aretha Franklin voice with a group of songs that are as classy as they are quiet. Granted, not unlike the dippy albeit catchy hit "Don't Know Why," they often portend deep thoughts but come off in the end more like heartfelt daydreams. Of course, Jones could sing the phone book and make it sound deep, and that's what's going to keep listeners coming back. What's surprising here are the bluesy, more jaunty songs that really dig into the country stylings only hinted at on Come Away with Me. To these ends, the infectious shuffle of "What Am I to You?" finds Jones truly coming into her own as a blues singer as well as a writer. Her voice has developed a spine-tingling breathy scratch that pulls on your ear as she rises to the chorus. Similarly, "Toes" and "Carnival Town" -- co-written by bassist Lee Alexander and Jones -- are pure '70s singer/songwriting that call to mind a mix of Rickie Lee Jones and k.d. lang. Throw in covers of Tom Waits and Townes Van Zandt along with Duke Ellington's "Melancholia," retitled here "Don't Miss You at All" and featuring lyrics by Jones, and you've got an album so blessed with superb songwriting that Jones' vocals almost push the line into too much of a good thing. Thankfully, there is also a rawness and organic soulfulness in the production that's refreshing. No digital pitch correction was employed in the studio and you can sometimes catch Jones hitting an endearingly sour note. She also seems to be making good on her stated desire to remain a part of a band. Most all of her sidemen, who've worked with the likes of Tom Waits and Cassandra Wilson, get writing credits. It's a "beauty and the beast" style partnership that harks back to the best Brill Building-style intentions and makes for a quietly experimental and well-balanced album.© Matt Collar /TiVo

A strange album in both its composition and its artwork. But, as we are talking about The Beatles, the strangeness is unquestionably wonderful... Released in late 1967 in England as a double EP and then in the US as a full album, Magical Mystery Tour is the soundtrack of the eponymous TV movie directed by Bernard Knowles for the BBC. Here we find much of the psychedelia of the Sgt Pepper's masterpiece, which had been released a few months earlier. The disc is not really designed as a full album, although it contains some of the greatest songs by the Fab Four, such as Penny Lane, Strawberry Fields Forever, All You Need Is Love, Hello Goodbye, I Am The Walrus and The Fool On The Hill. Even instrumental compositions like Flying are real gems... With Magical Mystery Tour, The Beatles sign off what would be the last of their tracks bathed in instrumental experimentation and unusual recording techniques, before turning to a final period of more refined writing. © MZ / Qobuz, Translation/BM

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If Eminem's Curtain Call: The Hits really is his final bow and not merely a clever denouement to his series of Eminem Show and Encore albums, it's a worthy way to retire. And even if he stages a comeback years from now, there's little question that the first five years of his career, spanning four albums plus a soundtrack, will be his popular and creative peak, meaning that the time is right for Curtain Call -- it has all the songs upon which his legend lies. Which isn't necessarily the same things as all the hits. There are a few odds and ends missing -- most notably one of his first hip-hop hits, "Just Don't Give a F***," plus 2003's "Superman" and 2005's "Ass Like That" -- but all the big songs are here: "Guilty Conscience," "My Name Is," "Stan," "The Real Slim Shady," "The Way I Am," "Cleanin' Out My Closet," "Lose Yourself," "Without Me" and "Just Lose It." They're not presented in chronological order, which by and large isn't a problem, since the sequencing here not only has a good, logical momentum, alternating between faster and slower tracks, but they're all part of a body of work that's one of the liveliest, most inventive in pop music in the 21st century. The only exception to the rule are the three new songs here, all finding Shady sounding somewhat thin. There's the closing "When I'm Gone," a sentimental chapter in the Eminem domestic psychodrama that bears the unmistakable suggestion that Em is going away for a while. While it's not up to the standard of "Mockingbird," it is more fully realized than the two other new cuts here, both sex songs that find Shady sounding as if he's drifting along in his own orbit. "Shake That" has an incongruous Nate Dogg crooning the chorus, while the wildly weird "Fack" finds Eminem spending the entire track fighting off an orgasm; it seems tired, a little too close to vulgar Weird Al territory, and it doesn't help that his Jenna Jameson reference seems a little old (everybody knows that the busty porno "It" girl of 2005 is Jesse Jane; after all, she even was in Entourage). Even if these three cuts suggest why Eminem is, if not retiring, at least taking a long break, that's fine: they're reasonably good and are bolstered by the rest of the songs here, which don't just capture him at his best, but retain their energy, humor, weirdness, and vitality even after they've long become overly familiar. And that means Curtain Call isn't just a good way to bow out, but it's a great greatest-hits album by any measure.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

It's subtle, but telling, that the cover of Audioslave's eponymous debut is designed by Storm Thorgerson, the artist behind Pink Floyd's greatest album sleeves. Thorgerson, along with Roger Dean, epitomized the look of the '70s, the era of supergroups, which is precisely what Audioslave is -- a meeting of Rage Against the Machine, minus Zack de la Rocha, with former Soundgarden vocalist Chris Cornell. Though both bands were leading lights of alt-metal in the '90s, the two came from totally separate vantage points: Rage Against the Machine was fearlessly modern, addressing contemporary politics over Tom Morello's hip-hop-influenced guitar, while Soundgarden dredged up '70s metal fueled with the spirit of punk. That these two vantage points don't quite fit shouldn't be a surprise -- there is little common ground between the two, apart that they're refugees from brainy post-metal bands. Of the two camps, Chris Cornell exerts the strongest influence, pushing the Rage Against the Machine boys toward catchier hooks and introspective material. Occasionally, the group winds up with songs that play to the strengths of both camps, like the storming lead single "Cochise." For Cornell fans, it's a relief to hear him unleash like this, given the reserve of his brooding solo debut, but this is hardly a one-man show. The Rage band, led by the intricate stylings of guitarist Tom Morello, gets their chance to shine, including on numbers that are subtler and shadier than the average Rage tune. Which brings up the primary fault on the album: Perhaps Morello, and perhaps the rest of RATM, are technically more gifted than, say, Soundgarden, but they never sound as majestic, as powerful, or as cinematic as what Cornell's songs need. His muted yet varied solo album proved that he needed muscle, but here it's all muscle, no texture or color. Consequently, many of the songs sound like they're just on the verge of achieving liftoff, never quite reaching their potential. There are moments, usually arriving in the first half, where Audioslave suddenly, inexplicably clicks, sounding like a band, not a marketer's grand scheme. Still, these moments are few and far between and it's hard to get through this album as a whole. By the end, it's clear that this pairing was a clever idea, but not an inspired one.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

If boiled down to a simple synopsis, the Beatles' LOVE sounds radical: assisted by his father, the legendary Beatles producer George, Giles Martin has assembled a remix album where familiar Fab Four tunes aren't just refurbished, they're given the mash-up treatment, meaning different versions of different songs are pasted together to create a new track. Ever since the turn of the century, mash-ups were in vogue in the underground, as such cut-n-paste jobs as Freelance Hellraiser's "Stroke of Genius" -- which paired up the Strokes' "Last Night" with Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" -- circulated on the net, but no major group issued their own mash-up mastermix until LOVE in November 2006. Put in those terms, it seems like LOVE is a grand experiment, a piece of art for art's sake, but that's hardly the case. Its genesis lies with the Beatles agreeing to collaborate with performance dance troupe Cirque du Soleil on a project that evolved into the Las Vegas stage show LOVE, an extravaganza that cost well over 100 million dollars and was designed to generate revenue far exceeding that. During pre-production, all involved realized that the original Beatles tapes needed to be remastered in order to sound impressive by modern standards when pumped through the huge new theater -- the theater made just with this dance revue in mind -- and since they needed to be tweaked, they might as well use the opportunity to do something different with the familiar music, too: to remix and re-imagine it, to make LOVE be something unique to both the Beatles and Cirque du Soleil. Keep in mind the Cirque du Soleil portion of the equation: George and Giles Martin may have been given free rein to recontextualize the Beatles' catalog, but given that this was for a project that cost hundreds of millions of dollars this wasn't quite the second coming of The Grey Album, where Danger Mouse surreptitiously mashed up The White Album with Jay-Z's The Black Album. This isn't an art project and it isn't underground, either: it's a big, splashy commercial endeavor, one that needs to surprise millions of Beatles fans without alienating them, since the mission is to please fans whether they're hearing this in the theater or at home. And so, the curious LOVE, a purported re-imagining of the most familiar catalog in pop music, winds up being less interesting or surprising than its description would suggest. Neither an embarrassment or a revelation, LOVE is at first mildly odd but its novelty soon recedes, revealing that these are the same songs that know you by heart, only with louder drums and occasionally with a few parts in different places. Often, what's presented here isn't far afield from the original recording: strip "Because" down to its vocals and it still sounds very much like the "Because" on Abbey Road -- and that arrangement is actually one of the more drastic here. Whether they're songs as spare and stark as "Eleanor Rigby" or "Yesterday," as trippy as "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" or as basic as "Get Back," the songs remain the same, as do most of the arrangements, right down to the laughter and sound effects sprinkled throughout "I Am the Walrus." There's only one cut that has the thrilling unpredictability of a genuine mash-up and that's a cut that blends together "Drive My Car," "The Word" and "What You're Doing," punctuated with horns from "Savoy Truffle"; a chorus from one song flows into the verse from another, as keyboards and percussion from all three, plus more, come together to make something that's giddy, inventive and fresh. But that's the exception to the rule, since most of this delivers juxtapositions that seem obvious based on the concept of the project itself: it doesn't take a great leap of imagination to set the melody of "Within You Without You" to the backing track of "Tomorrow Never Knows," since both derive from the same psychedelic era and share similar themes.Throughout LOVE, songs are augmented by samples from roughly the same phase in the Beatles career, so "Strawberry Fields Forever" is enhanced by "Penny Lane," "Hello Goodbye," "Piggies" and "In My Life," but not "There's a Place," "It Won't Be Long," or "I Feel Fine," selections that could have been truly startling. It also would have been startling if those snippets of "Penny Lane" and "Hello Goodbye" were threaded within "Strawberry Fields," in a fashion similar to "Drive My Car/The Word/What You're Doing," but they're added to the end of the song, a move that's typical of the Martins' work here. With a few exceptions scattered throughout the record, all the mash-ups are saved for the very end of the song, which has the effect of preserving the feel of the original song while drawing attention to the showiest parts of the Martins' new mixes, giving the illusion that they've changed things around more than they actually have. Not that the Martins simply add things to the original recordings; that may be the bulk of their work here, but they do subtly change things on occasion. Most notably, they structure "Strawberry Fields" as a progression from the original demo to the finished single version (a move that is, admittedly, borrowed from Anthology 2) and they've used an alternate demo take of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," to which George Martin has written a sympathetic new string arrangement. It also has to be said that the craft behind LOVE is impeccable: it flows as elegantly as the second side of Abbey Road, which is an achievement of no small measure. But there lies the rub: even if LOVE elicits a certain admiration for how Giles and George have crafted their mash-ups, it elicits a greater admiration for the original productions and arrangements, which display far more imagination and audacity than the mixes here. Take a song as seemingly straightforward as "Lady Madonna," a Fats Domino tribute so good the man himself recorded it. This mix highlights weird flourishes like the carnival-esque vocal harmonies of the bridge -- things that were so densely interwoven into the original single mix that they didn't stand out -- but by isolating them here and inserting them at the front of the song, the Martins lessen the dramatic impact of these harmonies, just like how the gut-level force of McCartney's heavy, heavy bass here is tamed by how it's buried in the mix. The original has an arrangement that builds where this gets to the good part immediately, then stays there, a problem that plagues all of LOVE.Here, the arrangements have everything pushed up toward the front, creating a Wall of Sound upon which certain individual parts or samples can stand out in how they contrast to the rest. This means that LOVE can indeed sound good -- particularly in a 5.1 surround mix as elements swirl between the front and back speakers, but these are all window-dressing on songs that retain all their identifiable elements from the original recordings. And that's the frustrating thing about this entire project: far from being a bold reinvention, a Beatles album for the 21st century, the Martins didn't go far enough in their mash-ups, creating new music out of old, turning it into something mind-blowing. But when there's a multi-multi-million dollar production at stake, creating something truly mind-blowing is not really the goal: offering the familiar dressed up as something new is, and that's what LOVE delivers with big-budget style and flair, and more than a touch of Vegas gaudiness. It's an extravaganza, bright and colorful and relentless in its quest to entertain but beneath all the bluster, LOVE isn't much more than nostalgia masquerading as something new.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

In just three sessions between November 1955 and October 1956, Miles Davis and his first quintet recorded enough material for the release of five albums under the label Prestige. With the great Rudy Van Gelder in his studio in Hackensack, New Jersey, this creative marathon produced some of the most iconic albums in the trumpeter’s discography, such as Miles: The New Miles Davis Quintet (1956), Cookin’ (1957), Relaxin’ (1958), Workin (1959) and Steamin’ (1961). Joining him are pianist Red Garland, double bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Philly Joe Jonas and saxophonist John Coltrane (before he became famous as a musical God). Throughout these 32 tracks which are chronologically sequenced and remastered in Hi-Res 24-Bit, the quintet essentially writes the birth certificate for hard bop, defining the genre. Although it often seems to be Miles David’s second quintet (1965-1968 with Herbie Hancock, Ron Carter, Tony Williams and Wayne Shorter) which has pride of place in the jazz history hall of fame, it shouldn’t overshadow this earlier group from the mid-fifties which was equally as influential. Miles’ pared-down style, the originality of Coltrane and his intricate keys and the great precision of Garland’s playing make for some stunning versions of these compositions, which include both popular music and more unconventional and innovative pieces. A must-listen! © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

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Code Orange was always destined to break beyond the inherently niche boundaries of hardcore punk. Back when they released their 2012 debut as teenagers under the name Code Orange Kids, the Pittsburgh band’s violent finesse rivaled every Converge-indebted group who’d come before them. Two years later on I Am King they dropped the “Kids” and got even heavier; on 2017’s Forever, they injected industrial and alt-metal elements into their black-blooded metalcore, earning them a Grammy nomination. Whatever they did next was either going to label them a fluke or justify their spot in heavy music’s upper echelon, and Underneath is a wind-knocking gut-punch to anyone who ever doubted that they were up for the task. The record is a total reimagining of what a metal album can and should sound like. Sure, there are blistering guitar leads, thunderous drums, and enough bone-snapping breakdowns to flatten a football team. But the way that all of those traditional metal elements are stitched seamlessly together with haunting electronic passages—ranging from horror score noise and industrial hip-hop beats, to Oneohtrix Point Never-esque ambience—is what truly sets them apart from any other band in their world, past or present. And on top of all of those mechanical instrumentals, the band’s three screamers offer half-a-dozen different vocal deliveries: guttural bellows, piercing shrieks, grungy cleans, and everything in between. Thematically, Underneath has a two-part concept: it’s a terrifying sci-fi narrative about the blurry lines between our corporeal and digital realities, and it’s a meta-commentary on the band’s place in the heavy music ecosystem. It’s a lot to take in on nearly every level and that’s its strongest quality—a hefty reminder that metal is supposed to be epically overstimulating. Under Code Orange’s watch, anything less than groundbreaking is a crime. © Eli Enis

A misconception has sometimes been associate with Norah Jones: that the Texan is little more than a pleasant light-jazz singer whose albums serve as harmless background music for high-brow and proper evening dinners. Though her writing, playing and eclectic collaborations, she has clearly proved that she is far more interesting than this cliché. And this 2020 offering is a new illustration of her complexity. As is often the case with Norah Jones, Pick Me Up Off the Floor is not quite jazz, not quite blues, not quite country, etc… Her genre-defying music works primarily to suit the song being played. Here we find what has been left behind after sessions with Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy, Thomas Bartlett, Mavis Staples, Rodrigo Amarante and several others.But for all that the result is not simply a contrived mishmash of collaborations but a collection of songs that hold the same silky groove (present on six out of 11 tracks on the record in which Brian Blade’s drums work delicate miracles) and calm sound which increasingly suits the artist, somewhere between pure poetry and realism. “Every session I’ve done, there’ve been extra songs I didn’t release, and they’ve sort of been collecting for the last two years. I became really enamoured with them, having the rough mixes on my phone, listening while I walk the dog. The songs stayed stuck in my head and I realised that they had this surreal thread running through them. It feels like a fever dream taking place somewhere between God, the Devil, the heart, the Country, the planet, and me.” Rarely has Norah Jones sang with such strength, like on I’m Alive where she sings of women’s resilience, or on How I Weep in which she tackles love and exasperation with unequalled grace. This Deluxe Edition contains two bonus tracks and a collection of 17 songs culled from Norah’s Live From Home weekly livestream series. Thie Live From Home selections include a mix of career-spanning originals and such covers as Guns N’Roses’ Patience, John Prine’s That’s The Way The World Goes Round and Ravi Shankar’s I Am Missing You. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Dolly Parton had a number of hits in the late '60s as Porter Wagoner's duet partner, yet solo success eluded her until her 1971 album Coat of Many Colors. The title track was a Top Ten single, and it effectively became her signature song, largely because it was a sweetly autobiographical tune about her childhood. That song, along with its two hit predecessors, "Traveling Man" and "My Blue Tears," were evidence that Parton was a strong songwriter, but the full album reveals the true depth of her talents. She wrote seven of the ten songs (Wagoner wrote the other three), none of which is filler. There isn't really a theme behind Coat of Many Colors, even if its title track suggests otherwise. Instead, it's a remarkably consistent album, in terms of songwriting and performances, but also remarkably diverse, revealing that Dolly can handle ballads, country-rockers, tearjerkers, and country-pop with equal aplomb. And while it is very short, clocking in at under a half-hour, there isn't a wasted moment on the album. It's a lean, trim album that impresses because of succinctness -- with its ten songs, it announced Parton as a major talent in her own right, not merely a duet partner.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Sometimes you need to look back in order to move forward. While Black Stone Cherry have had increasing chart success -- 2014's Magic Mountain hit number five on the U.K. charts and number 22 in the U.S. -- the band felt a lack of creative control over their recordings. To that end, they left Roadrunner Records and signed to Mascot, run by Ron Burman (the man who signed them to Roadrunner in the first place). Earlier Black Stone Cherry albums were always imbalanced: songwriting was sometimes sacrificed in an attempt to replicate the band's live sound; at other times, it was the reverse. Kentucky is a self-produced, back-to-the-roots affair (with participation from a host of local players and singers). Opener "The Way of the Future" walks the line between gnarly, riff-tastic hard rock and heavy metal. Frontman/guitarist Chris Robertson's rant against greedy politicians is fueled by his and Ben Wells' twin-guitar attack, grooving tom-tom, kickdrum fills from John Fred Young, and a fuzzed-out, Geezer Butler-esque bassline from Jon Lawhon. The two proceeding tracks, "In Our Dreams" and "Shakin' My Cage," are equally bone-crunching. The gears shift on "Soul Machine." It blends greasy Southern-fried funk and adrenalin-fueled blues-rock, with Robertson backed by Stax-style vocalists Sandra and Tonya Dye. Black Stone Cherry can still write killer hooks, too: "Long Ride" is a power ballad in classic '70s rock fashion, complete with a rousing anthemic chorus and melodic guitar fills by Wells. The band updates Edwin Starr's psychedelic soul classic "War" with fat baritone saxophone, brass, dirty, in-the-red distorted guitars, and a large backing chorus. Robertson's vocal is filled with righteous indignation as the band swells toward volcanic eruption. The vintage Southern rock vibe on "Cheaper to Drink Alone" is classic BSC, but it's steeped in such a catchy melody, it will likely be covered by harder, edgier contemporary country acts. Wells' guitar break is one of his meatiest on record. "Hangman" is steeped in squalling, hard-riffing blues with a hooky chorus, while "Rescue Me," despite its brief gospelized intro, is the meanest, leanest thing on the set. The groove-centric intro of "Feelin' Fuzzy" gives way to a funky backbeat with guitars on stun. The latter album track "Darkest Secret" helps close the album circle with off-the-rails metallic hard rock (complete with a Black Sabbath-style breakdown), though the chorus is drenched in Southern groove. Kentucky marks the first time BSC have balanced all of their writing strengths with their concert presence. The album is a grower. After a listen or two, Black Stone Cherry's back-to-the-cradle approach proves that track for track, Kentucky is not only more consistent, but more satisfying than previous albums.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

The multi-million unit sales of ABBA Gold led to the creation of this 20-song compilation, containing the remaining singles from the group plus other notable tracks. None of what's here is as tuneful or compelling as the group's most successful recordings -- though the arrangements and, especially, the vocals are, as always, almost idealized in their crystalline purity -- and most of the tracks won't be familiar to listeners in all countries, since a number were hits in specific limited national markets. At the time, in 1993, the sound was an improvement over the existing CDs on which the tracks appeared, although, like ABBA Gold, this collection is crying for fresh remastering in 24-bit audio.© Bruce Eder /TiVo

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