The only true Purcell opera – the others considered to be semi-operas, a format closer to musical theatre – Dido & Aeneas is a masterpiece that offers such musical density that the piece was destined to radically influence the tastes of English society, which quickly embraced the arrival of entirely sung operas. The work was created in London in 1896, in a version that was surely more complete than the one that we possess today, according to the libretto by Nahum Tate which mentions a prologue of music that has since been lost. Taking on the myth of The Aeneid, the opera is a loose adaptation of Book IV of the work by Virgil. The British ensemble La Nuova Musica – whose recording of Couperin’s “Tenebrae Readings for Holy Wednesday” on harmonia mundi we so admired in 2016 – offers us a luminous and balanced version of the work, accompanied by a cast of top-notch soloists, Fleur Barron and Matthew Brook being first in line. A record released by PentaTone, this sneak preview is presented exclusively by Qobuz for download until September 21, 2023. © Pierre Lamy/Qobuz

Nancy Sinatra and the team at Light in the Attic knocked it out of the park with the 2021 compilation Start Walkin' 1965-1976, an absolutely top-shelf selection of twenty-three of singer's best cuts from her prime era that beautifully showcased her hits as much as it did the wide streak of weird that ran through much of her material during that time. That set was so good that one would be rightfully suspicious that this 2023 companion piece focused on deep cuts, rarities, and unreleased tracks would be a barrel-scraping exercise meant for completists only. Well, the barrel may be getting scraped, but Nancy Sinatra's output from the mid-'60s through the mid-'70s was a delightful combination of high-gloss AM radio perfection and freewheeling experimentation.  These tracks may not have had the same cultural impact as "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'" or "Some Velvet Morning" but are still rewarding in their own way.The collection starts off strong with the evocative pop-noir of "The City Never Sleeps at Night" (the bouncy b-side of "Boots") and "The Last of the Secret Agents," a dazzlingly goofy novelty number that served as the title theme for a 1966 parody of James Bond films starring Sinatra. Although there are a few weaker numbers scattered throughout—"Tony Rome" is atypically apathetic, and an inexplicable cover of the Move's "Flowers in the Rain" shows that baroque psychedelia may not have been Sinatra's forte—Keep Walkin' is more than balanced out by dizzyingly great numbers like the languid and louche "Easy Evil" (a 1972 demo that was previously only available on the 1998 Sheet Music compilation) that show how her willingness to be weird never abated.Sinatra's early '70s material is often overlooked. Not only did the cultural zeitgeist decidedly move on from her style—too square for the cool kids and too quirky to be "easy listening"—but she only released two albums during the decade, both in 1972. She nonetheless had a great run of non-LP singles between 1973 and 1976, and while some of those A-sides made their way onto the Start Walkin' collection, Keep Walkin' rounds out the tracklist by including her phenomenal cover of Lynsey De Paul's "Sugar Me" (as well as the B-side, a somewhat questionable cover of "Ain't No Sunshine") and the stunning "Kinky Love" from 1976. © Jason Ferguson/Qobuz

Ella Fitzgerald had the ability to personalize some of the most recognizable material from the foremost songwriters in American popular music history. In this instance, the combination of Cole Porter's words and Fitzgerald's interpretation of them created one of the most sought after sessions in vocal history -- embraced by jazz and pop fans alike, transcending boundaries often associated with those genres. Originally released in 1956 on the Verve label, such standards as "Night and Day," "I Love Paris," "What Is This Thing Called Love," "I've Got You Under My Skin," "You're the Top," and "Love for Sale" secured one of Ella Fitzgerald's crowning moments. The success of these early Porter (and previous Gershwin) sessions brought about numerous interpretations of other songbooks throughout the next several years including those of Rodgers and Hart, Duke Ellington, Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, and Irving Berlin.© Al Campbell /TiVo

Ashley McBryde had been kicking around Nashville for 13 years when she won the CMA's Best New Artist award in 2019. All those years of experience—and determination—inform her third album. As with 2020's sharp and fun Never Will, McBryde sounds assured on tracks like the stomping and super-upbeat "Made for This," which borrows a riff from The Wallflowers' "The Difference" and tells the story of touring her butt off before her big break: "Adderall/ alcohol/ Your dressing room is a bathroom stall/ But you turn it on when the big man calls/ Because he ain't gonna call you twice." Now that she's made it, she's part of a new wave of badass female country artists—think Lainey Wilson—who are unapologetically themselves even as they follow in the footsteps of fellow strongwomen like Reba McEntire and K.T. Oslin. ("Single at the Same Time"—a what-if of wondering how might things had played differently with a just-friend— sounds like it could've been lifted from the latter's catalog.) It takes that backbone to write and sing a song like "Learn to Lie," which McBryde has said is about her own family—and admitted that she warned her mother it would be hard to hear but "none of it is untrue." "I think my father did the best that he could do/ He rarely made it to the dinner table/ Said he was working late, but he was working late/ Fogging up the windows of an '89 Sable," she sings. As a charged guitar solo builds the song to powerful heights, she confesses how that family history taught her to lie as well: "I hate that it runs in my blood/ I hate how easy that it comes" … "I learned how to say things I don't mean/ Like 'stay' when I want you to leave."  "The Devil I Know," with its irresistible melody and hard-rocking banger of a chorus, is equally emotive, with McBryde hollering about independence, "Mama says get my ass to church/ Daddy says get my ass to work ... Hell, there's hell everywhere I go/ So I'm sticking with the devil I know." "Blackout Betty" embraces Southern rock and the way a hangover can leave you questioning life choices. "Coldest Beer in Town" has an Indigo Girls shuffle, and "Light on in the Kitchen"—a low-key celebration of homespun wisdom passed down from generation to generation—puts the spotlight on slow-hand guitar. Brothers Osborne's John Osborne gets a co-write credit on honky-tonk bluesy "Whiskey and Country Music" with its George Jones reference ("One gets me drunk as the possum/ The other pours in a glass"). And hootenanny "Cool Little Bars" establishes a sisterhood with co-writer Lainey Wilson over a shared love of places with a cigarette machine, jukebox with "songs you don't hear much anymore" and "an old pickle jar sitting on the bar." As McBryde sings: "I pray time just forgets to turn places like this into drive-thrus and condos." © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

It’s not quite right to say that the Go-Go’s' 1981 debut, Beauty and the Beat, is where new wave caught hold in the U.S., but it’s not quite wrong, either. Prior to this, there had certainly been new wave hits -- Blondie had been reaching the Top Ten for two years running -- but the Go-Go’s ushered in the era of big, bright stylish pop, spending six weeks at the top of the U.S. charts and generating two singles that defined the era: the cool groove of “Our Lips Are Sealed” and the exuberant “We Got the Beat.” So big were these two hits that they sometimes suggested that Beauty and the Beat was a hits-and-filler record, an impression escalated by the boost the Go-Go’s received from the just-launched MTV, yet that’s hardly the case. Beauty and the Beat is sharp, clever, and catchy, explicitly drawing from the well of pre-Beatles ‘60s pop -- girl group harmonies, to be sure, but surf-rock echoes throughout -- but filtering it through the nervy energy of punk. With the assistance of Rob Freeman, producer Richard Gottehrer -- a veteran of the Strangeloves (“I Want Candy”) who also wrote the girl group standard “My Boyfriend’s Back” -- sanded down the band’s rougher edges, keeping the emphasis on the hooks and harmonies but giving the Go-Go’s enough kick and jangle that at times the group resembles nothing less than early R.E.M., particularly on “How Much More” and “Tonite.” But this isn’t Murmur; there is nothing murky about Beauty and the Beat at all -- this is infectiously cheerful pop, so hooky it’s sometimes easy to overlook how well-written these tunes are, but it’s the sturdiness of the songs that makes Beauty and the Beat a new wave classic.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

It's said that good things come to those who wait. That's certainly true of New York-via-Nashville singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell. Her superlative new album, Just Like a Rose: The Anniversary Sessions, comes nearly a decade after her last full-length, 2014's No Way There from Here.Thanks to savvy production from Don Fleming (Sonic Youth, Teenage Fanclub), Rosie Flores (Wanda Jackson), Paul Burch (Lambchop), and Ed Stasium (Ramones, Talking Heads)—Just Like a Rose sounds timeless, and touches on multiple approaches: heartland-rock Bangles (the title track), pedal steel–augmented vintage country ("Bide My Time"), folk-leaning '70s soft rock ("Unaccompanied"), and gentle Americana ("I'm Gonna Miss This Town").As it turns out, this long gap between albums stemmed partly from COVID delays. Cantrell had originally wanted Just Like a Rose to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her debut album, but the extra time gave room for both new songs and tunes Cantrell has had kicking around, and also left the door open for an impressive list of musical collaborators. Steve Earle chimes in with gruff vocals on the Lone Justice-esque highlight "When The Roses Bloom Again," while Buddy Miller also makes contributions alongside Flores and Burch.Lyrically, however, Cantrell also explores the emotional vicissitudes of modern life. The waltzing ballad "AWM - Bless" is a scathing indictment of the thorny modern political climate ("AWM" stands for "Angry White Man") that ends with the devastating, passive-aggressive phrase "bless your heart." Meanwhile, "I'm Gonna Miss This Town" chronicles the conflicted feelings often present when leaving home. In contrast, the protagonist of "Brand New Eyes" embraces new beginnings after setting out on their own. At the end of the day, Cantrell's clear-eyed observations buoy Just Like a Rose—and ensure it's one of the most emotionally satisfying albums of 2023. © Annie Zaleski/Qobuz

25 years after his first album, NATURALLY, J.J. Cale created GUITAR MAN, an album made up of hypnotic grooves forged out of elegantly simple components. The album is largely a solo affair, with only scattered additional accompaniment, such as on the incredible opening tune, "Death in the Wilderness." Otherwise, Cale plays every instrument, adding particularly strong guitar work to the mix.Remarkably, Cale's easygoing front-porch character is no less warm when he utilizes subtle keyboards and electronic percussion. With the exception of his arrangement of the traditional "Old Blue" (popularized by the Byrds in one of their later incarnations), the songs are all Cale originals. Besides songs that mine the familiar thematic territory of love, longing, and taking it easy, there's a handful that address world ills such as the environment and crime. He manages to tackle these issues without ever being didactic. However, he was sufficiently impassioned to include the lyrics to all the songs this time out. The title song and "Low Down" are two Cale classics that contain familiar lyrical and musical phrases that sound completely timeless when he sings and plays them.© TiVo

Suzanne Vega’s musical world involves stories in which characters hold as much importance as the setting they find themselves in. In this moving and delicate live recording, the singer pays homage to New York, one of her favourite cities. Surrounded by her longtime guitarist Gerry Leonard, bassist Jeff Allen and keyboardist Jamie Edwards, Suzanne Vega replays a section of her repertoire on the famous Café Carlyle stage in New York. “It’s a little club which has welcomed legends from Eartha Kitt to Judy Collins, and is also known for being the place where Jackie Kennedy met Audrey Hepburn.”, explains the singer. The hits Luka and Tom’s Diner have naturally been given a well-deserved place in this rich playlist which looks back on a career spanning 35 years that blossomed in the 1980s and continued throughout the 90s. Vega often gives a nod towards 70s folk music in her fragile and sweetly melancholic songs. The concert’s particularly intimate orchestration reinforces this spirit to the point that the same magic is there from the first piano chords and guitar riffs. The recording reaches its climax in a rendition of Walk on the Wild Side by Lou Reed, one of her idols. Through her tales of the hubbub of the great American city, Suzanne Vega manages to tell a story of her own. © Nicolas Magenham/Qobuz

Vocal gymnastics and Christmas songs are not often thought of as a compatible combination, but on Merry Christmas, Mariah Carey jumps, climbs, crawls, twirls, and dashes her way through both traditional fare and original Christmas songs. She shifts through styles, offering fans from all musical camps a gift of their own. There is even a "Joy to the World" medley mixing the old and the new: the traditional Christmas song and the Three Dog Night hit. And, as usual, her gospel-voiced background singers are out in full force. There are two ways to enjoy this album. One is to sit back and revel in Carey's vocal fireworks, and the other is to pour yourself a glass of eggnog, get cozy by the tree, and have yourself a Merry Christmas.© TiVo

This lush and earthy collaboration between Mark Knopfler and Emmylou Harris may sound like it rose from an amiable weeklong studio session, but the 12 tracks that make up All the Roadrunning were actually recorded over the span of seven years. The boot-stomping "Red Staggerwing" and the gentle "Donkey Town," both of which were bumped from Knopfler's Sailing to Philadelphia record, give the ex-Dire Straits leader a chance to flex his country muscle, while the wistful title track spotlights the lovely Harris, whose playful demeanor and guarded confidence helps keep Knopfler in check during his sometimes excessive soloing. The two couldn't be more at odds vocally, but Knopfler's laconic drawl is like an easy chair for Harris' fluid pipes, and standout tracks like the 9/11-inspired "This Is Goodbye," the wistful "Beachcombing," and the infectious single "This Is Us" come off as effortless statements of vitality from both camps.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

At the ripe old age of 20, Clarksdale, Mississippi guitar slinger Christone "Kingfish" Ingram has been anointed "the next explosion of the blues," by no less than Buddy Guy. The proclamation is accurate. Ingram is young, but he's spent most of life pursuing the blues across the Delta and Chicago traditions, with nods at '70s hard rock and soul along the way. First exposed to blues via gospel in church, Ingram has been playing guitar since he was ten; he first stepped on a stage to play at the age of 11, at Clarksdale's famous Ground Zero Club, as part of Mississippi blues icon Bill "Howl-N-Madd" Perry's band -- Perry is Ingram's mentor. Before he was 18, Ingram had already toured the U.S. and six other countries, performed at the White House, and made appearances in the Marvel series Nick Cage. His musical influences range from Robert Johnson -- who supposedly made his deal with the devil not far from Ingram's home at the intersection of Highways 61 and 49 -- to Muddy Waters, Guy, and even Prince (he offers a hell of a cover of "Purple Rain" live). Kingfish was recorded in Nashville for Alligator Records and produced by Grammy-winning songwriter, bluesman, country singer, and drummer Tom Hambridge, who co-wrote most of these 12 songs with the guitarist. Opener "Outside of This Town," reveals the influence of ZZ Top's Billy Gibbons with its meaty, angular fills and pulled strings. It's followed by the slow-burning ballad "Fresh Out," on which Ingram trades solos with his hero Guy. Ingram can deliver an acoustic ballad like a master, too: check "Been Here Before" and "Hard Times" with Keb Mo' on acoustic resonator guitar (he appears throughout the record) offering balance, nuance, and restless country-soul. The slow burn of "Love Ain't My Favorite Word" calls forth the influence of Guy's '80s period with its biting, sharp notes and unexpected fills between sung lines and aggressive solo flourishes during turnarounds. "Before I'm Old" shines a light on Guitar Slim before the scorching lead break. "Listen" is a country-blues with a gorgeous vocal from Ingram. "Trouble," on the other hand, is drenched in the New Orleans R&B lineage à la Professor Longhair, and dragged into the present via an intense, rolling melodicism in Ingram's singing and soloing. The funky shuffle and snare breaks in "Believe These Blues" add a hefty yet slow-burning menace to the otherwise nocturnal shuffle. "Hard Times" with Keb Mo' is a slow-burn acoustic shuffle steeped in the Delta mud, while closer "That's Fine by Me" is a sweet, sultry, and soulful nocturnal blues with edgy fills reminiscent of early B.B. King, yet firmly grounded in this historical moment. The bottom line is that Ingram arrives fully formed as an already authoritative presence on Kingfish, all revved up and ready to. This is as promising as a debut album gets. © Thom Jurek /TiVo

On their fifth album, Eurythmics moved away from the austere synth-pop of their previous work and toward more of a neo-'60s pop/rock stance. "Missionary Man" (which went Top 40 as a single in the U.S. and charted in the U.K.) featured a prominent harmonica solo, while "Thorn in My Side" had a chiming guitar riff reminiscent of the Searchers and a fat sax solo. Of course, the primary element in the group's sound remained Annie Lennox's distinctive alto voice, which was still impressive even if the material was slightly less so. Revenge was a successful album, reaching the Top Ten in the U.K. and going gold in the U.S., but it was a disappointment compared to their last three albums. And creatively, it was a step down as well -- there was nothing here that they hadn't done a little better before.© William Ruhlmann /TiVo

Not even the Killers, the champions of retro new wave, think that synth rock is music to be taken seriously, and Lord knows that this Vegas quartet wants to be taken seriously -- it's a byproduct of being taken far too seriously in the first place, a phenomenon that happened to the Killers after their not-bad-at-all 2004 debut album, Hot Fuss, was dubbed as the beginning of the next big thing by legions of critics and bloggers, all searching for something to talk about in the aftermath of the White Stripes and the Strokes. The general gist of the statement was generally true, at least to the extent that they were a prominent part of the next wave, the wave where new wave revivalism truly caught hold. They were lighter than Interpol and far gaudier, plus they were fronted by a guy called Brandon Flowers, a name so ridiculous he had to be born with it (which he was). And although it was hailed to the heavens on various areas of the Net, Hot Fuss became a hit the old-fashioned way: listeners gravitated toward it, drawn in by "Mr. Brightside" and sticking around for the rest. Soon, they made the cover of everything from Spin to Q, earning accolades from rock stars and seeing their songs covered on Rock Star, too. Heady times, especially for a group with only one album to its name, and any band that receives so much attention is bound to be thought of as important, since there has to be a greater reason for all that exposure than because Flowers is pretty, right? One of the chief proponents of the belief that the Killers are important is the band itself, which has succumbed to that dreaded temptation for any promising band on its sophomore album: they've gone and grown beards. Naturally, this means they're serious adults now, so patterning themselves after Duran Duran will no longer do. No, they make serious music now, and who else makes serious music? Why, U2, of course, and Bruce Springsteen, whose presence looms large over the Killers' second album, Sam's Town. The ghosts of Bono and the Boss are everywhere on this album. They're there in the artful, grainy Anton Corbijn photographs on the sleeve, and they're there in the myth-making of the song titles themselves -- and in case you didn't get it, Flowers made sure nobody missed the point prior to the release of Sam's Town, hammering home that he's just discovered the glories of Springsteen every time he crossed paths with the press. Flowers' puppy love for Bruce fuels Sam's Town, as he extravagantly, endlessly, and blatantly apes the Springsteen of the '70s, mimicking the ragged convoluted poet of the street who mythologized mundane middle-class life, turning it into opera. The Killers sure try their hardest to do that here, marrying it to U2's own operatic take on America, inadvertently picking up on how the Dublin quartet never sounded more European than when they were trying to tell one and all how much they loved America. That covers the basic thematic outlook of the record, but there's another key piece of the puzzle of Sam's Town: it's named after a casino in the Killers' home town of Las Vegas, and it's not one of the gleeful, gaudy corporate monstrosities glutting the Strip, but rather one located miles away in whatever passes for regular, everyday Vegas -- in other words, it's the city that lies beneath the sparkling façade, the real city. Of course, there's no real city in Vegas -- it's all surface, it's a place that thinks that a miniature Eiffel Tower and a fake CBGB's are every bit as good as being there -- and that's the case with the Killers too: when it comes down to it, there's no "there" there -- it's all a grand act. Every time they try to dig deeper on Sam's Town -- when they bookend the album with "enterlude" and "exitlude," when Flowers mixes his young-hearts-on-the-run metaphors, when they graft Queen choirs and Bowie baritones onto bridges of songs -- they just prove how monumentally silly and shallow they are. Which isn't necessarily the same thing as bad, however. True, this album has little of the pop hooks of "Mr. Brightside," but in its own misguided way, it's utterly unique. Yes, it's cobbled together from elements shamelessly stolen from Springsteen, U2, Echo & the Bunnymen, Bowie, Queen, Duran Duran, and New Order, but nobody on earth would have thought of throwing these heroes of 1985 together, because they would have instinctively known that it wouldn't work. But not the Killers! They didn't let anything stop their monumental misconception; they were able to indulge to their hearts' content -- even hiring U2/Depeche Mode producers Alan Moulder and Flood to help construct their monstrosity, which gives their half-baked ideas a grandeur to which they aspire but don't deserve. But even if the music doesn't really work, it's hard not to listen to it in slack-jawed wonderment, since there's never been a record quite like it -- it's nothing but wrong-headed dreams, it's all pomp but no glamour, it's clichés sung as if they were myths. Every time it tries to get real, it only winds up sounding fake, which means it's the quintessential Vegas rock album from the quintessential Vegas rock band.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

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Arguably one of Sparks' best albums, 1974's Kimono My House finds the brothers Mael (Ron wrote most the songs and played keyboards, while Russell was the singing frontman) ingeniously playing their guitar- and keyboard-heavy pop mix on 12 consistently fine tracks. Adding a touch of bubblegum, and even some of Zappa's own song-centric experimentalism to the menu, the Maels spruce up a sleazy Sunset Strip with a bevy of Broadway-worthy performances here: as the band expertly revs up the glam rock-meets-Andrew Lloyd Webber backdrops, Russell sends things into space with his operatic vocals and ever-clever lyrics. And besides two of their breakthrough hits (the English chart-toppers "This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us" and "Amateur Hour"), the album features one of their often-overlooked stunners, "Here in Heaven." Essential.© Stephen Cook /TiVo