Welcome To The Jungle, It’s So Easy, Nightrain, Mr Brownstone, Paradise City, My Michelle, Sweet Child O’ Mine, You’re Crazy… Look no further to explain the success of this monument that sold over thirty million copies worldwide: right from the start, it feels like a best-of album rather than a first studio effort… Even Out Ta Get Me, Think About You, Anything Goes and Rocket Queen, the four “weak tracks” of this masterpiece, would have satisfied fans of other bands who were sick of Guns N’ Roses at the time. Add to this two tracks that were sidelined at the time mostly for copyright reasons and are unearthed here, Shadow Of Your Love and Move To The City, as well as the studio version of Reckless Life. Though they feel like a walking disaster, this mighty gang had something others didn’t have in the microcosm of the Los Angeles hard rock scene: the ability to give birth to rock classics in record time. Some will no doubt find it unjust that the controversial track One In A Million was a kind of collateral victim of the reissue of Lies, from which it was removed. But this improved rerelease goes to show that, even if it wasn’t necessarily their goal, the musicians’ sound and performance are also two major components in any masterpiece. The reason they decided to include the before and after Appetite For Destruction, meaning the two EPs Live?!*@ Like a Suicide (the false live) and G N' R Lies, is because it is clear that all the ingredients were far from being in place at the Sound Studio where the twenty-ish alternative versions were recorded, featured here as a “bonus”. Mike Clink’s expert production, and Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero’s calibrated and well-balanced mixing obviously helped give the selected original twelve songs their ultimate form. And therefore optimal efficiency. But other live or acoustic titles gleaned here and there to close out this reissue (Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Live), It’s So Easy (Live), AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie (Live), November Rain (Acoustic), the very short but promising The Plague, the instrumental Ain’t Goin’ Down No More or the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash (Acoustic)) prove that the band’s five members went through a period, albeit much too short, in which they were touched by grace. And there will most likely be further proof if one day Axl Rose decides to unearth the version of the album he re-recorded in 1999 with the new Guns N’ Roses line-up, without Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler. It was with this winning cast that Guns N' Roses beat the ultimate sales record for a first album in the United States. And although the multiple line-up evolutions that followed didn’t lead to any commercial disasters, they never gave the band the opportunity to repeat the feat of Appetite For Destruction. © Jean-Pierre Sabouret/Qobuz

Ezra Collective won well-deserved critical and commercial acclaim for 2019's You Can't Steal My Joy, a raucous debut long-player laced with elements of Afrobeat, jazz, hip-hop, and grime. However, before they could take it on tour globally, the COVID-19 pandemic set in. They introduce the same musical chemistry on Where I'm Meant to Be and still employ massive doses of jazz-funk layered inside swinging Afrobeat, salsa, grime, and soul.On "Life Goes On" (featuring Sampa the Great), party sounds meet James Mollison's honking tenor sax, Femi Koleoso's funky beats, and Sampa's rapid-fire delivery as T.J. Koleoso's insistent bassline and Ife Ogunjobi's trumpet solo above Joe Armon-Jones' organ and piano vamps before massive funk arrives with a trumpet solo to carry it out. "Victory Dance" commences as a triple-timed drum and percussion orgy atop shouted human voices. Afro-Cuban-styled horns and hand percussion bump and burn before the horns usher in an Afro-Cuban theme. Armon-Jones enters, then takes off with rapid montunos as the tune moves to intense salsa with soaring trumpet. They don't let up when Kojey Radical fronts the band on the single "No Confusion." Anchored by T.J.'s circular funk bassline, the horns pulse in driving Afrobeat style above Femi's breaking snares and hi-hat while Armon-Jones lays down sinister chord voicings, adding to the rhythm section's heft as Radical syncopates his incendiary delivery. "Welcome to My World" is all groove and grit as post-bop and Afrobeat horns meet dubwise rhythms in a strutting frenzy. "Ego Killah" is strictly dubwise steaminess with double-time bass and piano vamps; interlocking drums and percussion rub against and buoy one another. That track is followed by the R&B-centric "Smile" led by Armon-Jones' crystalline jazz piano harmonies supported by a rhythm section playing smooth, gentle, neo-'80s soul. "Live Strong" inserts grooving '70s-styled funk into shimmering contemporary jazz piano and swinging horns. Emeli Sande assists on the livelier sounding "Siesta," offering her heavenly yet assertive soprano atop Rhodes piano, congas, bongos, and bass. "Belonging" arrives as interstellar space jazz with glorious soloing from Mollison and martial snare from Koleoso. Armon-Jones opens a harmonic door in the bridge as the tune begins to assert itself, wedding spacious spiritual jazz to driving neo-electro and funk. His knotty acoustic piano solos with both Koleosos in trio. The set closes with a reading of Sun Ra's "Love in Outer Space" as a finger-popping, smooth, jazzy, neo-soul jam with Nao (Neo Jessica Jones) emoting in her wispy, reedy soprano as T.J. Koleoso guides her with a slippery, resonant bassline framed by ascendant horns and spectral keys. While Where I'm Meant to Be is a logical follow-up to Ezra Collective's debut, it's a soulful, musically advanced, rhythmically infectious one, too.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Welcome To The Jungle, It’s So Easy, Nightrain, Mr Brownstone, Paradise City, My Michelle, Sweet Child O’ Mine, You’re Crazy… Look no further to explain the success of this monument that sold over thirty million copies worldwide: right from the start, it feels like a best-of album rather than a first studio effort… Even Out Ta Get Me, Think About You, Anything Goes and Rocket Queen, the four “weak tracks” of this masterpiece, would have satisfied fans of other bands who were sick of Guns N’ Roses at the time. Add to this two tracks that were sidelined at the time mostly for copyright reasons and are unearthed here, Shadow Of Your Love and Move To The City, as well as the studio version of Reckless Life. Though they feel like a walking disaster, this mighty gang had something others didn’t have in the microcosm of the Los Angeles hard rock scene: the ability to give birth to rock classics in record time. Some will no doubt find it unjust that the controversial track One In A Million was a kind of collateral victim of the reissue of Lies, from which it was removed. But this improved rerelease goes to show that, even if it wasn’t necessarily their goal, the musicians’ sound and performance are also two major components in any masterpiece. The reason they decided to include the before and after Appetite For Destruction, meaning the two EPs Live?!*@ Like a Suicide (the false live) and G N' R Lies, is because it is clear that all the ingredients were far from being in place at the Sound Studio where the twenty-ish alternative versions were recorded, featured here as a “bonus”. Mike Clink’s expert production, and Steve Thompson and Michael Barbiero’s calibrated and well-balanced mixing obviously helped give the selected original twelve songs their ultimate form. And therefore optimal efficiency. But other live or acoustic titles gleaned here and there to close out this reissue (Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door (Live), It’s So Easy (Live), AC/DC’s Whole Lotta Rosie (Live), November Rain (Acoustic), the very short but promising The Plague, the instrumental Ain’t Goin’ Down No More or the Rolling Stones’ Jumpin’ Jack Flash (Acoustic)) prove that the band’s five members went through a period, albeit much too short, in which they were touched by grace. And there will most likely be further proof if one day Axl Rose decides to unearth the version of the album he re-recorded in 1999 with the new Guns N’ Roses line-up, without Slash, Izzy Stradlin, Duff McKagan and Steven Adler. It was with this winning cast that Guns N' Roses beat the ultimate sales record for a first album in the United States. And although the multiple line-up evolutions that followed didn’t lead to any commercial disasters, they never gave the band the opportunity to repeat the feat of Appetite For Destruction. © Jean-Pierre Sabouret/Qobuz

Walter Trout is an electric bluesman who has logged in lots of experience as both a sideperson (including work with John Mayall) and as a leader of his own bands (including the Free Radicals). As the reference to Mayall might suggest, he also adds a healthy dose of classic rock to his blues on The Outsider, working in the tradition of Jimi Hendrix's "Red House" and, in general, Stevie Ray Vaughan. The slow, rocking blues of the title track, in fact, may remind one of "Red House" or "Texas Flood." This isn't to accuse Trout of being derivative so much as to note that he, like many blues artists, is working within well-worn traditions that place more emphasis on creating an individual voice within the limits of that tradition than leaving the tradition behind. To that end, the Eastern underpinning of a song like "Sanjay" works much better for establishing Trout's talents than the title track. Likewise, the acoustic "Turn Your Eyes to Heaven" offers an easy-flowing, open-ended musical space that mimics the spirituality of the lyric. One of the primary strengths of The Outsider is its eclecticism within the blues-rock tradition, an approach that shows Trout's range, but also one that prevents one musical style from becoming too dominant.© Ronnie D. Lankford, Jr. /TiVo

After completing Low and Heroes, the first two albums of his Berlin trilogy, David Bowie spent most of 1978 touring the world. During this huge tour, baptised as Isolar II, he sang in front of a million people across 70 concerts in 12 countries! The star was free from his addiction problems which up until then had seen him go on stage only after having ingested astronomical quantities of cocaine… Recorded in April and May 1978 and released in September the same year, the live Stage album showed a Bowie in full transition, struggling with his glam beginnings, his soul music future and his present new wave. First published for the occasion of the Record Store Days in April 2018, Welcome To The Blackout (Live London'78) also captures this period. Recorded at Earls Court in London on June 30th and July 1st 1979 by Tony Visconti, this is a previously unreleased double live album offering more energetic versions than those on stage. The fascinating tracks from Low and Heroes lose some of their eccentricity on stage. And the “old hits” like Rebel Rebel and Ziggy Stardust gain in luxury what they lose in violence, even if on Suffragette City the singer does seem totally possessed. Finally, the lead guitarist Adrian Belew and rhythmic guitarist Carlos Alomar knit together stunning interventions to accompany the Thin White Duke. An unmissable document for Bowie fans. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

Have a Nice Day, Bon Jovi's ninth studio album of original material, picks up where 2002's Bounce left off, showcasing a harder, heavier band than either 2000's Crush or Jon Bon Jovi's 1997 solo effort, Destination Anywhere. Not only that, but this 2005 album finds Jon Bon Jovi picking up on the serious undercurrent of Bounce, writing a series of angry, somber neo-protest songs that form the heart of this record. While he's not exactly explicitly political here, there's little question that he's dissatisfied with the world today, whether it's about life in small town America or the sorry state of pop music; he even goes so far to write a variation on Bob Dylan's classic "Chimes of Freedom" with "Bells of Freedom." Since he's stretching out lyrically, the band finds a comfort zone in sticking in the tried-and-true arena rock that's been their signature sound for 20 years now. While they sound appropriately grand and powerful -- this is one of the few groups that sounds right at home in large venues -- at times they pump up their choruses a little bit too much, so they sound strident, not anthemic. That heavy-handedness, coupled with a loud but colorless production from Bon Jovi, guitarist Richie Sambora, and John Shanks, with Desmond Child acting as executive producer for the whole thing, gives Have a Nice Day a sound that's a bit too monochromatic for the band's ambitions, or for its own good: at times, getting through the record can be a little bit of a chore, since there's not much fun to be had here. Nevertheless, it's hard not to admire Jon Bon Jovi's attempt to stretch himself, particularly when he balances his earnestness with tunes as gentle as "Wildflower."© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

"Gentle" is a relative term, for while this collection of material is mostly pitched at a slower set of tempos and a more lyrical frame of mind, John Coltrane was no less passionate in a ballad as he was in a roaring frenzy. Issued on two LPs, The Gentle Side draws nine tracks from the legacy of the classic Coltrane quartet (with McCoy Tyner, Jimmy Garrison, and Elvin Jones), adding a pair of tracks each from his collaborations with Duke Ellington and Johnny Hartman. You can say all you want about how a collection like this disregards the musical flow of the original albums -- which is true -- and still be helplessly caught up in the staggering emotional power of this man's playing. Even when heard in this context, performances like "After the Rain" and "Welcome" remain breathtaking in their spiritual beauty, and the combination of Coltrane's eloquence and Hartman's warm, masculine baritone can still break your heart with one of their best interpretations of "My One and Only Love." Above all, if you know anyone who has resisted Coltrane because of the fearsome reputation of his more agitated music, lay this LP on them.© Richard S. Ginell /TiVo

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