Soundtrack of the eponymous film directed by Richard Lester (dubbed in French Quatre garçons dans le vent or Four boys in the wind), A Hard Day's Night is a first for The Beatles, as for this third album released at the beginning of summer 1964, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote every song on the disc without any covers! And what songs! Can’t Buy Me Love, A Hard Day's Night, I Should Have Known Better - the level is very high and each hit track shows a rapidly developing musical and artistic identity as the group went from being national treasures to international icons. Every corner of this changing pop façade is fascinating. The irresistible melodies are pulled together by sparkling guitars in an innocent, feel-good tribute to all things melodic. A Hard Day's Night is the epitome of the early periods of that famous 'sound' of the The Beatles. Even in ballads such as And I Love Her, the Fab Four already demonstrate a fascinating musical maturity... A true joy for the listener. ©MZ/Qobuz, Translation/BM

Delivered months after her May 2023 death, Queen of Rock 'N' Roll is the first comprehensive solo retrospective assembled on Tina Turner in many years. Spanning either three CDs or five LPs, the box set follows a chronological order, opening with a trippy reading of Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" -- popularized in Disney's Cruella -- then swiftly running through several late-'70s tracks that didn't often appear on collections before the comp reaches her great comeback of 1984. By this point, the collection is seven cuts deep and there's another 48 songs to go, which means Queen of Rock 'N' Roll relies heavily on her international hits of the 1990s and beyond, building upon her basic hits with live cuts and re-recordings. It perhaps winds up getting a little too glossy and tasteful by the close of the collection, yet this, of all Turner compilations, paints a portrait of the entire arc of Tina's solo career. Her rawest, nerviest, and funkiest material is missing, but this depicts her comeback and reign in vivid detail.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Simply the Best is surrounded by some of the best situations a compilation can hope for. Tina Turner's work for Capitol past Private Dancer was spotty, she made a bunch of appearances on soundtracks and other artists' albums, and most of the tracks on Private Dancer are good enough to own twice. Almost half of Private Dancer shows up on Simply the Best, but you don't have to endure the way the original album spiraled down into slick fizzle. Instead you have to endure a misguided, pumped-up house remix of "Nutbush City Limits," but that's it. Everything else here is either top-notch or campy, certifiable fun. A duet with Rod Stewart on "It Takes Two" supplies the fun along with the new track, "I Want You Near Me" (Turner to lover: "You're so good with your hands/To help me with a hook or zip"). The two other new tracks tacked to the end beat out most of the album cuts the collection passes on, plus you get the bombastic "We Don't Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)" without having to buy a dull soundtrack. The oldest cut by years is the monolithic "River Deep-Mountain High," which is a bona fide classic but sonically out of place here. Reprogram the disc to play it at the beginning or end, skip the new "Nutbush" completely, and you've got sparkling, nearly perfect overview of Turner's postcomeback career.© David Jeffries /TiVo

When she released Private Dancer in 1984, Tina Turner was already 45 years old and had a solid career behind her. Alongside her ex, the violent but brilliant Ike Turner (they divorced in 1978 after 16 years of marital hell that she described in a book), she sang soul and rhythm’n’blues like no one else before, venturing into other genres. But her solo début didn’t interest many people, especially since at the beginning of the ‘80s vintage soul was no longer popular. Supported by the record label Capitol, the Tennessee lioness decided to immerse soul in a blend of rock FM and synth pop. This resulted in her reaching the top of the charts and a boost to her career, mostly thanks to the hit What’s Love Got to Do With It. Tina Turner also enjoyed being more daring and covering songs as diverse as Private Dancer by Dire Straits (with Jeff Beck on guitar), Help! by The Beatles, 1984 by David Bowie but also soul classics like I Can’t Stand The Rain by Ann Peebles and Let’s Stay Together by Al Green. An eclectic repertoire that is accompanied perfectly by her fierce feline voice. © Clotilde Maréchal/Qobuz

Following Venice (2014), Malibu (2016) and Oxnard (2018), Anderson .Paak continues his tour of the west coast. Here, he’s arrived at Ventura, a love-letter to a neighboring town to the city of angels that flirts more with the fringes of old-school R&B and the new soul scene than his previous albums. This time, the Californian hasn’t waited 3 years to return to the studio, but just 5 months. Released on Dr Dre’s label Aftermath, Oxnard was compact and glossy, with a large number of featured artists (Pusha T, J Cole, Q Tip), but it was also more harshly criticized, even by his mother. Anderson opts for a return to his roots, with voluptuous R&B, fresh soul and cult rap, mixing timeless nostalgic flavorings with the modern era. To support his idea, there are even more carefully selected feats. For the silky softness of the 70’s/80’s, we find legend of the genre Smokey Robinson (Make It Better). For the 90’s golden age, Brandy (Jet Black).For the soul side, Anderson and Dre look to Donny’s daughter, Lalah Hathaway, on the groovy basslines of Reachin’2 Much, as well as Sonyae Elise (who already shows up in Malibu) and Jazmine Sullivan who was already on stage alongside Stevie Wonder at just 13 years old. But the two biggest surprises of the album are of course André 3000 in the opening track Come Home and especially Nate Dogg – who died in 2011 - on the gentle closing track What Can We Do?: both key figures of 90’s rap. The first put Atlanta back on the rap map with OutKast’s Dirty South and recently appeared on James Blake’s Where’s The Catch. The second was ubiquitous in the 90’s-00’s rap scene with legendary hooks and her G-Funk-rap-R&B formula alongside Warren G, Snoop and Xzibit. Anderson .Paak pays tribute to his elders and closes his fourth album in 39 minutes and 11 tracks. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

Ask anyone who was there in the halcyon days of Y2K what it was like, what it was really like, to live through the changing of the millennium, and they'll answer you this: you couldn't escape that damned "All Star" song. Anywhere you turned -- radio, TV, movies, movie trailers, advertisements, sports games -- all you heard was Smash Mouth's irrepressible ode to clueless losers, a self-empowerment anthem for the ignorant and entitled (really, it was a tune ahead of its time, since it easily could have been mood music for the Paris Hilton era). For a couple of years there, Smash Mouth seemed ubiquitous, though in retrospect they only had a few big hits: "All Star," its peerless predecessor "Walkin' on the Sun," "Then the Morning Comes," and "Diggin' Your Scene," plus covers of Let's Active's "Every Word Means No," the Four Seasons/Fun Boy Three's "Can't Get Enough of You Baby," and the Monkees' "I'm a Believer." That's more than most bands have, but doesn't quite explain why it seemed as if Smash Mouth were impossible to shake for a few years at the turn of the millennium. Then, a closer inspection of the liner notes to their first hits collection, All Star Smash Hits (well, what else was it going to be called?), reveals an answer. There are songs from the following movies and soundtracks on this comp: Mystery Men, Baseketball, Snow Day, Can't Hardly Wait, Friends Again, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Me Myself & Irene, Pacific Coast Highway, Shrek, Austin Powers: Goldmember, and The Cat in the Hat. That's more than half of this generous 20-track collection, and it doesn't even come close to representing all of the soundtracks and collections featuring Smash Mouth -- it misses such gems as Another Rosie Christmas, 2000's Digimon soundtrack, Jailbait! Music from the MTV Original TV Movie, 2001's Rat Race, 2002's Clockstoppers, 2003's The Jungle Book 2. No wonder they seemed like they were everywhere: they were! They seemed to accept any offer that came their way, including gigs like, say, Radio Disney, that most bands would be happy to leave behind. But, no, Smash Mouth happily took the work, becoming pop culture white noise in the process -- music that was easy to tune out while still registering subconsciously. To be given so many opportunities to sell out the band had to be good enough -- good enough to sell their hooks, but not distinctive enough to cause waves. All Star Smash Hits proves that the group was indeed good enough, arguably better than Sugar Ray, their closest rival among SoCal ska-punk/metal bands to shamelessly grab the brass ring. Sugar Ray rocked harder and were more diverse, but Smash Mouth found their groove -- a summery update on pre-Beatles frat rock as learned via Animal House, early-'80s T&A movies, and new wave -- early on and then stayed in it, aided by Greg Camp's lean, tuneful, hooky songwriting and good taste in covers. They didn't have any real standouts apart from those aforementioned hits, but they always delivered cheerful, relaxed party music that makes the time go by smoothly and speedily. They never made a bad album, but they hardly made a memorable one, either, and that applies to this hits compilation. It's far better than cynics would suspect -- and it's surely nice to have all the big hits in one place, even if smaller singles like the Neil Diamond-written "You Are My Number One" are missing (maybe that didn't make the cut because 25 was the closest it got to number one on the charts) -- and it's always good-hearted fun, but it's also too long, which makes it less memorable as a whole. So it's a bit like summer itself -- wondrous at first, so good that you wish it would never end, but by its conclusion, you're ready for the fall. Such an arc is appropriate for a band that provided the soundtrack for every summer between 1997 and 2001. [A couple of other fun things about All Star Smash Hits. Seven of the 20 songs are covers. Head songwriter Greg Camp is billed as Gregory Camp for all the selections from their debut but Greg Camp for everything else --- which is kind of strange, because songwriters usually get pompous and use their full name after they have success (music reviewers, on the other hand, start out pompous, using their full names from the get-go).]© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Released as a tie-in to Tina Turner's fall 2008 tour of North America, Tina! follows her last greatest-hits album All the Best: The Hits by a mere three years and it has the same number of tracks as its predecessor, six of which are songs shared between the two compilations. This makes Tina! feel similar to All the Best but it's a different compilation in many ways, with a broader scope, reaching back for "River Deep Mountain High" and "The Acid Queen," neither of which were on the 2005 comp, and containing two previously unreleased bonus tracks. It also contains a hefty dose of live tracks -- "Let's Stay Together," "I Can't Stand the Rain," and "The Best," are all present in live versions -- her James Bond theme "Goldeneye" and a 1993 re-recording of "Proud Mary." So, Tina! covers a lot of ground and gives a pretty good indication of Turner's far-reaching talents and long-ranging career, but it's also a bit of a mess, jumping between eras, overlooking some big hits, and substituting live versions when the studio is superior. So don't think of Tina! as a definitive comp, something that has yet to be assembled on Tina, but rather as a sampler that contains some, but not nearly all, of her best.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Out on the road in the 2020s, the Doobie Brothers feature Michael McDonald, but when it comes time for the group to cut a record, the band whittles down to the trio of Tom Johnston, Patrick Simmons, and John McFee. Naturally, this means Liberté -- the Doobies' first album of new original material since 2010's World Gone Crazy -- sounds closer to a refurbished version of Toulouse Street or The Captain and Me than Takin' It to the Streets; there's no funky soft rock or smooth blue-eyed soul, just a lot of straight-ahead rock & roll. While Liberté may be old-fashioned in its aesthetic, this trio of Doobies take pains to make the album sound contemporary, dressing it in glassy production, generously adding electronic rhythms, and vaguely addressing the turmoil in the modern world. All this flair may announce Liberté as a 2021 album, but the record works because the Doobies remain dedicated to the rocking boogie they've been playing for 50 years. © Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Following Venice (2014), Malibu (2016) and Oxnard (2018), Anderson .Paak continues his tour of the west coast. Here, he’s arrived at Ventura, a love-letter to a neighboring town to the city of angels that flirts more with the fringes of old-school R&B and the new soul scene than his previous albums. This time, the Californian hasn’t waited 3 years to return to the studio, but just 5 months. Released on Dr Dre’s label Aftermath, Oxnard was compact and glossy, with a large number of featured artists (Pusha T, J Cole, Q Tip), but it was also more harshly criticized, even by his mother. Anderson opts for a return to his roots, with voluptuous R&B, fresh soul and cult rap, mixing timeless nostalgic flavorings with the modern era. To support his idea, there are even more carefully selected feats. For the silky softness of the 70’s/80’s, we find legend of the genre Smokey Robinson (Make It Better). For the 90’s golden age, Brandy (Jet Black).For the soul side, Anderson and Dre look to Donny’s daughter, Lalah Hathaway, on the groovy basslines of Reachin’2 Much, as well as Sonyae Elise (who already shows up in Malibu) and Jazmine Sullivan who was already on stage alongside Stevie Wonder at just 13 years old. But the two biggest surprises of the album are of course André 3000 in the opening track Come Home and especially Nate Dogg – who died in 2011 - on the gentle closing track What Can We Do?: both key figures of 90’s rap. The first put Atlanta back on the rap map with OutKast’s Dirty South and recently appeared on James Blake’s Where’s The Catch. The second was ubiquitous in the 90’s-00’s rap scene with legendary hooks and her G-Funk-rap-R&B formula alongside Warren G, Snoop and Xzibit. Anderson .Paak pays tribute to his elders and closes his fourth album in 39 minutes and 11 tracks. © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz

The soundtrack to Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's weighty, emotionally wrenching drama 21 Grams features compositions by Gustavo Santaolalla and a few funk, soul, and hip-hop songs. Given that the film revolves around the conceit that the human body loses 21 grams upon death -- arguably the weight of the soul -- it wouldn't be surprising if the film's music was unbearably pretentious. Track titles such as "Can We Mix the Unmixable? (Remix)" and "Can Dry Leaves Help Us?" suggest that the score is indeed overly studied, but fortunately, this is not the case. Santaolalla's atmospheric style is reminiscent of Cliff Martinez, the frequent musical collaborator of Steven Soderbergh. However, Santaolalla's sound is more organic, drawing from droning guitars and subtle electronics. The warm, spacious sound of "Do We Lose 21 Grams?" and "Did This Really Happen" has more in common with post-rock than with most typical score music, while the brief but haunting loops of "Can Things Be Better?" and "Should I Let Her Know?" nod to the folky electronica of artists like Four Tet. The soundtrack's more song-oriented cuts, like War's "Low Rider," Ozomatli's "Cut Chemist Suite," and Ann Sexton's "You're Losing Me," provide a jolting contrast to Santaolalla's atmospheric score, perhaps reflecting the film's often jarring juxtapositions of life and death. The only track on 21 Grams that succumbs to pretension is "Shake, Rattle & Roll," a lengthy, spoken-word version of the R&B classic performed by Benicio Del Toro. At first, the song is gritty and creepy, but eventually it devolves into self-parody. Still, the overall quality of the album -- particularly on "When Our Wings Are Cut, Can We Still Fly" by the Kronos Quartet -- more than makes up for its occasional awkward moments, which do little do detract from the score's quiet power.© Heather Phares /TiVo

Though it was released on the eve of the busiest year in 2Pac's posthumous career, Better Dayz shouldn't be overlooked -- and with the schedule including a feature documentary (with soundtrack), plus two books and another double album, it might be easy for this one to slip from the radar. A lengthy two-disc set, it benefits from a raft of still-compelling material by one of the two or three best rappers in history, as well as excellent compiling by executive producers Suge Knight and Afeni Shakur, 2Pac's mother. Organizing the set roughly into one disc of hardcore rap and one of R&B jams makes for an easier listen, and the R&B disc especially has some strong tracks, opening with a remix of 1995's "My Block" and including quintessentially 2Pac material -- reflective, conflicted, occasionally anguished -- like "Never Call U B**** Again," "Better Dayz," "Fame," and "This Life I Lead." Most of the tracks are previously unreleased, the rest coming from scattered compilations like Knight's Chronic 2000: Still Smokin' or 1995's The Show soundtrack. It's 2Pac's best album since his death, and bodes well for future material by, and concerning, rap's most legendary figure.© John Bush /TiVo

Beautiful Dreamers is Bill Frisell's debut for Savoy Jazz. He left longstanding label Nonesuch in 2009, claiming he needed to release more than one record per year in order to to document his various bands, film score commitments, and commissions. This set features the guitarist in the company of violist Eyvind Kang and drummer Rudy Royston on a program of ten originals and six covers. While this trio is well known for using various effects in concert to expand its sonic palette, and jamming on various tunes for long periods of time, here the musicians are virtually a mirror image of that incarnation, playing with restraint, brevity, and melodic sensitivity. Frisell's originals range between speculative, atmospherically mysterious numbers such as "Love Sick" and more rhythmically pronounced exercises that engage in contrapuntal play between the guitarist and Kang, as on "Winslow Homer," which also flirts with bluegrass while Royston lays down breaks inside hip-hop drums. "Better Than a Machine" is dedicated to the late Vic Chesnutt, and employs two of his themes in a perky, rockist tribute with some nice dissonance from Kang and power chords from Frisell. But they also underscore the covers, which are typical of Frisell; they reflect his wide interest in American music and his sense of humor. There's a parlor-room reading of Stephen Foster's "Beautiful Dreamer," an elegant version of "Goin' Out of My Head" that features killer pizzicato playing from Kang (and refers more to the original hit version by Little Anthony & the Imperials than the version by Sergio Mendes), the forlorn, wary blues of Blind Willie Johnson's "It's Nobody's Fault But Mine" stretched to the breaking point, and a swinging read of "Benny's Bugle." The blues also appears on "Worried Woman," with a direct quote from John Lennon's "I Found Out" and great rhythmic and harmonic interplay between all members of the trio. There's a sparkling cover of A.P. Carter's "Keep on the Sunny Side" that underscores Frisell's well-documented love of Americana and country music. At an hour in length, this can seem like an overly long exercise at times -- "Tea for Two" feels like an eternity and some of Frisell's originals are a tad amorphous, like cues left off film scores -- but these are minor complaints. Ultimately, Beautiful Dreamers is a wonderfully balanced trio exercise.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

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