Artistically and commercially, the Stevie Nicks/Lindsey Buckingham/Mick Fleetwood/Christine and John McVie edition of Fleetwood Mac had been on a roll for over a decade when Tango in the Night was released in early 1987. This would, unfortunately, be Buckingham's last album with the pop/rock supergroup -- and he definitely ended his association with the band on a creative high note. Serving as the album's main producer, Buckingham gives an edgy quality to everything from the haunting "Isn't It Midnight" to the poetic "Seven Wonders" to the dreamy "Everywhere." Though Buckingham doesn't over-produce, his thoughtful use of synthesizers is a major asset. Without question, "Family Man" and "Caroline" are among the best songs ever written by Buckingham, who consistently brings out the best in his colleagues on this superb album.© Alex Henderson /TiVo

To celebrate the end of the platinum-selling Finnish symphonic metal outfit's 2013 Imaginaerum World Tour, which boasted 104 performances in 34 countries, Nightwish decided to go out with a bang and bring their opulent live show to the tiny German village of Wacken and its mammoth annual metalfest, Wacken Open Air. The first Nightwish release to feature their new singer, ex-After Forever frontwoman Floor Jansen, the powerhouse Showtime/Storytime sees the group tear through an epic 16-song set in front of 85,000 screaming fans. The DVD/Blu-ray edition adds a concert film of the 85-minute performance (filmed with 17 cameras), as well as a 120-minute tour documentary titled Please Learn the Setlist in 48 Hours and a 16-minute band table hockey tournament.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo

There's an element of Zen that's involved when listening to Nightwish -- you don't question the pageantry or analyze the music; you just let go and enjoy the experience. Perhaps it's no surprise then that End of an Era beings with "Red Warrior" from The Last Samurai booming over arena speakers while thousands of fans roar their approval. It's a dramatic introduction for a band that specializes in theatrics, all of which are captured on the album. There's the crowd, the blast of pyrotechnics, the echo of the music filling a cavernous arena. Recording a band this layered (Guitars! Drums! Vocals! Keyboards! Backing tracks!) in a setting like this is always a risky venture, but the sound quality on End of an Era is exceptional; it manages to capture the vastness of both the venue and the act without being marred by reverberation or uneven tone. Vocalists Tarja Turunen and Marco Hietala soar above it all, their delivery all the more impressive considering that this would be their last concert together -- Turunen was dismissed from the band after the show. Fortunately, Nightwish don't appear to have brought their internal tensions on-stage. The group is in its element here, and its energy doesn't diminish a bit over the course of the two discs it takes to capture the tour-ending show. The biggest strength of End of an Era is its ability to re-create the concert experience; the band is at the forefront, but the cheering, clapping, and chanting of the crowd are included as an integral element of the music, not a separate entity. There are points on the album when this becomes a detriment (particularly during slower, quiet numbers like "Stone People"), but there's nothing more authentic on a live recording than capturing the requisite concertgoer whose duty it is to break the mood by shouting at inappropriate times. In the end, this dedication to realism is a minor complaint when compared to the benefits, as demonstrated to great effect with the opening number, "Dark Chest of Wonders." This piece brings it all together -- the song itself, dark, theatrical and operatic, with Turunen's rich voice floating over power chords, a charging rhythm section, an orchestral backing track, and the enthusiastic crowd at her feet. It's a fine choice to open the concert, and the recording re-creates everything but the visuals. The vibe continues on "Planet Hell," the first of several songs to showcase a Turunen/Hietala duet and solos by keyboardist Tuomas Holopainen and guitarist Emppu Vuorinen. Powerful performances and dark, romantic themes continue to dominate throughout End of an Era, but this does not mean that the album slows down or becomes monotonous. Instead, each song plays to the band's strength and uses the crowd's energy and enthusiasm to drive forward and craft memorable moments. As in the beginning of the concert, the final songs are rousing, passionate, and dramatic. "Creek Mary's Blood," a lament inspired by Dee Brown's novel of the same name, benefits from the talent of Native American musician John Two Hawks, who also appeared on the studio version of the song. After an extended flute solo (the above-mentioned "Stone People"), Two Hawks sings and plays in a striking duet with Turunen, whose operatic tremolo stands in contrast to her partner's straighter tone. The proceedings take an abrupt turn immediately afterward as Nightwish launch into a rollicking cover of Gary Moore's "Over the Hills and Far Away," transformed into a power metal epic as Holopainen and Vuorinen trade riffs between verses and choruses. The disc comes to a close with the sprawling, gothic "Wish I Had an Angel," a looser and more straightforward rock song that sees Turunen and Hietala alternating their vocal duties for what would be the last time. It's a satisfying ending for a symphonic metal extravaganza, but the real pleasure comes in knowing that it can be experienced all over again.© Katherine Fulton /TiVo

Alaska Reid is a watcher—observing people, collecting their stories and dreaming up new ones for them in her kind of folky, kind of electro, kind of Maggie Rogers-esque songs. She compares her habits to a Dungeons and Dragons character, the Fiend Folio, who disenchants magical objects by absorbing their power. Hence the title of her debut album. "I fantasize about other people's lives, other people's professions, and writing is a way I can approximate what it must be like to be someone else," she has said, but also admits: "In doing so [a writer] drains some of that magic and metabolizes it into something that belongs to them." "Back to This" was written after seeing forest service workers on a break in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness preserve in Montana, where Reid grew up under the limitless Big Sky. "In the moss around the creek/ I saw some smoke jumpers all in their twenties/ Dust in their hair, sun on their skin/ Kiss away the boredom 'til the fires begin," she sings in a near-whisper. The song has a dusky "Bette Davis Eyes" vibe—its artificial synth sound managing to conjure up something atmospheric. Set to a stop-start bucking rhythm, "Palomino" borrows the memories of Reid's mother, re-creating stories she told about working at the titular legendary Los Angeles country and western bar in the '80s. "Laugh at the guys bumping into us girls/ Had freedom 'cause I had my car/ And I wasn't trying to fall in love/ Just figure out the world." "Dogs & Girls" plays out to a carousel melody and highlights Reid's sibilant S's as she reveals, "Overheard at NA/ She's got a pain that God can't take away" before the whole thing builds to a swirling chaos. Produced by her boyfriend, hyperpop maestro A.G. Cook (known for his work with Sophie, Charli XCX and Hannah Diamond), Disenchanter is at times kinetic ("Always"), featherweight ("Seeds") and nodding to Joni Mitchell's early canyon-folk sounds ("Leftover"). Reid even finds a host of characters—"like nesting dolls," she's said—inside herself. Boppy "She Wonders" is about the upside-down, suspended-in-time world of touring and how artists "reveal different elements of themselves to fans, the touring group, the rest of the band … I wanted the song to reflect how psychologically exhausting it is." She sings of a Holiday inn in "nowhere Southwest again" and "Sitting on the corner of the bed/ Pretending to drink" before the song switches to a spoken-word part she's compared to an inner monologue: "What do they think of me/ Is it embarrassing?" © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Further is the first Chemical Brothers album without a guest vocalist since their debut. Consequently, with no worries about crafting tracks around a Q-Tip or Richard Ashcroft, the duo has full freedom to focus on enveloping listeners in the sound world usually just experienced at its shows -- although, naturally, without the lights and atmosphere to accompany the music. After a beatless first track titled "Snow," the 12-minute single "Escape Velocity" approximates a rocket launch, the impressive effects continually rising over the first few minutes until the beat kicks in with full force. Still, as a single or an album track, "Escape Velocity" isn't a total success. The effects and distortion would certainly do Kevin Shields or Sonic Boom proud, but the lockstep beats, when they do come in, are practically an anticlimax. From there, Ed and Tom go in differing directions, with typically varied results; they seem to have learned lessons from the past, varying their tracks slightly. "Another World" is a perfect example, appropriately otherworldly and shimmering, an '80s throwback capable of provoking jealousy in chillwave maestros like Neon Indian and Washed Out. But the Chemical format of old is still rampant and still rather stultifying; the psychedelic distortion on "Swoon" sounds self-sampled (or swiped from Orbital's "Lush 3-1"), while "Horse Power" has very little to recommend it except a distorted vocal repeating the title and, wait for it, horse whinnies. The Chemical Brothers have remained in the stadium house category for a decade-plus due to their immersive music and vivid light shows, but from the stale beats and lack of new ideas on display here, they'd do better going beatless or hiring a drummer.© John Bush /TiVo

Mick Hucknall and Simply Red are rightly inseparable in the minds of most listeners -- he is the frontman and the star, the one constant in the band's history -- but the singer's short-lived solo career of 2008-2012 proved there was a difference between Hucknall and the group. Big Love, the album the reunited Simply Red recorded to celebrate their 30th anniversary in 2015, isn't as in thrall to the past as the vocalist's two albums of covers, nor is it as comfortable with rock as 2007's Stay. It is, as the title suggests, a record that is romantic to its very core, an album whose bones are as exquisitely smooth as its surfaces (the loungey tongue-in-cheek saloon song "The Old Man and the Beer" is the exception that proves the rule). Even when the tempo picks up a notch on Big Love -- and it doesn't happen all that often -- the speedier songs come in the form of a slow-burning disco tune, an aesthetic that isn't all that far removed from Simply Red's enduring allegiance to the smoothest sounds of the '70s, specifically Philly soul. At times, the overall veneer is a shade too clean, suggesting nothing so much as cocktail hour at a classy conference, but the fact that Hucknall and Simply Red choose to celebrate the softer, soulful sounds of the '70s by doubling down on the smoothness does separate them from the legions of neo-soul divas in the new millennium. Let those singers scale operatic towers: this lot prefers to take it easy and is charming for it.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Beloved soundtrack to the playful, Robin Williams-starring animated film.© TiVo

First issued in 2004, the Finnish metallers' fifth album, and most successful to date, was the last to feature vocalist Tarja Turunen (before she was replaced by Annette Olzon on 2007's Dark Passion Play) and saw the band continue to move away from their power metal origins toward a more symphonic sound. 2021's deluxe, remastered, and expanded reissue includes an instrumental version of the album, demos, and alternate versions, and a live set from the 2005 Taubertal Festival in Rothenburg, Germany.© John D. Buchanan /TiVo

You may have to wait a while between Dave Holland-led releases, but it's always worth it. Tremendous taste prevents Holland from making unsatisfying music. He is a great leader in the truest senses of the word -- he gives his team space, trusts their abilities and judgment, yet all the while remains firmly in command and infuses the results with his own style and personality. Prime Directive is a wonderful jazz album. These 77 minutes and nine tracks do not cheat or disappoint. The straight-ahead tunes -- composed by double-bassist Holland and his talented band mates (one each) -- all bear Holland's distinctive rhythmic patterns and harmonics. A fine example is the title track, on which Robin Eubanks on trombone and Chris Potter on saxophones hold a stimulating musical conversation over the rhythm section's driving groove. For listeners who prefer a more deliberate pace, there's the searching, contemplative "Make Believe," with Steve Nelson's lovely vibraphone work appointing the mood. On the hopeful, "A Seeking Spirit," fans will be tapping along to the rhythmic feast offered up by the leader and his pace-setting partner Billy Kilson on drums. The melancholy "Candlelight Vigil" presents Holland at his bowed best. Finally, "Wonders Never Cease" finds the entire band at the height of their collective, improvisational prowess. Prime Directive is recommended; a great leader is, indeed, hard to find. © Brian Bartolini /TiVo