The Complete Budokan 1978 captures some of Dylan's very first concert appearances in Japan and is an essential release for diehards, while an intriguing curio for the casual listener. Complete Budokan encompasses all of the material originally issued as a double LP in 1978, plus three dozen additional tracks. This lovingly remastered album, sourced from the original 24-channel multi-track analog tapes, sounds far crisper than the original release (especially the vocals). Released to coincide with the 45th anniversary of the original eight-show run at the infamous Budokan auditorium, we hear the entirety of two shows from February 28 and March 1, 1978. Bob Dylan is at a fascinating crossroads in his career here, and in fine voice. The album finds our hero in between the traveling circus that was the mid 1970s Rolling Thunder tour, and one year before his conversion to Christianity. Dylan shows us what a traditional American great he is, with a near-orchestral band and dramatically reworked takes on classic songs. Some of these arrangements are wonky, especially to modern ears. But they're always intriguingly put together, and intricately executed takes—the highlight being a knockdown, muscular "The Man in Me." It's clear from the start that this is not your grandpa's Dylan. Stirring leads on saxophone, mandolin, and fiddle deliver the vocal melodies to "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." "Shelter from the Storm" is given a halting, reggae-ish tempo, a positively E Street-worthy sax solo, and the delightful touches one would expect from the Dead. Other tunes stray closer to a Vegas revue. "I Threw It All Away" is transformed into a full-blown showtune, as the backing vocals take center stage. One wonders if a line of chorus dancers were onstage for this or the lilting, tango-esque take on "Love Minus Zero." There is occasional flute, notably on "Mr. Tambourine Man," which we weren't sure about at first, but by the third listen we were absolutely digging it, even as it takes the tune straight to Margaritaville. © Mike McGonigal/Qobuz

Always on the cutting edge of new technologies since his beginnings in the 70s at Pierre Schaeffer's GRM (the  music research group of the French Broadcasting and Television Office, where concrete and electronic music were born), Jean-Michel Jarre has conceptualized an augmented reality concert to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the Palace of Versailles. The French artist, who had already given a concert in virtual reality for 2020's Fête de la Musique (a French music celebration that takes place on June 21st each year), set up his machines and donned his virtual reality headset once again in the famous Hall of Mirrors for an hour-long show on Christmas Day, December 25th, 2023. A limited audience was able to attend the "concert-production hybrid" live at the palace, but it was also broadcast to the metaverse to be watched via virtual reality.For Versailles 400, Jarre took an understated approach, with a concert lasting precisely an hour, a duration undoubtedly linked to the exceptional conditions imposed by the location. He starts off with music evocative of Jean-Baptiste Lully, using a harpsichord and vocals modified via a talk-box ("Le Château"), before going on to the hit "Epica Oxygène," delivering a rather rhythmic show, slowly but surely transforming the Hall of Mirrors into a techno rave or a new wing of the ISS. After the Egyptian pyramids and the Red Square, Jean-Michel Jarre can check yet another historical site off his list. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

After touring all over Europe with his album re:member (perhaps his best - or at least boldest - release of 2018), Ólafur Arnalds found himself alone in his studio in Reykjavik during lockdown and used the opportunity to record his most intimate record yet. “Like everyone else, it forced me to take stock of what I was doing. By the time the pandemic hit, I'd already written half the album, so the rest flowed freely. The result is my most personal album to date. It moves away from big concepts and big ideas. It’s just me” explained the Icelandic composer. He offers up moments of intense weightlessness, levitation even, on tracks like the super-chilled opener Loom and Zero. With dreamlike synths, relaxing violins and compassion-filled pianos, Ólafur Arnalds sends out therapeutic vibrations on pieces where you can almost feel his consciousness expanding. Some local guests appear on this record, including the Icelandic singer JFDR on Back to the Sky which drips with Roya Arab-like sensuality. The album ends with a philosophical touch; Undone samples from a spoken word passage by the singer Lhasa de Sela, who died in 2010, bringing the concept of death to the forefront of the record. An album that doubles as a much-needed healing remedy. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

"Blinding Lights" artistically and commercially was so optimal for Abel Tesfaye that it quickly became his signature song, and was only two years old when Billboard announced that it had rocketed past Chubby Checker's "The Twist" to claim the title of all-time number one hit. For the follow-up to "Blinding Lights" parent album After Hours, Tesfaye delves deeper into the early- to mid-'80s pop aesthetic. He resurfaces with a conceptual sequel designed as a broadcast heard by a motorist stuck in a purgatorial tunnel. The primary collaborators are "Blinding Lights" co-producers Max Martin and Oscar Holter, plus fellow After Hours cohort Daniel Lopatin, whose airwaves-themed 2020 LP Magic Oneohtrix Point Never was executive produced by Tesfaye. Instead of scrambled voices like those heard on the OPN album, Dawn FM features recurrent announcements from Jim Carrey as a serene and faintly creepy character, or maybe himself, intonating end-of-life entertainment and counsel. The other unlikely appearances -- Quincy Jones with a spoken autobiographical interlude, Beach Boy Bruce Johnston somewhere in the cocksure "how it's going" outlier "Here We Go...Again" -- are ostentatious. In the main, this is a space for Tesfaye to fully indulge his frantic romantic side as his co-conspirators whip up fluorescent throwback Euro-pop with muscle and nuance. Tesfaye's almost fathomless vocal facility elevates even the most rudimentary expressions of co-dependency, despair, regret, and obsession, and he helps it all go down easier with station ID jingles and an amusingly hyped-up ad for "a compelling work of science fiction" called (the) "After Life." The set peaks early with a sequence of dejected post-disco jams that writhe, percolate, and chug. Most of these songs surpass the bulk of Daft Punk's similarly backward-gazing Random Access Memories, projecting the same lust for life with underlying existential doom as Italo disco nuggets such as Ryan Paris' "Dolce Vita." Toward the end of that first-half stretch, Tesfaye reaffirms his R&B roots and affinity for Michael Jackson with a cut built from Alicia Myers' 1981 gospel boogie classic "I Want to Thank You." After that, it slows down and stretches out a bit to varying effect, dipping into Japanese city pop for the bittersweet and remorseful "Out of Time" and edging ever so achingly toward Latin freestyle with "Don't Break My Heart." Just before Carrey's epilogue, Tesfaye and company pick up the pace with "Less Than Zero." Rather than use the title as a prompt to sink back into detailing debauchery, Tesfaye makes the song this album's "Scared to Live," a sentimental ballad that's hard to resist. © Andy Kellman /TiVo

After a trilogy that propelled them to the top, Imagine Dragons are once again lighting concert halls on fire with a fourth opus: Origins. The Las Vegas band had made an impressive entrance with a subtle blend of rock and pop, adorned with almost dance tones. With Natural, Dan Reynolds sings at the top of his voice over a catchy chorus, a technique used throughout the rest of the album. Energetic and rhythmic choirs (Machine), eighties-style electro bass and romantic vocals (Cool Out), and even folk melodies on the acoustic guitar (West Coast) − Imagine Dragons have gone for eclecticism and it works! Even though they are carrying on the tradition of XXL hit songs and relying on harmonic powers, it’s their punchy songwriting that shines through. Their latest album, Evolve, explored relatively dark territories, whereas with Origins the scope significantly expands: identity problems, messages of hope, realisation of various anxieties… Imagine Dragons express many different emotions. It’s an album that will once again ensure exponential success to these kings of the charts. © Anna Coluthe/Qobuz

A year and a half after his supersized ambient album Music for Animals (ten tracks, each lasting around twenty minutes), Nils Frahm has returned to solo piano music with this series of six pieces written at the height of summer 2022. LEITER, the label founded by the German pianist and his manager Felix Grimm, described it as “far from his Funkhaus studio in Berlin.” This is a mark of authenticity for a record on which we can hear traces of the intimate production style that made a success out of his album Felt (2012), with its ambient soundscape and piano mechanics. On Day, it’s a nonchalant Nils Frahm that shows up for “You Name It,” like a teenager who can’t seem to get out of bed. He stays firmly under the covers for “Tuesdays,” while the autumn is more prevalent than the summer on the single “Butter Nuts.” He is more inspired on “Hands On,” which sounds like the faraway echoes of Neil Young’s piano playing, and we are finally reunited with Nils Frahm’s magic, his musical balancing act that is so very intoxicating, on “Towards Zero,” with its hauntingly baroque motif that leaves us in suspense. © Smaël Bouaici/Qobuz

Over the years, trying to determine what is true "prog rock" and what is not has become an increasingly tricky proposition. In the early '70s, it was easy -- any band that performed "suites" that extended across entire album sides and dressed in capes and/or cloaks was a dead giveaway. However, when the early '80s rolled around, most former prog rockers trimmed out the fat from their compositions (and exchanged their medieval wear and kimonos for what looked like sports coats). Ever since, there have been bands that have aligned themselves to either of the aforementioned prog rock approaches. But along came Porcupine Tree, who somehow have found a way to incorporate both into their 2009 effort, The Incident. Set up similarly to Rush's 1978 classic, Hemispheres, The Incident is comprised of a single long song -- the title track -- that features many different movements (which would have taken up the entire side one back in the good ol' days of vinyl), as well as a handful of shorter compositions that close the album. The aforementioned title track will certainly be the talk of the album, as it manages to incorporate bombast and melody (the sixth movement, which shares the album's title), rock ("Octane Twisted"), Yes' folky moments ("The Seance"), and Tool-like grooves ("Circle of Manias"), before it all gently floats away on a cloud of fairy dust ("I Drive the Hearse"). That said, unlike early proggers who favored meandering instrumental doodling over succinct songwriting, Porcupine Tree always favor the importance of memorable songs over flashy solos, which certainly makes the group one of the top modern-day prog rock bands. © Greg Prato /TiVo

Four years after Simple Minds returned to form on Walk Between Worlds, they emerged more confident on their adrenaline-fueled 19th album Direction of the Heart. Here, with conviction and confidence, they wield pulsing synths, arena rock drums, Charlie Burchill's silvery-sounding guitars, and Jim Kerr's dry, emphatic vocals for a cache of fine songs. In 2019 Kerr moved back to Scotland to be near his terminally ill father. He called Burchill, who showed up and brought recording gear. They wrote and demo'ed an album over six months. After his father passed, they recorded through 2021 at Kerr's empty hotel in Sicily, shuttered amid COVID-19's restrictions. Kerr and Burchill re-enlisted bassist Ged Grimes, acoustic guitarist Gordy Goudie, powerhouse drummer Cherisse Osei, keyboardist Berenice Scott, and vocalist Sarah Brown to assist them.Opener "Vision Thing," composed for Kerr's dad, is a transcendent, synth-driven anthem. The band is at full attack as synths zig-zag through Burchill's snaky fills above a cut-time drum kit and breathing bassline. Following a languid synth intro, "First You Jump (Then You Fly)" starts with Burchill's effects-laden guitar in overdrive. The drums dance as keyboards and bass cascade. Kerr and Brown deliver the lyric in unison with commitment and resolve. "Human Traffic" boasts an electro-rock hook and a guest vocal appearance from Sparks' Russel Mael. The chanted choruses and woven electric guitars wind through layered hook-laden synths with the hallmarks of an '80s anthem. An acoustic guitar introduces "Who Killed Truth" and Kerr enters with his still glorious falsetto supported by Brown. Burchill adds sinewy fills amid wafting keys, and Grimes and Osei anchor the band in a booming shuffle. "Solstice Kiss" weds Celtic pipe and string sounds to pillowy synths and fingerpicked guitars as a wordless chorus flows in. Osei's big beat duels with Burchill's distorted guitar and Grimes' loose bassline before Scott coaxes Kerr's sublime croon in. The refrain erupts as a fist-pumping crescendo and the band elevates the proceedings into emotionally transcendent overdrive. Brown's brief, gospelized vocal solo is a highlight. "Act of Love" was the band's opener at their first gig in 1978, and the first track on their initial demo. By 1979, they were bored with it and never played it again. Here, its modernized rearrangement fits with the rest of the music on offer with airtight precision and rock & roll energy. "Planet Zero" seemingly starts in the middle with a wail from Brown above interlocking synth patterns and breakbeat snares. The set closes with a neo-electro read of the Call's '80s-era MTV hit "When the Walls Came Down." In Simple Minds' treatment, it registers not as a prophetic alarm of political and social collapse, but as a gripping paean to the power of hope in times of darkness. Whether taken whole or as the sum of its parts, Direction of the Heart is an album by a band that still has something to prove. They deliver big. Without forsaking their core sound, they offer listeners energized, anthemic, poignant, electro-charged rock & roll.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Joan Armatrading's eponymous third album is a charmer, almost single-handedly elevating her into the ranks of rock's leading female artists. Up to this point, Armatrading had shown that she had a lovely voice and an ear for interesting arrangements, but her work had been steeped in the folk idiom of the early '70s. Her third album changed all that, with producer Glyn Johns bringing in members of Gallagher & Lyle, Fairport Convention, and the Faces to punch up her folksy sound with elements of rock, country, and disco. The result is her most muscular music to date, with Armatrading adopting a swagger that showed her tales of unluckiness in love didn't have to have dire consequences ("Tall in the Saddle," "Water With the Wine"). Of course, it helped that the record featured her best material delivered in a wonderfully expressive voice that can capture the shades between song and speech like a sweeter version of Ian Anderson. "Down to Zero" (which features pedal steel guitarist B.J. Cole) and "Love and Affection" are the album's most memorable tracks, the latter breaking into the U.K.'s Top Ten (the album itself made the U.K. Top 20). But what endears this record to fans is the quality of each song; it wouldn't be fair to call anything here filler. The artsy and eclectic "Like Fire," the beautiful ballad "Save Me," and the ingratiating melodies of "Somebody Who Loves You" are just as likely to strike a chord with listeners as the better-known cuts. While Glyn Johns deserves credit for bringing Joan Armatrading's songs into a more flattering setting -- it's not coincidental that the record feels like a polished version of The Who by Numbers -- his real stroke of genius was letting the artist flower to her full potential. For many, this album remains the high point in her catalog. © Dave Connolly /TiVo

Saxophonist and clarinetist Shabaka Hutchings is a real connoisseur of sounds and fusions, and a true explorer. Each of his new musical expeditions pushes him further towards the top of today’s jazz scene… Born in London in 1984, he grew up under the Barbadian sun before moving back to England in 1999 where he joined the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Here, he caught the attention of saxophonist Soweto Kinch and started hanging out with big names like Courtney Pine and Jerry Dammers from the Specials. In 2011, Shabaka launched Sons of Kemet, a surprising quartet featuring a tuba and two drums. A complete oddity, halfway between a marching band and a chamber orchestra, that blends jazz, Caribbean and African music, Egyptian influences, and flavours from New Orleans and Ethiopia. The aptly titled The Comet Is Coming – no relations to Sons Of Kemet – is another adaptation of jazz language. But does it still qualify as jazz? It doesn’t really matter. As a sort of electro-drip-fed Sun Ra of the third millennium, Shabaka Hutchings – who calls himself King Shabaka here – is supported by a duo composed of Danalogue on the keyboards and Betamax on drums and percussions. It’s a rather avant-garde programme set to overpowered percussive rhythmic and hypnotising brass improvisations. Sun Ra, as we said… It’s hard not to mention him who was idolised (or hated) for his lengthy compositions and mind-blowing, almost psychedelic performances as well as for the odd cosmic philosophy he preached. The Comet is Coming’s second album, Trust In The Lifeforce Of The Deep Mystery, remains profoundly attached to its time, in which Shabaka injects his philosophy with contemporary elements far removed from master Ra’s semantic like when he hands over the microphone to rapper/spoken-word performer Kate Tempest on Blood Of The Past. © Marc Zisman/Qobuz

With Another Side of Bob Dylan, Dylan had begun pushing past folk, and with Bringing It All Back Home, he exploded the boundaries, producing an album of boundless imagination and skill. And it's not just that he went electric, either, rocking hard on "Subterranean Homesick Blues," "Maggie's Farm," and "Outlaw Blues"; it's that he's exploding with imagination throughout the record. After all, the music on its second side -- the nominal folk songs -- derive from the same vantage point as the rockers, leaving traditional folk concerns behind and delving deep into the personal. And this isn't just introspection, either, since the surreal paranoia on "It's Alright, Ma (I'm Only Bleeding)" and the whimsical poetry of "Mr. Tambourine Man" are individual, yet not personal. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, really, as he writes uncommonly beautiful love songs ("She Belongs to Me," "Love Minus Zero/No Limit") that sit alongside uncommonly funny fantasias ("On the Road Again," "Bob Dylan's 115th Dream"). This is the point where Dylan eclipses any conventional sense of folk and rewrites the rules of rock, making it safe for personal expression and poetry, not only making words mean as much as the music, but making the music an extension of the words. A truly remarkable album.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Superunknown was a breakthrough in many ways. Not only did the album bring Soundgarden a new audience, it dramatically expanded their vision, as well as their accomplishments. If Down on the Upside initially seems a retreat from the grand, layered textures of Superunknown, let it sink in. The sound of Down on the Upside is certainly more immediate, but the band hasn't returned to the monstrous, unfocused wailing of Louder Than Love. Instead, they've retained their ambitious song structures, neo-psychedelic guitar textures, and winding melodies but haven't dressed them up with detailed production. Consequently, Down on the Upside is visceral as well as cerebral -- "Rhinosaur" goes for the gut, while "Pretty Noose" is updated, muscular prog rock. Down on the Upside is a deceptive album -- it might seem like nothing more than heavy metal, but a closer listen reveals that Soundgarden haven't tempered their ambitions at all.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

The Who with Orchestra: Live at Wembley captures the group's return to Wembley on July 6, 2019. It was their first time playing the venue in 40 years and the only show the Who played in the U.K. during their Moving On tour, so it was designed as an event. Some of that spectacle does translate on The Who with Orchestra: Live at Wembley, which came to home media in a variety of formats, including triple-vinyl, double-CD, and audio Blu-ray. The Who integrate the orchestra quite seamlessly throughout the performances, especially during an extended segment focused on Quadrophenia material; the orchestra helps Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey summon a bit of the old Who's flair for bombast. Even so, the moments on the record that cut the deepest are when the band plays without the orchestra. "Substitute" and "The Seeker" sound vigorous delivered by a straight rock combo, while Townshend and Daltrey's acoustic renditions of "Won't Get Fooled Again" and "Behind Blue Eyes" help make these old warhorses sound relatively fresh.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

Of all his recordings, Tango: Zero Hour is the album that the great reformer of Argentinean tango was the most proud of. The one in which he threw all his soul, offering it to his grandchildren saying: “Here’s what we did with our lives! Here’s how complex we were”. In 1986, weary of recording tracks in a hurry for producers, the bandoneonist and composer used his fresh but trustworthy relationship with Kip Hanrahan, a Latin jazz musician and director from New York, to work on the album of his dreams. Tango: Zero Hour. According to Piazzolla, the first sixty minutes past midnight represent the ultimate end and absolute beginning, and inspired him, as such, for one of the most refined and admirable works of his career. This time, each partition was carefully polished and memorised in every detail by his faithful musicians of Quinteto Tango Nuevo. Violinist Fernando Suárez Paz, pianist Pablo Ziegler, guitarist Horacio Malvicino and double bassist Hector Console had been playing together with Piazzolla for seven years. At that point, they were at one with his revolutionary tango. Each sentence, each sound, were played and placed at the exact spot, in the exact manner designed by the master. But this watchmaking-worthy perfection of execution didn’t prevent the work from exhaling emotion and sensuality. There are masterpieces for which superlatives lack, and a single listen of Tango: Zero Hour places it among them. © BM/Qobuz

Shinedown are the epitome of the “alternative metal” wave that gained traction after grunge and neo metal bands like Nickelback, Chevelle and Staind stormed the early 21st century. Shinedown has sold almost ten million records throughout their twenty-year career—more than enough to establish them as true heavyweights in the genre, particularly in the US. However, this might actually be something of a hindrance for the band members, since they seem to imbue their music with revolutionary, anti-system undertones… something difficult to achieve when you’ve become an integral part of amplified music.Planet Zero is a topical album. It sounds as much like a soundtrack for a dystopian sci-fi film as it does a report on the current state of the USA and, by extension, the rest of the world. The music still features big riffs with powerful vocals (which are often doubled) leading up to federative choruses ('Planet Zero', The Saints Of Violence And Innuendo). Though the subject matter is undoubtedly darker - the interlude tracks, for example, on which a robotic female voice delivers statements that carry a weighty pessimism - the album remains eminently radio-friendly. Shinedown understood that to be heard by the greatest number of people, they needed to keep one foot in the mainstream door, at least in terms of form. The most obvious proof of this is the single 'Daylight', a mid-tempo ballad featuring a resonant piano and gospel-like choirs. This album is a romantic take on pessimism. © Chief Brody/Qobuz