Spears is no compositional Caspar Milquetoast; he writes biting, exotic harmonies and, like Stravinsky, draws forth a beauty at times rough-hewn or violent. If I had to make a comparison, I’d say his Requiem is ...

Handel isn’t known these days as a keyboard composer, but far more copies of his keyboard works were in circulation during his life than copies of Bach’s or Scarlatti’s. These suites are in fact similar ...

The muses are often fickle, and continually wooing them back has perplexed even the most gifted pop musicians. Nonstop touring can stifle creativity, but so can long periods away from the star-maker machinery—and that would ...

As a member of the seminal pub-rock scene that spawned the punk movement in the mid-70s and saw the rise of his sometime collaborator Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe pretty much dropped from sight in 1990 ...

Recorded in 1966 and ’67, and guided by songwriters Brian Wilson and Van Dyke Parks, the unfinished Smile album is often considered just as innovative as the Beatles’ 1967 game changer Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts ...

Co-produced with a roaring, richly textured sonic backdrop by Ray Benson, Larry Campbell, and Mike Nesmith, Peace Meal finally captures on disc all the fire, fury, and soulfulness of Texas blues dynamo Carolyn Wonderland’s live ...

Ruthie Foster’s celebrated 2009 LP, The Truth According To Ruthie Foster, was recorded in Memphis; for Let It Burn she migrated south to New Orleans. Working with producer John Chelew and a tight combo of ...

Seems like everyone in music has a side project going these days, and Norah Jones is no exception. She’s moonlighting as the lead singer for The Little Willies (named after Willie Nelson), a group she ...

Multichannel treatments of older rock recordings that truly serve the musical essence of the original are rare. Here’s one that does. The “You” of Wish You Were Here, Pink Floyd’s ninth studio album, is Syd ...

I recently heard Marianne Faithfull in an intimate venue with great acoustics, and was mesmerized from start to finish. Not only by that one-of-a-kind, sandpaper-and-velvet voice but also by what she put into every song, ...

One step in becoming a great band is believing you’re great, and The Smiths had no problem with that. Before playing a single note together Morrissey and Johnny Marr were convinced their music would have ...

Although the Louvin Brothers were a successful country act that released more than a dozen LPs, Satan is Real is easily their most well-known record because of its cover: holding a pitchfork, a buck- toothed ...

This newly reissued 1978 album is a sexy, snarling, cosmopolitan affair steeped in the decadence of the times—the Stones seldom sounded tougher than on “When the Whip Comes Down” or “Shattered.” But many of the ...

There’s a dark pall cast over The Dreamer. The album cover depicts her wan face cloaked in a black shroud-like hood. It’s to be Etta James’ last—she’s been diagnosed with dementia and her 50- year ...

Female Brit singers are tearing up the U.S. pop charts these days, and the latest release from Florence and the Machine will likely extend the streak. While their first album was a bit more spare, ...