AllMusic Staff Pick:
Elis Regina / Antônio Carlos Jobim
Elis & Tom
Released 50 years ago today, this beautiful – and now legendary – recording date between iconic Brazilian vocalist Elis Regina and composer, conductor, and arranger Tom Jobim is widely regarded as one of the greatest Brazilian pop recordings.
- Thom Jurek
AllMusic Staff Pick
Thompson Twins
Into the Gap
A new wave pop classic, this fourth studio LP by the Sheffield trio represents their commercial peak: it topped the U.K. chart and was their only album to reach the Top Ten in the U.S. and Canada. Hits like “Hold Me Now” – ubiquitous in 1984 – “You Take Me Up” and “Doctor! Doctor!” kept them in rotation on MTV, Top 40 radio, and club dancefloors alike. Nearly 30 years after the band folded, Tom Bailey performed the entire album live for the first time at a sold-out Aylesbury Waterside Theatre in 2022.
- Marcy Donelson
AllMusic Staff Pick:
The White Stripes
The White Stripes
The White Stripes’ debut, released 25 years ago today, sounds like arena rock as hand-crafted in the attic. Singer/guitarist Jack White’s voice is a singular, evocative combination of punk, metal, blues, and backwoods while his guitar work is grand and banging with just enough lyrical touches of slide and subtle solo work to let you know he means to use the metal-blues riff collisions just so.
- Chris Handyside
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Mission of Burma
The Horrible Truth About Burma
Posthumous live album from this Boston-based post punk band was recorded on five dates of their final tour in 1983 and released two years later. Though not as clean and streamlined as their studio work, the album highlights the wilder, more experimental side of their sound that often came out in the live setting.
- Fred Thomas
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Edgar Froese
Aqua
The solo debut from the leader of Tangerine Dream, released 50 years ago this month, is a set of four synthesizer pieces, free-form and pastoral. The lengthy title track is quite naturalistic, organized around a series of synth bubbles and water sounds, while “NGC 891” reflects Froese’s interest in space rock.
- John Bush
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Hope Sandoval & the Warm Inventions
Bavarian Fruit Bread
Like the warmest dream you’ve ever had, Hope Sandoval takes the soothing sounds of Mazzy Star and doubles down on the gossamer side of those ‘90s favorites on this project with My Bloody Valentine’s Colm O'Ciosoig. Float away into the blissful ether with gems like “Feeling of Gaze” and “On the Low,” which should please fans of acoustic folk, trip-hop, and Lana Del Rey, who owes a lot more to Hope than the public might recognize.
- Neil Z. Yeung
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Blue Highway
Wondrous Love
Pure and honest, reverent and welcoming, bright and rollicking, clear and convicted, Blue Highway have continued their winning streak of terrific albums by picking a theme close to their hearts and making it available to everyone who will listen.
- Zac Johnson
AllMusic Staff Pick:
The Gourds
Ghosts of Hallelujah
Texas alt-country outsiders the Gourds reached a creative peak on 1999’s Ghosts of Hallelujah, an album that collated their eclectic and occasionally brilliant songwriting into something more focused than their first two outings.
- Timothy Monger
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Nir Felder
Golden Age
Debut by the New York-based jazz-rock guitarist is self-composed and produced; it features a first-rate jazz ensemble to ask the question: What is the golden age? Does it exist? Will it ever? Did it pass us by?
- Thom Jurek
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Pavement
Terror Twilight
Though it’s hard not to miss the gloriously messy sprawl of Pavement at their peak, this carefully crafted, languid recasting of their signature sound, released 25 years ago today, is effective and winds up as a fitting, bittersweet farewell for the best band of the ‘90s.
- Stephen Thomas Erlewine
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Charli XCX
How I’m Feeling Now
Made during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Charli XCX’s hyperpop power feels especially vulnerable on How I’m Feeling Now. It’s a party for one beaming out into the void from a lonely bedroom, full of longing and barely-hidden anxieties that hide behind Charli’s reflexively celebratory rallying calls.
- Fred Thomas
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Ethel Cain
Preacher’s Daughter
Hayden Anhedönia dons the persona of Ethel Cain to tell a Southern Gothic story about religion, trauma, family, and love. From the poppy commentary of “American Teenager” to her tortured screams in “Ptolemaea”, haunting vocals and fuzzy instrumental encapsulate the complex, and at times horrific, experiences of American womanhood.
- Hannah Schwartz
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Judas Priest
Sad Wings of Destiny
Judas Priest’s sophomore effort simultaneously took heavy metal to new depths of darkness and heights of technical precision. Building on the hard prog of bands like Queen and Wishbone Ash, plus the twin-guitar innovations of the latter and Thin Lizzy, Sad Wings fused these new influences with the gothic doom of Black Sabbath, the classical precision of Deep Purple, and the tight riffery of the more compact Led Zeppelin tunes.
- Steve Huey
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Keane
Hopes and Fears
What could have been just another overearnest, post-Coldplay collection that fell to the wayside like so many others, this debut is a stone-cold 2000s classic. Celebrating 20 years of era anthems “Somewhere Only We Know” and “Everybody’s Changing,” this set is a no-skips, perfect ten of piano-backed, soaring pop-rock, elevated by Tom Chaplin’s distinctive vocals and unabashed big feelings. Check out “Bedshaped” if you need to tap into that well of said emotions.
- Neil Z. Yeung
AllMusic Staff Pick:
Golden Retriever
Rotations
Consisting of modular synthesizer operator Matt Carlson and bass clarinetist Jonathan Sieflaff, this experimental/post-rock project already stands apart with instrumentation even before they impress with their improvisational, motif-based compositions. Their ninth album overall and third for the Thrill Jockey label finds them collaborating with a chamber ensemble including pipe organ on select tracks.
- Marcy Donelson