Staff Picks for November 2024
November 30, 2024
Rakim has always been known for his laid-back flow and, accordingly, he never pushes himself on The Master, released 25 years ago today. His flow is smooth as syrup, and will undoubtedly make hip-hop fans realize just what rhythm is after merely a few tracks. He plays with internal rhymes (one of his trademarks) and constructs the most dense lyrics heard in hip-hop for years.
November 29, 2024
In 1978, Crusaders' pianist/keyboardist Joe Sample was coming into his own as one of "contemporary jazz's founding artists." Sample emphasized catchy melodies, light funk rhythms, appealing chord changes and a pop sensibility in these self-composed tunes. HIS studio band included Crusaders' drummer Stix Hooper, trumpeter Bobby Bryant, guitarist David T. Walker and others.
November 28, 2024
Happy 25th birthday to one of Tori's more underrated sets. Continuing down the electro-laden path that she debuted on Choirgirl, Amos gets darker and more experimental, resulting in a lush, fascinating journey into the intergalactic ether on beloved fan favorites like "Bliss," "Concertina," "Lust," "Riot Poof," and the nearly 9-minute head trip "Datura." Beyond the originals, a second disc culled from her groundbreaking Plugged Tour is a revelation that altered her live sound with a full band that transformed her classics into brand new beasts.
![Hello, Dolly! [2017 Broadway Cast Recording]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0004686701/front/400/67EUR2T4QSaAwDZWz391m5hUoDg0hsvx4F4sL4oO-nA=.jpg)
November 27, 2024
Following such Broadway legends as Mary Martin, Pearl Bailey, Ethel Merman, Ginger Rogers, Barbra Streisand, and, of course, Carol Channing, the Divine Miss M had the title role in this 2017 Broadway revival. She put her own stamp on the part with her outsized persona and instantly recognizable voice, winning a Tony in the process. She's joined here by David Hyde Pierce (as Horace Vandergelder), Kate Baldwin (Irene Molloy), and Gavin Creel, who won a Tony for his portrayal of innocent dreamer Cornelius Hackl. Pour one out for Creel, who died of a rare form of cancer in 2024.
November 26, 2024
Ravyn Lenae's stunning debut album matches excellent songwriting with adventurous production, ranging from synth pop to house and Afrobeats. Hypnos has numerous highlights, but it works best as a straight-through listen, especially considering the way it's glued together with a few spoken interludes and similarities between some of the beats and melodies, lending a sense of continuity. Effortlessly cool and emotionally resonant, Hypnos took Lenae's craft to a higher plane.
November 25, 2024
The guitarist's fourth Concord album was recorded in a quartet setting with trumpeter John D'Earth, bassist Eddie Gomez and drummer Bob Moses finds her looking ahead on her seven diverse originals here that ranger from swing and hard bop to soul jazz and postbop.
November 24, 2024
Matthew Sweet's third album is a remarkable artistic breakthrough. Grounded in the guitar pop of the Beatles, Big Star, Byrds, R.E.M., and Neil Young, Girlfriend melds all of Sweet's influences into one majestic, wrenching sound that encompasses both the gentle country-rock of "Winona" and the winding guitars of the title track and "Divine Intervention." Sweet's music might have recognizable roots, but Girlfriend never sounds derivative; thanks to his exceptional songwriting, the album is a fresh, original interpretation of a classic sound.
November 23, 2024
For Tribe fans able to get over the fact that Q-Tip isn't trading off on rhymes with Phife Dog and Ali as usual, Amplified, released 25 years ago today, is an excellent work, almost up to the same level as A Tribe Called Quest's underrated final Jive album, The Love Movement.
November 22, 2024
The third album from this Louisville-by-way-of-Chicago group is one of their best efforts, exemplifying how their alt country creak was more Carter Family and foothills melodies than post-Dylan twang. Luckily, they had songs to back up their eerie group persona as well, and this set has a few of their best.
November 21, 2024
Laura Mvula's first two albums earned Mercury Prize nominations and heaps of acclaim. Despite this, Sony dropped her from their roster shortly after she won the Ivor Novello Award for 2016's The Dreaming Room. Her response was the fantastic Pink Noise, released five years later by Atlantic. Pairing vintage high-tech R&B and art-pop (think mid-'80s) with attentive, but catchy songwriting, she hit a new career high.
November 20, 2024
A '90s indie rock classic that doesn't get enough love nowadays, Bettie Serveert's debut album introduced the Dutch band's easy warmth. While their chugging beats and clouds of distortion evoked the Velvet Underground, Neil Young, and the Wedding Present, Carol van Dijk's sunbeam-like vocals lit up songs like "Tom Boy" and "Kid's Alright," making Bettie Serveert heartfelt outliers in a decade defined by irony.
November 19, 2024
This LP contains ten titles from a date by the Ahmad Jamal Trio that were not included on the 1989 reissue Poinciana. Jamal was creating quite a stir at the time with his fresh chord voicings and use of space and dynamics. On this album, he performs in a unit with guitarist Ray Crawford and bassist Israel Crosby shortly before he decided to switch to a more conventional piano-bass-drums instrumentation. Among the highlights are "Perfidia," "Love for Sale," "Autumn Leaves" and "They Can't Take That Away from Me." Well worth searching for.
November 18, 2024
Even if the story is rather hard to piece together, the album is set up in a remarkable fashion, with the first LP being devoted to pop-oriented rock songs and the second being largely devoted to instrumentals. This means that The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway, released 50 years ago today, contains both Genesis' most immediate music to date and its most elliptical.
November 17, 2024
Aphex Twin's second album might seem impenetrable on the surface, being a double (now triple) CD of sprawling ambient pieces with no printed track titles, but it contains some of his most flat-out beautiful compositions, and has more personality than you might expect. The 30th anniversary reissue restores the tracks that weren't on the U.S. CD editions before (most notably the life-changing "#19," aka "Stone in Focus") plus some unreleased tracks, including an orchestral version of the sorrowful "Rhubarb" dedicated to Richard D. James' late parents.
November 16, 2024
Nico had just recently been pushed out of the Velvet Underground when she cut her first solo album, but they were still a strong presence on 1967's Chelsea Girl. Lou Reed, Sterling Morrison, and John Cale all played and wrote songs for this project. The production was fancier than the VU's work of the period, but the blend of baroque and minimalist influences was effective, and "It Was A Pleasure Then" is gloriously hypnotic.
November 15, 2024
Country Life, released 50 years ago today, finds Roxy Music at the peak of their powers, alternating between majestic, unsettling art rock and glamorous, elegant pop/rock. At their best, Roxy combine these two extremes, but Country Life benefits considerably from the ebb and flow of the group's two extremes.
November 14, 2024
Continuing the twisted pop explorations of Here Come the Warm Jets, Eno's sophomore album, Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy), released 50 years ago today, is more subdued and cerebral, and a bit darker when he does cut loose, but it's no less thrilling once the music reveals itself.
November 13, 2024
Backed by a fleet of Los Angeles musicians, Ronstadt sings with vigor and passion, helping bring the music alive. But what really makes Heart Like a Wheel (released 50 years ago today) a breakthrough is the inventive arrangements that producer Peter Asher, Ronstadt, and the studio musicians have developed.
![Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] [The Ultimate Edition]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0002843638/front/400/oNuYKIhxfM4Uc1Mkw9lFU4Af7E_1E-2MlBBPmPAXRBU=.jpg)
November 12, 2024
As opposed to the original official "Soundtrack" release, a single disc with the soundtrack elements edited and arranged into concert movements, this two-disc set has every note composed for The Phantom Menace, including a cue that was cut from the film. Buffs can readily hear how Williams introduces embryonic forms of familiar themes from the earlier films. For instance, the innocent lullaby for little Anakin Skywalker ends in a nine-note pattern that is the theme of the future Darth Vader's Imperial March.
![36 Hours [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]](https://fastly-s3.allmusic.com/release/mr0001314635/front/400/44Imxzssw6v8PUAYhsSH7ASijaXJlYnq0St31qpAJWo=.jpg)
November 11, 2024
Perhaps it was the prospect of scoring a fairly straightforward thriller, with none of the morally ambiguous characters that had populated most of his previous films, but Tiomkin seems forced -- successfully -- into a more sophisticated mode of composition here, with light scoring utilizing a piano, and subtle development.
November 10, 2024
Various Artists
If you're into cozy sounds with a dash of whimsy, Trunk Records' lovingly curated collection of '60s and '70s children's music is the perfect soundtrack to a rainy afternoon. A magical brew of folk, orchestral pop, and psychedelia, this innocently trippy music is a must-hear for fans of latter-day travelers like Broadcast and Soundcarriers.
November 9, 2024
When the Pawn...(released 25 years ago today) showcased Fiona Apple's brilliantly manic and ardent ability to project a fragile toughness unlike any of her peers. The production from Jon Brion provides a loping and lush circus atmosphere that acts as a bed for Apple's brilliant diary entries, each song revealing a different page of brassy emotion and shattered-glass detail.
November 8, 2024
There are still references to mystical worlds but the fantasy does not overwhelm as it did on the first two records; the theatricality is now wielded on everyday affairs, which ironically makes them sound larger than life. And this sense of scale, combined with the heavy guitars, pop hooks, and theatrical style, marks the true unveiling of Queen, making Sheer Heart Attack, released 50 years ago today, as the moment where they truly came into their own.
November 7, 2024
Emerging at a time when the Beat movement had faded and the Hippie era had yet to dawn, the Fugs were a group of poets and semi-pro musicians who embraced rock & roll as a medium to celebrate art, enjoy life, and offend the people who deserved it. Their second album, released in 1966, is less technically slapdash than their debut, while retaining the grubby eloquence and purposeful smut that proclaimed their joy.
November 6, 2024
Counting folk musicians such as John Fahey, Leo Kottke, and Townes Van Zandt among her influences, this Portland-based singer/songwriter fashions idiosyncratic indie folk that combines familiar elements like warm melodies, deft fingerpicking, and mostly acoustic instrumentation with more unusual aspects. Those include sophisticated chords, alternate tunings, a trembly singing style, and a backing band that features a dedicated trombonist. Quirky lyrics that combine the playful and the heartfelt are another trait, exemplified here on "The Bug Collector," a love song about the member of a couple who deals with unwanted critters.
November 5, 2024
Avant-rock collective Cerberus Shoal released a split CD with Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop in which both artists provided originals as well as reinterpretations of the other act's contributions. The final track, Cerberus Shoal's 18-minute "The Real Ding", is jaw-dropping and deserves to be an underground classic. Slowly progressing from sparse folk backed by a typewriter to an almost overwhelmingly lush choral arrangement, the melody grows more haunting as it grows, but remarkably, the lyrics are free of repetition for the entire song.
November 4, 2024
Mitski's mournful, angelic vocals color this album with soul-shaking meaning. Infused with uncanny instrumentation and tension, tracks like "Two Slow Dancers" and "Pink in the Night" soar and swell with an almost orchestral effect. "A Pearl" and "Geyser" follow similar patterns, punctuating their own turbulent swells with punky electric guitar and weird, haunting chord progressions.
November 3, 2024
At first listen, the music sounds terrifying -- the microtonality causes a brain raised on Western pop music to readjust almost all of its expectations about sound and harmony -- but those willing to listen and let it sink in will appreciate the beauty of the sounds.
November 2, 2024
Foo Fighters were the most unexpectedly mercurial band in '90s rock, boasting a different lineup for each of their three albums. There Is Nothing Left to Lose, released 25 years ago today, comes as somewhat of a surprise. It is the first Foo Fighters album that sounds like the work of a unified, muscular band, and the first one that rocks really hard.
November 1, 2024
The band's fourth album, released 50 years ago today, is chock-full of great ideas, including the overseas hits "Something for the Girl With Everything" and "Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth." Propaganda remains one of Sparks' brightest achievements, brimming with a loopy charm that continued to captivate the open-minded English listeners.