On his tenth album under the Eels moniker, Mark "E" Everett continues to follow his musical muse wherever it'll take him with Wonderful, Glorious. After so many records it seems like E would be well past the point of any new firsts, but this is the first album to be recorded in his expansive new studio, mysteriously named The Compound, as well as the first album written in collaboration with the rest of the band. This more open, organic process comes through on the songs, providing E and company with a refreshing amount of creative freedom after the relative confinement of doing a conceptual three-album trilogy (2009's Hombre Lobo and 2010's End Times and Tomorrow Morning). While this process and studio have made their impact musically, Eels fans can rest assured that E's melancholic, beaten-down lyricism remains intact. Proclaiming "Every time I find myself in this old bind, watching the death of all my hopes/In the ring so long gonna prove 'em wrong, I'm not knocked out but I'm on the ropes" during the sad yet hopeful "On the Ropes," the album finds Everett in a more grounded and, relatively, positive place.

After 20 years of absence The The celebrated their comeback with a glorious UK and US Tour in 2018, topped by a sold-out performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the so called 'Comeback Special'. What started as an unforgettable live experience now turns into something even bigger as The The announce their new live album and make the whole comeback experience available to fans worldwide.

It stands to reason that a Lloyd Cole album called Love Story would not have a happy beginning or middle, much less ending. Actually, though, it does start out happy, "Trigger Happy," that is, and later on, Cole is "Happy for You," in which he sings, "If you love him, you should leave me." In between, things get no sunnier, as Cole and his characters drink and despair, but carry on. That determination is very much part of Cole's negative world-view: "Everybody knows this is nowhere," he says, to coin a phrase, "but you've gotta be there." (Except, one supposes, for Lucy, who jumps from the 39th floor in the rollicking "Let's Get Lost.") Typically, Cole couches these sentiments in melodic folk-rock, such that, with the volume low and just following the attractive lilt of his voice, a listener might find this a far more soothing piece of music than it turns out to be on closer examination.

This year marks 25 years since Oasis’ two iconic record breaking live concerts at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire on the 10th and 11th August 1996. The shows were both the pinnacle of the band’s success and a landmark gathering for a generation of young people.

Producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley, as is their wont, created a shimmering pop surface for Lloyd Cole and the Commotions' second album, Easy Pieces, sweetening the tracks with string and brass countermelodies and emphasizing the chiming highs of the guitar and keyboards for an attractive sound that echoed the earnestness of British bands like the Hollies and Herman's Hermits circa 1966. It was, of course, like sugarcoating cyanide capsules, given Cole's pleasantly sung lyrics, which detailed philosophical disillusionment, romantic discord, and, yes, at least attempted suicide. In the U.K., Easy Pieces was a Top Ten hit. But although the album saw something of a proper release in the U.S., and the Commotions toured extensively, no American breakthrough materialized.

Pablo Honey in no way was adequate preparation for its epic, sprawling follow-up, The Bends. Building from the sweeping, three-guitar attackRadiohead that punctuated the best moments of Pablo Honey, Radiohead create a grand and forceful sound that nevertheless resonates with anguish and despair – it's cerebral anthemic rock. Occasionally, the album displays its influences, whether it's U2, Pink Floyd, R.E.M., or the Pixies, but Radiohead turn clichés inside out, making each song sound bracingly fresh. Thom Yorke's tortured lyrics give the album a melancholy undercurrent, as does the surging, textured music. But what makes The Bends so remarkable is that it marries such ambitious, and often challenging, instrumental soundscapes to songs that are at their cores hauntingly melodic and accessible. It makes the record compelling upon first listen, but it reveals new details with each listen, and soon it becomes apparent that with The Bends, Radiohead have reinvented anthemic rock.

I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got became Sinéad O'Connor's popular breakthrough on the strength of the stunning Prince cover "Nothing Compares 2 U," which topped the pop charts for a month. But even its remarkable intimacy wasn't adequate preparation for the harrowing confessionals that composed the majority of the album…

She may be the daughter of a reverend, but Tori Amos never seemed the likeliest candidate for a Christmas album; she might sing about "God", but her music always seemed secular and never seasonal, but in a year that brought holiday albums by Bob Dylan and Sting, it makes perfect sense that Tori should deliver one, too…

Celebrating the 25th anniversary of R.E.M.'s tenth studio album. This Deluxe 2-CD/1-Blu-ray offers a trove of content, including the remastered album, B-sides and rarities, a previously unreleased outdoor projection film, and EPK…