Passion rather than insouciance is Pires’s keynote. Here is no soft, moonlit option but an intensity and drama that scorn all complacent salon or drawing-room expectations. How she relishes Chopin’s central storms, creating a vivid and spectacular yet unhistrionic contrast with all surrounding serenity or ‘embalmed darkness’. The con fuoco of Op. 15 No. 1 erupts in a fine fury and in the first Nocturne, Op. 9 No. 1, Pires’s sharp observance of Chopin’s appassionato marking comes like a prophecy of the coda’s sudden blaze. Such resolution and psychological awareness make you realize that Chopin, like D. H. Lawrence, may well have thought that “there must be a bit of fear, and a bit of horror in your life”. Chopin, Pires informs us in no uncertain terms, was no sentimentalist.

Although he created a decadent glam rocker image through early albums like The Human Menagerie and The Psychomodo, Steve Harley soon revealed a romantic heart beating beneath all the artsy sleaze on singles like "Judy Teen" and "Make Me Smile (Come up and See Me)." This 1976 album, the last studio outing Harley would record under the Cockney Rebel banner, allowed him to give full vent to his romantic thoughts via lushly crafted songs about the travails of love. Love Is a Prima Donna features two of Harley's finest songs in the title track, a bracing song that features the writer waxing comical about the pitfalls of love over a briskly paced pop tune that fleshes out its pub-piano melody with flamenco guitar and a choir, and "(Love) Compared With You," a delicately orchestrated love ballad that manages to be touching and heartfelt without lapsing into sappy sentimentality. This album also produced one of Harley's biggest hits with an arty, synthesizer-laced cover of the Beatles' classic "Here Comes the Sun".

One of America's best known, most beloved roots artists, releases a career-defining album produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos. Marcia is simply on fire throughout 'Shine Bright', with a rollicking array of piano-fueled roadhouse romps seasoned by her incomparably soulful balladry. Tracks include nine new Marcia originals, plus brilliant takes on the music of Ray Charles, Ernie K-Doe and Jesse Winchester. Producer/saxophonist Berlin guests on five tracks. "Rollicking, playful, good-time blues and intimate, reflective balladry…her songs ring with emotional depth."

Rick Derringer tried a variety of different things in the 1980s, '90s, and 2000s. The singer/guitarist recorded his share of middle of the road pop/rock and adult contemporary albums, and he even recorded an instrumental jazz-pop/smooth jazz album that had George Benson-ish leanings (2002's Free Ride). But Derringer, who turned 61 in 2008, has a way of going back to blues-rock and hard rock – which is exactly what he does on Knighted by the Blues. Granted, this 2009 release wasn't recorded with blues purists in mind; not everything on Knighted by the Blues adheres to the traditional 12-bar format.

Richard Marx's 1991 release, Rush Street, is a varied album that was billed as "the dark side of Richard Marx," and was also his last true rock & roll album (subsequent releases found him venturing almost exclusively into the adult contemporary domain). Rush Street explores different musical territories, with almost each song emerging as a cautionary tale in some form or another. The album kicks off to a rocking start with the bluesy "Playing With Fire" and the harmonica-enhanced "Love Unemotional." "Superstar" finds Marx in a funky mode, "Big Boy Now" is a catchy ballad that could have been a single, and "Streets of Pain" and "I Get No Sleep" (the latter featuring Billy Joel banging away at a piano) come straight out of '80s arena rock.

Carly Rae Jepsen may not be the most prolific pop star, but when she releases an album, she makes it count. On 2015's E-MO-TION, she proved just how much more there was to her music than "Call Me Maybe" as she expanded the sugar rush of 2012's Kiss into pop songs that were equally joyous and introspective. Four years after E-MO-TION, she makes another leap forward with Dedicated, an album that reflects her growing maturity as a songwriter as well as the pop music trends of its time. Jepsen trades E-MO-TION's deep dive into '80s nostalgia for a more streamlined approach on "No Drug Like Me" and "Automatically in Love," where swelling synths and loping beats nod to tropical pop while adding sophistication to her swooning lyrics.

This recording brings back an obscure session from the long defunct Andex label that was probably recorded around 1956. The emphasis is on Latin jazz with altoist Art Pepper, trumpeter Conte Candoli, tenor saxophonist Bill Perkins, pianist Russ Freeman, bassist Ben Tucker, and drummer Chuck Flores interacting with the percussion of Jack Costanza and Mike Pacheko. With arrangements by Bill Holman, Johnny Mandel, Benny Carter, and Pepper, the music is quite jazz-oriented if a touch lightweight. Worth investigating by fans of the idiom.

The Beach Boys' third and fifth albums make a good pairing on one CD, different as they are in content and origins. Surfer Girl was the album on which the group's and Brian Wilson's sound blossomed, and it did so on several levels. The title track was the first song that Brian ever wrote, and it's lucky that he saved it for this stage in their history, for it features surprising elegant and lush harmonies. The usual assumption is that, because of Wilson's hearing loss in one ear, the group's records work best in mono, but on this, their second album in stereo, the mixing makes inventive use of the two-channel separation, even on "Surfer Girl" (which, as a single in those days, would have been conceived in mono from the get-go).