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Scarlett Johansson: Anywhere I Lay My Head

Anywhere I Lay My Head

Beyond the microclimate of critical discourse, it’s easy to forget that there are many people who think that Tom Waits is not that great a singer. Talking to Time Out in 1995, Rod Stewart revealed himself as one of them when he claimed that he was doing Waits a favour by putting his song Downtown Train in the hands of a “proper” vocalist. It might also be argued that Waits – never much to look at – might be further glamorised by having a Hollywood A-lister such as Scarlett Johansson cover an album of his songs. Surely, it’s just the break for which Waits has been eking out a humble existence all these decades?

Quiet Village: Silent Movie

Silent Movie

The thin line between schmaltz and beauty is something musicians have had to grapple with for a while, especially during a generation of pop where recontextualization is something we tend to take for granted. Right now I'm listening to "Victoria's Secret," the first track from Quiet Village's Silent Movie, and I'm imagining other people in a similar situation squinching up their faces at how cheesily doe-eyed it must sound to them: beachside surf sounds and seagull keening, weepy strings, a sedate, molasses-flow rhythm section that consists of an almost inaudible feather-tapped drum and a snore-pace bass.

Kelly Rowland: Ms. Kelly

Ms. Kelly

Capitalizing on the success of her album ‘Miss Kelly’ as well as the popularity of the singles ‘Work’ and ‘Like This’; Kelly Rowland has put together an updated version of her smash album with new cuts, remixes and the removal of previously included tracks. With a pretty impressive resume already behind her – a member of one of the most successful girl groups of all time, Destiny’s Child, and a multi-platinum selling solo debut, many will ask if a Deluxe Edition of ‘Miss Kelly’ was really necessary. To respond to these critics, the answer is simple… yes!

The Lodger: Life Is Sweet

Life Is Sweet

There's a little bit of The Smiths about them, a little bit of Suede and just a dash of The Libertines, a patchwork quilt you can snuggle down into as you lie in an urban bedsit contemplating lost girlfriends, meaningless futures and why the universe and your music collection revolves around diminished sevenths.

Mudhoney: Lucky Ones

Lucky Ones

Mudhoney have never really received the respect they deserve over the years. To the uninformed, Nirvana were the grunge band that started it all, but trace the lineage back, and right at the start of that poorly monikered genre were Mudhoney. Trace it back further, and you'll find Green River, a band that featured members of Mudhoney, and Mother Love Bone (who would eventually morph into Pearl Jam) whose frenetic garage/metal hybrid set down a template that was shortly to hold a world in thrall.

Iron Maiden: Somewhere Back in Time: The Best of 1980-1989

Somewhere Back in Time

The first time they did this back in '84/'85 they were on the road for 13 months and 193 shows setting records and becoming one of the few 'must see' metal bands around. This time you can even book tickets for the show and travel on a flight piloted by singer Bruce Dickinson. To celebrate the fact that Maiden are revisiting this classic period in their history, they are releasing this compilation. To many this may seem like the band are fleecing the fans yet again, especially when you look down the track listing and see that there a few, if any surprises.

Nine Inch Nails: The Slip

The Slip

Unlike its most immediate predecessors, The Slip comes packaged with a crucial difference: the music itself is more satisfying than the sui generis marketing scheme. Reznor's unique capacity to commingle raging industrial bangers with ballads and ambient instrumental passages appears in its best form since The Downward Spiral, and here gains much of the focus and restraint that many remember used to be his calling card. At just under 44 minutes, The Slip is Reznor's shortest full-length since Machine, and it indexes many of his most appealing qualities as a songwriter and album sequencer. His former label Interscope still retains the rights to issue a Nine Inch Nails greatest-hits set, but The Slip plays like Reznor's own minor retrospective, fleshed out with plenty of present-day ruminations.

Death Cab for Cutie: Narrow Stairs

Narrow Stairs

Blame "The O.C.," blame the hype machine (the concept, not the website), blame teenagers, blame the mediocre reviews of Plans, blame the mainstreamization of long-beloved indie bands (cough the Shins cough), blame the band leaving Barsuk for Atlantic, blame fame in general: at some point, Death Cab for Cutie became the kind of band easily dismissed by listeners and critics alike. They were stereotyped any number of ways, the Coldplay comparisons, phrases and terms like: “cutesy indie pop,” “wussy,” “emo” and “inoffensive.” True, the band is generally far from aggressive stoicism, but when did that become a requirement to be a “serious” artist? There were hints through the years that the band can write epics, experiment and be angry. It had just been awhile since we’d heard one. That is until the band released the first single from Narrow Stairs, “I Will Possess Your Heart.”

Mudcrutch: Self Titled

Mudcrutch

It’s a name that’ll be instantly familiar to hardcore Tom Petty fans, but to everyone else, Mudcrutch sounds like something that’s uncomfortably close to what happens when you combine too much Mexican food and too much beer, so here’s a little background info: comprised of Petty on bass, keyboardist Benmont Tench, Mike Campbell and Tom “Bernie’s brother” Leadon on guitar, and drummer Randall Marsh, Mudcrutch was Petty’s pre-Heartbreakers band, a motley crew of Byrds-loving kids who traveled from Florida to L.A., only to wilt under the steely glare of an unsympathetic record industry. Petty drafted Tench and Campbell to form the nucleus of the Heartbreakers, and the rest was history.

Elvis Costello & The Imposters: Momofuku

Momofuku

Elvis Costello's career has taken so many left turns since his new-wave beginnings that it's nearly more surprising to hear him record a rock record these days than one of his many excursions in other genres. But Momofuku returns him to his band the Imposters-- their first in a while, and likely the sort of record most of his fans have been waiting for. Fortunately, it's the best of all that would imply: a fiercely melodic record that sinks or swims on the dynamics of his band, much in the vein of his relative comeback album When I Was Cruel and at times even Blood and Chocolate.