Having hit big with their folky debut Dreamboat Annie, Heart quickly reinvented themselves as a stadium rock band of massive proportions, a period peaking with the Zeppelin-esque Bebe Le Strange. Though the early 80s saw them fade, a move to Capitol Records and an embracing of mainstream balladeering raised them to their highest-ever levels of popularity. This album's collects a decade's worth of Capitol singles, and includes such hits as "Alone", "These Dreams" (both chart toppers), "Never" and "All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You". Sadly, being a singles collection, it ignores much of the band's best work during that period (almost without exception written by the Wilson sisters), for instance the howling epics "Bad Animals" and "The Night", and the wonderfully delicate "Under The Sky". Yet, with most of the entries here being penned by such hit-machines as Dianne Warren, Albert Hammond and Steinberg/Kelly, the quality remains high and it's all, of course, hugely energised by Ann Wilson's near-unbelievable voice, without doubt one of the finest in rock's long history. An acceptable Greatest Hits that leaves you yearning for a Best Of. -Dominic Wills.

Directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez spent $53 million to pay loving tribute to the vintage hundred-thousand-dollar exploitation fare that inspired Grindhouse's two-movies-for-the-price-of-one thrill ride. Tarantino's half of the exercise (which also includes Robert Rodriguez's self-scored Planet Terror) features another effusive slice of the director's eclectic musical sensibility to underscore its manic tale of stuntman/psycho-killer Kurt Russell and his muscle-car-fueled exploits. Tarantino works from a familiar formula that variously mixes evocative, semi-obscure Italian film cues from Morricone and Dinaggio, contrasting slices of '60s catalog from the great Jack Nitzsche and Brit Invasion also-rans DDDBM&T and some '70s fodder from both ends of the Top 40 via Smith and T. Rex, also stirring in a savory mid-disc run of R&B that stretches from PG&E's upbeat read of "Stagger Lee" through more familiar fare from Joe Tex, Eddie Floyd, and the Coasters. The director also serves up a couple of those deliciously off-kilter obscurities that have come to be his musical trademark as a coda: Eddie Beram's thumping "Riot in Thunder Alley" and April March's infectious ditz-pop take on Serge Gainsbourg's loopy "Chick Habit. " -Jerry McCulley.

It may now be hard to believe but there once was a time when Neil Diamond was considered not only big enough to open a movie but to get Sir Laurence Olivier to co-star in said movie. While the movie itself was less than a rousing success, the soundtrack was a smash-though, contrary to the title, it does not find the Elvis of soft-rock taking up jazz. Playing the part of a young Jewish cantor who follows his heart to play, well, a Neil Diamond-esque blend of R&B and rock, Diamond finds excuses to throw in some soulful singles ("Love on the Rocks" and "Hello Again"), a fluffy, uptempo slice of Stephen Foster-Americana ("On the Robert E Lee") and a topical song ("America"); padding out the soundtrack are the film-specific Jewish hymns "Adon Olam" and "Kol Nidre". Eternally consigned to a limbo between being remembered for his better moments (Live at the Greek, writing some of the Monkees' biggest hits) and for the tawdry ones ("Turn on Your Heartlight", inspired by E. T. ), The Jazz Singer remains one of Diamond's best albums. -Randy Silver.

The first part of a loosely affiliated trilogy (Heroes and Lodger were to follow), Low is in part a synthesis of 1970's disco, funk and New Wave as well as a brave foray in to wordless electronic ambience. The opening salvo of songs and up-tempo instrumentals contains the single "Sound and Vision", which shudders under the archness of Bowie deadpan vocals. Elsewhere, Bowie inhabits the brilliantly starchy European funk of "Breaking Glass" and "Always Crashing in the Same Car". That Bowie found a like mind in the eternally innovative Brian Eno is no surprise; the success of the four instrumental pieces that close Low can be attributed in no small way to the production contributions of the ex- Roxy Music keyboard player turned ambient pioneer. Bowie and Eno's experiments in a Berlin recording studio would have a massive influence on the music of subsequent decades. For this reason alone, Low is an essential David Bowie album. -James Littlewood.

It became increasingly apparent during 1995 that the answer to the question "Blur or Oasis?" was, in fact, "Pulp". Different Class was the sound of a band so on "it" that they defined "it". Thirty years of fury, frustration, sexual longing, class angst and observations about girls' skirts was rammed into the grand Brechtian/Brel-like drama of "Live Bed Show", "I Spy" and, of course, "Common People"; and sure enough it has the impact of crashing head-on into someone's entire sordid, suppressed secret life. When Jarvis hisses "I can't help it / I was dragged up / Grass is something you smoke/ Birds are something you shag / Take your 'Year In Provence' and shove it up your ass," it sounds like mustard gas escaping over the trenches in the class war. And he wins. If music had a class system, this would be our ruler. -Caitlin Moran.

New Age diva Enya first became widely known when her 1988 album Watermark sold 4 million copies and launched the single "Orinoco Flow". Her follow-up, Shepherd Moons, was even more successful, selling over 10 million copies despite its slightly lower grade of ethereal enchantment. In 1997 she released Paint the Sky with Stars, an assortment of her best work from these two early albums plus gems from 1995's The Memory of Trees and the soundtrack to the BBC series The Celts. The most melodic and atmospheric examples of Enya's lovely Celtic-flavoured songwriting shine on this disc. Those unfamiliar with the former Clannad member will find charm in such sweet lullabies as "Marble Halls" and "China Roses" while delighting in the more energetic "Book of Days", "Storms in Africa" and "Caribbean Blue". Overall, an outstanding collection from an artist who gives New Age a good name. -Karen Karleski.

Like the Beatles and Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson is one of the handful of artists that can release an album of their number one singles. Number Ones includes his solo chart toppers in the UK and abroad from the period beginning with his Off the Wall album right up to the new song "One More Chance", a collaboration with R Kelly. The remaining 17 songs on the album are all classics drawn from the disco-soul Off the Wall, the funky Thriller, the good Bad, the safe Dangerous, the semi-best-of History and the weak Invincible. Regardless of whether the bulk of Number Ones has appeared on other greatest hits albums, this is still an incredible selection of Michael Jackson's best music. -Georgina Collins.

A legend of British rock over the past three decades, everyone's favourite pseudo Scotsman, Rod Stewart has had more than enough top-drawer hits to fill this double album, The Story So Far. There is no chronological order, which is probably a good thing as his golden period in the 1970s would undoubtedly cast a shadow over his subsequent work, which although good is no match for "Maggie May", "You Wear it Well" or the swaggering blues rocker "Hot Legs". The album is split into two distinct sections, "A Night Out" which as you may guess is the up-tempo numbers like "This Old Heart" and "Ooh La La" whereas "A Night In" shows the more tender side of balladeer Rod beginning with the "love it or hate it" anthem "Sailing" and then onto classics like "I Don't Want To Talk About It", "The Killing of Georgie" and "Have I Told You Lately". Rod Stewart has been the subject of many compilations before The Story So Far but with many of them being either single discs with glaring omissions or box sets with just a few too many album fillers, this is the most definitive yet succinct greatest hits yet. -David Trueman.

There are worse things in life for than making your acting debut on the much ballyhooed season finale of Ally McBeal, though teen operatic baritone Josh Groban doesn't seem destined to encounter them anytime soon. As the awkward high school student-client who asks the typically romance-jinxed Ally to his senior prom, Groban performed this debut album's "You're Still You" (adapted from film-composing legend Ennio Morricone's Academy Award-nominated score for Malèna, with lyrics by Linda Thompson) as a heart-tugging, literal showstopper. The young star was just 17 when veteran producer-writer David Foster tapped him to fill in for Andrea Bocelli at rehearsals for the 1999 Grammys, where Groban found himself suddenly dueting with Celine Dion. If this collection tends to hew sometimes uncomfortably close to Foster's own MOR sonic instincts, the material offers enough challenges to display Groban's talent and the potential of his warm, mature voice: a lyrical take on another Morricone classic, "Cinema Paradiso"; melancholy readings of Don McLean's "Starry, Starry Night" and Albert Hammond's "Alejate"; masterfully dramatic takes of the Neapolitan "Alla Luca Del Sole" and "Canto Alla Vita," the latter featuring the Corrs. Many of Groban's performances here, including a neo prog-rock-opera take on Bach's "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" (with Lili Haydn), seem both bigger and bolder than their precious musical frameworks, a telling hint that Grand Opera can't be far from his grasp. As said earlier, there are worse things in life. -Jerry McCulley.

On XO, Elliott Smith leaves the indie doldrums behind and takes wing to new, lush surroundings. By adding full instrumentation to his acoustic reveries, Smith has ascended to a new level of song-writing that shores up his gentle voice and country-tinged guitar playing with extra layers of vocal arrangements and charming piano vamps. Strains of classic rock filter into the Beatlesque "Baby Britain" and the Beach Boys-inspired "I Didn't Understand"- but Smith succeeds in adapting them to his style rather than the other way around. A foot soldier in DreamWorks' war on standard-issue rock & roll, Smith joins new label mates Rufus Wainwright and Morphine as sophisticated interpreters of the new male psyche. XO is a stunning shadow print of a soul adrift in the music industry, a dark place indeed. -Lois Maffeo.

Apparently there's nothing in Kabbalah that disallows sweaty, head-spinningly good dance music, because here comes a flame-haired Madonna hawking a dozen songs' worth: Confessions on a Dance Floor darts seamlessly from Madge's early days, when she emerged as the genre's enduring darling, through the political, kiddie, and acoustic pap that drove a wedge between her and early adopters of the fingerless glove look. Songs like the pop-leaning "Jump" and first single "Hung Up"-an adrenaline drip on high that, like many of these tracks, will inspire mild shame among those who've thrilled to the much thinner disco-dusted outpourings of younger divas recently-represent both a return to form and an unmistakable march into the future. "Get Together" is a sonic freak-out in the best sense; "Push" traffics in gut-level futuristic trance; and "Forbidden Love" loops in '80s blips and bleeps for a follow-me-into-the-past effect that's both neo and retro. For all the image-affirming innovations here, though, these confessions find Madonna framed in her share of reflective moments too. "Was it all worth it/How did I earn it?" she asks on "How High," a song featuring vocoder. "Nobody's perfect/I guess I deserve it," comes the answer. A later lyrical inquiry is left for the listener to judge: "Does this get any better?" Madonna wants to know. But that opens the door to a dizzying proposition-few of us would have guessed, after all, that it got this good. -Tammy La Gorce More to Explore Immaculate Collection (CD) GHV2 (binding) Madonna ~ Lotsa De Casha (Hardcover) Official Madonna Calendar See more Madonna.

Apparently, Swing When You're Winning was inspired by the praise Robbie Williams received for his contribution to the soundtrack on Bridget Jones's Diary. Recorded with an 18-piece band in Frank Sinatra's old stomping ground, the Capitol Records Studio in LA, this collection of finger-clickin', Rat Pack standards and new material features plenty of guest collaborations, such as the much-hyped Nicole Kidman effort on Sinatra's "Something Stupid". Swing. is billed by Williams as a tribute to "The Rat Pack", a gang of entertainers including Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jnr, as well as Ol' Blue-Eyes himself, that dominated the Las Vegas dinner-club scene of the early 1960s. The selection of tracks reflect the karaoke sessions of Robbie's childhood in Stoke, and have been given the full "tribute" treatment, with no funny business going on in the production to take away from their classic appeal. There's never been any doubt that Williams sees himself as an entertainer in the most traditional sense of the word (not to mention a bit of a swinger), and his old-time-crooner fantasies are certainly given free rein to charm the pants off us all on this classy album. -Ruby Tuesday.