That Up exists at all is faintly miraculous. Over the past seven years, with guests including Youssou N'Dour, Peter Green, Blind Boys of Alabama and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Peter Gabriel has held recording sessions in Senegal, Atlanta, Singapore, the French Alps and on a boat on the Amazon, as well as spending lengthy sojourns in his own Real World studios. Having written and prepared over 150 songs, it's amazing that Gabriel's managed to cut this huge body of work down to just 11 tracks. It's still more amazing that these tracks should be so consistent, and so contemporary. This quality springs from a thoughtful (and rare) layering process, with Gabriel combining his usual tribal rhythms with complex backing vocals, myriad samples, rock guitars, deep piano and-crucially-electronic sound effects. Indeed, the opening "Darkness" begins like the Prodigy before slipping into a quiet discussion of vulnerability and fear. Elsewhere, there is the funky gospel-rock of "Burn You Up, Burn You Down", the dreamy, Peter Hammill-like fragility of "The Drop" and the vocal pyrotechnics and orchestral heights of "Signal to Noise". Throughout, Gabriel uses water metaphors, from droplets to oceans, to examine human troubles and put forward his positivist message. It's all brilliantly done-sophisticated and soulful both. The man's a marvel, and this is a big, big hit. [+]

Behaviour marks a bit of a departure-or, more appropriately, an evolution-in style for the Pet Shop Boys, whose previous albums are largely comprised of hungry and often slightly seedy songs with a high emphasis production-wise on the band's beloved club roots. Those dance elements are still on display here, but there's a much more mature feel to Harold Faltermeyer's production. The songs themselves have moved on from neediness and seediness to far more adult themes; opening tracks "Being Boring" and "This Must Be the Place I Waited Years To Leave", with their lyrics of reminiscence, fond and otherwise, set the tone for the next 50 minutes. There are gently melodic songs of betrayal-"To Face The Truth", "Only The Wind"-and more upbeat variations on the same theme in "So Hard" and the string-laden "Jealousy" and a touching tale of first attraction in "Nervously". The album's only real downer comes in the pompous shape of "My October Symphony", a wincingly pretentious thing which suggests the band have fallen prey to the kind of po-faced muso nonsense they poke fun at in "How Can You Expect To Be Taken Seriously". Behaviour is possibly the best album for fans of Neil and Chris' more circumspect outpourings; what it lacks in upbeat anthems and disco production it more than makes up for in intelligent, introspective song writing. And with a bonus CD of 12 remixes and B-sides, it's a must-have for anyone who likes their pop meticulously crafted and shrewdly lyrical. -Rikki Price.

Bat Out of Hell is probably remembered most for its rock operetta of every teenage boy's plight, "Paradise by the Dashboard Light". Certainly the most dramatic piece on the album, it engaged Meat Loaf's testosterone-crazed tenor in an incremental game of sexual bargaining with the resistant but willing, Ellen Foley. By employing exaggerated power chords, screaming vocals, over-the-top arrangements and a sense of rock and roll as Broadway theatre, Bat made Meat Loaf a star. Jim Steinman's contribution to the record is invaluable. His classically tinged piano gave a certain lush quality to his collaborations with Meat Loaf, making songs like the hit "Two Out of Three Ain't Bad" all the more emotional. Larger than life in every sense of the word, Bat Out of Hell sometimes sounds a bit dated but has retained most of its appeal. -Steve Gdula Bat Out of Hell is probably remembered most for its rock operetta of every teenage boy's plight, "Paradise by the Dashboard Light. " Certainly the most dramatic piece on the album, it engaged Meat Loaf's testosterone-crazed tenor in an incremental game of sexual bargaining with the resistant, but willing, Ellen Foley. By employing exaggerated power chords, screaming vocals, over-the-top arrangements, and a sense of rock and roll as Broadway theater, Bat made Meat Loaf a star. Jim Steinman's contribution to the record is invaluable. [+]

It's one of the cruel ironies of music today that Billy Joel has been relegated to a kind of adult-contemporary hell, where his legacy is measured by soft-rock staples such as "Just the Way You Are", "Piano Man" and "New York State of Mind". To be sure, well-crafted ballads are a part of his legacy but they're hardly the whole story, as this collection of his early and mid-period hits amply demonstrates. From the unbridled biographical boasting of "The Entertainer" and the ambitious storytelling of "Scenes from an Italian Restaurant" to the careening abandon of "Only the Good Die Young" and the thoughtful social commentary of "Allentown", Joel was as complete an artist as the last three decades have produced. -Daniel Durchholz.

Alexander O'Neal, along with Luther Vandross, was the public face of male soul in the 1980s. This Greatest Hits compilation, produced mainly by longtime collaborators Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis charts the hits predominantly from his first two albums and a handful of songs from subsequent releases. The intro song, "Never Knew Love like This", with label mate Cherrelle epitomises his mid-tempo style, awash with overly slick MIDI instruments and catchy choruses. The big songs here are undoubtedly "Fake" and "Criticise" from the acclaimed second album Hearsay, slightly rougher and more macho than say, "The Lovers" but just as crammed with heartfelt sentiment and soulful tales of love. A welcome inclusion is the duet from Cherrelle's High Priority album, "Saturday Love", a classic of the "Minneapolis sound" that sits more than comfortably with O'Neal's own work. Greatest Hits may seem heavily packed with older material but it was these songs on the Tabu label that made him a latter day soul legend and with the all new remastering, this collection is just as valid now as it was almost twenty years ago. -Georgina Collins.

You cannot-it may reasonably be argued-sing and feel the blues if you ain't been bruised. Conclusively, Dancing Down The Stony Road-the word "dancing" is almost used ritually in the Chris Rea lexicon, as if to signify a celebration of a struggle won-is the pure, wounded Delta blues record Rea always wanted to make. Lying in a hospital bed in life-and-death limbo while undergoing treatment for cancer, the former AOR blues-pop maestro vowed that if he ever recovered he'd pick-up the slide guitar, for that was the sound-particularly the Mississippi Delta style of Charley Patton-which inspired him to follow his muse and throw away his chances with the family ice cream firm all those years ago. Like Bob Dylan's Blood On The Tracks, one suspects this record was a cathartic, linen-airing experience for Rea, who, having grown weary of the rock industry's corporate machinations, is more determined than ever to suit himself. His resilience and resistance to his demons is palpable, with the croaked lines "Come on easy rider, give me something for my pain" alluding to requests he made to his nurse for more morphine, while the hardbitten, two-fingered blues salute of "Qualified" proudly shows the world his well-earned scars. Further down the line, the shadows recoil, the curtains open and-hey-it's a brand new morning, the gospel-tinged "Sun Is Rising" is as jubilant and life-affirming as Bill Withers' "Lovely Day", it being impossible not to picture Chris Rea running outside in the crisp morning air and kissing the milkman. And who can blame him? There's plenty here, too, to quench the thirst of insatiable Van Morrison and Leonard Cohen devotees. And judging by the equine whinnying and snake-like slither of his guitar, Rea is a very fine slide player too. -Kevin Maidment.

You could trawl the rock & roll archives all the way back and never find an album quite like Red Rose Speedway. Which is not to say that it's great. Just that it's weird. Though it's a Wings album, it's entirely irradiated with Paul McCartney's personality-to the extent that virtually the entire band left him while attempting to rehearse for the supporting tour, claiming they couldn't operate in his huge, overbearing shadow. You can see where they were coming from. Red Rose Speedway, right down to the cover shot of Macca with a rose in his mouth, is about Paul McCartney, specifically his unique Seventies ability to pump up slight, pretty songs to the scale of "Hey Jude", seemingly unaware or unworried that that didn't necessarily make them as good as "Hey Jude". The high spot is the saccharine sauciness of "My Love", a lurching soft-focus ballad about his wife's sexual excellence. The rest of it-lazy, lushly produced rock, sometimes sweet, sometimes just cloying, but always unmistakably Macca-is worth hearing if just to ponder: "what the hell did he think he was doing?" -Taylor Parkes.