What you make of Bon Jovi's seventh album largely depends on whether you believe Jon Bon Jovi really knows what it's like to be "two paychecks away from living out on the street". These Days is the songwriter's leap towards Springsteen immortality. He fails, but that isn't to say the album isn't the band's most interesting, diverse and artistically rewarding of their career to date. The first recorded without bassist Alec Jon Such, it needed the characteristics of a "second album", following as it did the professional and artistic renascence of Keep the Faith. What they've produced is a side-step, a progression, and not necessarily an obvious one. The title track is possibly their most mature effort, where "even innocence has caught the midnight train" and "there ain't nobody left but us these days". The dusty Americana of "Hey God" and "All I Want Is Everything" deal (almost successfully) with what can only be termed "social issues", whereas "This Ain't a Love Song" is one of their finest ballads. The hitherto unencountered diversity continues in the form of the highly charged brass of "Damned", which charts the anguish of infidelity, and in an ongoing religious theme, strangely absent from previous work. At 14 tracks it suffers, with the plodding "Diamond Ring" being an inexplicable and unforgivable inclusion, just as "Always" and "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night" were tacked needlessly on to their best-of Crossroad. Jon Bon Jovi might not be the Boss, but he sure is a king. [+]

What's Wrong with This Picture? is Van Morrison's inaugural release for the pre-eminent jazz label Blue Note, previously a home to some of the most esteemed names in jazz history, including Art Blakey, Thelonius Monk and Miles Davis. Nothing short of a legend himself, Morrison is more than capable of holding-up in such distinguished company, although, disappointingly, there is something frustratingly prescriptive and spiritually underwhelming blighting his more recent work on the jazz/ blues trajectory. Still, herein lies the inspirational Van Morrison of yore, a wandering poetic soul "Sippin' cider in the shade" on "Somerset" (Van Morrison's words set to the melody and clarinet of Acker Bilk) and revelling in the fresh-aired, vacational contentedness of both the Mediterranean-flavoured "Little Village" (with the pealing mandolin of Johnny Scott) and "Evening in June" with its soft horns and moonlit promenading. Conversely-and despite the audible rarity of hearing the old Grumpmeister cackling in public (as on the title track)-tracks like the celebrity-is-hell fixated "Goldfish Bowl" and "Fame" whiff of churlishness, although the rockabilly of Lightnin' Hopkins' "Stop Drinkin'" is a welcome, foot-tapping distraction. It's not a bad Van Morrison album but one that ought to be underwritten with the caveat that he hardly seems to be over-exerting himself. -Kevin Maidment.

Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat completed the transition from cantata for schoolkids to big-budget glitzfest with Steven Pimlott's 1991 London revival. Here's the 1992 Canadian version of that show, and even if it's not an ideal recording-Janet Metz as the narrator is no match for Laurie Beechman in the original Broadway cast and there's a little too much synthesizer in the orchestrations-this CD is valuable for the performance of former teen pop idol Donny Osmond as the title character. He's in excellent voice, and was so right for the role that he was selected to preserve it for the 2000 video production. And of course the songs are still here, showcasing Rice's witty lyrics and Lloyd Webber's chameleon tendencies-dabbling in country, calypso, French cafés, and a King-like pharaoh-as well as favorites "Any Dream Will Do," "Close Every Door," and "Go, Go, Go Joseph. " This production also includes the "Joseph Remix" (also known as the "Joseph Megamix"), a nine-minute medley of themes arranged with a heavy beat that was used for a kind of onstage aerobics routine as the show's postscript. -David Horiuchi.

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.

Elvis Costello's Warner Brothers debut saw him shooting for new standards of literacy and sophistication. Leaving behind the raw spleen of Blood and Chocolate, Spike used a multitude of guests and luminaries-Paul McCartney, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, guitarist Marc Ribot-to flesh out wordy, acerbic tales of soldiers and graceless women (for example, the Margaret Thatcher of the enraged "Tramp the Dirt Down"). For many fans, the songs were too artful by half, with knotty arrangements that belied an absence of memorable music. The Beatle-esque hit "Veronica" notwithstanding (a McCartney collaboration), Spike smacked of cleverness on the grand scale. -Barney Hoskyns.