Here's what they say about Jeff Buckley: "He died too young". Here's why they say it: Grace is simply one of the most amazing things you can do with your ears and a little digitally-encoded disc. He inherited the voice of his father, the legendary Tim Buckley-seven octaves, each of them only just enough to cram his big feverish dreams into-but his music was all his own. Think Van Morrison's Astral Weeks on drugs-but then drugs could give some kind of comfort, and there's no comfort in Grace; just constant flux between crippling despair and an almost violent joy. When "Last Goodbye" unfolds it's third different middle-eight of Bollywood strings and Buckley's ecstatic scatting, it's hard to believe an ordinary human could have had a hand in something so extraordinary. -Caitlin Moran.

After the runaway success of The Lion King soundtrack-an Oscar-winning song ("Circle Of Life"), followed closely by an award-winning stage adaptation-it was inevitable that Elton John and Tim Rice would team up again. The only real surprise is that this time, it is not for Disney: Dreamworks Pictures managed to get the team together for the soundtrack to their animated film The Road To El Dorado, a tale about the quest for the fabled City of Gold. El Dorado is not a "proper" Elton John album: although he wrote the music and sang, the lyrics were written by Tim Rice (with some original-and downright groovy-score contributions from Hollywood favourite Hans Zimmer). Most of it, therefore, lacks much of Elton John's pop smarts-this is music that is meant as an accompaniment and as such it works rather nicely. Still, upbeat numbers like "16th Century Man" and "It's Tough To Be A God"-a duet with Disney mainstay Randy Newman-are sure to appeal to kids, while the lovely "The Panic In Me"-with its delicate Spanish guitar and unobtrusive string accompaniment-comes refreshingly close to capturing Elton John in top ballad form. -Ted Kord.

Released to coincide with the American leg of Elvis Costello's 2002 world tour and also to sate the appetites of Stateside obsessives with limited shelf-room, shallow purses and an intolerance to specialist import stores, Cruel Smile is a stop-gap compilation of peripheral recordings dating from the When I Was Cruel album sessions (including sundry remixes of tracks from that very same record), radio slots and live performances, many of which were originally released as B-sides and bonus cuts on recently issued singles from the far flung corners of the globe. British Costello-ites who have already shelled-out for the two-CD reissued version of When I Was Cruel will already own nine of these tracks, including a stroppy, blood-and-guts, live rendition of "Uncomplicated" and-in the wake of his commercial success (a rarity these days) with his version of "She"-two admirable recordings of the old Charlie Chaplin-penned/Nat King Cole-covered movie melody "Smile" (one dripping with show-time strings, jazz sax and theatrical stardust and the other more sombre, piano-adorned and plaintive), which Costello recorded for the Japanese TV drama 100 Million Stars Falling from the Sky and which show Robbie Williams' crooning aspirations the way to go. -Kevin Maidment.