Off the Wall made music history. Not only was it the release that signaled the arrival of Michael Jackson as a major talent outside the Jackson Five, it was the first record by a solo artist to contain four US Top 10 hits. "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough", "Rock with You", "Off the Wall", and "She's out of My Life" were essential listening in the late 1970s and early '80s. The release also contains the kinetic "Working Day and Night" and "Burn This Disco Out", and Paul McCartney contributes "Girlfriend". Thanks to Quincy Jones's production, it was still all about the music back then. The artistry Jackson exhibited on Off the Wall still amazes. Avoiding the shallow excesses of most of the period's disco, Jackson's dance rhythms here are made all the more powerful by Jackson's vocal restraint. -Steve Gdula.

Such was the omnipresence of Britain's biggest selling album in 1992 and 1993, that Stars sounds like a Greatest Hits in its own right. It's always been fashionable for critics to sneer at Simply Red's phenomenal success, but there's no denying the sumptuous clarity which pervades everything here, from the doting, devotional "For Your Babies" to the deliciously understated "Wonderland". Even clumsy forays into social commentary-"Model" and the Tory-baiting "Your Mirror"-are partially redeemed by a couple of cracking tunes. Lest we forget, Stars was Simply Red's last album as a fully functioning band. Hucknall may well have since written songs to equal "For Your Babies" and "Stars", but bereft of Fritz McIntyre's sunny keyboard sound and Heitor T. P. 's crisp, angular funk playing, he's never quite sounded so Simply Red. -Peter Paphides.

As the title suggests, Simply Red's sixth studio album finds Mick Hucknall in reflective mode-pondering the vagaries of fame, love and friendship. On "Say You Love Me" he likens himself to a grain of sand, being blown all around the world. "What I think of it?" he asks himself, "Oh it's so-so. " Such ambivalence towards the day-job may have something to do with the failed relationship that had preceded the recording of Blue. The strains of touring, said Hucknall, made it impossible to find a suitable life-partner. Such domestic unrest, though, acts as a fine creative lubricant, and ballads such as "Love Has Said Goodbye Again" and the Gerschwin-tinged "Someday In My Life" rank as two of Mick's finest vocal performances. In fact, only the soaring funk of "To Be Free" truly evokes the carefree stridency of the band's earlier albums. Blue is the sound of man approaching 40 and pondering his options. -Peter Paphides.

Calling an album Love And The Russian Winter was a surprisingly courageous-some would say foolish-move. Ask any would-be world conqueror: a Russian winter is the surest way to suffer crushing, final, demoralising defeat. Still, though, Mick Hucknall's confidence would not be swayed, so it's to his credit that the evocative title is justified by the songs, from uptempo pop to their trademark slushy ballads. First single "Ain't That a Lot of Love" is Simply Red's most uptempo offering since the 1995 "Fairground", boasting a house-influenced production. Meanwhile, "Your Eyes", with its richly textured arrangement, revisits familiar ground-complete with the drummer and programmer who worked on Simply Red's Stars. -Shanthi Sivanesan.

Containing eight remixed tracks from Jackson's 1995 HIStory, as well as five new compositions, Blood On The Dancefloor tastefully mixes old sounds with new. The new songs which open the album are led by the thrash-pop title track, which is reminiscent of many of the creations on Dangerous. "Morphine" is a dark and emotive track, while "Ghosts" and "Is It Scary" are autobiographical accounts of fatherhood and the problems of privacy which followed the birth of his baby. The disco remix of "Stranger In Moscow", meanwhile, is an excellent up-tempo remodelling of the original track. -John Galilee.

HIStory's two CDs (one hits, the other new) were Jackson's attempt to connect his glorious past to a dodgy present and-given it's commercial and artistic performance-cast a shadow on his future. Conceived as his formal coronation as the "King of Pop", HIStory's second disc instead presents Jackson as an epauletted, single-gloved Richard III. By turns paranoid, angry, bitter, sentimental, and, in one instance, possibly anti-Semitic, HIStory was less a collection of songs than a case history. A few tracks-mostly those produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis-are sleek, modern pop/soul, but too much of HIStory has the overblown vacuousness of a musician who knows his time is past, but is unsure as to how to react to the situation. -Steven Mirkin HIStory's 2 CDs (one hits, the other new) were Jackson's attempt to connect his glorious past to a dodgy present and-given it's commercial and artistic performance-cast a shadow on his future. Conceived as his formal coronation as the "King of Pop," HIStory's second disc instead presents Jackson as an epauletted, single-gloved Richard III. By turns paranoid, angry, bitter, sentimental, and, in one instance, possibly anti-Semitic, HIStory was less a collection of songs than a case history. A few tracks-mostly those produced by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis-are sleek, modern pop/soul, but too much of HIStory has the overblown vacuousness of a musician who knows his time is past, but is unsure as to how to react to the situation. -Steven Mirkin.