Bruce Hornsby is now best known for his stints playing keyboards with the Grateful Dead and for his involvement in such post-Dead projects as the Further Festival. An incomparable keyboard wizard whose skills are widely admired while his albums are consistently underrated, Hornsby's greatest commercial success is slipping rapidly into the past. His 1986 debut, The Way It Is (recorded with his band, the Range) is the high watermark of his career commercially, having sold several million copies and spawned a trio of hit singles, including "Mandolin Rain," "Every Little Kiss," and of course, the No. 1 smash, "The Way It Is. " Overall, it's Hornsby's most tuneful album, though not necessarily his most accomplished work. His is a catalog that is long overdue for reevaluation. -Daniel Durchholz.

Michael Jackson's Thriller is the bestselling album of all time, with 45 million worldwide sales powered by eight Grammy Awards. The 1982 album was also a success from which the pop superstar never really recovered-subsequent albums seemed to have no other goal than to beat the records set by Thriller. The highly- polished sound of Quincy Jones's production sounds almost organic compared to Jackson's more recent work, and in the same regard, Thriller was significantly slicker than its predecessor, Off the Wall. Both albums established a Jackson style that aimed for the dance floor with songs built on a state-of-the-art bed of percussion and keyboards. Elements of milestone Thriller tracks like "Billie Jean" (arguably Jackson's best-ever performance) and "Beat It" (with its hard- rock solo by guitarist Eddie Van Halen) influenced not just Jackson's records, but those of the entire dance-pop world. On the song "Thriller", Jackson indulged his taste for the juvenile and invited Vincent Price to rap in a really scary voice. With Thriller the album, Jackson created a different kind of monster-a hit album of such magnitude that it would have an irrevocable impact not just on the singer's art, but on his altogether kooky life. -John Milward.

Few things in life are as reliable as UB40. For more than 20 years the eight Birmingham lads, led by brothers Robin and Ali (the one with the odd voice) Campbell, have been plying their very individual, and very British brand of reggae. And, save for a slight shift from the rootsy Ska of their first top-10 single, "King/Food For Thought", to the more commercial likes of "Homely Girl", little has changed over their 43-single career. Although their own tracks were always laid-back and infectious, it was their reggae-lite makeovers of pop classics like "Red Red Wine", "I Got You Babe" and "I Can't Help Falling In Love", that brought their biggest hits and are the main focus of The Very Best Of. Not as comprehensive as previous compilations, The Best Of UB40 Volume 1 and Volume 2, it still boasts more memorable and happily lilting hits than most bands could lay claim to. Of those, two tracks standout a mile-the William Orbit (he who revamped American Pie for Madonna) styled production of their recent cover of "Light My Fire" is exceptional, but "Rat In Mi Kitchen", thanks to superb lyrics, sparse yet perfectly formed dub horns and a little hindsight, is just as good as Brit-reggae gets. -Dan Gennoe.

Nick Cave has been writing songs about killing and other evil things since he first surfaced in 1980 as the Birthday Party's pale, skinny, goth-punk version of Jim Morrison. But the murder ballads that provide this set's title are different, tantalisingly deliberate. Sure, there's plenty of trademark Cave here, but Murder Ballads is a fascinating concept album that uses the narrative ballad form of the English folk tradition to tell of murder: random deaths, passion crimes, and killing sprees, all in one package. Cave clearly thrives in this genre, and he produces some of his sharpest and most facile writing to date: "Song of Joy", a genuinely scary campfire mystery of a murdered family and an unnamed killer, chillingly weaves clues into the lyrics, while "Where the Wild Roses Grow" is a narrative duet in which killer (Cave) and victim (pop star Kylie Minogue) reveal parallel tales. Cave even shows his knack for adaptation on Bob Dylan's "Death Is Not the End", recontextualising a song of heavenly comfort into a sort of zombie "We Are the World" (featuring Minogue, PJ Harvey, Shane MacGowan and others) in which "death is not the end" of pain and suffering. Above all, Murder Ballads should be heard as a work of pulp fiction-as sensationally funny as it is harrowing. The already violent traditional song "Stagger Lee" becomes gangsta folk, so ridiculously packed with obscenity and brutality it would make the Geto Boys cringe. And Cave's (unintentional?) point to would-be censors-that bad-ass songs existed long before rappers polluted the airways-should not be missed. -Roni Sarig.

Blur's second album saw them finding their feet just before they suddenly went supernova. In songs like "Chemical World", they started developing the themes of everyday British life that would follow them to their Parklife era. "Sunday Sunday" provided its own blueprint for the Britpop scene, showing the traditional Sunday dinner with the family for what it really is ("You gather the family round the table and eat enough to sleep"), while "Advert" follows in the spirit of Blur's musical ancestors (art school punks and mods). "Blue Jeans", meanwhile, demonstrates that Damon Albarn has always had a talent for writing delicate, sad ballads. Modern Life Is Rubbish deserves to be heard, not only to show how much Blur changed over the years, but because it still stands up and holds its own against anything they came up with later in their career. -Emma Johnston.

The multi-platinum success of Aja made Steely Dan, the musical conceit of Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, a household name. But that prosperity came bundled with a fateful triple-whammy for rock's dyspeptic duo: unrealistic commercial expectations, a critical backlash spawned by punk's nascent mewling, and the long-simmering meltdown of their artistic partnership. But the cool, perfect sheen of 1980's Gaucho tipped its hand to none of it. Ironically, those fashion victims who sniffed up their sleeves at Don and Walt's decadence-tinged Me Decade manifesto couldn't have had a clue that just maybe their songs' typically oblique protagonists had uncomfortably blurred from the third person to the first this time around. At least that's what Becker and Fagen hint at in their typically smart-assed notes to this digitally remastered, definitive edition (all original artwork and printed lyrics restored) of the final album before their 20-year hiatus. Pristine and sonically polished (three years and seven studios worth), time has served Gauchowell-like sour grapes well. Even its sense of laconic detachment now seems but a logical bridge to the two-decade removed Dan of Two Against Nature. To their credit, Becker and Fagen didn't trash the first half of Steely Dan's legacy on Gaucho, they simply burnished it to oblivion. -Jerry McCulley.

After a harrowing experience recording their previous album (1985's magnificent Fables Of The Reconstruction), R. E. M. reconvened the following year muttering something about a "poppier" sound. However, old fans were given little to complain about when Life's Rich Pageant was unveiled. Admittedly new producer Don Gehman had cleaned things up; you can even hear what Michael Stipe was singing on a couple of songs. And, yes, there's even a novelty cover ("Superman"). All these factors though, point to a band really enjoying themselves in the studio, from the euphoric clatter of "Begin The Begin" to the poignant waltz-time strum of "Swan Swan H". Highlights? Too many to mention-but it's hard to disagree with Stipe when he cites "Cuyahoga" and the hymnal "Fall On Me" as two of his very best. And, of the extra tracks, an exquisitely bare "(All I Have To Do Is) Dream" runs them damn close. [+]

A good overview of Sting's radio hits and popular album tracks with no major omissions, Fields of Gold also offers three previously unreleased songs. "This Cowboy Song" and "When We Dance" appear on no other album, while "We'll Be Together" is an alternate interpretation. The import version of this collection offers a substantially different and expanded track listing, dropping "Fortress Around Your Heart", "Be Still My Beating Heart", and "Why Should I Cry for You"; and adding "Nothing 'Bout Me", "Mad About You", "Seven Days", "It's Probably Me", "Love is the Seventh Wave", and "Demolition Man". -Gavin McNett.

Writer and director Zach Braff does a masterful job matching the charming, heartfelt tone of films like The Graduate and Rushmore in his motion picture debut, Garden State, so it only makes sense that the music he personally compiled for the soundtrack plays just as of big a part here as it did in those films. Simon & Garfunkel's languorous "The Only Living Boy in New York" is an obvious thread, but aside from Nick Drake's "One of These Things First," Braff is able to carry the mood without getting tripped up in the past. Frou Frou's "Let Go" and Zero 7's "In the Waiting Line" supply soft techno touches, while Iron & Wine's "Such Great Heights" and former Men at Work singer Colin Hay's "I Just Don't Think I'll Ever Get Over You" offer understated angst. It's the pair of emotionally racked contributions from the Shins ("Caring Is Creepy," "New Slang"), however, that really make this compilation a must-have. -Aidin Vaziri.

Forrest Gump (1994) is one of the most successful films ever made, winning Tom Hanks his second successive Best Actor Oscar (he won the previous year for Philadelphia) as well as claiming the Best Picture Oscar and many other awards and nominations, including several for music. A unique fable of American life from the 1950s to the 80s, the film blends comedy, drama, war, romance and groundbreaking special effects into a social and political portrait of the passing years, all seen through the eyes of the intellectually challenged but immensely likeable Forrest Gump. The soundtrack is a double album featuring 31 classic pop tunes plus a suite from Alan Silvestri's rich orchestral music, represented more completely on the companion score album. Opening with Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog", this is a fine anthology of three decades of American music, taking in everything from Joan Baez's "Blowin' In The Wind" to Aretha Franklin's "Respect", The Mammas and The Papas' "California Dreamin'" and Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson". Here also is Scott McKenzie with "San Francisco", plus Jefferson Airplane, the Supremes, Lynyrd Skynrd and many more. Like American Graffiti (1973), this is one of the great pop soundtracks, happily at home in just about any music collection. -Gary S. Dalkin.

Emotionally over-the-top pop extravaganzas like the string-swelling "Tonight Tonight", the Metallica-influenced alternative rock of "Zero", the techno via new wave of "1979"-the 28 songs on this swell two-disc album are as eclectic as their themes are epic and ambitious. Billy Corgan's thin whine isn't much of an instrument, but he makes the most of it by writing smart songs that take emotional chances that more-typical alt rockers would deem uncool. Pessimistic and feeling trapped but still wanting to believe in love, in a future, in something-this is the sound of Gen X at the millennium, with all the self-indulgence and power that would suggest. -David Cantwell.

The Killers might hail from one of the USA's most quintessentially American cities (Las Vegas), but their debut album Hot Fuss displays an Anglophilic streak that is an ocean wide. Steeped in the back-catalogue of the Smiths and Pulp, with broad 80s synth sweeps cloaking each tale of fraught metrosexual romance, this band clearly rate the swoon over the swagger. Still, this is almost entirely an upbeat record, one made for the packed club than the smoky VIP room; in particular "On Top", "Somebody Told Me" and "Mr Brightside" are tremendous examples of breathless indie-pop that gallop along like a lovestuck heartbeat with frontman Brandon Flowers gasping for breath on the claustrophobic disco floor. This is, inarguably, what the Killers do best. Even when they deviate from form they've got a few neat ideas-see the gospel choir that echoes back Flowers' repeated exclamation "I've got soul/ But I'm not a soldier" on "All These Things I've Done", or the self-consciously epic "Indie Rock'n'Roll", delivered by the Killers with all the fireworks and gusto of a curtain-closing Broadway showtune. -Louis Pattison.