Throughout the album, Michele doesn’t so much sing as trumpet like an elephant eager for the charge. Her voice has more need than vulnerability, more anger than understanding.

They're featherweight takes on retro-'70's pop soul, together creating just the summer album we need in a winter that won't quit. But if the album's puppydog need to please goes down with ease, it's effect evaporates nearly as quickly.

Atkins’ songs have enough range to recall a Kurt Weill art-song in “It’s Only Chemistry.” But it’s her voice that ties it all together, with a sound sure enough to let the vulnerability of her words proudly show.

St. Vincent proves on her new work that self-conscious and odd grooves can move you, too. Many songs find joy and invention in goose-stepping rhythms and hard, or even dissonant, shards of guitar.

The new album--Beck’s first in more than five years--has its own melodies and sonic palette. It’s even more fully dedicated to its draggy beat and diffuse sound than “Sea Change.”

It helps that her smooth voice sits so comfortably on the songs, content to illuminate their fine tunes rather than over-embellish them with flash.

The music Lake Street makes draws from 1930s jazz, ’50s rockabilly and doo-wop, as well as ’60s blues and soul. The title track idealizes that last mix. It could slip easily onto Bonnie Raitt’s best, early discs.

Taken as a whole, Hotel Valentine creates a trip of a disc, referencing the ghosts of old New York while exorcising them into something new.

Kooper did a good job of balancing the guitarist’s seminal material with worthy rarities.

Listening to Uncle Tupelo’s maiden album in this newly expanded form both underscores its essential power and points up the arbitrariness of its watershed reputation.

Listening again proves it to be that rarest of beasts: a perfect work. There’s not a chord, lyric, beat or inflection that doesn’t pull at the heart or make it soar.

As always, Cash’s vocals aren’t brimming with character, but their tidiness suits her observational lyrics and considered personality. Together, they lead her home by a route laid out clearly enough to show just how far she strayed.

Never a subtle singer, Jones attacks her soul anthems like a blunt force instrument. That’s fine, since nuance isn’t called for here. Force is, and Jones has enough of it to thrill. That still isn’t enough to drag the Dap-Kings out of the shadows of their idols.