Twentyears

Air

Heard from a distance, this hauntingly lovely, creatively sequenced compilation by the French duo Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel might seem like the aural equivalent of Sominex. Absorbed via headphones, however, the songs reveal an obsessive level of detail. There is, in other words, as much to pay attention to (twinkling synthesizers, disembodied voices, vertiginous key changes) as there is simply to enjoy (the melodies). Not that you won’t fall asleep at some point, but that point will probably come later than you think—and inspire interesting dreams.

Sugar, Sugar: The Complete Albums Collection

The Archies

Before you conclude that this collection’s MP3 edition isn’t worth its $18.99 list price, consider the following: From 1968 to 1971, two years longer than the run of the Saturday-morning cartoon for which they provided the soundtrack, these Don Kirshner–funded studio musicians created what has been known ever since as “bubblegum.” And, glib and manipulatively cheerful though their songs were, they laid the foundation upon which gaudier and louder bands such as The Sweet and the Bay City Rollers would one day rise to great heights.

MMXVI: The 30th Anniversary Collection

Book of Love

Just how these NYC-based synth-poppers missed becoming one of the biggest pop acts of the 1980s and ’90s instead of mere dance-club favorites remains a mystery. They certainly didn’t lack symmetry. Two gals and two guys, two heterosexuals and two homosexuals, subtly transgressive subtexts (“Boy”) and unironic religion (“Counting the Rosaries”)—if they were fairer or more balanced, they’d be Fox News. And they certainly didn’t lack hooks. In fact, as a listen to this collection’s two new songs will confirm, they still don’t.

Land of Gold

Anoushka Shankar

There’s nothing facile about this music. The intuitive, dynamic interaction of Shankar’s sitar with Larry Grenadier’s bass (five songs) and with Manu Delago’s “Hang” (six) yields surprises with each listen. Sanjeev Shankar’s keening shehnai, meanwhile, is nothing short of a revelation. Unfortunately, there’s plenty that’s facile about Shankar’s overexplanatory liner essay, in which she risks reducing the album to one big expression of sympathy for Syrian refugees and the vocal cameos by Alev Lenz and the Girls for Equality choir to examples of female empowerment.

Encore

Rock fans impatient for a new album by Aerosmith will have to make do instead with new projects by the band’s guitarist Brad Whitford and its lead singer Steven Tyler. Reunion (Mailboat) is Whitford’s second album with the journeyman vocalist Derek St. Holmes and mostly finds the duo, officially known as Whitford/St. Holmes, trafficking in hard-rock clichés. But there’s no denying the aplomb. And the irresistibly sweet change of pace “Catch My Fall” is well worth catching.

Tyler’s solo debut, We’re All Somebody from Somewhere (Dot), finds the flamboyant frontman experimenting with songwriting partners, production teams, and styles. Several numbers sound like acoustic versions of Aerosmith classics waiting to happen, and the acoustic version of the actual Aerosmith classic “Janie’s Got a Gun” gets rearranged until it takes on new life. But it’s “I Make My Own Sunshine,” “Sweet Louisiana,” and “Somebody New”—songs that Aerosmith would never touch—that make one hope Tyler flies solo again someday. —A.O.