Blurring the Edges
Artist: Meredith Brooks
Community Score: 8.50
Fumbling Towards Ecstasy - JAPAN BONUS TRACK
Artist: Sarah McLachlan

Fumbling Towards Ecstasy finds Sarah McLachlan racing toward success as she reteams with producer Pierre Marchand on her breakthrough release and finest offering to date. Stretching her lyrical wings and experimenting a bit more instrumentally, the radiance of her work has somehow solidified here. Ecstasy is certainly attained, though not by... Read More

Little Private Angel
Artist: Jack Logan

An album-length collaboration between Jack Logan and Weird Summer frontman Bob Kimbell, Little Private Angel heralds a creative breakthrough for both participants, with each seemingly inspiring the other on to new musical heights. The joint venture proves so ideal because it plays to the strengths of both, with Kimbell contributing the tunes and... Read More

Rufus Wainwright
Artist: Rufus Wainwright
Community Score: 9.30

What separates Rufus Wainwright and the other second-generation singers who sprang up at the same time (Sean Lennon, Emma Townshend, and Chris Stills the most notable among them) is that Wainwright deserves to be heard regardless of his family tree; in fact, the issue of his parentage is ultimately as immaterial as that of his sexuality -- this... Read More

This Euphoria
Artist: Davíd Garza
Community Score: 7.03

David Garza made his major label debut in a big, brilliant way -- compared to the almost genteel efforts on earlier albums like Eyes Wide Open, This Euphoria flat-out rocks. Call it a natural progression, call it what happens when there's big bucks to work with, but Garza came up with one of the best rock albums of the second half of the '90s.... Read More

Retrospective
Artist: Leon Russell

Retrospective is an 18-track collection that features the bulk of Leon Russell's greatest hits ("Tight Rope," "Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms," "Lady Blue," "Back to the Island"), plus many key album tracks. Since Russell was primarily an album artist, this approach doesn't necessarily do him justice, but for listeners who only want the hits, this... Read More

The Complete Hits Collection 1973-1997: Limited Edition
Artist: Billy Joel
Community Score: 7.50

Billy Joel's four-disc The Complete Hits Collection 1973-1997: Limited Edition reissues his three Greatest Hits collections and adds a live rarities collection previously released in a limited-edition Australian box set to commemorate the River of Dreams tour. The songs on Greatest Hits, Vols. 1 & 2 have been restored to their album length and... Read More

Uncorrected Personality Traits: The Robyn Hitchcock Collection
Artist: Robyn Hitchcock

Hitchcock is an album-oriented artist with an extensive oeuvre, so this 20-track anthology of '80s material is best valued as a summary of selected career highlights for those who don't want to collect all of his full-length efforts. As such, it does a decent job, offering college radio hits like "Egyptian Cream," "My Wife & My Dead Wife," "The... Read More

Resigned
Artist: Michael Penn
Community Score: 6.20

Backing away from the introspective inclinations of Free-for-All, Michael Penn delivers a concise and thoroughly infectious guitar-pop album with Resigned. Like most of Penn's music, the album relies heavily on Revolver-era Beatles, but his melodies are uniformly tighter and catchier than before, and producer Brendan O'Brien gives the record a... Read More

Megiddo
Artist: Lauren Hoffman

It is unfortunate that Lauren Hoffman's debut was released in the mid-1990s. Record companies, after witnessing the success of Sarah McLachlan and her Lilith Fair, signed just about every female singer songwriter in the United States. Megiddo obviously got lost in the shuffle. What is disappointing about that fact is that not only is Megiddo a... Read More

Complete Collection: 1991-1998
Artist: Tori Amos