Up for the Down Stroke
Artist: Parliament
Community Score: 6.38

Kicking off with one of prime funk's purest distillations -- the outrageously great title track, with a perfect party chorus line and uncredited horns (presumably the Horny Horns were involved somehow) adding to the monster beat and bass -- Up for the Down Stroke finds Parliament in rude good health. As was more or less the case through the... Read More

Caught Up/Still Caught Up
Artist: Millie Jackson

Hip-O made a natural choice for this repackaging of two Millie Jackson LPs: her love-triangle classic Caught Up from 1974, and its follow-up, Still Caught Up, from 1975. Sounding better than they ever have, this pair of albums chart the course of one of the most disastrous affairs in musical history. The first features sides from each... Read More

Valence Street
Artist: The Neville Brothers

For their Columbia Records debut, the Neville Brothers returned to a classic production and songwriting style more typical of their early years than of their work of the 1980s and '90s, and they named it after the street they grew up on to signal their renewed focus on local concerns. Gone was the wet, murky sound mix of Daniel Lanois, replaced... Read More

The Very Best of the Velvelettes
Artist: The Velvelettes

Eleven songs from their 1963-66 singles, plus four previously unreleased tracks. The swaggering "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'" and the handclapping soul dance stomper "Needle in a Haystack" are the undoubted highlights; another single that grazed the charts, "These Things Will Keep Me Loving You," is also on hand, and a young Stevie Wonder --... Read More

Amazing Grace: The Complete Recordings
Artist: Aretha Franklin

Among Aretha aficionados, Amazing Grace has long been considered one of her high-water marks, since it captured her glorious return to her gospel roots in front of a live audience. The original 1972 album contained just 14 tracks, culled from two live performances with the Southern California Community Choir, Ken Lupper, and the Rev. James... Read More

Maze Featuring Frankie Beverly/Golden Time of Day
Artist: Maze
Community Score: 8.00

Music critic Jonathan Gold once compared Maze fans to Grateful Dead fans. That might seem like an odd comparison -- those two bands don't sound anything alike, although both have a Bay Area connection. But then, Gold was comparing their audiences, not their music. And his analogy is a good one because Maze fans have the sort of intense,... Read More

Uptown Rulin': The Best of the Neville Brothers
Artist: The Neville Brothers

The Neville Brothers had always been critic's favorites, but never more so than during their tenure at A&M Records during the late '80s and early '90s. They released their first album, Yellow Moon, for the label in 1989, a few years after the acclaimed Rhino compilation Treacherous: A History of the Neville Brothers appeared on the shelves.... Read More

Love in Stereo
Artist: Rahsaan Patterson
Community Score: 10.00

The follow-up to his self-titled debut album, Love in Stereo shows that Rahsaan Patterson not only overcame the sophomore slump but triumphed with a very well-crafted album that far surpasses his completely adequate first release. Slick production and strong songwriting help support Patterson's smooth, laid-back style and Stevie Wonder-like... Read More

At the Close of the Century
Artist: Stevie Wonder
Community Score: 9.00

He's been called one of the most influential performers and songwriters of the century, but until 1999 Stevie Wonder didn't even have a box set to call his own. Such was the reissue campaign at Motown that, until very recently, some of the best pop music of the '60s sounded poorer in reissue form than when it was first played on AM radio. In... Read More