60 Minutes of Funk

This Grand Funk Railroad concert recording from Detroit, Chicago, and Shea Stadium on the band's enormously successful 1971 tour captures them in all their mega-stadium excess…

It lacked the delicious hooks and tight funk of Composite Truth, but Just Outside of Town was as solid and confident a piece of music-making as the band ever accomplished. The single "Mango Meat" is a tough Latin funk number with some inspired group harmonizing, and Mandrill stretched out with a pair of love songs, "Never Die" and the aptly titled "Love Song," the latter beginning with a few minutes of atmospheric bliss that boasted unrealized cinematic/soundtrack possibilities.

A prolific electronic producer and keyboardist from London, Paul Hardcastle has enjoyed over three decades of popularity with his varied dance-, R&B-, and jazz-influenced albums. Although often associated with the smooth jazz genre, Hardcastle's synth-based style is more akin to instrumental dance music and electro-R&B with the occasional vocal and saxophone flourishes. Initially emerging with his breakthrough single "19" off 1985's Hardcastle, he gained wider success with the launch of his crossover Jazzmasters album in 1993, which hit number one on the Billboard Contemporary Jazz chart. Over the years, he has continued to diversify his offerings, issuing regular volumes across several series including Top 20-charting albums like 2002's Hardcastle 3, 2013's The Chill Lounge, Vol. 2, and 2014's Movin & Groovin.

2012's Original Album Series offers five Sugar Ray albums from the peak of their career – 1995 to 2003 – for a budget price. Packaging is basic to save costs, with each album in a paper sleeve that replicates the artwork. Obviously, this is a singles band, but true Sugar Ray fans will be interested to in watching the evolution from the funk-metal of Lemonade and Brownies to the band's first big hit, "Fly," off of Floored. McGrath hit his stride as pop singer with 14:59 and Sugar Ray, which boasted most of the group's biggest songs, and In the Pursuit of Leisure is also worth having.

Add 3121 to the mounting pile of evidence: Prince is the black Beck. He's a whole lot sexier, no doubt, but there's more to both musicians than image. All-out weirdness for one. Edginess for another. And a fine-tuned sense of how to combine the two to create some of the decade's most vital music for a third. Prince–looking ageless in videos for the first two singles, the controversy-courting "Black Sweat" and the sauna-steeped "Te Amo Corazon"–proves fearless as ever here, folding fat slabs of disco-funk into rock, heaping measured doses of hip-hop atop soul-tinted jazz supports, and slamming Latin rhythms against old-school R&B riffs. Nothing sounds as slinky-stylish-smart. And nobody delivers quite so deliciously, especially when what they're delivering is ultimately a madcap sonic mash. The usual hype surrounding a Prince release attended this one; over the long-term, expect a few standouts within a way worth-it set to emerge. They include the danceable "Love"; the gospel-lite falsetto feast "Satisfied"; and the summer-breezy "Beautiful, Loved & Blessed".