The Artist May 2018

The largely unacknowledged open secret lying at the heart of Rick Springfield's career is how, at his core, he's a serious artist. His gift for power pop and his spell as a television actor obscured this essential fact, but on the many albums he's made since his popular peak during the early '80s, he regularly returns to sober subjects, which means most of his fans may not be surprised that he spends the bulk of his 2018 album The Snake King exploring depression, faith, political confusion, and other weighty ideas. Even so, he hits these subjects hard throughout The Snake King, his lyrical explicitness finding a match in a shift his music: He's moved from arena rock toward heavy blues and folk-rock anthems straight from Bob Dylan in 1965.

When Imagine was released in September 1971, John Lennon finally gave Beatles fans the album they wanted. His first three solo records were recorded and released while the group was still around, but they were experimental noise collages constructed with Yoko Ono that had nothing to do with the Beatles' music (unless you consider "Revolution 9" representative of their work). And 1970's post-breakup John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band, as great as it is, was a little too abrasive for folks who still had "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" ringing in their ears.

The one-man-band man from Austin, Texas, Alejandro Rose-Garcia, better known by his stage name, Shakey Graves, has announced his forthcoming album Can’t Wake Up, due out May 4 through Dualtone Records. Sporting a bent Stetson hat and leather cowboy boots, keeping rhythm on a bass drum and tambourine at the edge of his heels, Rose-Garcia rattles the crowd with his, at times, dissonant chords from his classically folkloric six-string.

Franco Battiato's new collection that traces the history of this artist in 63 tracks was released in 2018 via RCA Records.