Beginners no Place

It's hard to pick a favorite Curtis Mayfield album, and my judgment is surely clouded by the fact that this album was under-celebrated at the time and still often overlooked. But as speaking objectively as I can, this is surely Mayfield at the top of his game. And possibly my favorite album. Clive Anderson's liner notes on this Charly reissue may be a bit pretentious, opening up with a citation from Wordsworth, but they do pretty much nail the album and do it justice. The album is like an extended meditation on the American underclass, and particularly the despair in the Black communities in the mid-70s.

Pop music careers move so quickly that by the time Mika released No Place in Heaven, he was essentially a veteran performer. Between this album and 2012's The Origin of Love, he turned 30 and served as a judge on X Factor Italy and France's The Voice: La Plus Belle Voix, adding to the feel that he was a more adult voice in the pop world. No Place in Heaven confirms this feeling in the best possible way. While most pop music is all about youth and "mature" is often a euphemism for safe and boring, Mika's version of maturity emphasizes what has always been best about his music – memorable words and melodies served up with a theatrical flair. Where The Origin of Love focused too much on trendy dance-pop, here Mika steps away from the mainstream with songs…