Like Patti Smith, Corin Tucker took time off from being a punk-rock heroine to become a mom. The lyrics to her solo debut reflect that, touching on kids, distant partners and hunger for a former self. "Who is the zombie that is wearing Mommy's clothes?" she sings, as weary rocker moms worldwide nod in solidarity. She's not shredding the awesome vocal cords so much, but she gets fierce in other ways, trying on cellos and piano ballads. When she finally cranks it up Sleater-Kinney-style on "Doubt," it feels earned: a cry of self-determination, as inspiring as ever.

“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”