On Black Radio, pianist Robert Glasper heads down the fraught path of hip-hop jazz and gets it right. The "experiment" spirit pervades the entire album, informing everything from song structures to production. Essential, too, are Chris Dave's crackling drum grooves, and the depth of  tradition: Erykah Badu wriggling into the soul-jazz standard "Afro Blue," Lupe Fiasco shouting out Gil Scott-Heron and James Baldwin on "Always Shine." With music this smart and inviting, the implied diss of mainstream mediocrity doesn't feel like sour grapes; it feels like a blueprint forward.

Listen to "Afro Blue":

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• Photos: Random Notes

“Let My Love Open the Door”

A peppy, hopeful love song, "Let My Love Open the Door" became a U. S. Top Ten hit for Pete Townshend in 1980, anchored by the kind of repeating synthesizer figures that he'd used in some of the Who's recordings in the previous decade. Although Townshend brushed the song off as "just a ditty" in Rolling Stone shortly after its release, in 1996 he revealed it was about love of the holiest sort. "It's supposed to be about the power of God's love," he remarked. "That when you're in difficulty, whether it's major or minor, God's love is always there for you."