In the mid-2000s, U.K.-born Jamie Lidell made the unlikely transformation from underground dance producer to white soulman. His fourth solo album is a disc of elegantly warped love songs: Cut with help from Beck, Feist and Grizzly Bear's Chris Taylor, Compass keeps up Lidell's blend of creamy come-ons and fuzzy beats. Lidell evokes Prince on the falsetto-rich "Your Sweet Boom" and TV on the Radio on the Beck-co-written "Coma Chameleon," which mixes an excellent, eerie chorus with horn blasts and white noise. Lidell loses focus on tracks like the depressive, atmospheric piece "Big Drift," but he spends much of Compass showing how to be a smoothie and a weirdo — one way, at least.

“Tonight's the Night”

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."