Five years ago, this Chicago rapper made Dennehy, a truly great concept album about a friendship between a working-class white dude and a troubled teen MC. His 10th album is concept-free, but no less distinct. Over atmospheric beats that clatter and drone, Serengeti drops left-field references (Counting Crows, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle) and sad stories: a father and son bond over smack; a hapless liar maintains two marriages; and, in "The Whip," a broken-down UFC fighter obsesses over what might have been. It's by turns weird, pretty and deeply humane — the sound of an arty rhyme junkie letting his mind wander all over.

Listen to "The Whip":

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“Is It True”

As the British Invasion reached its peak in 1964, Brenda Lee went from Nashville to London to record one of her hardest-rocking hits, her perky vocal backed by a stuttering, squalling guitar. That guitar was played by session musician Jimmy Page, yet to skyrocket to fame with first the Yardbirds and then Led Zeppelin. "She said to me, 'I've come here to make a record with the British sound,'" remembered producer Mickie Most. "She felt she wouldn't get the same sound in Nashville because they're only just catching up on the British beat group sound of about six months ago."