The Roots sound so good in the pocket that sometimes they need something to push them out of it: On their ninth album, that thing is the indie rockers they've played with since becoming the house band for Jimmy Fallon. On How I Got Over, they cover Monsters of Folk ("Dear God 2.0"), scat like the Dirty Projectors ("Tunnel Vision") and — most thrillingly — make Joanna Newsom sound as funky as Erykah Badu ("Right On"). And when they come back to Roy Ayers-style funk ("Radio Daze"), they prove nobody does it better. Let's hear it for steady employment.

“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."