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.

“Everyday People”

"Everyday People" managed to trailblaze in two different ways -- it was one of the first pop hits to deal with the subject of racial harmony, and it utilized Larry Graham's "slap" technique on the bass guitar, which would soon be copied by countless other bassists. Graham once said about his pulsating style, "I'd never done that before … that's where the freedom of creativity came in for the band, that we'd be allowed to do that." In 1978, the song's line "Different strokes for different folks" would be borrowed for the title of the hit television show Diff'rent Strokes.