Jennifer Hudson has shed 80 pounds recently, but her lungs clearly haven't shrunk. Hudson may be the most talented singer that American Idol has produced; she's definitely the most powerful. Here, a who's who of big-time songwriters and producers (Rich Harrison, R. Kelly, Alicia Keys) serve up stormy ballads about romance and self-reliance that Hudson spices with gospel-style swoops. Sonically, the record is up-to-the-minute; in spirit it's a throwback to the adult-oriented R&B of Anita Baker, Toni Braxton and Whitney Houston. Hudson's a one-woman revival, with a voice so forceful it can roll back time.

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“The Everchanging Spectrum of a Lie”

The opener off the Welsh group’s The Big Roar album was an epic one, but the band was worried that track had polarized fans. “The first song is eight minutes long,” Rhydian Dafydd, the Joy Formidable bassist, said. “If you did that in the Seventies people would be, ‘Whatever.’ You do it now, people think, ‘Holy s---!’ Some people think it’s the f---ing greatest track on the entire album, and some people think it’s f---ing boring. It’s that element of needing to challenge people.” The band concluded through the song’s lyrics that love was the “everchanging spectrum of a lie.”