Ne-Yo's latest is a concept album about crime-fighting "R&B superheroes," complete with a femme fatale and a thing called the Libra Scale — a device that measures the weights of money, power, fame and love. If you find that hard to follow, no matter: Just listen to the music. Ne-Yo has crafted an epic full of party songs, beatific ballads and throbbing spy-movie club music. It's lavish disco; the songs are cinematic in scope but have the unshakable hooks of great pop. If that formula sounds like a certain recently deceased R&B superhero — well, that's no coincidence. The real "concept" here is: Michael Jackson tribute album. And a damn good one.

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“Helen Wheels”

A rollicking good-time hard rocker, "Helen Wheels" was not about a woman but about Paul McCartney's Land Rover, the anthemic chorus voicing the vehicle's reckless joy as "she" took to the road. The song was added to the U.S. version of Band on the Run but was issued only as a single in McCartney's native U.K. "I like that because it's a British road song and there's not many of those around," said McCartney. "It's always Route 66. But Carlisle? How many songs have got Carlisle in them?"