Allow Joss Stone to reintroduce herself: On LP1, her first disc for her own label, the 24-year-old Brit takes a blowtorch to her increasingly smooth soul-pop sound, unloading 10 tracks of lowdown blues. The producer here is Dave Stewart (who, along with Mick Jagger, is also Stone's bandmate in the new group SuperHeavy). For LP1, Stewart brought Stone to Nashville, where session stars provided the Stevie Wonder boogie on "Karma," one of many tracks pairing sweet grooves with her hot temper ("Karma's your master, and you're the bitch"). Stone is best when she's rawest, bookending LP1 with "Newborn" and "Take Good Care," stripped-down tunes where her howl goes from plaintive to bone-shaking in a few lovesick heartbeats.

Listen to "Somehow":

Related
• Video: Joss Stone Performs "Karma" on 'Tonight Show'
• Mick Jagger Forms Supergroup with Dave Stewart, Joss Stone and Damian Marley

“Too Close”

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'"