Click to Listen to Nicole Atkins' "Vulture" and "Cry, Cry, Cry"

Nicole Atkins' second album is an exercise in what you might call brunch blues: Dreamy, vaguely melancholic, thoroughly pleasant. The New Jersey-born singer-songwriter has a forceful and unfussy singing style that brings welcome drama to sleepy Fifties throwbacks like "This Is for Love" and rises to a wail on more agitated, roots-rock-inflected numbers like "Vultures" and "You Come to Me." Atkins' lyrics describe insatiable wanderlust and the travails of mixing up with no-good dudes — she falls for one on "Cry Cry Cry" and offers others hyperspecific advice on "Hotel Plaster." "Don't shake the change out of your pockets in the boudoir," she instructs. Noted!

Rolling Stone Live: Nicole Atkins Blends Blues and Soft Rock in New Songs

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“1999”

“I don’t consider myself a great poet,” Prince told Rolling Stone. “I just know I’m here to say what’s on my mind.” In the case of the apocalyptic party anthem “1999,” he was worried about then-president Ronald Reagan’s foreign policies. The song’s melody is based on a riff borrowed from the Mamas and Papas’ “Monday, Monday,” and Prince originally envisioned the first verse with three-part harmony but later split the vocals between himself and members of the Revolution. Because Warner Bros., with whom Prince was locked in a contractual battle, owned the original’s masters, Prince rerecorded the song and appropriately released that version in 1999.