Long Island rapper Roc Marciano is a throwback to a specific hip-hop moment – the drug-slinging detail, blacksploitation beats and sleek self-mythologizing of New York in the Nineties. But his second album will thrill anyone who loves hearing a great writer in any genre do not-nice things to the English language. Roc dolls out psychedelic syllable clusters over sumptuously heavy-lidded beats by local producers like A.G. and Alchemist; "I'm back for the crown, baby/In the Avi' that's brown like gravy/ Style's wavy, lazy eye Tracy McGrady/Deliver like an 80-pound baby," he raps on "Pistolier." It's just one example among dozens: At 33, he sounds like he's been banking killer verses since the last time the Knicks were contenders.

“Tonight's the Night”

The lead cut and title track from this girl group's debut album, "Tonight's the Night" was written by 19-year-old bandmember Shirley Owens, who sings lead, and producer Luther Dixon. The band from Passaic, New Jersey met in high school, first calling themselves the Pequellos. The song's frank thoughts about sexual and emotional surrender was racy for the time, but that didn't stop the Chiffons from cutting a similar version immediately after the original came out. "We were the first female group to write some of our own material," band member Beverly Lee recalls. "We did have some say-so in our writing."