A.C. Newman wanted his band's fifth album to "bridge the gap between Led Zeppelin and [Sixties psych-soul band] the Fifth Dimension." Together doesn't quite pull that off, but it is the Canadian-American group's best since 2000's Mass Romantic, scoring nerdy AM gold with a mix of Anglophile harmonies, string parts and Hollies-ish melodies. The other hero is Neko Case, who gives emotional punch to "Crash Years," where she trains her siren's voice on an elegantly bummed chorus. Like much of Together, it's ornate, idiosyncratic and bittersweet all at once.

“The A Team”

This debut track from the then-20-year-old British singer-songwriter has a dark story behind it. Sheeran says he culls songwriting inspiration from "viewing other people's situations," which, for the heroine in "The A Team," involves drug addiction and prostitution that began as a teen. Sheeran paints the woman's trials with haunting imagery such as "But lately her face seems/Slowly sinking, wasting/Crumbling like pastries." "I did a gig at a homeless shelter, [and the song] is about one of the women there. It's her story," he said.