Huh? A Common album without a soul-jazz opener? Well, rap's deep thinker wanted to make club bangers. So he got the Neptunes to shape this sexed-up set. He's still history-minded; the title track is textbook Eighties electro. Elsewhere, he name-checks Fiona Apple (the bouncy "Make My Day," with Cee-Lo) and dubs himself "rap's Ziggy Stardust" ("Gladiator"). On the Biggie-style "Announcement," he calls hip-hop his "bitch" — shocking for a guy who made hip-hop his girlfriend on "I Used to Love H.E.R." Only "Change" finds him back in street-preacher mode; it's a hopeful tribute to his Chicago homeboy, Obama.

“Help Me”

Joni Mitchell wrote and recorded this song for her album Court and Spark, but she had to switch from her regular band to make the song sound exactly the way she wanted. "I had attempted to play my music with rock & roll players," she told Rolling Stone. "They’d laugh, 'Awww, isn't that cute? She's trying to teach us how to play.'" Mitchell switched to a jazz band, Tom Scott’s L.A. Express, and scored the biggest hit of her career in the process.