Haircut 100's debut album, Pelican West is a widely uneven concoction of lite funk and jazzy new wave pop. Although the group's music was frequently so light it virtually disappeared, they did record a pair of classic new wave singles with the effervescent "Love Plus One" and "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)." Although much of the record lacks the hooks of those two tracks, there's a handful of enjoyably breezy pop songs on Pelican West, such as "Fantastic Day" and "Snow Girl," that makes it worth investigating for new wave fetishists. Still, there's no denying that Haircut 100's material was often inadequate – a situation only emphasized on the American edition of the album, which places the singles at the front – and that the record sounded like a period piece just a few years after its release. [This edition features three B-sides and two 12" mixes as bonus tracks.]

Despite its moments of inspired songcraft, Julian Lennon's fourth album, Help Yourself, didn't find an audience in 1991. Shortly after its release, Lennon parted ways with Atlantic and entered a period of seclusion. By the time he returned to recording in 1998, the Beatles had already undergone one of their periodic "hip" phases, thanks to the hook-crazy Brit-pop crew. In many ways, bands like Oasis and Blur gave Lennon the go-ahead to return to the Beatlesque songcraft of his debut, Valotte, and that's exactly what he does on Photograph Smile, his first album in seven years. Much of the record is devoted to piano ballads similar to his big hit, "Valotte," with a couple of guitar pop numbers thrown in for good measure. There's not much range on the album, but all the music is well crafted and melodic – the kind of music that would receive greater praise if it weren't made by the son of a Beatle.

This 27-track CD of rather mysterious origin is the most comprehensive Billie Davis anthology, but not without its imperfections. In its favor, it does include nine tracks from her 1963-1964 girl group-influenced singles, whereas the most commonly available Davis anthology (Tell Him: The Decca Years has just four of those. In all, it has ten songs not on Tell Him: The Decca Years, but is also missing three songs that are not that release, whose sound quality is better (though not seriously flawed). And the liner notes on Her Best: 1963-1970 are perfunctory, though it does contain a complete 1962-1970 Davis discography. So what most people would pick this up for are the ten songs not on Tell Him, which are useful for Davis fans, but not (with one exception) among her most outstanding recordings. That one exception is the moody, sassy 1964 single "Whatcha' Gonna Do," perhaps her best girl group-styled effort; the Mersey-influenced chirpy warble of its B-side "Everybody Knows" is pretty enjoyable too.

This is the album debut from the Nash Ramblers, Emmylou Harris' acoustic backing band featuring Sam Bush and Roy Huskey, Jr., recorded over three nights in the former home of the Grand Ole Opry. Harris' choice of songs strikes a balance between hillbilly classics and folk-influenced rock, with Bill Monroe receiving the heaviest tribute but sharing space with Tex Owens, Bruce Springsteen, and John Fogerty.

James Blunt may never live down the success of his first single, "You're Beautiful." It made him a star in 2004 yet it also pegged him as the kind of sad-sack singer/songwriter beloved of doctors' offices the world over, which may be enough to sustain a living but not a career. Blunt is savvy enough to realize this and he started to broaden and enliven his craft fairly quickly, abandoning the slow-footed ballads of Back to Bedlam for a richly textured pop that eventually gained some semblance of color by the time Some Kind of Trouble rolled around in 2010. Three years later, Moon Landing arrived and although its title suggest some kind of spectral scope, it's not quite as lively as its predecessor, preferring the exquisitely textured adult contemporary pop of Dido, but giving those intricately produced ballads insistent melodies and rhythms. Sometimes, Blunt's phrasing can lapse into solipsistic moans – this is especially true when the electronics are stripped away and the tempos slow – but when everything is relatively sprightly, the feel is surprisingly appealing, even though Blunt can't help but piggyback on styles that are a guaranteed rocket to the Top 40.

ABC's debut album combined the talents of the Sheffield, U.K.-based band, particularly lead singer Martin Fry, a fashion plate of a frontman with a Bryan Ferry fixation, and the inventive production style of former Buggles member Trevor Horn and his team of musicians, several of whom would go on to form the Art of Noise. Horn created dense tracks that merged synthesizer sounds, prominent beats, and swaths of strings and horns, their orchestrations courtesy of Anne Dudley, who would follow her work with the Art of Noise by becoming a prominent film composer, and who here underscored Fry's stylized romantic lyrics and dramatic, if affected, singing. The production style was dense and noisy, but frequently beautiful, and the group's emotional songs gave it a depth and coherence later Horn works, such as those of Yes ("Owner of a Lonely Heart") and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, would lack. (You can hear Horn trying out the latter band's style in "Date Stamp.") Fry and company used the sound to create moving dancefloor epics like "Many Happy Returns," which, like most of the album's tracks, deserved to be a hit single.