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Jacques Brel – Comme Quand On Etait Beau

It's too much to digest in one sitting—three discs, seven hours and almost 100 songs, released in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Jacques Brel's death. But it's fascinating to watch him turn so rapidly from the hesitant, gauche performer of the late-'50s into the charismatic equivalent of a Gallic Sinatra.

OutKast – The Videos

Andre 3000 and Big Boi's early clips are superior but fairly routine 'hood dramas, all booty calls and gaudy pimpmobiles. But around their ATLiens album, the day-glo psychedelic X Files wig-outs begin creeping in, reaching a peak in the sexofunkatronic freakerama of "Bombs Over Baghdad". Also lushly cinematic is the stormy Deep South pastoral of "Ms Jackson" and, of course, the multiple Andres of last year's super-catchy retro-futurist soul fantasia "Hey Ya". Pure pop genius.

American Folk Blues Festival 1962-66 Volumes One & Two

For years, it was believed that no footage survived of the pioneering American Folk Blues Festival tours of Europe in the early '60s. Now a vast cache of performances has miraculously turned up by the likes of John Lee Hooker, Sonny Boy Williamson, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf. Magic moments, every one.

Dave Gahan – Live Monsters

Shot last July at Paris' Olympia theatre, Dave Gahan's stripped-down solo show proved he can cut it as a Byronic rock god away from Depeche Mode. From the sleazy confessional of "Black And Blue Again" to the swaggering blues behemoth "Dirty Sticky Floors", Gahan gives it 200 per cent in the Dionysian Messiah stakes. And Paris loves it, especially the roughed-up DM covers.

R.E.M. – Perfect Square

With none of the inventiveness of 1990's brilliant Tourfilm—but sturdier than the disappointing Road Movie (1995)—this engrossing July 2003 gig from Wiesbaden, Germany, is pure Greatest Hits stuff. The usual stadium-thumpers are good, but true highlights are Stipe's own favourite, "Country Feedback" (no longer delivered with back to the audience), "She Just Wants To Be", "Walk Unafraid" and a dusted-off "Maps And Legends".

Marianne Faithfull – Sings Kurt Weill: Live In Montreal

In tandem with her recent, more rock-oriented collaborative albums (corralling everyone from Damon Albarn and Jarvis Cocker to Billy Corgan), Faithfull has pursued her other career as a torch singer, the regal ruin of her pristine '60s folk voice now the perfect expression of seen-it-all wisdom/ennui. In the company of pianist Paul Trueblood and at the end of a world tour (recorded at the International Jazz Festival in '97), she's bawdy, wry and always wrenchingly expressive: in short, quite the best exponent of this sort of thing.

Shooting The Breeze

Disappointing documentary about the making of Zevon's final album

Watching the fabbest of all fours in their first US press conference, puffing away on cigs and deflecting inane enquiries, you feel proud to be a Brit. "Sing something for us!" "No, we need money first." Could Justin Timberlake—or Julian Casablancas, for that matter—be half as sarcastic? Imagine waking from a 40-year coma and coming afresh to these extraordinary scenes: four scouse charmers off the plane with their matching suits and Pan Am shoulder bags.

Cerebral Healing

America's most unforgiving musical satirist performs many of his classic songs in this solo European show

Pseud Awakening

Much-adored Glasgow four-piece leave us suitably overawed
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