Out of the Blue is the seventh studio album by the British rock group Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), released in October 1977. Written and produced by ELO frontman Jeff Lynne, the double album is among the most commercially successful records in the group's history, selling about 10 million copies worldwide by 2007. Jeff Lynne wrote the entire album in three and a half weeks after a sudden burst of creativity while hidden away in his rented chalet in the Swiss Alps. It took a further two months to record in Munich. Side three of the original double LP consisted of the symphonic Concerto for a Rainy Day, composed of four separate tracks which together made up a cohesive suite, instead of one continuous track. The inclement weather effects heard on "Concerto" were real and recorded by Lynne during a very rainy summer in Munich. It was one of the first pop albums to have an extensive use of the vocoder, and helped to popularize it. Side three of the release is subtitled Concerto for a Rainy Day, a four-track musical suite based on the weather and how it affects mood change, ending with the eventual sunshine and happiness of "Mr. Blue Sky". This was inspired by Lynne's experience while trying to write songs for the album against a torrential downpour of rain outside his Swiss Chalet. "Standin' in the Rain" opens the suite with a haunting keyboard over a recording of real rain, recorded by Jeff Lynne just outside his rented studio. Also heard at the 0:33 mark of the song, which marks the beginning of The Concerto, is thunder crackling in an unusual manner voicing the words "Concerto for a Rainy Day" by the band's keyboardist, Richard Tandy. At around the 1:07 mark, the staccato strings play a morse code spelling out "ELO". The band used the song to open their 1978 World Tour Out of the Blue concerts. "Big Wheels" forms the second part of the suite and continues with the theme of the weather and reflection. Apart from its inclusion on the Out of the Blue album, the song has never appeared on any of the band's compilations or as a B-side until 2000, when Lynne included it on the group's retrospective Flashback album. "Summer and Lightning" is the third song in the suite. The raining weather theme is continued throughout the track, though the mood and lyrics are more optimistic. "Mr. Blue Sky", an uplifting, lively song celebrating sunshine, is the finale of "Concerto for a Rainy Day" suite. Again, the Vocoder is used at the end of the track where, at the 4:54 mark, one can hear "Please turn me over" as it fades out. It is the only piece from the Concerto to be excerpted as a single. The large spaceship on the album's cover (by now symbolic of the group) was designed by Kosh with art by Shusei Nagaoka. It was based on the logo Kosh designed for ELO's previous album, A New World Record, and looks like the space station with a docking shuttle from 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). The number JTLA 823 L2 which is featured on the shuttle arriving at the space station is the original catalogue number for the album. The album also included an insert of a cardboard cutout of the space station as well as a fold-out poster of the band members. The space theme was carried onto the live stage in the form of a huge glowing flying saucer stage set, inside which the band performed. The album had 4 million pre-ordered copies and quickly went multi-Platinum upon release. Out of the Blue spawned five hit singles in different countries, and was ELO's most commercially successful studio album. It was also the first double album in the history of the UK music charts to generate four top twenty hit singles. Lynne considers A New World Record and Out of the Blue to be the group's crowning achievements, and both sold extremely well, reaching multi-platinum according to RIAA Certification. Capital Radio and The Daily Mirror Rock and Pop Awards (forerunner to The Brit Awards) named it "Album of the Year" in 1978. Lynne received his first Ivor Novello award for Outstanding Contributions to British Music the same year. The US release of Out of the Blue was originally distributed by United Artists. This changed after United Artists Records was sold by Transamerica Corporation to an EMI Records-backed partnership, which triggered Jet Records' change of control clause in its distribution contract, and Jet shifted to CBS Records as its new distributor. American cut-out copies of Out of the Blue soon became widely available at discounted prices in record shops in the US and Canada shortly after the album's release, affecting the album's sales and triggering lawsuits by CBS and Jet. The suits were ultimately unsuccessful in stopping the discounted sales.

Man Alive! is the fourth studio album by English singer-songwriter Archy Marshall, and his third album under the stage name King Krule. The album was released on 21 February 2020 through True Panther Sounds, XL Recordings, and Matador Records. The first single off the album, "(Don't Let the Dragon) Draag On" debuted on 14 January 2020 on Pitchfork. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Man Alive! received an average score of 73, based on 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Sam Moore of NME wrote that the album "is lifted by Marshall's knack for hazy social observations and poetic metropolitan storytelling", deeming it more accessible than The Ooz due to its condensed length and "more optimistic worldview". Niall Doherty of Q likewise found the sound of Man Alive! to be "more welcoming... not quite as warped as it once was", while adding that Marshall "sounds at peace here, and back to his best". Wilf Skinner of Clash praised the album as "an absorbing consolidation of Marshall's inimitable sound". "Holding to Marshall's wavelength requires a little more investment than the dingy music asks for, but that's not to say his shadowland of the heart lacks nuance," wrote Pitchfork critic Jazz Monroe, who was struck by "Marshall's intensity with words, the way he threads and knots them like jute rope to hoist himself out of psychic craters". AllMusic editor Andy Kellman highlighted Ignacio Salvadores' musical contributions: "They add necessary color to Marshall's gray vision, peculiar and riveting as it is on its own". Entertainment Weekly's Leah Greenblatt was more qualified in her praise, finding the tracks "enveloping" but also occasionally "exhausting—a bleakness that begs, eventually, for a little fresh air." Tom Sloman of DIY found that the "frustrating" album finds Marshall "in transition", while Greg Cochrane of Uncut wrote that "lush as it sometimes is, [it] too often disappears into an indecipherable cloud of smoke". Writing in The Guardian, critic Rachel Aroesti wrote that the album's "bagginess and unremitting gloom mean it often struggles to hold the attention and unfortunately lacks much discernible appeal at all." Tom Hull gave it a B grade and said that Marshall "has a rep for drawing on punk and hip-hop, but mostly comes up with Nick Cave dark tones".

Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia is the third album by American rock band The Dandy Warhols, released in June 12, 2000, through record label Capitol. It is considered their breakthrough album, largely owing to the song "Bohemian Like You" being featured in a notable Vodafone advertisement. Four singles were released from the album: "Get Off", "Bohemian Like You", "Godless" and "Horse Pills" (the last in Australia only). This is the band's first album to feature their new drummer Brent DeBoer, Taylor-Taylor's cousin, who joined the band following the departure of their original drummer Eric Hedford, during the tour of their previous studio album. Recording of the album commenced in December 1998 and concluded in March 1999. On the making of the album, frontman Courtney Taylor-Taylor said that "we felt like we needed to make the last classic rock album. A record that would be, sonically, shaped somewhere in-between All Things Must Pass and Workingman's Dead." Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia was well received by critics and holds a score of 80 out of 100 on the review aggregate site Metacritic, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club called the album "an 800-pound gorilla of winning, eclectic rock 'n' roll" and wrote that it "may be the most joyous, instantly likable rock record you'll hear this year." Heather Phares of AllMusic called it a "bakers' dozen of their most focused and cohesive songs". Alternative Press called it "a scattershot bagful of wild rides and demented ditties and an album of maniacal depth and vision." The Phoenix New Times's Brian Baker wrote, "Thirteen Tales from Urban Bohemia is astonishing in its maturity and vision, coming from a band that is so young and so purposefully aimless."vThe Portland Mercury wrote, "while previous efforts have been somewhat schizophrenic in their ping-ponging between over-the-top atmosphere and dumbass pop, The Dandy Warhols' third record brings everything together in one tight package." Robert Christgau of The Village Voice gave the album a two-star honorable rating and remarked: "Dandies have feelings too—no, strike that, tunes too."

No. 4 (officially stylized as № 4) is the fourth studio album by the American rock band Stone Temple Pilots, released on October 26, 1999, by Atlantic Records. The album was a return to the band's earlier hard rock roots, while also blending elements of heavy metal, psychedelic rock, and alternative rock. Despite the lack of promotion due to singer Scott Weiland's one-year jail sentence shortly before the album's release, No. 4 was certified Platinum by the RIAA on August 7, 2000, and by the CRIA in August 2001. The song "Down" was nominated for Best Hard Rock Performance at the Grammy Awards. The album also produced one of STP's biggest hits, "Sour Girl", which charted at #78 on the Billboard Hot 100, their only song to appear on that chart. The CD was originally released as a digipak, then later changed to a standard jewel case. No. 4 displays the band returning to the more hard rock-oriented sound of their first two albums. Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic cited the album as STP's "hardest effort" since Core, remarking that "it's as if STP decided to compete directly with the new generation of alt-metal bands who prize aggression over hooks or riffs." Erlewine also commented that No. 4 "consolidates all [of STP's] strengths." AllMusic critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine rated the album four out of five stars, praising the opening tracks "Down" and "Heaven & Hot Rods". Entertainment Weekly critic Rob Brunner graded it "C", calling the album "generic and phoned in" and mostly "unexciting and obvious". Brunner deemed the track "Down" as "dour", "No Way Out" as "dated", and "Atlanta" as "pretentious". Brunner further deemed the tracks "Sex & Violence" and "Pruno" as "hardly original" and having resemblances to David Bowie but also as "well-crafted". Rolling Stone critic Lorraine Ali rated it three out of five, calling the songs "strong pop-rock pieces but without the self-consciousness of previous efforts". CMJ New Music Monthly critic M. Tye Comer called the album "powerful and cohesive", recommending readers to listen the tracks "Heaven & Hot Rods", "Church on Tuesday", "Sour Girl", and "No Way Out". Critics noted similarities between "Atlanta" and "My Favorite Things" from the 1959 musical The Sound of Music. The cover art for No. 4 generated some brief controversy because it strongly resembled the cover of the debut EP from Washington, D.C.-based band Power Lloyd. The Power Lloyd CD Election Day had been released in 1998, and the cover was a white five-point star on a black field under the band's name; STP's No. 4 also featured a white five-point star on a black field under the band's name. Power Lloyd co-founder Gene Diotalevi explained that after their band had given a song to MTV to be used on the soundtrack of Celebrity Deathmatch, someone at MTV with an advance copy of No. 4 noticed that the covers were nearly identical, and alerted the band. Diotalevi stated that no one from STP's camp would return their calls or letters, until his band mailed a cease-and-desist letter to STP's record company. STP's legal team then "made an offer to settle that was unacceptable to us", according to Power Lloyd's lawyer Will Shill.