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There is no real reason that this 2011 Duran Duran album needs to be as strong as it is. After all, the band still sells out arenas and manages to scratch out radio hits after three decades of existence. But producer (and Double D devotee) Mark Ronson seems to have inspired them to release their best all-around set since Rio. Really. This one is leaner and tougher and ends up capturing their '80s Good Life sound and their old sense of adventurous fun. The tunes are so uniformly strong that you are liable to pop the collar on your pastel Izod polo shirt.

Bowie fled from fame, cocaine induced madness and America to make the first of his celebrated Berlin albums. The fragmented lyrics, detached vocals and the big, spare drum sounds first heard here later became the signature style of the 1980s. Half instrumental, the album's highlight is "Sound and Vision," which luxuriates in the heavenly sphere inhabited by music, not man.