Music: 5 Captivating New Albums For -- and By -- All Ages

From the schoolgirls of Smoosh to an elderly Elton, great music is timeless

GAME THEORY THE ROOTS FOR A DECADE, the Roots has been hip-hop's most innovative and politically engaged band--another way of saying it hasn't been the least bit fun. The group is no barrel of yuks here either, but Katrina and Iraq have stoked its outrage into an album of compelling ferocity. Lead voice Black Thought delivers focused and occasionally paranoid rants about a crumbling society ("Watch who you put all your trust in/ Worldwide we coincide with who's suffering") while producer, drummer and resident genius ?uestlove samples dystopian anthems (Radiohead's You and Whose Army?) to create a sound track to indignation...

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