ANITA BAKER

Soul-jazz chanteuse Anita Baker is a timeless performer who weaves challenging emotions into the smoothest of melodies. Only Forever, her first album since 2004’s My Everything, is filled with romantic paeans, and on songs like “Lately” and “Play Me Your Music,” Baker expresses the many facets of love with a religious fervor. “Free,” a gorgeous ballad that explores her bout with empty-nest syndrome, proves she can master any subject. Baker’s stature has afforded her the luxury to experiment, but she remains faithful to the jazz-inflected tunes that are her calling card. Even though these subtly restrained arrangements edge perilously close to soft-rock tedium, Baker can take even the most generic material and spin it into gold. Our modern-day passel of superficial starlets could learn a thing or two from Baker’s approach to picking songs and performing them with grace and grit. –Blake Boldt