Lounging between Chicago’s vintage poppier moments and the slicker stance they’d recently adopted, “Baby, What a Big Surprise” is the best of both worlds.

Keenly chiseled and immediately accessible, the Tol-Puddle Martyrs’ “One Drop In the Ocean” is a delightful slice of radio-friendly pop rock.

Apart from his collaborator Arto Lindsay, Thiago Nassif’s ‘Três’ much unlike anything else you’re likely to hear from a very broadly defined pop realm that includes its rogue elements.

The underrated ‘Flavors of Entanglement,’ issued 10 years ago today, found Alanis Morissette in a moment of fearless introspection. Critics be damned.

Bart and the Bedazzled are like a cool combination of ’70s pop-singer Stephen Bishop and ’80s bands like the Style Council.

Simple, nuanced and damn near perfect, Judith Owen’s ‘RedisCOVERed’ meets and occasionally exceeds all expectations.

Philips is clearly that guy who is well suited for DIY, and now we know from ‘Get Along’ that even when he does something by himself two different ways, both ways are the ‘right’ way.

A little mellower and little more intimate, ‘Butterflies’ is Basia aging gracefully with music that will likely not age at all.

Robbie Dupree, Chicago and Peter Banks are part of the latest edition of Five for the Road, an occasional look at music that’s been in my car lately.

Stuffed with ear candy, Bill Lloyd’s ‘Feeling the Elephant’ arrived three decades ago with a flair for shrewdly stitched pop rock.