Rock On

For every straight-ahead, mid-‘70s rocker—say, Bad Company's confident come-on “Can't Get Enough”—there's a track that messes beautifully with the genre's conventions. On “Some Kind of Wonderful,” for glorious instance, Grand Funk Railroad dispenses with guitars completely, laying down a blue-eyed soul groove, throwback handclaps, and a light glaze of keyboards over a steady-on rhythm section pulse. Queen's “Killer Queen” used Brian May's brain-bending guitar work and Freddie Mercury's saucy music-hall vocals to cement the band's fame. On the gorgeous “Bridge of Sighs,” Robin Trower builds a span between the blues-based Britrock of his former outfit, Procol Harum, and the oversized atmosphere of arena-rock bliss, while never quite sounding like either.