They grew up strong and they grew up fast, so fast that their recordings retain a visceral force that makes The Complete Beat something more than a dream come true for fans: it is a convincing argument for their greatness.

All of this is worthy of re-visitation or discovery.

This collection is proof that Kylie is arguably the best pop singer of her era and more importantly, is fun from beginning to end.

Not only is it their best-sounding album yet, totally alive and raw, but it contains some of the hookiest songs and most thrilling performances of their almost-35-year career in rock & roll.

America's artful merging of the electronic and the acoustic shows that these tools we dedicate so much time and brain space to can also be used to create something free and emotionally invigorating.

If this isn't the album of the year, it's at least the art-pop album of the year, or the neo-sophisti-pop album of the year, or--beside Frank Ocean's Channel Orange--the alternative R&B album of the year.

The Seer is unquestionably a work of ecstatic beauty; it encompasses everything because it is everything.

I Know What Love Isn't is Lekman at his finest, transmitting real emotion and humor in songs that are impossible to stop humming for days.

This is a king rightfully reclaiming his dominion.

Given all the things Byrne and Clark pack into Love This Giant, it's a remarkably catchy and concise set of songs featuring some of the most vibrant work that either one of them has produced.

It's a brave, compelling collection from an artist who continues to evolve in remarkable and unexpected ways.

It's weird and willfully, proudly human, a big pop album about real emotions and one of P!nk's wildest rides.

It's as fresh as any music he's ever made, and one of his very best albums.

La Futura is the best album from ZZ Top since that '80s landmark but it flips Eliminator on its head, using synthesized elements as accents, not as a skeleton.

His slight adjustments and increased restraint make this his most accessible and creative release yet.

There are instances where the lyrical content edges too close to "artsy" teenage erotic poetry, but no song is without an attractive quality, whether it's a heavenly melody, a riveting rhythm, or a boggling production nuance.

Wolf is as honest and, in a greater sense, as generous a songwriter as we have, and Mumps, Etc. may be his finest gift yet.

It's hard to complain when the results are this stunning.

Long a master of obfuscation, Fagen plays it straight on Sunken Condos, tightening his songwriting and letting his music swing, and the results are an absolute joy.

Add it all up and subtract the hype, and this one is still potent enough to rise to the top of the pile.

If you're looking for depth and escapism, there are plenty of albums out there for you to dive into and explore, but if volume and intensity are what you seek, Pig Destroyer have just the punch in the face you've been looking for.

In its own less-alien way, Luxury Problems is just as brilliant as what preceded it.

Entertainment and enrichment are provided unsparingly.

The high points are so affecting and brief as to provoke small acts of violent ebullience, like the destruction of fragile objects on shelves. But it will never tire. It's another remarkable achievement in magician-MPC interface.

Made Possible finds the Bad Plus openly wrestling with the complex interrelationship between rhythm, harmony, and improvisation (individual and collective). It offers a more inviting aural view of the group confronting these questions, and the historic weight and imposing boundaries associated with "the piano trio" in jazz.

Ten Freedom Summers is his magnum opus; it belongs in jazz's canonical lexicon with Duke Ellington's Black Brown & Beige and Max Roach's Freedom Now Suite.

Again, it's easy to name great songs that are missing, but what's here is sublime, some of the best rock & roll ever made, and the best overall Stones comp to date.

One of the most impressive albums of the home-recording era while still feeling superbly refined.

Wreck & Ruin sounds fresh as the dew and old as the hills all at once, and anyone who doubts that Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson are two of the finest natural talents in country and folk music today need only listen to this to be convinced.

Quarter Turns Over a Living Line is the group's fine and uneasy full-length debut.

With Bish Bosch, Walker creates a kind of Möbius Strip: by virtue of creating a less physical sonic landscape, he provides a way into his great trilogy on his way out of it.

Ultimately, if there's any disappointment to be had with this near-perfect album, it's that it still towers above subsequent efforts as the unequivocal climax of Rage Against the Machine's vision. As such, it remains absolutely essential.

Ultimately, on Dark Black, Train is a master at keeping us on the edge of our seats.

Cut the World is easily the most revealing Antony and the Johnsons album to date, joining material from various recordings in one extended, sublime document.

It's lengthy, but anybody who was ever wondering if there was more to 10cc than the well-worn hits will find a rousing affirmative answer here.

Our Head Technician has delivered an accomplished album for Ghost Box that only serves to enhance the well-deserved reputation of both parties.

Just by its sheer size, a box this mammoth isn't for everybody but The Complete Columbia Album Collection restores warmth, heart, and mess to an artist whose legacy was turning into a monochromatic myth.

The album is sometimes languid, often jittery and beaming, but mostly an almost subconsciously storytelling collection of moments that would be boring and forgettable if they weren't captured in songs so accidentally perfect.

The amount of growth is staggering, and moving from the hazy-headed territory of older Ducktails to songwriting this polished and still pulling it off speaks volumes for the purity of the project's development, as well as Mondanile's refreshed vision as an artist.

Complete and correct, Goldenheart is a triumph.

Much like the best of Eno's ambient work, Centralia is captivating without demanding attention, instead letting the listener wander into its web on their own.

Ultimately though, whether robotic or human, binary or organic, it is Ra Ra Riot's gift for addictive, romantic songcraft that gives Beta Love its heart.

In the end, however, the album's coherence comes in its incredible architecture of all these ideas, and the way the band sells them with everything they've got, taking what could be incredibly obtuse music back into the realm of pop from which it was born.

It delivers some of the most abstract, and most visceral, music in their career.

No Beginning No End is James' most holistic and expansive recording.

Everything on these two discs fits into the theme and flow.

As a producer and songwriter, Bilal has stepped up. As a vocalist, he remains supernaturally skilled and creative--swooping, diving, wailing, and sighing, all with complete command.

In the same way as records like the Buzzcocks' Singles Going Steady, the Smiths' Hatful of Hollow, or even Weirdo Rippers by No Age, the incremental blasts of brilliance collected in one place as Early Fragments fit together perfectly, capturing a remarkably intriguing band at various peaks.

This blend of contemporary attitudes and classic sounds is insinuating and addictive, particularly because at nine songs, it's too brief--once it's through, the album practically begs you to start all over again.

Steve Mason is realizing his musical vision confidently, typified by the jump between the rather moving sampling of Brazilian commentary from a glorious Ayrton Senna lap, complete with soaring engines ("The Last of the Heroes"), to the pained yet undoubtedly uplifting, piano-led gospel of "Lonely."

The Chronicles of Marnia is an album that demands multiple journeys through the wardrobe, only this time it's to fully take in the album's melodic depths rather than to make sense of its technical achievements.

His intelligent lyrics and melodies inside the arrangements of these beautifully crafted songs underscore the integrity and passion in his trademark voice. This is inarguably his finest album.

While it might take listeners a few spins to find the right head space for the album, once they get there, it's an easy place to get lost in.

Everything here certainly belongs and contributes to the rich, gritty, and ultimately joyous tone of this wonderful album.

They simply deliver track after track of airtight, wide-eyed rock that digs its fingers into your soul for 40 minutes and does...not...let...go.

Paramore is a veritable pop opera about a band reborn, phoenix-like from the ashes of a broken lineup, better and stronger than any previous incarnation.

In their best moments, No Joy not only expand on these ideas, but improve on them.

Sub Verses offers such a disciplined sense of exploration, multivalent nuance, and commitment in its production and performance; it stands out in an already very distinguished catalog.

Two of her first album's many attractive attributes were the subtle and surprising twists in song structure and seamless genre fusions. They're in steady supply her.

This focus on ambience really makes Sky Burial feel like it exists in a very specific, and very secluded, space, and while you probably wouldn't want to live there, it's amazing to visit.

The new looseness that runs through the grooves, the variety the additional voices bring, the very strong songs, and Eno' perfect production all add up as the album plays, and as a result, Thr!!!ler ranks as the band's best work to date. That also makes it one of the best modern dance punk records to date, right up there with LCD Soundsystem's best.

The camaraderie of the Pistol Annies cuts deep--they're a gang, encouraging the other two not to talk about Tina, praising sobriety, realizing life goes on even when love leaves--and that gives Annie Up a bruised, beautiful richness.

It is one of those odd Primal Scream albums where they pull it all together--roping in the hard rock, free jazz, club beats, flowery psychedelia, the worship of the Stooges, and a devotion to avant-garde cinema--building upon the past in an attempt to get closer to the future.

With its immediacy, economy, cagey strength, and vulnerability, Griffin delivers these 12 songs not as gifts or statements, but as her own evidence of what is, what was, and what yet may come.

Random Access Memories is also Daft Punk's most personal work, and richly rewarding for listeners willing to spend time with it.

Party Intellectuals may have set the bar high, but Your Turn is definitely a worthy follow-up.

With such a wide-open sound, even the confusing and painful parts sound hauntingly beautiful.

Slow Summits is an unhurried, understated masterpiece that should make fans of the band, and of music in general, glad that the Pastels have not only stuck with it for so long, but grown into the kind of group that could release something this warm and beautiful.

With No Answer, the band rises to the standards in anti-music set by its own discography.

Ultraviolet represents a further refinement of the new direction they've been heading in, making it not only the bands most accessible work to date, but also their most purposefully written and solidly constructed, putting it in the running for the best album of their career.

Homme has marshaled all of his strengths on ...Like Clockwork and has found a way forward, a way to deepen his music without compromising his identity.

Here it results in some of their best and most confident work to date.

Denser and fathoms deeper, this is some kind of leap.

The influence of early Sabbath has become so omnipresent that it's come back to influence its very creators 40 years later, but the results are unexpectedly brilliant, apocalyptic, and essential for any die-hard metal fan.

While Coco and Hannibal are doing it a little less softly now, they're still killing 'em.

The consistent excellence of Tomorrow's Harvest is as comforting as a collection of quietly menacing android fever dreams like these could possibly be.

The 14 barebones blasts that make up the record serve not just as a testament to the group's legendary status, but a reminder of the ageless spirit of rock & roll at its most fundamental level.

This perfectionism, present in the sonics and in the complex arrangements, makes Field of Reeds the most challenging title in their catalog and also the most groundbreaking.

Many bands go through their entire career without making an album as well crafted, fully realized, and downright gorgeous as Sunbather, and somehow, Deafheaven have managed to nail it on their second outing, with an album that seems to get bigger and more affective with each listen.

Whether dealing out breakbeat punishments like "777," wriggling dubstep like "Ascension," or mystical funk like "Isis," he sounds like no one else, simultaneously street and chic, enticing and elusive.

Lickety Split is not only a joyous, unhindered return to form, but the group's finest studio offering to date.

My Favorite Picture of You is simply a wonderful, balanced gem of an album from a masterful songwriter.

In Search is outsider art at its best. Guided by Martin's vision and shaped via collective process, it uses familiar forms to create a spaced-out language all its own; it is a listening experience like no other.

Other bands thinking about re-forming would do well to follow their lead and not just get back together to play the hits and count the cash, but instead create something vital and relevant; something that makes the group's continued existence worthwhile.

It's not only her biggest and most ambitious production to date, but also the album that best showcases her gift for communicating complex emotional entanglements so simply and clearly they become almost weightless.

This is an impressive job by a child-prodigy instrumentalist who has accomplished the very difficult task of continuing to challenge himself in productive ways as an adult.

The clashes in sound become the very skeletons for the songs, and the songwriting is more fearless and honest than ever before, marking a distinct maturity for No Age and resulting in their best work to date.

Loud City Song is Holter's most polished work to date, and another example of how she upholds and redefines what it means to be an avant-garde singer/songwriter.

Seventeen discs may be an enormous undertaking, and admittedly some of the road is rocky, but the journey Harry Nilsson takes on The RCA Albums Collection is distinctive and thrilling, whether it's heard for the first or 40th time.

Hesitation Marks makes it quite clear that Trent Reznor is no longer an angry young man but rather a restless, inventive artist who is at peace with himself, and the result is a record that provides real, lasting nourishment.

Case has proven time and again that she has the songwriting chops to match her earthy, superlative voice, but never with such authority.

It's Goldfrapp's most sophisticated work to date, and one of their most consistently satisfying albums.

With the incentive of live material for old fans and the sheer brilliance on offer when these records are taken together, The Warner Bros. Years is a powerful testament to Earle's second act.

This is as complete as we'll get and if it doesn't present any fresh revelations, it brings the Clash's era back to life, both sonically and visually.

NMA's version of Junior Kimbrough's "Meet Me in the City" here almost sounds like power pop, but filtered through a rustic moonshine filter. Every track here is like that, roaring into the 21st century sounding big, urgent, and huge, but so grounded in the local folk-blues tradition that each track seems to carry imprinted DNA that says boogie all over it.

This album shows Wong at his most refined and compositional, maintaining the spontaneous spirit of his playing while delivering a final product more focused and satisfying than anything he's done before.

It's the work of an artist at the absolute top of her game, and as a result, Herein Wild ranks as one of the best, most inspired and inspiring, albums of 2013.

While it shouldn't be a surprise for a Dr. Dog album to be a beautifully crafted slice of psych-pop goodness, the magic of the band lies in its ability to consistently beguile listeners with a sound that shows all the mark of genuine craftsmanship, something B-Room delivers from start to finish.