While Will of the People is not as essential as their 2000s classics, it's a quick, satisfying burst of Muse essentials that cleverly forgoes the hits-compilation graveyard in favor of fresh material that honors both their evolution and dedicated fan base.

Archer Prewitt returns to the whip-smart pop sensibilities that defined his first two LPs, upping the ante to reveal an altogether new sophistication and complexity that spur his music to unexpected heights of brilliance.

Y’Y a singular meditation on ancestral history, environmental awareness and spiritual devotion, is wide ranging, complex, and in places, quite mysterious. It is also utterly compelling.

The album flows like sweet maple syrup from beginning to end, Kilgour's intimate croon caressing you like kind words from an old friend.

Without a doubt the most moving, ambitious, and elegant album of her career thus far.

The ability to make a genuine album -- and not just a collage of songs -- from a wide interest in musical styles is truly what makes this album such a delightful and great surprise.

Their most cohesive collection of songs to date...

Cole's Corner is glorious, magical, and utterly lovely in its vision, articulation, and execution.

Unlike such deservedly praised comeback albums from some of his peers -- such as Dylan's Love and Theft, the Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang, Paul McCartney's Chaos and Creation in the Backyard -- Simon doesn't achieve his comeback by reconnecting with the sound and spirit of his classic work; he has achieved it by being as restless and ambitious as he was at his popular and creative peak, which makes Surprise all the more remarkable.

With Four the Record, she's digging deeper than ever before and finding considerable riches.

In Rainbows will hopefully be remembered as Radiohead's most stimulating synthesis of accessible songs and abstract sounds, rather than their first pick-your-price download.

Fleshed out by these extra tracks, 1989 [Taylor's Version] confirms the lasting strength that Swift's songwriting was achieving in this one of many blooms, and serves as a lovely reminder of when she officially stepped into her place in the pop culture continuum.

Black Radio creates an entirely new context for popular music in its near erasure of boundaries. It is the sound of the future--even if no one knows it yet.

Quakers is the kind of album where favorite tracks change from listen to listen, and a testament to hip-hop's enduring power.

Louden Up Now is easily the best record to come out of the [new wave dance punk revival] movement; its ten tracks are filled with fervor, hooks, passion and power.

Extraordinary Machine may be more accessible, but it remains an art-pop album in its attitude, intent and presentation -- it's just that the presentation is cleaner, making her attitude appealing and her intent easier to ascertain, and that's what makes this final, finished Extraordinary Machine something pretty close to extraordinary.

The Bootleg Series, Vol. 1: Live in Europe 1967 box is an essential addition to the catalog.

Beautiful Lie is an invigorating and frequently gorgeous affair, essential for old fans and a good place to start for newcomers.

A beautiful collector's piece commemorating one of America's most vital indie bands.

Simultaneously sad, strange, and warmly nostalgic, Some Rap Songs is excitingly listenable and emotionally connected despite its abstruse approach. The album's triumphs are in its fearless risk taking and the insight it allows into the journey of Earl Sweatshirt's constant creative regeneration.

It's as a joyous a record as you'll ever hear, a testament that the power of music lies not in its writing but in its performance.

Romantica charges out of the gate with a new vigor, brightness, and sensitivity that, in retrospect, hasn't really come together within one package for them since maybe Bewitched.

The collection's hand-curated feel is much more personal than the average best-of or streaming play list. The idiosyncratic track list shuffles the pages of the Stripes' songbook, bringing new life to their music in the process. While there are plenty of expected choices here ("Fell in Love with a Girl," "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground," "The Hardest Button to Button") that still sound great, the set goes deeper with songs that are just as strong if not quite as well known.

At its most chaotic, Hypermagic Mountain could tear open a wormhole into Comets on Fire's Blue Cathedral.

The Shepherd's Dog goes a long way towards validating all the attention I&W have been getting; it's their best, most diverse and listenable record yet as Beam and co. take another leap away from the lo-fi one dude in a bedroom beginnings of the group.

There's a marked feeling of newfound ease that flows through The Comeback Kid. The always unstable elements that make up Stern's sound are still potent and volatile, but gone is any dread or confusion that may have pushed her music forward in the past, replaced by a sense of triumph and euphoric self-acceptance.

Tell Tale Signs feels like a new Bob Dylan record, not only for the astonishing freshness of the material, but also for the incredible sound quality and organic feeling of everything here.

Magic 3 sits alongside King's Disease III and Magic at the apex of this legendary run. This is hip-hop history, indeed.

From a purely instrumental standpoint, this album is the equal of the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique, but without the recognizable hooks--every sound here is ultra-obscure and the more entertaining for it.

The majority of the album places Actress closer to the superbly creative, evocative, and mind-altering terrain inhabited by Oneohtrix Point Never, with detectable traces of early-'80s Roedelius and Moebius, as well as Autechre.

A dizzying display of a band at peak performance.

Atrocity Exhibition is Danny Brown at his least diluted, almost unrelentingly grim and completely engrossing.

Ndegeocello is making some of the finest music of her life.

Aan invaluable resource for aficionados of this very weird, very exciting period of music. The set is certainly the equal of the essential junk shop glam collections that have come before it, and the care and thought put into it might even make it better. Either way, fans of the sound and era should be glad that this sound is being dug up again.

It's a flat-out joy.

Picking up the ball right about where Air dropped it after Moon Safari, Röyksopp produced one of the most intriguing downbeat albums of the year.

At their best, Hudson and her collaborators provide the kind of mature R&B that is not felt merely in the mind, throat, chest, or hips but the entire body.

Like its predecessors, Coin Coin Chapter Four: Memphis isn't "easy" to listen to, nor should it be, given the nature of what it explores and explicates. That said, it is a necessary, engaged art that bears repeated listening for its revelation to unfold and hopefully open a gateway to understanding. Arguably, it is the strongest and most compelling of the Coin Coin releases thus far.

On the surface, it's bright and accessible, as easy to enjoy as the best of Paul's solo albums, but it lingers in the heart and mind in a way uncommon to the rest of his work, and to many other latter-day albums from his peers as well.

There's a Dream I've Been Saving is a prime cultural artifact documenting a high point in an independent era in pop recording, production, and D.I.Y. aesthetics. It deserves a Grammy for content and design.

There's a real fire to his writing here, turning Revival into a missive as immediate, effective, and telling as Neil Young's "Living with War."

Red Dirt Road is not just one of Brooks & Dunn's most ambitious records, it's also one of their best.

A triumph, Chris reaffirms just how masterfully she engages minds, hearts, and bodies.

An utterly mesmerizing and magnetic album, almost unfair in how incredibly ambitious and impressively pulled off the whole thing is.

Everything on In Case We Die, from the intensely sweet melodies and vocals to the widescreen production, delivers the kind of playful pop majesty that Fingers Crossed's best moments hinted were within Architecture in Helsinki's grasp.

It's enough of a reinvention to suggest that Britney will know what to do when the teen-pop phenomenon of 1999-2001 passes for good.

These are candy-coated rhythmic noise pop songs, and they're astounding.

So much of Russell's work contained a playful curiosity, but that sweet character never felt so apparent as it did with the delicate intensity of World of Echo. Picture of Bunny Rabbit's continuance of that pure spirit is a gift to anyone with a special place in their heart for Russell, and even more evidence of just how peerless he was an artist.

With The Blue Elephant he has made something bordering on greatness, where his skills at creating sound are allowed to fully flower, his songs have grown deeper roots, and the pairing with Blundell borders on brilliant.

For all its dimensions and progress, the album is simultaneously designed to ensure that devoted fans will feel the wait was worth it.

They sound more natural than they ever have on record, and Brian Vander Ark and Donny Brown respond by their best set of songs.

Everything here is in its right place, making Kesto (234.48:4) perhaps the only Pan Sonic album you'd ever need to own, for every style of music the group has ever recorded is presented at length and it's all produced as masterfully as ever.

What I Do feels like one of Jackson's most assured and best albums, proof positive that he's the best mainstream country singer of this decade.

It's a lovely and deeply creative record that came so late in his career that it appeared to have already been relegated to history.

The Harrow & the Harvest is stunning for its intimacy, its lack of studio artifice, its warmth and its timeless, if hard won, songcraft.

It's one of the loosest, most varied, and entertaining albums of its time.

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.

This album is a high-water mark for an already impressive artist, and essential listening for anyone versed in abstract pop.

Fans of Gelb's have to be excited about this because it's perfect, a career high.

Silver Dollar Moment is a stunning debut, and if it doesn't quite reinvent the wheel the way that The Stone Roses did, it does have a uniquely sweet spirit and lighthearted beauty all its own.

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

Strict Joy is a joy from start to finish, as few bands manage to mix intimacy and sweeping songcraft with such finesse.

If you like your pop a little left of center and found the Postal Service to be too cute and syrupy, your fix is here.

A fantastic debut album that only gets richer and better with more listens, Gallowsbird's Bark is more fully formed and daring than most second or third albums from many bands.

This is the kind of album you can live with and hear new things in with each listen, and proves that the album is an art form that still has plenty of life in it.

Daphne & Celeste may not save the world, but a listen to this album is sure to make the world a better place for about 45 minutes or so, and sometimes that's enough.

An emotionally raw yet aesthetically fine album. She may have reached into the depths for these songs, but she's delivered us the gift of a burning light.

They have done many good, verging on excellent records, over the past decade, but only this has the songs and the atmosphere to be placed next to their best albums.

Certainly few, if any, bands of the era made an album as consistently great as Hope Downs. Not many in Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever's era have, either. It's a small-scale triumph of hooks and guitars from a band whose members have figured it all out and delivered a debut album that comes as close to perfect as any guitar pop album can.

The combination of songs, sound, and performance make this another near-perfect album from the trio. Those who have fallen under their charmingly sweet spell can only hope it doesn't take another six years for the next one.

There's so much effort, Holy Wood winds up a stronger and more consistent album than any of his other work. If there's any problem, it's that Manson's shock rock seems a little quaint in 2000.

Muse have really done it this time.

What could have been a nostalgia grab is instead the triumph of a band that chose to deliver on the initial promise of their seminal debut, not only to their faithful fans, but, more importantly, to themselves.

This "calm before the storm" aesthetic dominates Rook, and in another testament to its short running time, works beautifully, illuminating the few straightforward pieces like "Century Eyes," "Leviathan, Bound," and the brooding title track like a centuries-old woodcut, and allowing the tension that permeates the entire affair to ebb and flow naturally, resulting in one of the most heady and satisfying albums of the year.

Rap music has rarely gotten more virtuosic and creative than it does here.

Though their words suggest such weighty topics, the album remains sonically airy. It might get tense, but it's never dense.

Dissociation is an impressive album and a perfect endpoint to a very noisy and varied body of work.

Throughout Remind Me Tomorrow, she plumbs the depths of contentedness, setting her satisfaction to a sound that's nominally dark yet strangely comforting and nourishing. Even if this album doesn't speak to your specific life, it will nevertheless enrich it.

Kala nearly makes "Arular" seem tame in comparison, magnifying most of its predecessor's qualities as it remains bracingly adventurous.

If the Go! Team can make a record this much fun, with this much style and skill, with this many well-chosen collaborators, and with this many hit songs every couple years, by the time they are done we'll be voting them into the Brilliant Pop Hall of Fame.

This is, no doubt, one of the most flagrantly lecherous commercial R&B albums of its time. It also has sharp hooks and slick productions to spare.

Her songwriting talent and willingness to experiment was already evident on 2017's Play 'til You Win, but the perfect balance of exploration and poignancy on Overview make it a significant step forward for her.

After decades of giving us good and even fine work, he's finally treated the faithful to a masterpiece.

Elephant overflows with quality -- it's full of tight songwriting, sharp, witty lyrics, and judiciously used basses and tumbling keyboard melodies that enhance the band's powerful simplicity.

The best tracks on this album stand up well against the likes of the Move and the Creation, or at the very least, the Green Pajamas and the Apples in Stereo.

The simple fact is that Daydreams & Nightmares isn't just a joyous reinvention, or coming of age for Those Dancing Days, or even one the best albums of the year--which it certainly is--but, like any good dream, it comes when you least expect it, born out of your purest desires, and haunts you for those dancing days to come.

Elegant from the first minute to its 70th, Ojalá is an essential album for fans of Raymonde-affiliated projects like Snowbird and This Mortal Coil, and is among his and the year-in-indie's most exquisite works.

This is the least polished and crafted recording of Rickie Lee Jones' career, and it stands alone in her catalog. It's a ragged kid in ripped blue jeans singing her heart out to you without drama or falsity. How can it be anything less than a masterpiece?

Kicking off their third decade post-Barsuk, Death Cab continue their evolution in fascinating and rewarding ways, somehow managing to surprise with fresh directions and sounds yet unheard from this ever-reliable crew.

Despite its thorny history, this is an exhilarating portrait of the band's shift from their no wave beginnings to the more complex and melodic style that defined their later work.

It's a thrill to hear Martin stimulate hip and neck movement again. His juddering drums and cone-toasting bass frequencies are dispensed with more clarity and crispness than ever, while the swarming ambient FX are in full effect, never quite overpowering Dis Fig. Only on the closing "End in Blue" does the voice of Martin's partner dissipate, and once it does, it's already missed, prompting an impulsive rewind.

More aesthetically modern and approachable than some of their other records, though no less potent, this is Kae Tempest at their best.

It stands with their best work--some songs would no doubt end up on a greatest-hits collection--and in that regard is some of the best pop music anyone could hope to hear in 2018 or any time after.

The Witness is a consumptive listening experience, designed with precision and purpose in the same way as the immersive albums that came before it by Portishead, Talk Talk, Radiohead, and other artists willing to take their time systematically disassembling and rebuilding their music.

Deftly executed and ideal for repeat listens, Diamonds & Dancefloors makes it two-for-two for Max's catalog, delivering on the promise of her debut and pushing her even further toward the top of the early-2020s pop pantheon.

Dreaming in the Non-Dream is the sound of Forsyth and the Solar Motel Band breaking into the muck and mire of rock history to emerge with a communicative, dynamic language of their own design.

Despite FM!'s brevity, Staples jams so much into every bar that it fully satiates, all while still managing to end so abruptly that it comes as a surprise. The electrifying thrill of FM! is a triumph for the rapper who remains at the top of his game.

Altogether, Evergreen is a masterfully executed maturation that launches Gunnulfsen forward into fresh, fearless territory.