A 25th anniversary minibox stuffs poster and postcards in with a mother lode second disc of 19 "Athens Demos," from punky ("Bad Day") to finished ("All the Right Friends").

The first hip-hop classic of the new millennium.

Through thick and thin, Kanye West proves the ultimate curator and host, the master of his domain.

Consider the Meat Puppets' Sewn Together its "Young Frankenstein."

Ready to Die finds the quintet on Fat Possum, making them indie artists for the first time, and they give their new label the best produced, loudest, and slickest--without sacrificing any primal grit and drive--Stooges disc yet.

Ultimately it's Gainsbourg's voice--a heady melange of tussled bedclothes whisperings and near-dead sexy murmurs--that lifts both her life and art from beneath the shade of her mythic paterfamilias.

It's music-making for the pure joy of it, and that delight overflows in a manner that's truly rare.

Solid and gaseous, dark and light in all the right places, this is the Comets' brightest so far.

The dramatic, melancholy undercurrents of string-driven pop nuggets "The Drowning Years" and "Never Look at the Sun" showcase the Delgados as the smart, cutting-edge descendents of the Carpenters: everything Belle & Sebastian want to be, but are too damn precocious to pull off.

The Crossing proves another way forward for our one-man Johnny Thunders, Joey Ramone, and Neal Cassady.

The disc alternates between unsettling, exhilarating, and devastating in its emotional impact; it's also difficult not to get distracted by everything going on musically.

Jangling Jack's back.

Immediate viscerality that rewards close attention.

Wrecking Ball spins Springsteen's most focused work since 2002's The Rising and most defiant and hooky since 1984's Born in the U.S.A.

Kudos to White's preservation of Lynn's loving, narrative songwriting even when paired with his own grittier sensibilities. In doing so, the two unlikely bedfellows have cut a classic.

The force of Okkervil's last LP, '03's Down the River of Golden Dreams, is strengthened and stretched on Black Sheep Boy, bursting with the heaviness of heart.

On the London quartet's debut Silence Yourself, the group whips up a storm of aggressive rhythms, strident vocalizing, and six-string sheen as if the succeeding pop trends never happened and Gang of Four and Siouxsie & the Banshees rule the charts.

Embryonic gestates the Lips to a new phase, turning eerily inward to finally face the flipside of their frantic catharsis.

Often delivered in an off-key falsetto, the vocal stylings of Bardo Martinez aren't technically sound, but like the band itself they overflow with warmth and infinite charm.

With Little Honey, she pays back fans whose faith had waned as her songwriting grew pedantic on recent albums such as "West."

It's a slow-motion ballet immortalized on album.

Help Us Stranger moves garage-punk polymath Jack White from the Sixties to the Seventies. And from the sounds of things, he, Brendan Benson, Jack Lawrence, and Patrick Keeler did it in Z/28 with an 8-track player and a hash pipe.

Even with producers Billy Harvey, Charles Arthur, and Gurf Morlix lending their talents, Everything You Love plays seamlessly, like one of Lucinda Williams' classic early albums, pristine, honest, and lingering.

The Alabama Shakes mainspring's first solo release showcases R&B borne of a dark, introspective place, grooving like a 35-minute scream into a pillow.

T.I.'s Southern drawl bends pedestrian phrases into irresistible melodies hotter than the summer streets to come.

What's most surprising is the strength of the original B-sides, such as the shoegazed summer dream "Happy Place," girl group siphon "Suck," and bassist Ben Lurie's "Rocket," which could easily reside on any of JAMC's studio LPs and absolutely trump anything by the band's innumerable acolytes.

Each track is full of Laurel Canyon vibes – vulnerability, grief, acceptance – and melodies you'll never get out of your head.

Great albums are great from the very first note, and the first 10 seconds of Walking With Thee will stop you dead in your tracks.