Somehow, allowing it its true moment on the shelves has solidified the record's historical importance.

Comparing him to other rappers is pointless: there are other guys with much more technically-sound flows (although Ye is as wickedly funny as he's ever been), but nobody else possesses the combination of hubris, imagination, neuroticism, and drive it takes to make a record like this.

With a little help from an impressive array of collaborators and producers that include heavyweights like Pharrell Williams, El Guincho and Frank Dukes, Rosalía takes clear and complete control of her voice by getting her ideas across without being too caught up in them.

Albums like this are rare and special, highlighting pop’s capacity to sculpt our emotions and steer us towards something better beyond the horizon.

SAULT force us to focus our attention instead on the music itself and the messages that come with it. More than writing simple protest songs, they are creating what is arguably some of the most life-affirming and confrontational music released in recent years – and all of it comes at a much-needed time.

Time has only been kind to Life's Rich Pageant, and, hopefully, not much more time will be required to it to take its place in the rock and roll canon as the practically perfect album that it is.

The bonus material on discs five and six of the box set (which also includes Achtung Baby's severely underrated 1993 follow-up Zooropa and two pointless discs of remixes that likely won't be of much use even to die-hards) only serve to illuminate how much had to go right for the album to be as good as it was.

What rides at the top and takes your attention pretty much all the time is Taylor herself. Her words are honest and palpable, but also unflinchingly direct.

This overall reduction in the reliance on guitar riffs allows for greater flexibility of sound, and as such BCNR wring out more staggering peaks of emotion from Wood’s lovelorn words.

Sunbather is a future classic, no matter where you pigeonhole it, and that’s the mark of a true sonic masterpiece. Black metal, not black metal, just call it what it is: perfect.

English Teacher’s debut album is delicate, accomplished, and complete.

They’ve managed to pace their listeners through sonic wreckage while being a little more daring in doing so. Synths, chipmunked vocals, and R&B flair don’t suggest this is the future of hardcore, but these elements do indicate that the genre’s future is more encompassing, and it will have this record to thank.

In addition to being one of the year's most soberingly bleak R&B releases, Channel Orange is also one of the prettiest.

Beyoncé has given us her most excessive body of work to date. It is unfocused, it swerves and changes directions, yet delivers quality in so many different ways no part of it can be called inessential. While one could choose a cynical route and think their way into not appreciating the full product, the truth is history will be kind to Cowboy Carter as yet another classic album from Queen Bey.

For an album called Carnage, on the surface it appears to have none, but the inner turmoil of Nick Cave’s psyche is full of it. He fantasizes about long lost loves, but also about shooting you in the fucking face, and it’s this toying with our emotions makes Carnage one of Cave’s most maddeningly beautiful records.

But The Greater Wings, for all its inevitable connotations, is not a downer. It’s a beautiful testament to life and to the people we love and that keep us going, physically and spiritually. It’s also a testament to moving forward with grace and strength, and rediscovering that longing to live.

A dense, sometimes challenging, but ultimately patience-rewarding listen.

It’s an album expressing the joys of love – physical, verbal, musical, familial and all the other kinds. While she’s the one in the spotlight throughout the album, this isn’t a record about her – instead she’s honouring all those people who find themselves through the release provided by these communal spaces. And damn, it’s a hell of a good time.

For all its indulgence and fluid musical expression, Sex, Death & the Infinite Void doesn’t even crack 40 minutes in length. Creeper accomplish a lot in that time, and their new record is a suitably triumphant return.

These songs show that Rodrigo isn’t done after GUTS.

It may take a few years for SOS to ascend to the heights, but if 808s & Heartbreak was the breakup record of the 2000s and Blonde was the 2010s examination of loss and trauma, then SZA might have produced that emotional breaking point for the 2020s.

The main difference between Stranger in the Alps and Punisher is simply maturation of her writing.

The album’s brevity only adds to the allure, as it is stripped of any excess, and devoid of a single misstep. It is a distinct departure, but ultimately unsurprising in its flawless execution.

woods has transcended the line of being a great artist and entered the realm of genius. With Kenny Segal’s help, he has conjured a work that is wholly its own, both in the artist’s discography and in the rap genre.

Grӕ is so rich in content and so vast in musicality it would be impossible to unpack everything in a single review. It is complex yet universal – comforting yet unsettling. It lives in an incorporeal realm of its own, and somehow, Sumney has gained complete and utter command over it.

The vast majority of Ware’s fifth LP serves as a masterclass in following up a beloved previous album – taking What’s Your Pleasure’s core elements and stretching them into wilder and weirder directions. Now, that feels good.

It’s a seamless and natural progression from when the band released squeaky-clean interpretations of their beloved 2020 album Brave Faces Everyone, just last year on Brave Faces Etc. But they’ve buckled down, tightened things up, and now observe sheen and a bit of grit with an impressive balance.

This is a band operating at their highest, most infectious potency, and the end result is riveting.

There is certainly potential here, but this first Bloodmoon record definitely feels like a testing ground. There is an uncertainty in tone, and a clashing of sensibilities that is thrilling at times, awkward at others.

RTJ4 is every bit as explosive as one would have hoped, and whatever it lacks in diversity it makes up for with strong writing. It’s a record born out of generations of racial tension and almost four years of near-dictatorship in the USA.

One of those rare, near-flawless works of art that only grows finer with age.

While there are some tracks that could have been expended, that just wouldn’t be Rina’s style. She’s here to express her excessive, melodramatic, fun-loving, pain-harbouring persona in every single different way she can, without holding anything back – and SAWAYAMA should be celebrated for that.

They round out the subtle complexities in the seemingly simple story of longing; a tip-toeing toybox melody reflecting the delicacy of the situation, digital glitches suggesting the distance between them, sighs that relay the inner conflict. This precision features throughout Jennifer B, and it’s thanks to these careful touches that each song connects on a deeper level, despite their structurelessness and unpredictability.

Florist’s latest project stands as the culmination of previous collaborative and solo work, featuring the band as a whole at their most minimally precise; and Sprague, in terms of songwriting, vocal performances, and composition, at her most versatile and visionary.

The wicked atmosphere that they’ve crafted across Heart Under is worthy of celebration alone.

Whether or not Dabice believes things inside her have changed, it’s undoubted that I Got Heaven is taking Mannequin Pussy to new levels, and things on her exterior are only going to get bigger and brighter.

Parks has made her most undeniable statement yet, an album full of uplifting and mesmerizing neo-classics that will fit right in the hearts and minds of the thousands it will touch.

Shortly After Takeoff is a powerful collection made by someone who’s had to endure more than his fair share of turbulence.

Instrumentally, Ignorance transcends the traditional folk that The Weather Station tirelessly perfected over the previous four albums. With an ever-expanding palette of sonics at her disposal, Lindeman weaves these tales of turmoil and regret through the usage of everything possible – horns, strings, several subtle non-acoustic guitars, and most prominently the piano. To reach the levels of awareness she sought required another level of sound, and it crackles throughout Ignorance.

By using her clear mind to acknowledge all that has made up who she is, she has put together the puzzle of her past through the lens of today to create something that transcends its personal nature to truly resonate with her widening audience.

Handsome almost in spite of itself, The Idler Wheel is poignant, nuanced and quietly unforgettable.

Squid’s music is full of: humanity and the inherent hope within it. It’s what makes Bright Green Field a joy to return to time and again.

It's too bad it couldn't find release on a major, but still a victory. Yet, that doesn't make this album, as Saigon once declared it, the best record of the last 20 years. It makes it a good one.

Sanguivore might not be as precisely balanced and pop-pitched as Sex, but there’s craft and talent here, and the album is punctuated with sublime and sublimely entertaining moments.

The album may be a little homogenous for some listeners, but this is a narratively and emotionally precise set of songs, set to sneakily indelible melodies. Nastasia has never written with such vivid truthfulness, such earthen brutality.

Women in Music Pt. III is by no means perfect, but its strengths assuredly outweigh the weaknesses. Haim feel completely in the moment here, and are working stronger than ever as a unit.

They have managed to recapture the magic that permeated their best material and made it so imminently replayable. This is a bold move that should be celebrated, and more importantly, it should be emulated.

Even with the palpable style of The National all over the album, it does feel like Swift has finally found the authenticity she’s been chasing with each respective release ever since Red. But still, Swift’s vocal delivery lacks the emotional depth of the artists this album pays homage to.

While it has quite a few tracks that stand out, besides the glamorous opener, due to their use of pathos-laden synthesizer hooks (“Ben Franklin”, “Headlock”) and moody refrains (“Glory”, “Automate”), the gentle ballads and groovy mid-tempo tracks that make up the album’s second act don’t seem as stylized or aggressively emotional musically as their lyrics demand.

Sonically Song For Our Daughter offers up a familiar feel, which is no doubt from the return of producer Ethan Johns (co-producing alongside Marling here). His touches feel light, but help add weight where necessary, be it with the greater presence of strings or the additional percussion (which never seeks to take the attention, regardless of how busy it is).

Loud City Song is a true achievement from Julia Holter. Nary is there a hook on the album, but the richness and vividness that she brings to the songs musically and lyrically will hook you more effectively anyway.

Bad As Me is yet another sensational landmark on the long, well-traveled path of a man who simply refuses to age.

There’s an irresistible eclecticism on display, with each and every track serving as a unique adventure into some different corner.

Where GREY Area was all about Chinese restaurants, squats, dark back alleys and illegal warehouse clubs, Sometimes I might be introvert is about office buildings, record shops, bedrooms and stage productions. It’s daring and conceptual, but lacks physicality, unity and focus.

The band seem focused on a singular mission: to deliver a rich, imaginative work that demands our attention, one that pushes the expectations of listeners as well as themselves. The question is: do they succeed? The answer is a resounding, unequivocal yes: Only God Was Above Us feels in many ways the kind of album we always knew the band had in them to make.

Call Me If You Get Lost finds Tyler freer than he was on IGOR. He’s managed to combine talents in front of and behind the mic, while amalgamating the serious personalities he used prior with the humor that trademarked his early work. He’s displaying lessons learned here.

Although it’s not without some flaws, mainly lying within its familiarity, Anything Can’t Happen is a terrific album from Dorothea Paas, whose career will hopefully only go up from here.

Heaven To A Tortured Mind is the kind of album that challenges listeners sonically and lyrically, and makes absolutely no bones about it. It’s full of forward-thinking musical combinations, but in its themes it’s even more progressive.

While her last proper album, 2019’s orchestrally-imbued All Mirrors, was something of a coming out party for her grand artistic ambition and scope, Big Time is the coming out party for her true personality. In order to do this, she’s stripped away the grandiosity and reverted back to the country and Americana sounds that she calls home.

Letter To You may well Springsteen’s best work since 87’s Tunnel of Love. There are dips in quality in places on the record, but there is a general tone of a satisfied human who got out of the rundown places he always sang about to that bright future that was always over the horizon.

It's the broader story through which Undun gains its strength; through the musings and rants of Black Thought and Dice Raw (who, this time around, has near as large a presence as the group's leader).

There’s a depth and sensual nuance to the album that most of her contemporaries lack.

The way your patience is so handsomely rewarded is what truly makes Lonerism such an engrossing spectacle.

Headsoup demonstrates the band’s stylistic versatility and penchant for spontaneity and structure. It is every bit as representative of Goat’s aesthetic as their ‘official’ albums.

And though the second half Orquídeas breaks stylistically with the first – sometimes a bit too abrasively to stay fully engaged – it nevertheless makes sense for an artist like Uchis, who is trying to break industry conventions one project at a time.

Admittedly, The Weeknd is light years away from the sounds of Trilogy and a lot closer to the sounds of After Hours and Starboy, but one thing is for sure: this album is much closer to excellence than his last offerings.

Their tunesmithery is crystalline, their lyricism freewheeling yet precisely penned, and their voice as evocative yet relaxed as ever.

Despite its short length, Kindred provides as much of an experience as Untrue. And commendably, it's a different one.

It’ll be hard to outdo this 20-track masterpiece, but at this point it’s impossible to bet against them.

“Separate Ways” is a sweet beginning, reminiscent of “Out On The Weekend” with a slightly more bitter détour, which immediately reminds us that Homegrown should have followed Harvest. Emmylou Harris’ haunting voice in the background of “Try” sounds simultaneously evocative and familiar — a trait resulting from her frequent collaborations with the likes of Linda Ronstadt, Gram Parsons, and Bob Dylan.

My Back Was a Bridge for You to Cross, in turn, shows Anohni pivoting between stunningly direct and entrancingly oblique manifestos. A listener is left voyeuristically spellbound, striving to reconcile what they’ve encountered with the life they’re currently living.

Duelling forces are wonderfully rendered in the sound palette that Sampha has pulled together here, with production assistance from El Guincho on a number of tracks. The presence of myriad other talents including Yussef Dayes, Yaeji, Laura Groves, black midi’s Morgan Simpson – to name just a few – emphasises the album’s underlying theme of communality.

YTILAER finds Callahan at his most personally enigmatic, taking inspiration from his own life and filtering those experiences through a prism of modern folktales. He offers us all the most enticing details but manages to keep it wonderfully vague at the same time, a treasure trove of musical obscurantism.

The set might get a little long in the tooth, even in its individual parts, but on both parts Shackleton is treading fresh ground in a whole different solar system than the rest of dance music and all its various eccentrics.

Hum may very well have just released the most pertinent post-lockdown record: it has claustrophobia embedded in its DNA and hysteria woven throughout. It’s weighty and suffocating, pressing down on our shoulders and restricting our airways with nothing more than brittle bones and exhausted lungs to keep it all from collapsing – then it releases us, just in time.

His voice soulfully conveys the journey in all its deviations and obstacles unflinchingly while still providing listeners with the means to immerse themselves and bop their heads along.

Whether approached with the utmost skepticism or the most fervent zeal, m b v proves itself not merely a reputable album, but a spectacular and unforgettable experience.

Digging further into the singer-songwriter aesthetics of Seven Swans and Carrie & Lowell, Stevens has crafted an element of rare beauty, meticulously extracted from a host of sorrows, affections, and other confounding sentiments.

It is a monumental piece that dextrously straddles his musical epochs; it is an account of history and a document of where he is now.

The music of Angel Tears in Sunlight is in no hurry, but stick around and it will take you to zones that breathe with ancient life.

Filled to the brim with pathos and lived-in melancholy, she has crafted yet another jewel for her ever-expanding crown. It might not be quite as cohesive as songs was, but it benefits from being more varied, and from having some of her most affecting vocal performances.

The sound of Phenomenal Nature, too, is both fractured and coherent, as Jenkins has expanded from a simple guitar-bass-drums set up to include violins, saxophones, and synths in her compositions. At its best, all these instruments cohere into a delicate drone, a shimmering thing that sounds like an infinity pool: no edges, just a reflective surface.

The cohesion of Pain Olympics is quite the miracle. Even if there are moments that diverge into unpredictable passages, there’s always a sense that Crack Cloud know where the track is heading – it’s obvious that, despite their size, they are always operating from a single artistic vision.

We Buy Diabetic Test Strips goes deeper, darker than any of Armand Hammer’s previous albums. It even eclipses woods and Kenny Segal’s stellar Maps as the best hip hop record this year, at least so far.

It’s a rich tapestry of sound, message and meaning with multiple layers to unpick with each listen.

Her storytelling eye is sharp and her ear is honed to bring the most out of it melodically and instrumentally (with a tipped hat to Jonathan Rado’s excellent production). ... She is a torch bearer for our times.

Just be thankful that the new Swans are as clever, as terrifying, and as proficient in their craft as presented on The Seer.

A subtle shift toward curated production and raw lyrical revelation. Which isn’t to say that her earlier records didn’t have those things, but they feel far more present and deliberate here. Running once more in complete sync with inflo, these songs are some of Simz’s most personal and most vitriolic, masked in measured rhythms and encased in the wrath of someone who’s too tired to give a fuck.

It’s Noname’s most convincing album yet – as a whole, it defies any attempt to be embraced as “mainstream” or “digestible”.

Free I.H. may have been Tudzin’s war cry, but Let Me Do One More is a comfort record. It shows resilience and passion from one of indie music’s most intriguing risk takers.

Ohms is the first Deftones record to feel entirely like all of the rest but also like none of them. It somehow manages to push the band into a new direction while leaving breadcrumbs from each album. With a wide range of enjoyment coming from each cut, Ohms further cements Deftones as the premier mainstream rock band to reinvent themselves every decade.

Her vision of R&B is unfiltered and uncompromising. At her most modern, she is advancing her genre rather than watering it down for current tastes. Things her songwriting could only hint at in the work of others are here in full, and they make for a beautiful end product.

In many ways, it’s Wet Leg’s small imperfections that make it the perfect debut – an impressive, tantalising exploration of their core talents that leaves just enough room for improvement.

RAM can oftentimes feel scattered, too ambitious, or too similar to the era it’s working from, but, in the end, it’s an album held together by that palpable reverence.

Even in his lost moments, like “A Random Act of Kindness” where he repeats “Out of time, out of money”, he searches out the hope while faced with setbacks and sorrow. It’s in these moments that Morby shines as that everyman – a role he has been crafted into through those various influences he holds up so high.

With Celestial Lineage Wolves in the Throne Room have managed to craft a seamless and moving record as well as exceed the potential they'd previously left unfulfilled.

For all its horror trappings and flat-out aggression (the album-closing title track even ends with one last fakeout jump-scare blast to the face), We Are Always Alone is a deeply emotional record. It is catharsis writ large; a writhing, wailing, violent resistance against the injustice of a cruel world full of self-serving people.

Shall We Go On Sinning So That Grace May Increase? is a wonderful record of majesty and enveloping textures that radiate a sense of collective positive energy. Daniel Drew has produced an album of exquisite delight; mature enough to know its place in the world yet filled with childlike awe at how things could be.