Not since 1966's Blonde on Blonde has Dylan sounded so happy and alert. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.102]

Ever since he figured out how to write tough-buzzard songs, on his 1997 comeback Time Out of Mind, he’s been knocking them out of the park. This one leans hard on ready-made blues in the citified-country-ways style of Chess Records.

Some of the most gripping singing you're going to hear all year.... A brave, unrepeatable record that speaks to her whole life. [May 2004, p.123]

His new take scythes through the original, revealing growls and guitars long obscured—sometimes it’s distracting, but often it lends the songs a newfound jolt.

This 'boxxx holds an explosion of creativity that couldn't have been contained in just one LP. [Nov 2003, p.118]

S-K swagger like they never have before, eschewing the filler that made their last few records drag. [#9, p.157]

Murphy pushes the near-immaculate music into the realm of genius with witty lyrics and wonderfully tetchy vocals. [Mar 2005, p.141]

Phrenology is a celebration of self-determination, a nonstop joyride through some very complicated brains. [#12, p.149]

A nearly flawless collection of hummable overtures. [#17, p.138]

This is Love’s ultimate achievement. A band long broken up, and so majestic they’ve been relegated to history books, has been refashioned in a way that makes a fresh and startling presentation of songs as familiar as the Ten Commandments.

Reveals added nuance with every listen. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.102]

Any collection that encompasses A Guy Called Gerald's peerless dance anthem "Voodoo Ray" and Joy Division's exquisite "Atmosphere" is "double double good," as the Happy Mondays' drug-addled singer Shaun Ryder used to quip. [#9, p.158]

[Coldplay] have made their masterpiece. [Jun 2005, p.112]

This is one helluva piece of singer-songwriter art. [Nov 2005, p.129]

Not since the Clash has a band evoked so precisely the grime and thrill of young London. [#15, p.124]

Marred only by incredibly pompous liner notes and a lack of worthy rarities. [#23, p.122]

Their best, most expansive album. [#8, p.112]

With Rock N Roll, Ryan Adams has thrown off the trappings of underachievement and grabbed for the crown. [Dec 2003, p.132]

Uncommonly rich and unfashionably gynocentric, Scarlet's Walk makes the personal universal, using the stories of women lost, left and unseen to chart a map of the American psyche. [#11, p.124]

Tempering futurism with retro-rap here, [Timbaland and Missy] feed the old through the new and refresh both. [#12, p.142]

What elevates the Monkeys into a class of their own is Turner. [Apr 2006, p.113]

The Bush-Blair era has damaged these guys, and the results rule. [Jun 2007, p.105]

What's amazing about Alright, Still is how similar the girl with the blog is to the girl with the hit record. [Mar 2007, p.129]

They've created the Sgt. Pepper of screamo.

They've been compiled to death, but this two-disc set is the most comprehensive survey yet of the Mancunians' brief, tear-stained blaze through the mid-'80s indie-pop firmament. [Feb 2009, p.67]

Every track is stellar. [Aug 2004, p.133]

The result is something of a songcraft master class.... A career best. [Dec 2005, p.150]

You can only discover fire once, though, so instead of a revolutionary blueprint, Neon Bible makes a triumphant clamor that's nearly as cathartic. [Apr 2007, p.109]

It's Twin Cinema's relative melancholy that makes it the band's best album yet. [Sep 2005, p.134]

Skeletal Lamping is a new high for this long-running yet just-peaking band.

British Sea Power's vision makes most independent rock seem callow and weak-minded. [Sep 2003, p. 119]

It radiates the observant calm of old masters who have seen enough life to be ready for anything--Yeats, Matisse, Sonny Rollins. [Sep 2006, p.139]

[Finn] tells better stories than anyone else in music these days. [Oct 2006, p.131]

Presents a rarity--a genuinely new sound. [Nov 2004, p.136]

It's the sound of a band not stretching out so much as digging in: burrowing deeper into loamy soil they know well. [Jul 2007, p.109]

Could be the best album he's ever made. [Dec 2004, p.146]

Handled with less love, this could feel like a smug wander through an ironic record collection. Here, it becomes sexy, life-affirming pop. [Aug 2004, p.141]

For her to pull off something as ambitious, gritty and accomplished as this at age 21 is flat-out amazing. [#15, p.127]

Is there another "Float On"? It scarcely matters: 10 years into their career, Modest Mouse have stumbled into their best album yet. [Mar 2007, p.137]

Backspacer is the bands most mature album to date and clocking in at just over 36 minutes, it is also their most condensed work; It’s as if Pearl Jam is channeling Ernest Hemingway, with not a wasted breath or note anywhere to be found.

Creamy and precise, every coo and arpeggio blows through your ear buds like the ruffle of crisp bills.

There's an exhilarating, disorienting sense of freedom tot he album, the ruse of rules being ignored. [Aug 2008, p.79]

Singer-songwriter Britt Daniel's gift for obtuse yet engaging melody is now where it ought to be: up front. [#9, p.155]

Stupid-brilliant punk rock. [Dec 2005, p.147]

She offsets an assault of cheekiness with confessions so intimate, they could have been drafted during an A.A. meeting.

Brings Pierce's preoccupation with panoramic emotional and chemical excess to startling, transcendent climax. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.112]

She's just as acute as [Rufus] is, as centered on the poetry within the profane, as able to write songs whose meanings stay kept behind doors within doors. [May 2005, p.125]

Less hook-a-minute than its predecessor, 1998's Powertrip, but with a more heavily articulated wallop. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.114]

Imperial Teen deploy the familiar language of pop-rock, then subvert it with strange, chewy tales, making music that wraps arsenic in a candy coating. [Apr/May 2002, p.114]

The real hero is Sean Eden, whose lyrical lead guitar--a bit Harrison, a bit Morricone--makes even the silliest songs sound majestic. [Nov 2004, p.138]

Blend[s] limpid Velvet Underground textures, strolling country-rock and wry, cryptically plaintive Malkmus poetry well enough to sound like neo-classics destined for a Wes Anderson film. [Jun 2005, p.111]

Beneath the highlights, she's still a messy troublemaker whose brain is as spicy as the rest of her body. [#17, p.146]

Pragmatically exploiting his sure tune sense, his saving falsetto and a command of the political facts well exceeding that of Living With War, he’s turned out the first great protest album of the new dispensation.

What Led Zeppelin did for bombast, Lambchop try to do for delicacy. [Apr/May 2002, p.114]

The songs are sincere without sappiness and orchestral without bombast. [Apr 2005, p.125]

It’s a very rare, wondrous thing: prog-rock for firesides and fuzzy-slipper Sundays.

Delays have found a way to combine the sparkling harmonies of the Byrds with the glorious noise of My Bloody Valentine, and still sound as fresh and surprising as a London heat wave. [#27, p.134]

A widescreen goth-punk stunner. [Jun 2006, p.144]

Trice puts a playful swing into his unlikely rhymes. [Nov 2003, p.122]

While her wailing contemporaries go off the rails with exaggeration, Braxton merely tightens her groove and rides these mellow, meaty melodies. [#13, p.91]

Their most songful release since the major-label hellos Goo and Dirty, and by most standards their best since 1988's pivotal Daydream Nation. [#27, p.144]

Overall, this is the grimiest and grimmest of the band's Bob Rock productions. [#17, p.145]

She's a poised pop queen, ready to be worshiped once again. [Nov 2004, p.141]

The only thing missing is a killer pop hit to follow "Get the Pary Started." [Nov 2003, p.120]

Even more surprising is how dynamic the duo sounds, as their voices both blend together and draw each other into fresh territory.

Yes, the Jonases are squishy, vanilla and too sweet. But so is an ice-cream cone. And ice-cream cones are freakin’ delicious. Especially when they come with a cherry on top.

Chain Gang of Love promises racy thrills--and delivers them. [Sep 2003, p.128]

Despite all the lonely missives and political outrage, Oberst comes off more like a troubadour of hope. [Mar 2005, p.132]

Treading his father’s path, he’s never sounded so comfortably himself.

The lack of pretense on his second album makes him an approachable Everypimp, and he gets nothing but love from [his] guests. [Dec 2004, p.138]

This is a visceral, powerful muso's record, a nerve-jangling explosion in a drum clinic. [Apr 2005, p.111]

Taking sound collage to seamless, organic perfection, Tobin arranges his samples like he's conducting a living orchestra. [#11, p.144]

Dawson tunefully balances girlish zeal with womanly maturity. [Nov 2004, p.132]

The music is dramatic with a glammy Britpop insouciance, and Garcia is a refreshingly earnest romantic. [#16, p.117]

Wonder has a genius for... emotional openness. [Dec 2005, p.157]

This album is a model of aging, raging indie idealism. [Apr 2006, p.118]

Through it all, the machines sound as juicily alive as the human beings. [Apr 2009, p.63]

As familiar as alt-country has become, Ward makes it worthwhile again. [#16, p.125]

Once Again sets out to rebuild the dramatic storytelling and redemptive power of soul music on a hip-hop foundation.

Mope-rock never felt so good. [Nov 2003, p.121]

Never anything less than enthralling. [Sep 2003, p.121]

THe British balladeers have returned after a long layoff as elegantly miserable as ever. [Oct 2008, p.83]

Michael never shies away from going pop, and the results are spectacular: Every hook on his stellar debut is instantly alluring.

It’s Blitz! is the sound of a band reborn with new momentum, and on an album that requires dancing, the message is clear: It doesn’t matter where you came from. Just keep moving.

The Documentary is like a hip-hop Jurassic Park: a big-budget homage to a place most of us thought was ancient history. [Apr 2005, p.118]

Unlike other current heart-on-sleeve troubadours, Lekman uses his tender touch to brilliantly tease out the bumbling awkwardness that defines modern love.

New Porn songs gush eagerness and surge like the front car of a roller coaster. [May 2003, p.122]

A further step forward. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.102]

An hour's worth of the good stuff: churning, yearning synth-rock. [Jun 2005, p.114]

Another brazenly varried set. [Oct 2005, p.142]

Arcade Fire never babbled about “horse-shaped fire/Draggin’ stereo wire.” These guys make it seem like an Olympic sport.

They might sound like Girl Scouts, but these are tough cookies. [Aug 2007, p.117]

The blend of organization--even the oddest, most precarious combinations of instruments sync up--and derangement is Animal Collective's version 2.0 of hippie whimsy, and it's quite a buzz [Oct 2007, p.105]

Piano ballads and muscular thrash that hearken back to his days with proto-goth ghoulfathers the Birthday Party. [#13, p.91]

Twain's songs are never deep, but they have hooks tattooed on their skin and harmonies that glow like bar lights. [#13, p.88]

The emotional terrain is much more treacherous here, and more rewarding for it. [Oct 2003, p.114]

This free-wheeling debut has the potential to run and run, carried aloft on the shoulders of the overly emotional. [#18, p.131]

The outfit dispels any virtuoso vibe with their joyous absurdism. [Jun 2007, p.104]