Despite Wilson's wrecked voice, it's surprisingly grand and moving. [Nov 2004, p.146]

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]

Lush and languorous, velvet-robe decadent and soft-focus steamy, Histoire is a make-out record and a gross-out record.

A torrid album that marries old-school rap aesthetics to punk-rock concision. [May 2004, p.127]

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

The momentous band [on the 1980-81 disc] stretches out and jams, both celebrating and escaping the band's trademark anxiety. [Sep 2004, p.158]

The jumble of stuff that spills out -- from Delta blues to nineteenth-century ballads to spoken-word rambles -- is surprisingly consistent, at times transcendent, and not just for people intimately acquainted with Waits’s honeyed craziness.

His hard-edged, dance-inflected debut makes East London sound like the new Dirty South. [Jan 2004, p.108]

They break their own rules, even adding expansive guitar solos, to keep themselves interested and fans off-balance. [May 2003, p.123]

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

The exact opposite of background music, A Grand Don’t Come for Free demands the same attention as a movie, and that’s why some people will hate it while others will find it uniquely riveting.

The biggest draw is the Iggy-Jagger sexual charisma of 22-year-old singer Julian Casablancas, whose self-possessed cool is astonishing. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.130]

A mesmerizing history lesson. [Aug 2005, p.114]

The most distinctive producer-rapper Britain has coughed up since Tricky. [#11, p.143]

After decades, Waits's theater of musical cruelty is familiar stuff. But the old dog's tricks still have bite. [Applies to both Alice and Blood Money, Jun/Jul 2002, p.111]

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

The album works as an ambient whole, its fog-bank synths, yearning vocal slivers and stoic basslines filling the room with melancholy.

The band's warm way with weirdness remains; it's just flashier now. [Oct 2005, p.140]

Hebden treats software as a rocky road to hummable compositions of seductively intricate invention. [#17, p.135]

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]

"Get Ur Freak On," the frenetic lead single, relies on boilerplate hip-hop braggadocio, but the beats are something else: head-snapping electro-funk spiced with tablas that herald Missy and [Timbaland's] return as the rulers of the hip-hop avant-garde. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.106]

He is clearly invigorated by the tensions between pretty and ugly, simplicity and chaos. [Nov 2004, p.130]

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

This is their sunniest, most likeable record, leavened by hints of light-footed dance music.

While cliches abound... this huge music is delivered with panache. [#9, p.154]

It's ghetto viciousness as literary exercise--an episode of The Wire with a better soundtrack. [Nov 2006, p.142]

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]

Convincingly lovely through and through. [#17, p.140]