James Blake is an essential for anybody interested in witnessing how pop music can and will continue to change, progress, and grow into something new with time.

This is the best album for 2011, and not just the last two months.

It's easy to lose yourself in the countless studio takes. Little gasps of pure genius here and there. The slow dissolution to it all. The echoes of things to come. It's a history lesson come to life, and that's part of the reason the collection here works so well.

While that record [Pomegranate] was expansive and full of divergent genres and characters, This Is Our Science condenses the process into a tight 40 minutes of rhythm and revelations.

It shows that the Some Girls era was, and remains, one of the most productive of the Stones' career.

There's more than enough here to disavow thoughts that this is a needless cash grab by Corgan.

Even though other recent interviews and richly realized tracks like those imply that Ocean's songwriting is just a vessel, his own devil is still in the details, and that's what makes his music compelling.

We now have an album from him so masterful that it'd be greedy to ask for much more.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness doesn't need rose-colored lens for appreciation. The album's success still lies from all the stylistic risks the band assumed, especially in comparison to music other alternative bands were creating at the time.

m b v creates a new timeline for My Bloody Valentine, and one that recalls the past in a broader and bolder light. They’re better for it, their catalog is stronger for it, and by album’s end, they’re still the best at swirling guitars.

What makes Rumours so remarkable and relevant is that it remains fragile and passionate 35 years later.... From a historical, archival standpoint, this package is extremely valuable, as Rhino left in the studio banter and rough cuts from the recording sessions; you get to overhear Fleetwood Mac as they make the record.

Yeezus feels very proto- something, the roots of some aesthetic that has yet to be minted. It’s revolutionary at its most urgent, as on “Black Skinhead”.

The 2013 remix is a bit of a wash, if only because the album already sounded great.

They [Ghostface and Wu-Tang Clan] are truly a hip-hop enigma, and Apollo Kids is just another piece of proof.

This is a high-personality disc, one that avoids cliches and cheese while also being steeped in tradition and an immense dose of adorableness.

Kaputt is the sort of record that arrives only once in a while: an expansive world that captivates you from beginning to end, impresses you with its self-awareness and cohesiveness, then releases you from its grasp when it's all over.

In fact, it's very hard to determine what the actual standout from this album will be, because literally every track is full to the absolute brim with the genius of seasoned veterans

Anyone can recreate a sound, but Yuck succeeds where most bands fail by digging under the surface to capture the spirit and magic that made the music of their beloved idols possible.

This complete command over their craft really sets these Orange County natives apart, resulting in the kind of record that grabs you at first listen and becomes more meaningful every time through.

To date, the Foo Fighters have never tried to reinvent the wheel, per se; they just want to keep it rolling. And that's just what Wasting Light does. For that purpose, Foo Fighters give us a solid record from open to close. The drought is over. Rock is back.

Whichever route you choose, one thing remains unflinching: this album is guaranteed to please.

It's an album that makes you sad that it's not longer; sad that it can't just go on forever. This sentiment alone should indicate the caliber of album Fleet Foxes have created in Helplessness Blues.

Director's Cut can be seen as new work, because some of these songs are very different to their earlier versions in tone and scale; both sets of work are equally brilliant, but here there is even more clarity of purpose,

The album is a shoo-in for being a timeless great, no matter what we say. Vernon's got the magic touch. But it's lacking that original sense of urgency that flowed so freely in and out of For Emma, making it so genuine and so incredibly listenable.

Their sense of naked honesty makes them so vulnerable that it is hard to believe they put it down on record, but that is part of their intriguing beauty; their willingness to fall is because they are pushed by the hands of true experience, and they also create the softest of musical landings for themselves and us.

Between doing more of the same old goodness and boiling everything down to its most essential lethality, Beyoncé also makes room on the album for more grandiose tracks that would sound right at home in Broadway musicals.

While instrumental, the recurrent use of a glistening fanfare motif, present across the album's six tracks, gives these pieces a much stronger sense of cultural and biographical identity than most vocal music.

Every number attempts something at least a little differently, and succeeds for the most part.