Everyone--yes, everyone--should buy this version of London Calling, because in this form, audio and video, it acts as a veritable design for living. [#12, p.96]

Four decades on, and there has yet to be anything that hits on this kind of organic, brain-melting, structured psychosis.

Sound System drives home the foursome’s adeptness at boundary hopping, while never forgetting the value of a good hook and a politically righteous lyric.

One of the most inspiring and triumphant projects of the year, and perhaps the last 30 years. [#13, p.89]

This box mingles an abundance of demos, alternative takes and other previously unreleased iterations of Big Star tunes amid sparsely retained original album versions. [Fall 2009, p.92]

These lovingly remastered and richly expanded editions of the Smashing Pumpkins 1991 debut Gish and 1993's mainstream breakthrough Siamese Dream soundly prove that the band's place in rock history is firmly cemented.

Raw, crunchy beats and ugly, monster flows delivered in a punk album format. [#9, p.110]

The whole package is a head-snapping reminder that when R.E.M. was on fire, you couldn't put them out with all the water in the world.

Sure, the original album may still tickle your testes and get you off, but this boxed set is nothing more than a handjob without a happy ending.

Songs like these are why Nirvana was king and this show proves why the band was peerless. Suddenly Nirvana is everything to me all over again. [[Holiday 2009, p. 92]

Achtung Baby is the last great U2 album and one of the best records ever made, but is this $150 six-CD, four-DVD 20th anniversary edition worth your time and money? Short answer: F--k yeah

This boxset--quite literally a suitcase--highlights four distinct sides of one of the most prolific icons of the pre-dylan era, and introduces both unreleased and released tracks to a new generation in themed installments. History is back in session. [Fall 2009, p.100]

The second disc of this deluxe edition makes Brighten The Corners's faults more difficult to accept as hard truths. [Holiday 2008, p.98]

Ignore whatever purist backlash you may encounter. In Channel Orange, we have been granted a truly classic document, perhaps the very first that feels synchronized with the present decade.

The landmark proto-punk album is refined at a decibel-defying rate while the outtakes highlight the grating guitars and Iggy's guttural vocals that trademarked the group's sound.

There is real joy and loss within these unwieldy song titles. [#16, p.88]

While the synthesized sheen of '80s pop hasn't held up for everyone, even casual listeners will discover a new appreciation for the artist underneath superficiality and infamy.

Z is a great record--more expansive than its predecessors and less tunnel-visioned too. [#17, p.94]

St. Vincent is buoyant in the way that the Hindenburg was—it floats along steadily and excitedly, but with a decisive coldness that suggests that something unexpected might happen.

For residents of the 21st centurey, the sound is not nearly as exotic [as it was in 1980]....However, what is particularly striking about this album is the players' ease and familarity, both with each other and with their instruments. [Winter 2010, p100]

There aren't many dull points on this two-disc collection. [#16, p.93]

Well into their fourth decade, with the aughts years spent in hibernation, Swans are still making records of brilliance and majesty.

Everything comes together, creating an album as deep and wide as the vistas it conjures up.

Dear Science has its moments, but these moments means less and weigh more. Pretty cool? Well, it's pretty alright. [Fall 2008, p.91]

As an artistic achievement, it ranks incredibly high on the list of great postmodern statements. Here is a piece of music (but oh so much more) that proves that something new can be done, and it can be entirely engaging. [#21, p.92]

It is, in effect, the only acceptable historical document of the nearly incomprehensible phenomenon that was The Smiths.

In context, Rubies [is] just another piece of the puzzle, but it's the finest jewel yet. [#19, p.99]

Large and epic, but tense and claustrophobic as well, and gratefully, it's as close to Elliott as we've ever been. [#12, p.92]

The stunning One Beat of 2002 is a tough act to follow, and The Woods pulls it off soundly (though not exceedingly) by slicing together another improbable mash of grace and chaos all in the service of elaborately unhinged melodies. [#15, p.95]

Lonerism is a dense slab, and much may resist exploration on the first 5, 10, or 20 listens, but the swaths that pass through even the most garbled neural net are nourishing enough to sustain a considerable journey.

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness' triumphs far outweigh its failures. This impressive expanded edition drives that point home by giving insight into the record's rich gestational process.

This is not Cave's best work by any means, but these songs do showcase his impressive range as a lyricist, performer and musician. [#12, p.100]

This is one of the quintessential L.A. albums, for its fireworks of fame and celebrity are stripped naked and left to wander. [Spring 2008, p.94]

Try as you might, there's no pushin it out. [#12, p.101]

Cave's themes remain unchanged, but his songcraft prowess continues to grow, aided by the finest instrumental backing and production of any Bad Seeds album to date. [Winter 2008, p.90]

The collection has aged remarkably well.

From the propulsive 'What Would Wolves Do?' to the dub-styled 'Brace Yourself,' the album seems like something to play while driving across the desert at sunset, especially with all the wolf cries in the background from Islands’ Nicolas Thorburn.

Relentlessly sultry, with lush arrangements framed by slamming dance beats. [#9, p.102]

Truly, there isn't anything here that comes close to achieving the anthemic, stomp-along, bombast of Funeral's best works. But this is a different album, and a different Arcade Fire playing to their biggest strength: emoting. [#24, p.88]

These lovingly remastered and richly expanded editions of the Smashing Pumpkins 1991 debut Gish and 1993's mainstream breakthrough Siamese Dream soundly prove that the band's place in rock history is firmly cemented.

PJ Harvey always explodes possibility when she shreds convention and tradition. Thankfully, she does just that on this Anglo-centric head-trip.

They make heavy duty sound collages that rock, roll, and exemplify the increasingly small chasm between bliss and confusion. [#25, p.90]

Hearing Van Etten’s performance on [Your Love Is Killing Me] and several others are downright shiver-inducing.

There's an organic component that coexists along with the machines, giving them a warmth few acts have been able to unearth. [#11, p.93]

Butler and company have crafted a brilliant tribute to the glorious euphoria of getting down in the big city. [Summer 2008, p.96]

It may be a bit heavy-handed, but it will no doubt thrill fans that probably assumed this day would never come.

He forges yet another new vision: one that involves psych rock, quirky funk and bossa nova as much as it does hip-hop and electronica. [#19, p.104]

Attest[s] to the group's pummeling might off vinyl. [#16, p.87]

Although the songs carry recurring tropes of eagles, devils and the sea, as well as her signature intricate guitar picking, the most haunting aspect is--considering this accomplishment--realizing the potential that is yet to come.

Bradford Cox's jagged, swirling atmospherics reach an apotheosis on this hazy but blissful offering.

That the group could go from the sneering jauntiness of 'Girls And Boys' to the paranoid anxiety of 'Song 2' with no drop in hook-effectiveness is startling in itself; that it managed to continuously and effortlessly navigate th incomprehensible expanse between The Kinks and Brian Eno is an utterly singular achievement. [Summer 2009, p.94]

Here, the band has returned from the cold with a tight, extraordinary album that is lush and satisfying--yet still in the corners just a little bit sad.

The urgency of the music and the quality vocal and guitar hooks make this one of the best rock albums of the year. [#13, p.98]

Not everything on Present Tense is a success, but the highs are truly high, even when they’re sad.

While Boxer lacks a knockout punch like last album’s 13th round uppercut “Mr. November,” all scorecards still have the National besting David Berman to remain indie rock’s “Great White Mope.”

The band may have switched the formula, but the solution still adds up.

The Knife’s sound and vision--and the members’ unrelenting oddness--seem to slightly buckle under the weight of their idealism.

Bush's return to recorded music is unexpected, sometimes distancing, weird and obdurate.

Simply a great record. [#14, p.95]

Decades beyond the point at which most of his peers peaked, Paul Simon is still discovering new ways of writing and conveying amazing work and discovering beautifully unexpected and often spiritual language, as well as new rhythms, melodies and instrumental textures.

Self-referential, poetic, spoken-sung performances in dirty beer halls, Midwest anthems that make everyone raise those beers in the beer halls. [Summer 2008, p.92]

From a technical standpoint, it's astounding.... But from a purely aesthetic standpoint, it's just downright unmusical. [#5, p.86]

Get Lost and stay lost.

No matter who appreciates or appropriates this music, who likes it or where you discover it, it is a testament to its power more than its populism.

One of the great pleasures of Twin Cinema is the way every morsel seems to have been scrutinized. [#17, p.96]

It can be, and often is, dizzying to unpack the poetry, but it’s probably exactly the point from a brilliant, grieving mind full of verses, desperate to release them.

New Moon is Smith at his musical best: quiet, humble, and most of all, honest. [#25, p.96]

Wild Beasts' Hayden Thorpe emotes like the forsaken son of Elbow's Guy Garvey and Antony. Thankfully, over the course of Smother, the English quartet proves they have the muscle to back up their lead singer's melodramatic warble.

Have One On Me is Newsom at her best: precious without being cloying, subtle without being indecipherable, beautifully written and sweetly played.

An Album this deep-hearted and digestible call out for mass-consumption. And the more people who hear this record, the better. [Spring 2009, p.90]

It’s a nice cross-section of material that highlights why Pavement was such a darling of the alt press, but Quarantine fails to truly capture the greatness.

Despite its wandering parts and spacious production, Bitte Orca is a precise groove, almost medical in the way it delivers its complexity with such simple terms. [Spring 2009, p.100]

A crisp-sounding, very coherent, vocally comprehensible collation of shapely, spirited power-pop-punk nuggets. [#11, p.93]

It takes willpower and endurance to swim down these dark, dimly lit streams of misery. Even as a listener. [#11, p.98]

To date, this is as close to their masterpiece, The Holy Bible, as they've ever come. [Fall 2009, p.92]

There are experimental beauties, but Matthew Houck is at his best when he returns to familiar sounds.

They've trimmed away the electronic tinges and space-jazz tendencies of recent years, leaving us with a sharper, more focused Yo La Tengo. [#22, p.93]

It remains instrumentally raucous, emotionally battered, and unaplogetically fun. [Winter 2009, p.100]

Her countrified songs often begin as gothic lullabies, swallowed up in darkness and longing, as if the instruments themselves were suffering heartbreak. [#6, p.82]

This is gospel-smacked, laidback music, tinseled by horns and strings and grounded in a big, big love.

With Before Today, Pink achieves congruence in the album's construction, but does so without sacrificing his peculiar flair. [Spring/Summer 2010, p.104]

This is a rapturous, badass art-punk record that swaggers with as much heart as it does cockiness. [#5, p.87]

His voice is as naive as ever, yet Wind’s Poem churns like nothing from his past, providing a therapeutic musical massage.

It's another album that can grow on listeners with repeated listens.

Kaputt's allure fills up glasses with the finest Chablis in a Nagel print–filled room, and lets Bejar's newfound status as King of Hi-Fi unfold in all of its cryptic finery.

Doubtless the closest she'll ever come to letting you dance in the madfields of her mind with her. [#12, p.94]

It's this balance of aggression and harmony that make El-P so engaging--and Cancer for Cure so triumphant.

Like all good things—especially good byes—it comes to an end. And with that, Mr. Murphy goes out on top.

With honeyed vocals and the tender touch of acoustic guitar, he is already showing signs of songcraft perfection on his second LP. [#9, p.109]

By staying so true to Burma's superior style 20 years after it was emulated, it lacks the aura of innovation. [#10, p.90]

The resulting album comes across, for the most part, as a peaceful, relaxing--if extremely weird--trip through a newfound musical slipstream. [Holiday 2009, p. 98]

It's exactly the record that everyone hoped Spoon would make. [#15, p.98]

It's cosmic Americana as once charted by Mercury Rev in the druggier days of yerself Is Steam and Boces. [#17, p.101]

The songs on Ten actually sound shockingly more insufferable this far out of their original grunge context. [Winter 2009, p.97]

Even when they’re forging new ground (which is often) or mixing it up with any of the aforementioned conversation points, they still manage to sound exactly like themselves.

The results are compact, near-pop micro-anthems. [#17, p.93]

While Cronin’s musical expertise belies his age, the existential struggles about which he sings--fear of the world, distrust of love, lack of self-confidence--do not.

Visceral and immediate, if this album doesn’t make you feel something, at least we know it did to Ms. Case.