The world is undeniably richer for his guided tour through the trove of songs that helped lay the foundation for American music.

Lyrically, Drake embraces some of his pet topics on More Life. ... Yet Drake is also flashing signs of emotional growth--glimmers he might feel more confident displaying on a happily jumbled playlist than working into a cohesive album-length statement with its own internal logic.

“Painting a Hole” piles on more, including a stomping drum beat and a vaguely Middle Eastern synth line, while flavors of 1980s new wave crop up in “Cherry Hearts” and “Rubber Ballz,” each a vivid reflection of the deep record-nerd knowledge that Mercer played down on “Port of Morrow.”

Listen close and you can practically hear the frontman digging in his heels, pushing back on the idea of Spoon as a tidy lifestyle accessory.

His latest presents James as a futuristic R&B seducer, and if the crisp electronic production doesn’t always flatter his behind-the-beat phrasing, it’s still a kick to hear him go for it in the Prince-indebted “Last Night” and “Ladies Man.”

Alice is a studio album in the best sense. Erik Jimenez’s drumming jumps around in the stereo spectrum like he’s inside your headphones, and Ubovich’s double-tracked guitars duel for supremacy in the left and right channels. Taken at full volume, Alice rules.

For his part, Kingdom continues his exploration of experimental R&B.

Prophet mines Fuller’s energy in the pounding title track, which features the refrain, “I hear the record crackle/ The needle skips and jumps/ Bobby Fuller died for your sins.” Prophet described “Bad Year for Rock and Roll,” another album highlight, in an essay for Talkhouse as “an anthem for anyone who’s ever had a bad year and battles late-night bouts of loss of faith.”

A ten song rock record that draws on Segall’s strength as a catchy songwriter and riff manipulator.

As calculating as Sheeran can seem here, he understands there’s a fine line between universal and generic, which is why he gives his songs the idiosyncratic touches they need to stand out.

[A] wild new album. ... Complicated time signatures abound, but rather than extended jams, Thundercat keeps his songs short.

What emerges yet again is his deceptively downhome way of dropping pearls of wisdom into seemingly mundane scenarios, with plainspoken humor, with poignancy, with uncommon insight, and sometimes all three at once.

Though the songs are new, the album is hardly a departure. Each is immediately recognizable to anyone who knows the Feelies.

The Nashville-based artist loads songs with sometimes five or six guitars, and while she roots all of them in country, there are outreaches to vintage rock ’n’ roll or western soul. The precise genre sometimes remains elusive, but Lane’s boldness never wavers.

[Ryan Adams draws] from a well of sadness and confusion that seems only to have deepened by the time he gets to the album’s closer.

A vibrant batch of new songs that still rail against conformity with slashing instrumental and lyrical fury, but also find room for the occasional “la-la-la” sing-along pop hook.

The Molochs are on their own trip, one that spins old ideas with new energy.

On its ninth full-length, these Celtic-punk bruisers keep their guitars sharp and tempos revved for songs the band’s members have said were inspired in large part by the opioid crisis that’s resulted in the deaths of dozens of their friends.

On “xx” and “Coexist,” the xx was using sadness as a kind of shield; its stylish monotony kept you from regarding the players as real people open to real connection. Here, in contrast, the music’s dynamics make you feel closely involved in what they’re singing about--the highs as well as the lows. I See You presents a band willing to be seen.

The upstart singer-songwriter brings plenty of the same feisty outsider sensibility that’s made her first two albums so refreshing.

You can sense their attention to detail in “Dear World,” with a machine-tooled drum track that keeps shifting to emphasize unexpected beats, and “She’s Gone Away,” which features Maandig singing in ghostly harmony with Reznor, her voice nearly imperceptible in the mix.

Sincere romanticism is balanced with a knowing sense of humor.

Now Joe’s back again with DNCE’s first full-length, and this time he’s dispensing with metaphor altogether.

As the double-entendre title implies, Nightride mixes themes of both cruising and loving, and does so through tracks produced by notables including the-Dream, Boi 1da and Dev Hynes.

It’s a disappointingly ordinary effort that for the most part merely does what modern Nashville product is supposed to do.

Produced by Frank Liddell, Glenn Worf and Eric Masse, the music deepens that unsettled feeling with arrangements that feel raw--sometimes even incomplete--by current country standards. ... Yet none of this is the product of indifference or fuzzy thinking.

Valensi clings to the crisp tick-tock guitars he favors in his day job. But CRX juices those tidy riffs with ’80s-style synths that give tunes like “Anything” and “Ways to Fake It” a serious Cars vibe.

The self-professed rapper-actor-activist has delivered a modern-day hip-hop answer to Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” tackling everything from romance to the wage gap to the lack of diversity in Hollywood with a political bent.