The double in the room on Let England Shake is the whole modern world. PJ Harvey has given us a righteous scare.

Murphy succeeds by stretching in two directions — finding a new musical center, and showing his humanity beyond the laughs.

She definitely goes further than Aguilera in tracks like “Ponyboy,” with a harsh beat that conjures smashed glass, or “Whole New World/Pretend World,” which stretches past the nine-minute mark. ... Yet the lyrics favor abstract concepts over intimate confessions; Sophie ponders consumerism in “Faceshopping” (“My face is the front of shop / My face is the real shop front”) and the power dynamics of sex in “Ponyboy.” Then there’s “Immaterial,” which feels like the key to apprehending this fascinating album.

It's a portrait of an English radical at 62, but it's personal and emotional and neither strident nor stodgy.

Thank U, Next flaunts Grande’s emotional healing; it’s suffused with the joy of discovering that what didn’t kill her really did make her stronger. ... As eager as she sounds on Thank U, Next to embrace new ideas and attitudes, the album shows that she can still do the old-fashioned stuff--the big vocals that connect her back to Mariah and Whitney and Celine--when she wants to.

Vernon on Bon Iver solidifies his place not as innovator, but as someone who's found a nice, fertile plot of land somewhere near where folk, rock, R&B and indie rock intersect, and is happy to wander across its great expanse honoring all of it.

The artist has presented an utterly human, mostly nonverbal defense of his aesthetic: atmospheric, occasionally funky and meandering instrumental electronic tones, lovingly crafted, with imaginative internal logics.

Maxwell’s transcendent falsetto and the soulful jazz, electronic and soul arrangements need no cohesive story line to make them resonate.

While the album is daunting to absorb at a sprawling 77 minutes, the results are well worth it.

"Estudando"... turns mere ideological target practice into surreal and kaleidoscopic musical theater. [9 Apr 2006]

With Once I Was An Eagle, she's finally made a record that matches the magnitude of her vision, and puts her well ahead of almost any twentysomething singer-songwriter peer working today.

It's largely a tour de force that speaks of love and life with an honesty and clarity recalling the optimism of Curtis Mayfield and the occasional dismay of Marvin Gaye. [5 Sep 2004]

Dismissing it as overly familiar obscures the point. Saadiq is a classicist of the best kind - one who not only carries on tradition but expands it.

It is one of the best of his career.

Soul of a Woman catches Jones at her liveliest and most defiant as she lets her powerful voice loose in catchy, funky songs about overcoming hardships and dealing with fickle lovers.

Cooder manages to make his work both cynical and idealistic. But most importantly, it's authentic. [12 Jun 2005]

Akinmusire generally resists the swaggering shows of force that can mark some young talents, but the record is loaded with strikingly expressive highlights.

Fats Waller never sounded like this, but he sounds more alive than ever.

Musically, Sweatshirt couples the words with rhythmically skewed, sampled loops of vintage soul artists including singer Linda Clifford, funk band the Endeavors and Stax Records group the Soul Children. Unlike the boom-bap producers who did the same in the ’90s, though, Sweatshirt busts the bars into cubist, Earl-descending-a-staircase increments.

They've captured a sound as tangibly uplifting as pop music gets. The Mavericks are back and indeed, just in time.

Murphy skillfully layers his sounds for tracks that somehow feel dense and airy at the same time.

At times, Cee-Lo does show the value of holding on to some of his rap. But he is more distinctive and effective as a singer, which makes part of this long, 65-minute CD feel like wasted time.

“Your Power” is the slowest-and-lowest moment on “Happier Than Ever,” but as a whole the album is softer, quieter, more languid than Eilish’s trap-inflected debut. ... The dreamy-jazzy mode suits her singing, which has never sounded better than it does throughout “Happier Than Ever.”

Some songs from Hitchhiker found purchase on Young’s 1979 electric record “Rust Never Sleeps,” but gathered as they were originally intended, Hitchhiker is a profound addition to Young’s canon of campfire classics.

For those who like their pop delicate and unapologetically deep, this is one for turning up loud and wallowing.

A distinguished and captivating extension of, rather than a dramatic departure from, his rich body of work.

With all seven of the songs clocking in at six to 10 minutes each, Bush takes her time, but the songs aren't built of different parts; it's more like mounting meditations on one theme.

An album with the simmering glow of a masterpiece.