What matters, what it all boils down to, is The Strokes write incredibly powerful songs, and those who allow the media -- or better yet their reaction to the media, what I call the anti media -- to influence their opinions are missing out.

In danger of hitting the point of "OK, we get it" -- when that zap of newness wears off and a successful band suddenly feels less than essential -- the New Pornographers instead come up pretty big on Twin Cinema, transitioning to a sound just as catchy as their old stuff but with more space for the tunes to breathe.

Their finest record to date and the most blistering, blissful album to be released by anyone in years.

Though this new political bent shows a heightened sense of maturity and substance, two of Morning's best tracks are poignant, unabashed love songs.

A rare, perfect instance of collaboration, where two distinct sets of talents merge into something larger than its parts.

An album full of vitality that is smart and intelligent without being boring. More importantly, however, it is simply incredible.

Chávez Ravine works because, ultimately, it isn't a history lesson or museum piece. It's the sound of musicians, now on the periphery, playing and singing the music they love.

The Life Pursuit is an immaculate album; Belle & Sebastian craft pure pop perfection better than just about anybody.

Every line is razor sharp and yet brilliantly descriptive.

Akron/Family merge shifting, sometimes impressionistic arrangements with limpid lyricism. The result is an elusive -- but strong and deeply fascinating -- debut.

The most amazing power-pop album I've heard all year.

It is quite possibly Stoltz's best work ever, and certainly one of the landmark releases of 2006.

Record of the year.

They still retain a unique identity even as they plunder and explore more generic alt-rock themes, and their particular skill is in making this transformation seem logical and welcome.

The difference this time is that the Hold Steady consistently kick ass, nailing both Paul Westerberg's Teenage Yearning/Angst and Bruce's Common Man to a cross of Pure American Rock, unafraid of cliché, undaunted by the task of making the familiar exciting again.

Rocks like Bad Company and Thin Lizzy and vintage Springsteen. Look out.

Combining brute force with melody, Worlds Apart is a stunning showcase for AYWKUBTTOD's mature sound, full of unexpected subtleties, musical wild-cards and detours.

The magic of the album lies in the way Wilson's complex, challenging sonic vision can evoke the optimism, hope, and wonder that gave birth to this album decades ago.

The songs don't float off into space; the strumming guitars and subtle electronic effects give the fantastic lyrics an earthy feel, rather than lifting them into the air.

Trampin' has her sounding revitalized, her contagious energy striking sparks off her longtime musical collaborators.

Ultimately the album is bolstered by the risks he takes, and though it trips a bit and never quite achieves the direct vision of previous efforts, it's rewarding nonetheless, for the perspective it brings to Darnielle's body of work.

The Magnolia Electric Co. succeeds where other albums of a similar nature fail because it has the courage to point towards what is wrong with itself and the medium through which it is presented.

What really puts the album over the top is the way Edan manages to twist the DNA of two distinctly throwback styles, '60s psych-rock and '80s golden-age hip-hop, into a 2005 mutant plaid platypus.

Meloy's words stir your insides like good poetry, his imaginative tales climb into your mind, set up camp and stay awhile. But without the enchanting, heart-wrenching and totally affecting power that is the consequence of The Decemberists' music, the words would not have ever found life.

They've broken their own mold and achieved something unexpectedly fine and durable.

A work of real substance, brimming with honesty, humor and beauty.

Once you get acclimatized to the torturous messages and the dynamic, diverse musical accompaniment shifts from song to song, it becomes obvious that Uh Huh Her is one of Harvey's most rewarding albums.

The music here combines the scrappy, psychedelic folk of Hour of Bewilderbeast with the more melodic and sentimental "About a Boy" soundtrack.

An exhilarating take on rock-'n'-roll caught, torn, between striving for the light and reveling in the dark.

A collection of slow, sad, stately songs whose obvious studio smarts are dwarfed by a big bleeding folkie's heart.

At the close, the guitars surge forward in waves of noise, a precursor of what's to come. And come it does, with the hammering, staccato fuzz of the album's title track and the speed riffs of "Woman on the Screen."

One of funniest, smartest, truest, saddest and flat-out rockingest (in the very best way) albums I've heard in a very long time.

As whole, the record is hardly notable for its special guests; the beauty of Antony's singing, the ferociousness of his delivery, the profundity of his songs, and the unflinching nature make the disc truly transcend such.

Part of what makes this album work so well is that Gummere is willing to cede the mic to other bandmembers whose contributions contrast nicely with his own vocals.

Over two CDs the music expands towards novel-like richness.

What makes At War With the Mystics different is spontaneity -- and not spontaneity in a jazz sense. Listening to this album you get the feeling that absolutely anything could happen -- as if it's taking final form only as it reverberates off your eardrums.

Rather Ripped is what you'd expect from a Sonic Youth that's getting back to the cool rock 'n' roll sound they trademarked years ago, completed by a tagline of frenzied feedback and chiming guitars.

Horn turns in the best work of his career, giving DCW a collection of sounds so potent and invigorating that the album may be Belle & Sebastian's Revolver.

Combining dramatic, ethereal pop vocals with moody guitar and piano theatrics, Summer in Abaddon recalls a tighter, smoothed-out Built to Spill, or maybe a Dismemberment Plan reunion.

The beauty and richness of our seemingly mundane lives can be found here, in the bossa-nova of minor catastrophes, the pseudo-jazz of strippers, and the easy lilt of coffee cups.

All of One Beat is strung loosely together by a common plea: for awareness, for understanding, and, most of all, for holding onto hope.

A monumental rock-'n'-roll album.

If naysayers can't get past the sheen of spiced-up production, it's their loss.

This is The Decemberists' strongest release to date, and proves that the group's unique thesaurus-rock has a bright future.

The combination of timeless songs, superb production and Banhart's often mesmerizing performance make for a very strong album.

Whichever way you look at it, as avant-pop or cubist soul, Return to Cookie Mountain remains an intoxicating, intriguing but accessible album.

Among contemporaries, Calla now stand alone, making dark, beautiful, intensely understated music that's as much landscape as narrative story.

It recalls U2's The Joshua Tree, and not just for its stunning guitar work but for its wild passion and spiraling tension-and-release dynamics.

It's big but it's also clever.

With this album, French Kicks have taken a sizeable leap forward, taking the right bits and pieces from half a century of rock 'n' roll to make something new and, yes, unique.

This is exactly the album that should be blasting from car radios all summer.

Their third full-length is their best ever, a passionate yet cohesive vault into outsized rock sound.

Like previous albums, this one is full of sharp, sudden observations, rueful admissions of failure and surprising sweetness.

Boy in da Corner defies genre in a defiant manner, refusing to be defined, refusing, even, to be dismissed.

There's an indefinable freshness and purity here.

Daybreaker bears all the strengths and beauty of the earlier Orton CDs, but it also shows some growth.

Spine-tinglingly great.

A very fine solo album indeed.

Even in the record's most strung-out moments of tension and distortion, Unwound sound nothing more than soft and sweet.

Sea Change not only signals a pinnacle in his career but may just be remembered, in an environment fueled by accelerating cycles of disposable culture, as one of this young decade's best records.

This is one of the best albums of 2000.

Transcendent and well-turned, Soft Commands is another exceptional recording from a talented, aware artist.

She sounds as distant as much of the Anthology of American Folk Music, and yet there is an intimacy to her songs. This is a singer/poet who really feels things. And this is the new, weird America, and Holland is singing its woes with a wisdom far beyond her age.

The Strokes don't make the most original sounding music you've ever heard, but they make something that is only The Strokes.

The comparisons to the Mamas and the Papas are ultimately weak; there's a lot of blues mixed in with the folky pop, and traces of '80s British band Prefab Sprout, who also spun their troubles into melodic gold full of boy/girl harmonizing.

[He's] invented a loud and severely impassioned polished rock sound.

Listening to Hypermagic Mountain is like picking up the live end of a downed power line.

If Foxtrot's songs were fractured pop, then Ghost is just plain fracture, a soft and brutal self-examination that pulls no punches even as it manages to remain carefully elliptical.

Sigur Rós piece together breathtaking orchestrations that sound like they're singing to you from another world, telling you why your world is not so bad, that even in all the miserable monotony, something beautiful perseveres.

In the end, it is musicianship that makes Duper Sessions unquestionably successful.

YHF is a fierce record.

It's a sound that doesn't loudly proclaim itself, but nevertheless insinuates its way in, until it feels quietly indispensable.

Exceptionally beautiful and assured.

The Crane Wife is an impressively realized song cycle.

Cannibal Sea is startlingly immediate.

This is the defining Destroyer work because of its size and scope, because of its melodicism ("Painter in Your Pocket" the hottest pop song Bejar's authored yet), because of the caliber of its musical chops, and because of the shots Bejar continues to fire.

Berman's most accomplished album.

O's seductive, cooing/shrieking contributions to the power of the Yeahs are immense, but they are no bigger than those of guitarist Zinner or drummer Chase.

For Human Animal, Wolf Eyes have stepped back from pure violence, bringing in some of the old cinematic features while retaining pieces of the vicious nature that has served them well.

His 12th record holds no surprises for longtime fans, and yet here it is, his best, his greatest.

This is simply some of the best guitar-driven rock I've heard all year.

Donelly shows a grace on this disc that a lot of people her age aren't capable of.

Unlike previous albums, Ovalcommers wheezes and squirms its way inside.

No, this album is not superfluous -- far from it. The Avalanche brings Stevens' exacting vision on Illinois into sharper focus.

The icy qualities of Last Exit's synths are retained, but the old minimalism is certainly gone, and enough real warmth buoys these productions that songcraft actually develops.

Finn's masterful lyrics can't be ignored. And the music, stopping, starting and crashing with wrenching enthusiasm, is equally undeniable. But the way Finn understands the human condition in all its glory and contradiction is, simply, brilliant.

With About a Boy, Badly Drawn boy has grown up.

While their sound may be familiar, Camera Obscura are anything but run-of-the-mill.

Moonlight, which grows more and more likeable with repeated listens, is Spoon's strongest effort yet, topping 2001's Girls Can Tell and even 1998's A Series of Sneaks.

Listening to Introduction is like viewing the world through someone else's glasses, skewed, disturbing and perhaps causing a bit of vertigo.

There are no shocks or surprises, but instead, How I Long... thrills us softly, its tiny layers and details all intricately woven together into a cohesive and aesthetically delightful tapestry.

On Out of Season, Gibbons' voice takes the spotlight. There's a quivery sound, similar to Billie Holiday's, which gets lost amid Portishead's stops and starts.

If you're a fan of tuneful, American-influenced pop-punk, Ash are waiting to burn a hole through your heart.

Heroes to Zeros, in spite of a few uneven tracks, makes the cut.

So while not breaking new ground -- a near impossible expectation given the amount of ground The Fall has already broken -- The Real New Fall LP is a strong indication that Mark E. Smith is nowhere near finished.

Superior to its predecessor in just about every respect.

Lounge-rock for world-weary sophisticates.

This is pop music pushing the boundaries of what pop music should be, without having to resort to overproduced and mass-marketed gloss.