It's an album meant to be lived with for a long time--one of the few recent hip-hop that’s built to last.

Each [Fillmore volume] presented a wholly different side of the icon’s genius. But only Fillmore captures the apex of his adventure, a time when an already middle-aged Miles managed to out-freak even the freaks.

As always, the words have a political edge, touching on the evaporating middle class and the difficulties of forging mass movements. Thankfully, they’re expressed poetically, with no stink of political correctness.

Listening again proves it to be that rarest of beasts: a perfect work. There’s not a chord, lyric, beat or inflection that doesn’t pull at the heart or make it soar.

Miles never performed songs the same way twice, so these still carry surprises.

At under 35 minutes, Rock or Bust is the shortest AD/DC album ever. Rest assured, however, this short album is no less sweet.

Even as the band’s music keeps expanding, Welch’s lyrics have narrowed in focus. They’re less abstract this time, more attuned to the vagaries of love.

The new album--Beck’s first in more than five years--has its own melodies and sonic palette. It’s even more fully dedicated to its draggy beat and diffuse sound than “Sea Change.”

Many pieces highlight Beck’s mordant humor. Professional decadent Jarvis Cocker proves ideal for “Eyes That Say I Love You,” dealing wryly with the delusions of love.

The inevitable Heartbreakers comparisons in the new music offer a striking contrast to Petty’s lyrical point of view. While Petty “Won’t Back Down,” Adams’ theme sounds more like a “Breakdown.” If that seems needy and depressing, it’s tempered by Adams’ passion and rock-hard power. He captures the kind of pain that excites.

Listening to Uncle Tupelo’s maiden album in this newly expanded form both underscores its essential power and points up the arbitrariness of its watershed reputation.

Many of the other stars sound like they want to crawl inside Browne’s throat, the better to get closer to the mind that created such exquisite work. Even the most reconsidered renderings make sure never to get in the way of the words.

It offers a crisp and worthy glimpse of a giant.

The music Lake Street makes draws from 1930s jazz, ’50s rockabilly and doo-wop, as well as ’60s blues and soul. The title track idealizes that last mix. It could slip easily onto Bonnie Raitt’s best, early discs.

The reconstituted Blur confines its wilder moments to the margins, using them to add creativity to the arrangements, or hint at the askew worldview expressed in the lyrics. The core of the songs recall the melodic sharpness, and rhythmic force, of the 1990s.

In sound, composition and performance, Sia captures the melodrama of teen life, with all the lunatic exaggeration it deserves.

It helps that her smooth voice sits so comfortably on the songs, content to illuminate their fine tunes rather than over-embellish them with flash.

The music on Lower Reaches follows the pattern of all three Currie solo albums. It’s slower and more ballad driven than his zippy work with Del Amitri. But he does kick up his heels in “Bend to My Will,” which recalls the Eagles' hit "Already Gone."

Luckily, the sweeter sound is in no way slick. It’s balanced against the bare ache in the singers’ voices, and the pained beauty in their tunes. The women’s voices have also matured.

Like all the tracks here, the sound clearly channels the past, but only to buff it with a current sheen.

Dre might have sounded fat and smug at this point. The good news is that, instead, he sounds hungry.

Along the way, the long, 19-song album offers its share of groaners, missteps and songs more indebted to trendy production than solid craft. But its best moments boast some of the most finely structured pop melodies of Madonna’s 32-year career.

As Tweedy has done with Mavis’ music of late, he filed Pops’ final songs down to their steely core.

On the new Shadows in the Night, Dylan redefines the songs entirely, making them conform to his character rather than the other way around.

The looseness of the takes, along with the breadth of genres they draw upon, lets Franklin work all of her tricks, from gospel shouts to Broadway belts to soul runs to a rock star belligerence.

The orchestrations also let us focus on Young as a pure singer, rather than as a holistic musician. And he’s a remarkably effective one. In his aged, spindly whine lies a world of emotion.

The alternate studio takes shoot us into a parallel universe well worth entering.

The new mix, as well as the broader melodies, lets the group escape the dreaded “retro” tag. But it’s the stun-gun effect of Howard’s vocals that puts the Shakes in a class of their own. She’s today’s most volatile singer, the one most prone to erupt when you least expect it.