While Talib's Quality and The Roots' Phrenology break new ground for both acts, Electric Circus is clearly the most adventurous of the trio of releases.

One of the best buys you'll ever make.

In the end, Happy Songs might sound like Mogwai's earlier work or be unapproachable to the listener who spends his time chilling in Sam Goody, but that doesn't mean it's not one of the most amazing albums of the year.

A perfect album of gorgeous dance music.

Each album, from the White Stripes to De Stijl to White Blood Cells, has shown their evolution from Blind Willie McTell cover band with a pop sensibility to full-fledged, honest-to-goodness rock 'n' roll gods, a status finally reached on their latest disc.

"Love and Theft" sees Dylan roaring back from Highway 61 at full bore, reminding us -- as he did on Blonde on Blonde, The Basement Tapes, and Blood on the Tracks -- that, like him or not, there isn't anybody else who can do his job.

This is exactly 40 minutes of transcendent music by someone who we always knew was one of the best singers and songwriters on the scene, but someone who we were afraid was never going to make the music she should be making. Well, she's done it.

Brilliant, shimmering and wonderfully composed, Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn is one of the best albums of year, and the best album GY!BE have never released.

The production is crystal clear and the soundstage huge, but the true achievement here stems from the huge difficulty in being able to tell where musical mastery has become studio wizardry, as the recording has the vitality and sensitivity of a live recording as well as the flawless sound and power of the synthetic.

This is the kind of beautiful album that Reed knows he can make in his sleep yet seldom does.

Layering his idiosyncratic songs with elements of classical, jazz, Broadway and Disney movie scores, Barnes elevates Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies into the pantheon of seminal new pop masterpieces that test our very concepts of what modern pop should sound like.

Screw Wilco; In Our Gun is sounding very much like the Album of the Year.

Neon Golden is one of the most exquisite electronic albums to come out in ages.

World Without Tears is a complex, multifaceted album that musically highlights Williams's continued blurring of musical genres and poetic lyrics.

Some of the most euphoric, mind-blowingly beautiful music we have heard in years.

Skull Ring is not merely a testament to Iggy's staying power as an artist, but it is also an amazing feat in that it melds the past, present and future of punk/pop onto a single CD.

The best record to come out this year.

Meticulously choppy and frequently free of inherent genre boundaries, it's an askew masterpiece of brains, brawn, heart, and soul.

The three discs represent lightning captured in a bottle.

This fine, fine album (quite possibly the finest of year) signals that the White Stripes have arrived. Hype or no hype, this is a band of significance...

Geogaddi is successful as few other albums are. Whereas many artists and groups tend to released records composed of series of unrelated songs, songs based on single concepts, or songs written and recorded during single studio sessions, Boards of Canada's latest has done something exponentially spectacular and commendable.

The most prolific, beautiful, and vital statement of rock since the Stooges' Raw Power.

I can't stress enough how brilliant this record is, how pertinent and valuable its songs are to our lives.

Original Pirate Material, to put it plainly, is the most vivid evocation of life as a young person in the UK since Blur's Parklife, and yes, even The Clash's first album.

It is an album that can be loved as both an achievement and an experience, a document and a revelation; it is simultaneously a problem to be solved and a spectacle to simply witness.

With this record, Skinner is now in a class all his own; nobody else is making music like this.

Easily one of the best classic re-releases yet.

For fans of a certain kind of music, there is unlikely to be a more significant release in 2006.

With Blood Mountain, Mastodon have completed a three-album arc that most young bands can only dream of, culminating in a record that’s as thrilling as it is multifaceted, as melodic as it is bludgeoning.

For my money, Newsom has demonstrated more nuance, depth of feeling, and originality than a hundred bedazzling pop divas.

At Carnegie Hall staunchly carries with it the brand characteristics that launched this cultural exchange.

This is genre-defying music, but anyone with an interest in hearing a blueprint for trip hop or a master class in the depiction of desire in pop music, should be sure to listen to this mysterious, timeless, contradictory album.

It wouldn’t be hyperbolic to declare Keep an Eye on the Sky an indispensable cornerstone of any serious music fan’s collection, and one of the greatest box sets ever assembled. Finally, Big Star get their due chance to shine.

This album is so near-flawless it would be easy to go on and on about how you need to hear it as soon as possible.

However delayed Live at Reading‘s official release is, thankfully fans can finally rejoice and celebrate its long-awaited arrival. Few live shows are able to communicate a band’s heart and soul the way Nirvana’s is brilliantly encapsulated here.

Raw Power is one of his definitive statements, and it is presented here in superb form. You owe it to yourself to get this.

At the end of the day, few people will doubt Pinkerton's power, and whether you're hearing it for the first time or just for the first time in a few months, it remains as visceral a listen as ever.

Six years later, Kanye is undoubtedly the most openly self-aware MC. And the music world should be grateful to have him. I know I am.

Because half these songs are already widely available elsewhere, this collection has slightly less archival impact than the Gentile Elvis's Sun Sessions or last year's widely-circulated Never Mind the Bullets, Here's Early Bob Seger. Musically, though, it's in their league.

No matter how many releases we get from the Davis archives, no matter how familiar you are with his mid-'60s work, LIVE in Europe 1967 will surprise you and remind you that, even in lean times, even when the trends of the genre he championed were moving away from him, even when his country stopped caring, Miles Davis found a way to press forward, to reinvent, and to give us yet another classic sound, and perhaps the final thrilling word on Jazz as he knew it.

This release reorients us around familiar material, but outdoes all previously existing versions in the scope of its execution and comparative completeness.

Upon further reflection, an Achtung Baby shorn of any extras should be more than enough to satisfy you, after all-that's how it's been served for the past two decades. Everything else is mere garnish on top of a flat-out genius work.

The bonus CD makes it alarmingly clear that the Pumpkins could have assembled another cracking album from the Siamese Dream castoffs before embarking on the road to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995)...The new editions of Gish and Siamese Dream (especially Siamese Dream, which handily outclasses its companion release in all areas) are sumptuous reminders of the heights the group once attained back when it had everything to prove and nothing to lose.

The most impressive album ever painstakingly assembled across space and time.

The album that Pink Floyd made in 1979 marked a milestone in progressive rock, and this box set captures everything perfect and imperfect about the album.

This is an album that is simply, in the most awe-inspired sense of the term, absolutely golden from end to end – a real treasure and an utter delight to experience every time you play it.

Cryptic and daunting, "Dopesmoker" is the quintessential stoner metal track. Sixteen years since its birth, it remains unsurpassed.

This entire collection proves one thing: Paul Simon and Graceland will remain as one of the most relevant pop records of all time.

If none of the new songs are essential, they'll still be a boon to completists, while those who only know Guthrie's most famous songs will get a much more rounded overview from Woody at 100.

In four and a half hours, Wadada Leo Smith writes one of America's defining events in sound, and the story is all of ours.

It was as powerful a set of players as Davis ever played with, but it also did its own thing, carving out a space that was equal parts eccentric and classic, innovative and authoritative.

Newcomers are strongly advised to absorb and understand Inspiration Information (and the two albums that preceded it) before passing judgment on the new stuff. That said, for anyone fearing the worst, they exceed any reasonable expectations.

It’s one of the most honest albums I’ve heard, but even better, it’s told with expertise.

It sounds as relevant, fresh, vital and modern as if it were recorded this year. It’s a classic in the making.

The result of this incredible journey, Memorial, is the first landmark post-metal release since Isis’ Panopticon, Russian Circles’ greatest achievement, and unquestioningly one of 2013’s true artistic masterpieces.

If you care a thing for rock ‘n’ roll, country, or American music in general, No Depression is simply essential.

Around these four brilliant sets, we also get three bonus cuts from the Fillmore West in April of 1970. These sets [are] a bit murkier in quality--the four proper sets here are pristine--but they make for compelling contrasts.

The improvement over the seven previously released tracks is one thing, but the treasure here is the 11 unreleased performances.... Few bands ever had a year like the Velvet Underground did in 1969. Even fewer have a set that documents a year like that as beautifully as this one.

The original album is unblemished, all the contemporary b-sides are accounted for, the Peel Sessions are a nice bonus, and as usual, the striking packaging by Vaughan Oliver is incomparable.

Standing in sharp contrast with the 1950s performances, these recordings are furious, emotionally charged and borderline unhinged. It’s an exhilarating contrast that, when listened through start to finish, charts the creative journey of a true musical genius.

This is material that has, and will continue to stand the test of time.

he Bootleg Series Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966 is more than just music--it’s cultural history of colossal significance. This collection is a resource that fans and students of Dylan’s work will reference again and again as the years and decades pass and these classic albums are introduced to new generations of music fans.

Almost 50 years after the fact, that first Cluster record (named either Cluster or Cluster 71, depending on whom you ask) still sounds miles ahead of the curve.

The Ramones will remain a launching pad for artists and bands around the globe, as a sense of “Hey, I can do that, too!” is born upon your first listen. It either grabs you for life or scares the shit out of you. Either way, the simplicity is the genius.

He may be nearly half a century gone, but the music of Otis Redding remains in 2016 as thrillingly vital and perfect as the moment in which the words first left his lips. Live at the Whiskey a Go Go is a testament to his brilliance and status as the King of Soul and is thus, in a word, essential.

A Crow Looked at Me is a masterpiece in the manner of A Grief Observed and “She Will Find What is Lost”. All of these works create a special communion between creator and observer, artistic experiences that join individual circumstances of loss with whatever the listener/reader/viewer brings to the work.

In their short time together and in their subsequent careers as solo artists, Morrissey and Marr have yet to equal or surpass what they accomplished here. This one belongs to the ages.

The album is a visionary statement of arrival, a potent and singular masterpiece that exposes the deepest chambers of a fiercely beating heart with a singular purity of focus. It's a mesmerizing journey of self-actualization in an era when constant connection makes that all the more difficult. After soil, Wise's reach seems infinite.

At least half of the 30 songs in The Beatles stand among the best of their career. Now, with this carefully detailed and appreciative restoration of how they were developed (from the beginning to end), this boxed set is yet more proof that genius doesn't take time so much as concerted, focused effort, and there is no way to trace the roots of perfect sonic chemistry. You just know it when you hear it.

The Abbey Road Anniversary Super Deluxe proves they were a cohesive unit through to the end. Their work once again sounds fresh and experimental yet always in the pocket of the melody. We can hear that the Beatles were eager to work together one more time to pour more musical flavors into their magic elixir.

3.15.20 captures the tumultuous contemporary moment. As society contends with sickness, anger, and fear, Glover remedies the malignancy while fueling the anguish. 3.15.20 signals an important shift for Childish Gambino and secures the album's spot as one of the best of the year.

Ambitious and profound while remaining compelling unpredictable, it's a constantly shape-shifting, all-encompassing musical experience. Outland is, quite simply, a masterpiece.

What makes Wildflowers & All the Rest worth perusing is the home recordings. As the record takes shape in Petty's home studio, we understand how Petty managed to make Wildflowers so uniquely devastating.

Spare Ribs is perhaps the band's high watermark, a searing masterpiece of social commentary, childhood memories and recovered trauma, scathing wit, punk energy, funk, and hip-hop influences, and much more. This is a record with no fat and no filler.

This is truly a virtuosic tour de force. Every time you hear a new Jane Weaver album and think to yourself, well, that’s about it, there’s nowhere she can go from here, and then she goes to yet another level, forging still new paths.

With Dream Weapon, Genghis Tron don’t so much transition as achieve transcendence of everything they once were. And the change is so fully realized that it renders notions of genre loyalism utterly moot.

It's a complete package - a work of seductive, heartfelt brilliance by an artist at the absolute peak of her powers.

The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts does a great job of showing the power and the glory of Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. The excitement is palpable even on record 40-plus years later.

This is not only a treasure trove for Mitchell completists, but it’s also a definitive chronicle of the ascent of the greatest artist of the singer-songwriter genre. It’s a credit to her talent that none of the tracks – even outtakes and alternate versions of memorable songs – feel superfluous. The live tunes are especially poignant and captivating because we’re privy to an artist growing into her talents and gifts.

Blondie’s Against the Odds is a story of many intersections: art and commerce, punk and pop, disco and rock, femininity and masculinity, and underground with the mainstream. Against the Odds tells that story beautifully.

Desire, I Want to Turn Into You is one of these future classics. ... Engaging at every turn and carefully calibrated to its point of view, it represents art pop hitting yet another dizzy apex.

Review 1: <A HREF="http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/s/stills-logic.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Logic is a certifiable classic.</A> [score=100]; Review 2: <A HREF="http://www.popmatters.com/music/reviews/s/stills-logic2.shtml" TARGET="_blank">Every bit the equal to [Interpol's] Bright Lights. </A> [score=90]

Easily one of the year's top 10, if not top five.

Prewitt doesn't waste a second of Three's near-hour length, filling it with an affinity of bouncy rhythms and pop goodness, in turn eclipsing the output of many of his underground rock contemporaries.

How I Long to Feel That Summer in My Heart further underscores how brilliantly anomalous and unfashionably brilliant GZM are.

Little Sparrow contains some of the most beautiful and affecting music Parton has ever made...

They are basically just the Archies for our generation, a transcendent bubblegum band that works its ass off to make all this stuff look easy.

Built to Spill's latest album is mellower, dreamier, and more laidback than their previous recordings.... Yet the album is as much of a rock-guitar masterpiece as anything they've done.

Brainwashed is a rich musical treasure trove well mined in execution and production.

Home is a definite top pick for 2002, and certainly kicked country music in its ass once again when it needed it the most.

Every so often there is a true musical "moment" when an act breaks through that is so complete, so utterly surprising, that as a music critic, I can't help but throw my hands up in the air and leave behind any hope of real criticism as each spin pushes me further into fandom. Lemon Jelly is that act of the moment.

It's shallow, pretentious, flamboyant, catchy, and just plain freaky at times, but unlike all the empty pop music you hear on mainstream radio today, this is one pop album that gets it right for once, and what a pure blast it is.

These eight tracks positively bristle with energy and exuberance.

At 36 minutes, Girls Can Tell packs more hooks than most bands fit into their entire discography... This is truly one of the most intense pop records since This Year's Model.

Like Nick Drake, he's a master at crafting melodies so simple, so memorable, it makes your heart melt.

Throughout Send, Wire strike the right compromise, pushing their songs to brink of chaos without ever allowing them to disintegrate.

Such perfectionism can easily be construed as soullessness, but I think what Deakin and Franglin are actually striving for here is to strike a balance between the warmth and humanity of their music's sounds and the machine-like grace of its flawless production.

There's no other way to say it: Tammy Ealom is one of the most unassuming and perfect songwriters in modern pop.