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

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.

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.

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.

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.

The best record to come out this year.

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.

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.

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.

The three discs represent lightning captured in a bottle.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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]

When a band like the Dillinger Escape Plan is able to duplicate the intensity of the previous album, yet at the same time create music that actually possesses (gasp!) commercial appeal, daring to cause an uproar among dyed-in-the-wool hardcore fans, you know they're on to something memorable.

There’s a sense of purpose here, of direction and clarity, shafts of accessibility that relegate the din to the background without ever compromising the potentially hostile underbelly of the band’s core sound.

From backmasking to know-it-all moralists, Arabia Mountain is sprinkled with themes of human folly, aging, change, and corruption, enacted with humorous efficiency, delivered with instrumental-new word-subtlety, all to show, unsurprisingly, that the Black Lips differ greatly with the PTA over the corrupting agents of everyday life and their antidotes.

Live it’s easy to ignore the subtleties of the songs, which makes Six Demon Bag a different, but equally great experience.

Lambchop have long been one of America’s greatest bands, and Damaged is their greatest achievement.