In terms of consistency, craftsmanship and musical experimentation, Goddess in the Doorway surpasses all his solo work and any Rolling Stones album since Some Girls.

To the 5 Boroughs is an exciting, astonishing balancing act: fast, funny and sobering.

It is a glorious thing to hear. It will be one of the best things you hear all year.

The remarkable achievement of Love and Theft is that Dylan makes the past sound as strange, haunted and alluring as the future...

Even for him, though, The Rising, with its bold thematic concentration and penetrating emotional focus, is a singular triumph.

A serious, ridiculously ambitious punk album. [14 Oct 2004, p.100]

It's looser and messier than Sgt. Pepper and, one suspects, always would have been. But its sui generis Americanism counterbalances its paucity of classic pop songs.

Late Registration is an undeniable triumph, packed front to back, so expansive it makes the debut sound like a rough draft.

His third straight masterwork. [7 Sep 2006, p.99]

Magic is, in one way, the most openly nostalgic record Springsteen has ever made.

Rarely does an act so flatteringly curate its own brilliance.

Working on a Dream is the richest of the three great rock albums Springsteen has made this decade with the E Street Band--and moment for moment, song for song, there are more musical surprises than on any Bruce album you could name.

He is still singing about singing, all over No Line on the Horizon, U2's first album in nearly five years and their best, in its textural exploration and tenacious melodic grip, since 1991's "Achtung Baby."

The sound quality is astonishing.

This three-disc remastered Ya-Ya's includes the original in all its gritty glory. Disc Two is a five-song EP from the same shows, with acoustic performances--"Prodigal Son" and "You Gotta Move"--from Richards (playing a resonator guitar) and Jagger. The third disc is an unexpected treat: blistering sets by openers B.B. King plus Ike and Tina Turner (doing an outrageously steamy take on Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long").

Finally, the third and most brutal album from these Detroit legends gets both the rawness and the power it deserves.

It was a long haul to that nasty perfection — "Loving Cup" was first recorded in 1969; "Sweet Virginia" was a salty-country leftover from Sticky Fingers — and the outtakes unearthed and, in some cases, retouched for this reissue reveal more (not a lot but enough to be grateful for) about the process and detours

On The Union, produced by T Bone Burnett, John and Russell share the resurrection. Each goes back to what he first did best. Then they do it together.

My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is his most maniacally inspired music yet, coasting on heroic levels of dementia, pimping on top of Mount Olympus.

Greatest protest album ever made? Most stirring soul-music symphony? Yes and yes. And then some.

It's a museum piece, a record that merits a display in the Smithsonian.

The bonus material is not essential listening, but since U2 rarely pull back the curtain on their creative process, it's fascinating to hear this rough draft of history.

This edition has 12 outtakes, most of which have been hoarded on bootlegs by Stones fanatics for years. Some of the bonus tracks are nearly as hot as the originals.

The most despairing, confrontational and musically turbulent album Bruce Springsteen has ever made.

Reminds us that, for all of Simon's genius with tunes and lyrics, it's his rhythmic searching and sophistication that sets him apart.

[Tempest is] a thing to behold.

The real revelations are recordings that part the curtains on the making of Rumours, like Christine McVie's solo-piano-demo rendition of "Songbird."

Wrote a Song for Everyone does not replace anything Fogerty did the first time around. It affirms the living history in his greatest hits--that of a great nation still being born.

It takes a band as myth-saturated as the Clash to live up to a career-summing box as ambitious as this one. But Joe Strummer and his crew of London gutter-punk romantics fit the bill.

All totaled: a trunkload of what at this point are barroom folk standards, played so vividly you'll be bellowing along.

This welcome five-CD-plus-DVD expansion adds several non-LP singles; a new, nine-cut tribute set featuring contemporary fans from Miguel to Fall Out Boy (John Grant's sighing "Sweet Painted Lady" is the highlight); a vintage documentary about the album's creation; and, best of all, an explosive London concert that demonstrates how hard John and his kickass band could rock between eloquent ballads.

III was a masterful union of ballads and bruising, and a giant step in the songwriting ascent toward, later, "No Quarter" and "Kashmir."

U2's first studio album in five years--is a triumph of dynamic, focused renaissance.

The trunk of treasure he and the Band made in their short season of hiding keeps on giving.

The latest reissue of the album spotlights its sonic depth, thanks to illuminative remastering by guitarist-producer Jimmy Page, and, on the deluxe edition, alternate mixes of each track.

Alongside alternate LP mixes are early versions of "Andy's Chest," "The Ocean," and "Rock'n'Roll"; fascinating abandoned outtakes slated for a supposed "lost" fourth LP ("Coney Island Steeplechase," "Ferryboat Bill"); and some of the most exciting live VU recordings ever.

Physical Graffiti, in its cocksure energies and determined reach, was Zeppelin's last, swaggering masterpiece.

The alternate takes in this reissue show how hard the Stones worked to sound so natural.

Whether she's holding notes with the strength of a suspension bridge or enjoying a rare lighthearted "whoo-hoo!" on "Sweetest Devotion," her incredible phrasing – the way she can infuse any line with nuance and power – is more proof that she's among the greatest interpreters of romantic lyrics.

Lemonade is her most emotionally extreme music, but also her most sonically adventurous.

As it turns out, Giles Martin reveals considerable new wonders--particularly in his stereo remix of the original album. The remix, in fact, provides a long overdue epiphany. ... Popular music's most elaborate and intricate creation--and one that helped end the mono era--wasn't made to be heard in stereo.

The only dicey part is an uneven disc of six remixes: some provide new insights, others fall flat. ... With three other discs and a book of the Edge's moving black & white portraits of the band in the California desert, the box is a thorough portrait of a band on the verge, ready to burst into the arms of America and the rest of the world.

All [of the unreleased songs] were recorded around the time of OK Computer; all are unimpeachably first-rate; and yet, all were sensibly left off the original. Nevertheless, they complete the picture of one of rock's greatest bands cresting their first creative peak.

It's a fabulously crisp mix of one of modern pop's greatest LPs. Details sparkle.

The set includes the Memphis Recording Service acetates Presley had cut on his own dime ($3.98 a pair, to be exact); the entire legendary Sun Sessions, aborted takes and all; and every known concert and radio recording from the period. The sound quality is likely as good as it'll ever get, and the performances are musical bedrock.

It's no surprise, given how developed Guyville is for a debut, that Phair's playful arrangements and lyrical incision were there from the jump. Her voice expands from singsong to confident as she figures out just what it can do. ... Due to Phair's songwriting and enduring cultural salience (and Wood's production), the album has aged better than the work of her peers. Phair was initially derided for being too pop, but that's what gives Guyville both timelessness and grace.

Imagine: The Ultimate Collection is a lavish celebration of John’s masterwork.

There are 50 tracks of the work in progress--outtakes and sketches; roads not taken and songs left behind--across the summer and fall of 1968. But the Esher tapes are a profound record in themselves. There are rough lyrics and missing parts; Lennon’s “Glass Onion” is just one, repeated verse. But this is an unprecedented view of the Beatles at the ground zero of songwriting as well as the trials and conflict that charged that bounty.

The original album still sparkles, thanks to the remastering job, and the documentary is insightful (most of it came out previously as an episode of Classic Albums). But it’s the non-album material that makes the box set definitive.

Giles Martin and Sam Okell have done a new mix in stereo, 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Atmos. The mix does wonders for moments like the three-way guitar duel in “The End,” with Paul, George and John trading off solos live on the studio floor. The Sgt. Pepper and White Album sets were packed with mind-blowing experiments and jams, but Abbey Road is considerably more focused. In these 23 outtakes and demos, you hear a band in the zone, knowing exactly what they want to do, working hard to finesse the details, even the ones only they’ll notice.

Kid A Mnesia isn’t just a monument of Radiohead’s bravest, boldest music—it’s a tribute to keeping the creative fires burning even in the coldest of times.

The new Red is even bigger, glossier, deeper, casually crueler. It’s the ultimate version of her most gloriously ambitious mega-pop manifesto.

Adele has never sounded more ferocious than she does on 30—more alive to her own feelings, more virtuosic at shaping them into songs in the key of her own damn life. It’s her toughest, most powerful album yet.

Her tenth album returns to the dazzling synth-pop of albums like '1989' and 'Reputation,' with lyrics caught between a love story and a revenge plot.

What’s clearer now in hindsight, especially thanks to this new box set, is how the quartet took its collective influences and refracted them into something cohesively “Beatles.” ... Revolver heralded the Beatles’ metamorphosis from greatness into immortality.

All over The Record, they keep recombining their individual styles into a different kind of chemistry for each song. That’s why they transcend any kind of “supergroup” cliché. After all, supergroups are a dime a dozen compared to actual great bands. And boygenius leave no doubt about where they stand.

Her excellent new Guts is another instant classic, with her most ambitious, intimate, and messy songs yet. Olivia’s pop-punk bangers are full of killer lines (“I wanna meet your mom, just to tell her her son sucks”) but she pushes deeper in powerful ballads like “Logical.” All over Guts, she’s so witty, so pissed off, so angsty at the same time, the way only a rock star can be. And this is the album of a truly brilliant rock star.

By the fourth line — "Being this young is art" — it's obvious, the track ["Slut!"] is a stunner. .... The chorus [of "Say Don’t Go"] ("Why'd you have to lead me on? Why'd you have to twist the knife?") hits so tragically hard that it was destined to be screamed by stadiums full of fans at future Eras shows. "Suburban Legends" is a euphoric, dizzying rush to the head, with Antonoff's production making it sound like the soundtrack to the world's most addictive arcade game.

Grande’s latest is a gorgeously exposed journey to the end of her world — or at least what she believes to be the end. It’s a divorce album that goes through all the stages of grief, and the singer navigates a new beginning with some of the most honest and inventive songs of her career so far.

Some of Beyoncé’s best vocal work on record, produced flawlessly and at the forefront of each track. Her voice as an instrument is wielded superbly across the entire album but most strikingly at the top of it, as she glides across country and R&B inflections effortlessly.

Stunning. .... Tortured Poets has the intimate sound of Folklore and Evermore, but with a coating of Midnights synth-pop gloss.

Austin's favorite trio dishes out eleven helpings of diverse alt-pop on what may wind up being the finest record of its ilk all year. Charged by song sculptor/frontman Britt Daniel, this start-to-finish triumph never underachieves even if it has an effortless aura at times.

This record demands a room full of quiet and your undivided attention. Listen to it any other way and you may be disappointed, even bored, by it. And that will be your hard luck, because Silver and Gold is Neil Young at his hushed, acoustic best: simple, romantic, direct.

His album of Waits' penned-and-produced songs may be the masterwork of Hammond's long career, as well as further testament to Waits' unique genius.

This is a record of breathtaking, eccentric opulence.

Why anybody would choose to spend their life without a copy of This Is Not a Test! is a mystery.

The album's producer, Gil Norton (whose crescendos for the Pixies were an alternative-rock cornerstone), has subtly filled out the sound of the Patti Smith Group without losing its handmade, jamming essence. Guitar tones resonate through the mix, and new lines snake through what used to be hollow space.

In somebody else's defiance of death, we in the audience get an intense affirmation of life, not to mention some of the best jokes in rock & roll history.

Produced by Ken Nelson, who was also responsible for Badly Drawn Boy's Bewilderbeast, Quiet Is the New Loud is equally praiseworthy, as the band conjures up the spirit of Nick Drake with eerie precision.

Captures Zep in prime swagger.

If this combination of big-name backers, undeniable skills, radio-ready tracks and a marketable thug persona make Get Rich or Die Tryin' a sure-shot smash hit, it also makes it a great record.

Lynn and White weren't straining to make history, just a damn good Loretta Lynn album. But it sure sounds classic anyway.

It comes down to the songs, and these are the most intense he's ever written, one instant classic after another.

Weird, playful, unclassifiable, sexy, brilliantly addictive.

Devils and Dust is also as immediate and troubling as this morning's paper.

If you happen to be a rock band, and you don't happen to be either of the White Stripes, it so sucks to be you right now.

Like the other two [albums], it's speaker-blowingly brilliant. [11 Aug 2005, p.70]

A Bigger Bang is just a straight-up, damn fine Rolling Stones album, with no qualifiers or apologies necessary for the first time in a few decades.

Might be the most oddly beautiful, psychedelic and ambitious [album] of the year. [21 Sep 2006, p.84]

Kala strikes deep. There's a resolute sarcasm, a weariness and defiant determination, a sense of pleasure carved out of work--articulated by the lyrics, embodied by the music.

On Graduation, West tries hard to address the problems on his first two albums, and succeeds: The new disc is tighter than "Late Registration" (fifty-one minutes long), with no skits (thank heavens) and less ornate production.

All of it rocks; none of it sounds like any other band on earth; it delivers an emotional punch that proves all other rock stars owe us an apology.

All he [Malkmus] wants to do is surrender to the lightheaded rush of the music, and the results are downright glorious.

This isn't a mixtape, it's a suite of songs, paced and sequenced for maxaqimum impact.

Tell Tale Signs makes plain that Dylan knows the caprices of the world he lives in, now more than ever.

Just as exuberant is the part of Disc Two dominated by the jazz-infused playing of pianist Rubén González, whose spiraling solos bring roars from the crowd.

This reissue bonanza shows the Nineties' premier indie band turning reflective and joyfully screwing around at the same time.

There isn't a weak song on Money; most of them are unforgettable.

21st Century Breakdown is even better, so masterful and confident it makes Idiot seem like a warm-up.

It's built for fanatics, yet the goods could make a fanatic out of anyone.

There are bum notes (musicians were high, burnt or both) and bumpy mixes (recording conditions were just shy of wartime). But the result, combined with the full-length performances in the Woodstock Experience packages, is the most comprehensive and satisfying account so far of the main reason why Yasgur's acres became an instant city of freaks, including me: the music.

Barring the discovery of more golden eggs, the four CDs of Keep an Eye on the Sky are the last word on Big Star's first, ultimately glorious lifetime.

The Live Anthology redresses that wrong with a panoramic picture of the Heartbreakers' indestructible groove.

It rings true to one man's unshakable vision.

Pinkerton became a cult classic, all raw guitars and self-loathing wit - it's the In Utero of sexual frustration.

There are jailhouse weepers, lullabies and gallows humor like "Five Minutes to Live" – a jaw-dropping testament to the depth of the man's songbook.

They perfected the genre moves: bracing attack, two-guitar blurs of dissonance and beauty, a sympathetic barker wringing emotion from lyrics about the insular rock scene and girls who stalked it.

There is a moment in this five-CD ocean of music when you agree with its creator, the Beach Boys composer-producer Brian Wilson, that the greatest pop album ever made is still within reach.