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."

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.