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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

None of the bonus songs are necessarily better than the ones that made the cut on 1999, but they show just how curious he was at the time, trying out new and different ideas, musical themes he would still be exploring in the decades that followed. ... As with the Purple Rain box set a couple years ago, this macro look at 1999 shows not just Prince’s genius but the breadth of his brilliance at the time.

This three-disc 25th-anniversary package gives the Pixies' surreal 1989 breakthrough the monument it deserves.

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

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

Sign ‘O’ the Times was an eclectic funk-pop-rock-R&B-gospel-novelty hodgepodge of songs about love, sex, and Jesus that sounds awful on paper — what great record this side of Little Richard could include the phrase “green eggs and ham,” as Prince deadpanned on “Housequake,” and still work? — yet it was a masterpiece. Its very lack of focus was its greatest strength. ... It’s impossible to trace his thought process, which makes it all the more exciting to find the diamonds he left in the vault.

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.

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

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.

If you love the Band, it’s mostly nothing you haven’t heard a couple thousand times before, but little else is needed. A half-century later, the brotherhood of Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm, Rick Danko, Manuel and Garth Hudson still makes you want to join the party.

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.

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

Fetch the Bolt Cutters will not disappoint. Released with little warning nearly a decade after 2012’s The Idler Wheel…, the album sees the now-42-year-old songwriter proving that she’s still more than capable of telling off partners, detractors, and others who have done her wrong, all while picking apart the inner workings of her frantic mind. But what sets Bolt Cutters apart from its predecessors is that, for the first time, the scales tip more toward resilience than agony.

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

As with the reissue of the group's fourth album, Page has impeccably restored the glimmer of Houses of the Holy and uncovered an LP's worth of fascinating outtakes that show the band's headspace at the time.

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.

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

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.

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

Finally back in print, every song burns hot as ever.