If their hipster stock has dipped since, this mix suggests they can always fall back on their side career as DJs.

What could be a late-game throwaway instead has near-definitive versions of "Wichita Lineman," "Galve­ston" and "Gentle on My Mind," conjuring the originals with a patina of age and minus the arrangement lard.

Televise is a seductive piece of work and a solid step forward for Calla's songcraft.

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.

If "Diddle'' and the rest of The Teaches of Peaches weren't so surreally funny, nasty and funky, they would be unbearable.

But if Jackson tries too hard to meet a standard of sexual frankness that's heightened in the four years since her last outing, she more than delivers her quota of hits.

There is plenty of unexpected texture to keep your ears engaged.

There's no new "Trump," but the horn-spiked "Goosebumpz" brings a whole different ruckus and one of Miller's best punch lines.

Her music mixes an almost impersonal professionalism--it's so rigorously crafted it sounds like it has been scientifically engineered in a hit factory--with confessions that are squirmingly intimate and true.

Well-crafted, unfailingly likable, the music hints at his activist-sage roots.

The album achieves something mischievously unguarded: a collection of blissful dance tunes constructed for embrace and abandon. Drake takes a leap further into uncharted realms than any of his peers, offering a refreshing sign of what’s to come.

For their major-label debut, producer Rick Rubin has turned the group into a lush chamber-folk outfit. I and Love and You is packed with complex, piano-based beauties.

There's a freaky encounter with a spaceman ("Telescope") and a dance-party rager about a wicked girl ("Black Widow"), but the whole thing vibrates with hopped-up discovery.

Like their last album, 2003's Let Go, The Weight Is a Gift is a top-notch collection of sad-eyed guitar ballads.

It's moodier and murkier than No Age albums past, but no less galvanizing.

Sky Blue Sky is understated, erratic, often beautiful, disarmingly simple music; it really sounds like six guys playing in a room, and no doubt that's how they wanted it.

On her American debut, this former U.K. record store clerk boasts an all star cast: executive producer John Legend, Will.i.am, Swizz Beatz, Kanye West and Cee—Lo, who duets on the Philly soul "Pretty Please (Love Me)." But those Yanks don't dilute Shine's regional feel--this West London homegirl's perspective is etched in her husky singing, fleet-tongued rapping and wised-up lyrics.

As comfortable as the Beach House sound is, it's the uncomfortable moments that are most seductive.

In a less capable artist’s hands, American Dream could come off like industry hackwork. One gets the sense that 21 remains on top of his game even if he’s not quite pushing himself.

8 Diagrams is better than most would have expected: a terrific mix of classic Clan grime and enough new tricks to justify Inspectah Deck's claim that "Wu-Tang keep it fresh like Tupperware."

By the time you've gotten used to Beach Music's relaxed melancholy, it's become a much-needed refuge.

Mostly they deliver a bluesy sprawl full of meaty punk riffs and Stooges-schooled abandon that still outpaces less-inspired slop-rock bands. [9 Mar 2006, p.94]

Tortoise's anticipation of our retro-electronic-cratedigging-post-everything moment means the palette is less surprising than it once was.... Yet the Tortoise mix of pelvic trance grooves and jazzy changes remains distinctive.

Both cathartic and redemptive, Skin cuts close to the bone.

Mayer can get in trouble when he pushes too hard for effect, so the laid-back vibe here works to his advantage, allowing both his talent and his charm to shine.

Ghostface Killah is weirder, Raekwon is gruffer, Method Man is zanier, and here the three kings of Staten Island hip-hop return to their classic-Wu roots like nothing's changed since 1995 but the sports references.

Her follow-up simultaneously lets the listener into her world and bolsters her anonymity.

While 'All You Really Have to Do' and 'Shake Shake Shake' support that rep, their debut full-length shows a more versatile outfit.