The Stooges' third and final studio album before their recent reunion--remains a uniquely visceral listening experience, a confrontational slab of psychedelic punk made in the dead zone between psychedelia's demise and punk's birth.

Sublime production quality and danceability aside, this mix scores as a chronicle of American pop music that elicits a dual layer of nostalgia: the first for the sampled songs themselves, the second for the thrill of the novelty of early mash-ups.

The Whole Love feels like a truly audacious studio record, jam-packed with instruments, ideas, and the sort of restless creativity that marked 2002's game-changer, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.

After years of being the untrained savage in the china shop of modern metal, HOF may find themselves owning the store with this accomplished thrash platter.

Whether he's in onomatopoetic punch-line mode or scratching the Cee Lo end of his terrific range, Monch is hip-hop's superlative talent, and now he has a solo stripe to prove it.

This is accessible music pushed to the very edge of accessibility, far away from the safety of the band's song-oriented efforts "At War with the Mystics" and "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots."

It's one of 2011's finest pop records: 10 tracks of dreamy, weirdo hi-fi pop that grooves, sparkles, and hums with clipped beats and smooth drums.

With their debut full-length, Brooklyn pop quintet Friends have released the best pop album of the summer.

It's at once majestic and gentle, a deep breath and a sigh that declares Vernon's transcendence of the turmoil and technique of his unique breakout record and establishes him as an artist who knows exactly what he's doing. Hallelujah.

It's Bummer Time, and in 2011 there is no better soundtrack for banging your head to oblivion.

At Mount Zoomer will give you those same goosebumps you felt when you heard the band’s debut.

It’s brimming with curious melodies (like the darkly cute skews of the title track), rich poetic detail (as lush as the orange carpet in '16A'), and a truly generous spirit (you can listen to the whole damn thing over and over).

Ironically, this patchwork of 12-inch singles is Kieran Hebden's most delectable album-as-album.

The sound is as swoon-inducing as it is complex. A brilliant debut full-length.

Eschewing fleshed-out pop maps in favor of shiny fragments works oddly well for this duo, especially given the breadth and depth of the subject matter.

Nearly a quarter-century in, Faith isn't timeless, but it fits into an '80s time capsule where horns, cheesy-sounding drum machines, and four-day-old stubble were the standard.

From the ironically melodic “Death Penalty” to the militaristic “Rearview,” this duo have executed one of the greatest roughneck opuses this side of last century. Let’s hope it’s not a one-off.

Split over six fantastic-sounding CDs, these live recordings are a revelation, an aural document of the Doors and Morrison at their professional best.

A brilliant shot of Veloso the pop composer.

Diotima is poetry, classical allusion, the consideration of platonic love and our place in history. It is searing shards, intricately arranged, forward-moving, stretching to infinity--lurching, faltering, and then thundering for passages that stop time and levitate your world.

The Truth Is Here is his second perfect disc in that many years and just earned a spot in my Top Five Alive column.

Reissued last year, the debut Icky Mettle had their most celebrated pop songs ("Web in Front," "Wrong," "Plumb Line") but the follow-up Vee Vee was just as great, and thicker.

Despite the deceptive pop-song outlines and strong grooves, just about every piece emphasizes the rich weave of voices, and on originals like 'The View from Blue Mountain' and 'Twilight of the Dogs,' Douglas extends forms you think you know to take you someplace new.

The record bursts with energy and purpose, revealing the brilliance that advocates like the Roots’ ?uestlove have long suspected 9th had in him.

But tempos that gait like a swinging pocket watch and Kozelek's drowsy, double-tracked voice make a strong case for a spellbinding kind of sublimity. This uncanny effect is even more pronounced on Admiral Fell Promises.

Modern Guilt is a hot thing of indefinite course.

Despite all these lyrical dalliances, there's one of the best house albums of the year somewhere in these songs--you just have to agree to their terms.

Fantasy is the sound of an artist who is so far from shunning the spotlight that the firepower of the wattage pointed at him is a full-on supernova.

For their ninth studio album, the Welsh quintet go heavy on vamps, riffs, and refrains; the result is their most spontaneous and blissfully lax effort since 2000's "Mwng."

Humor, melody, and weirdness rule, and that makes Ceramic Dog lighter than both Ribot’s Los Cubanos Postizos Afro-Cuban band and his aggro-noise outfit Shrek.

Crash is easily A.F.I.'s best since 2003's "Sing the Sorrow," and the cheeky pop-punk chorus of 'Too Shy To Scream' is their first successful decree to boogie the night away.

It’s just solid, classic Dolls, with all the swagger, muscle, righteous kitsch, and ballsy defiance you expect, plus some new twists.

The son has a strong, pleasing voice and an easy facility with the sort of æthereal, filigree guitar picking that served the father so well.

So many wonderful things happen on Lenses Alien that you can't possibly remember them all. The only solution, of course, is to listen again.

1991 is all about the bubble-popping lushness of "Van Vogue" and the hall-of-mirrors shimmer of "Liquorice." It's also about the summer, and showing more of Banks than just her breakout hit.

Paired with an artful book that spins the tale of these sides and their place in Woody's world by Guthrie historian Ed Cray and Rounder co-founder Bill Nowlin, these four CDs are a superb introduction to an artist whose influence extends to Dylan, Springsteen, and, indeed, nearly all American music that followed on his dusty heels.

Teen Dream sheds the uncertainties evident in past Beach House albums--each melodic turn (and there are many) balances the force of confidence with the momentum of curiosity.

After a few listens, the entirely synthetic remainder that is Supreme Balloon is not merely a relief but a delight. If anything, the limitation of having no limitations has revealed Matmos as more skilled, stylish, and sculptural here than on any of their past releases--not to mention versatile.

Blending in traditional strings and flutes, singular soulful vocals, trenchant dub pockets, and inventive production flourishes, this is the most powerful contemporary release out of Ethiopia in years.

This beautiful disc needs only her sweet muted-trumpet voice and optimistic viewpoint to sail gracefully through its 10 songs.

Quik knows what he's doing. You can hear it on every track of this symphonic mini-masterpiece.

Matador's two-disc Nicene Creedence Edition (nyuk nyuk) goes way beyond the original 12-song release, adding a whopping 31 additional cuts: outtakes, B-sides, compilation tracks, and live radio sessions, all of them top-notch.

Less polished than its predecessor, 2009's Fantasies, Synthetica brings all the varied influences and styles together in perfect synchronization.

This is DiFranco’s most sophisticated album, a musical convergence of her best qualities: warm singing, graceful writing, experimentation.

Scandalous, though a natural progression, takes some surprising turns that attest to a tightened-up band still figuring out just how much dy-no-mite they're capable of exploding.

Because Bergsman keeps Eden's doors open (centerpiece 'Wapas Karma' is a traditional performed entirely by locals), there's a natural light and a welcome freshness--a breeze from across the world, rather than a suitcase of souvenirs.

Smith seems to struggle with whether he wants to write emotional pop songs or dark experimental soundscapes, but the push and pull between the two sentiments is ultimately gorgeous.

Bad as Me, his first album of new material in seven years, is a tour de force of wise ol' swagger and new-century blues.

Having put aside the gimmicky Atari-melting antics of yore, the Castles have created a dense-yet-airy thicket of pure pop transcendence.

The year's most outstanding rock album.

This is not so much a reinvention as another way to look deep into the heart of Elliott's music. It's also an early nominee for folk album of the year.

Take this, the album's third legit release (which, by the way, sounds so balls you can practically hear the dank nugs), pop it in, turn out all the lights, face Mecca, and bow down.

Suffice to say that with all its slowly blooming beauty, alluring aberrations, and deftly measured brute force, the closest analogue to what Fennesz has done on Black Sea seems to be nature itself.

Amid the carnage and the stink of loss, PJ Harvey creates inspiring beauty.

The Only Place [is] better-sung, slower, [and] expansively produced.

Unlike liars, fakers, and bullshit artists, he backs up his name and claim with anecdotal gems aplenty.

This stirring collection makes Father John Misty's debut one of the best solo efforts this year, a true freak-folk standout.

The likes of Kate Nash and company have flitted through this piano siren/exuberant dance-diva territory, but never mind, because this gorgeous genre starts now.

The first comeback album in history by an iconic rock act that stands up against anything else on the shelves today.... This is the mighty Van Halen at their best.

This may be the most uncharacteristic of his albums, but by venturing outside his comfort zone, Hawley has in turn made his best.

White Chalk is more chamber music, and a dark chamber at that. The only flickers of light come from Harvey’s voice: high, airy, and imperiled as she weaves her echo-coated and darkly soulful spell till the story’s bleak finale.

Their fourth album isn’t substantially different from their first three: Jones’s delivery, alternately muscular and tender, and the band’s total empathy with the genre’s rules elevate each tune to lost-classic status.

They don't make bands like this anymore.

Almost dreamlike in his flow, Thundercat totes us along by way of his agile bass-neck work, sly Rhodes riffs, and vocals that sound filtered through daisies and sunshine.

These tricks crop up throughout the album--sly moves familiar to house fans are retrofitted to a pop framework, and the result is an entirely new (and very livable) structure

Praise & Blame casts away the extraneous baggage that has weighed down many of Jones's previous recordings and puts the focus squarely on the voice.

The lyrical immediacy and intimacy lift Black City leagues above much of the disassociated drivel that's labeled vocal house.

Teeming with B-sides, live tracks, and demos, much of it previously unreleased, 21 is both exhaustive and indispensable.

The music is neither bastardized nor precious, just a riveting reflection of the ongoing allure and paradox that is the Congo.

Ocean brings substance with style, rather than style demanding to be considered substance.

The fact that Greatest Story didn't drop on a major just attests to how perverted the industry is. That said, the delicious and anthemic Just Blaze beats, money cameos, and precise orchestration that spoiled deals afforded render this the last great major-label rap album of all time - even though it's on an indie.

Phillips captures the imagery, as well as the heart, of an era’s underground.

Middle Cyclone is her most fearless and arresting record, ruthlessly composed and beautifully recorded.

Anyone digging into Maya (or MAYA, as it's being promoted) expecting club-banging pop hits will be . . . not disappointed, but definitely confused.

Ay Ay Ay, the second full-length effort from Chilean-born, German-raised Matias Aguayo (who now splits time between Buenos Aires and Paris) is, in source and spirit, one of the most human dance-pop records of the year.

Elsewhere we get lots of the usual earthquake bass and keening synth arpeggios and staccato horns, and, of course, Jeezy’s hypnotically commanding flow, all of it amounting to one of the hardest mainstream rap albums in years.

Of special note is the 10-minute instrumental 'Suicide and Redemption': listening to it, you almost forget that there are supposed to be words in rock songs, since it’s filled with building riffs, escalating volleys of tension and release, and moments of frantic drum abandon from Lars Ulrich that should do a lot to redeem his standing in Modern Drummer’s Drummer of the Year polls.

The album is full of this kind of mish-mash, but it never feels forced or too clever. In fact, it's the apparent lack of thought that makes the whole thing work.

The only thing Dirty Projectors' fifth album leaves me wishing for is a fifth rating star to wedge in.

From the opening "Variation 1" to the acoustic closer, "Sous le ciel de Paris," Ribot's phrasing is slow and contemplative, so each elegantly chiseled note stands as a beatific example of his virtuosity.

Fear of a Blank Planet is not only their most vintage-sounding album, it’s also their best.

This is his best since his 2000 collaboration with Eric Clapton, "Riding with the King."

The good news is, this album is going to garner a dozen swoons in her direction for each romantic woe she professes on it.

If the down-and-out, early-MCR-worshipping emo set need the equivalent of an "It Gets Better" video to remind them how awesome life can be, no document could be more spirited and persuasive than Danger Days.

AMOK is as heady and immersive as any great Radiohead album, but those comparisons eventually wilt: Yorke's new band has discovered a symmetry all its own.

It can be tricky to pin down Parts & Labor's busy sound - it's noise pop that's not too noisy, or maybe post-punk that's cool with cracking a fat grin - but it almost always has something entertaining going on.

It could have easily gone any of several wrong ways, but Green Day's punk has long since been tempered with pop's most attractive attributes, and 21stCentury Breakdown, like its predecessor, is unapologetically accessible and relentlessly exhilarating.

Most of the songs light up, shine for a while, and pull back so suddenly that you feel a little betrayed. It's a shame these dry lullabies didn't surface earlier in our dreary summer.

Although it's an imperfect effort in some regards, the somewhat conceptual OX 2010: A Street Odyssey testifies to Vast's highly developed steez, and does so with complements from MCs who effortlessly jibe with his arcane rhyme selections.

In Love with Oblivion finds the band more upbeat than ever, channeling Flying Nun–era sounds with melodic riffs, handclaps, and chugging bass.

After years of Boston's repping itself on the national stage with scally caps and mime make-up, the promising prospect of a blog-stoking, pant-tightening, fresh-making outfit like the Pit feels long overdue. The good news is, it sounds only slightly so.

Within and Without is chillwave 2.0. It takes the same hazy late-night bedroom synthpop, but amps it up exponentially, with live instruments (cello, bass, violins, drums), guidance from superstar producer Ben Allen (who co-produced Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavilion and Deerhunter's Halcyon Digest), and more meticulously crafted songs.

It's perhaps overly long (53 minutes) and hard to penetrate, but Animal Collective's creativity glows brighter than Ric Flair's hair.

Here's one of the few first-quarter releases of 2011 that people will still be listening to in 2012.

With your headphones strapped, the album's dirty optimism will brighten even the darkest, stalest airport-layover experience (true story).

Unavoidable comparisons to the Icelandic princess and her early years aside, Both Ways Open Jaws sounds familiar while breaking new ground.

Like a perfectly attired woman, the National are fleetingly alluring, never gaudy, subtly enchanting.

These 11 new songs represent some of the strongest material of their career.