The Satanist is as untamed and direct as its title suggests: a flawless paean to free will and the human spirit.

Elvin Jones’s elemental muscularity is thunderously upfront in the mix, and Tyner often sounds like the man heading for the exit that he soon turned out to be – but this is a unique document of a landmark 20th-century band at a pivotal moment.

The duo have refined their sound until it is shatteringly effective. Nevertheless, Elephant sounds suspiciously like the White Stripes' apotheosis.

An indulgently rich record that keeps revealing more on double-digit listens. And at various moments, just when you thought it couldn’t get any heavier, it does. .... Being crushed underneath this album is one of the great musical experiences of the year.

WAAITT is a diverse record in many respects: touched by Afrobeats, gospel, electronica, drill and R&B, its most recurring sonic feature is a series of mournful piano figures. The album encompasses many different voices and Dave seems to be making a point of letting his collaborators put their own stamp on his songs.

If it doesn’t feel quite as remarkable as Ghosteen, that tells you more about the previous album than the quality of Carnage: Cave and Ellis’s musical approach is still vividly alive, the dense, constantly shifting sound complementing the richness of Cave’s writing now.

For all its odd misfires, it makes a great deal of the stuff that sits alongside it in the charts look pretty feeble by comparison. If that sounds like faint praise, it isn’t meant to be: if it was easy to make hugely successful mainstream pop music as smart as this, then everybody would be at it. And they patently aren’t.

Both albums are sublime. Taken together they're hip-hop's Sign o' the Times or The White Album: a career-defining masterpiece of breathtaking ambition.

Sufjan Stevens’ Carrie & Lowell is perhaps the closest comparison in terms of musical and emotional tenor, but Byrne’s album is ultimately as singular as the woman singing it, and as unforgettable as a departed friend.

If the results don’t quite hold together, Cowboy Carter still proves Beyoncé is impressively capable of doing whatever she wants.

Whatever he’s doing, the results are uniformly fantastic: rich, fascinating and moving, packed with gorgeous melodies and arrangements that feel alive, constantly writhing into unexpected new shapes.

Red (Taylor’s Version) adds satisfying hues of deep, gothic black.

This is a gloriously brave and vibrant piece of work and the most significant metal album of 2011 by some distance.

From its ambitious narrative arc to its fine linguistic detail, Good Kid, M.A.A.D City is a honed and deliberate major label debut.

A Grand Don't Come for Free raises the stakes to such an extent that it sounds literally unprecedented: there isn't really any other album like this.

There is a warts-and-all feel to sound quality and some of the improvising, but this is newly emerging and influential music still in the furnace, and Davis's timing can make even a seasoned fan whoop.

Devotees will not be disappointed.

Touted as Act I of a confirmed trilogy, Renaissance falls short of being Beyoncé’s best full-length, but it still fulfils her liberationist aims. ... Her sense of freedom throughout is palpable, and an infectious spur to action.

An extraordinary album.

At once soft and hard, fiery and vulnerable, Grey Area finds Little Simz thriving in her multi-facetedness.

To say it's ambitious feels like damning with faint praise; its sheer musical scope--from the James Brown funk of Tightrope to the English pastoral folk of Oh, Maker--is spellbinding.

Their travails have produced an epic, ambitious collection that is beautifully beatific, purifying and uplifting.

The River itself feels a bit unwieldy compared to the sleek single album Springsteen originally handed in to Columbia, which features here, and while less weighty--philosophically and in size--it is actually a better listen, not least because it’s not constantly dragged down by unwieldy rockers. A further disc rounds up outtakes, which makes it apparent that Springsteen could have managed several different iterations of The River, all of which would have been as good as or better than the eventual album..

This new album contains 10 sublime reflections on religious sites and buildings.

It has the distinct tang of an album that could be huge. There’s something undeniable about it, the beguiling sound of a band doing what they do exceptionally well, so that even the most devoted naysayer might be forced to understand its success.

The other striking thing is how sharp her lyrics are, behind their unassuming conversational veneer: only Pretty Isn’t Pretty’s assault on beauty standards feels a little boilerplate. Elsewhere, she’s witty.

At times the album can seem tired and mid-paced, and some of the collaborators (Andre 3000, Anderson Paak) are more effective than others (Talib Kweli, Jack White). But for those who value Tribe’s contribution to music, this is a record to be grateful for.

SOS is very long – 23 tracks, well over an hour. It suggests someone continually adding to and augmenting a project, or perhaps throwing everything they’ve got at it, fuelled by the feeling that they might not do this again. The results are hugely eclectic.