The playing and recording, needless to say, are immaculate.

Conflict of Interest, his third studio release, has both cinematic scope and tear-jerking moments.

Hard to believe it was 50 years ago. Nobody’s done it better since, and few have even tried.

This is an album that wrestles with the sisyphean slog of remaining engaged – with love, with work, with life. And you can dance to it.

It feels just as estranged of pop’s traditional structures and strictures as they’ve always been. It feels exhilarating; it feels like freedom.

This is a sexy, sparkling snapshot of borderless youth in 2023, with Amaarae emerging as an ascendant star.

This Tasmanian band’s debut is end-to-end faultless.

The magnificently eerie Four Kinds of Horses is the record’s peak, while maternal elegy And Still feels like the most open, vulnerable song he has ever sung.

While Lamar’s extended metaphor of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly begs for greater self-knowledge and transcendence. That bit might get old quickly. The rest won’t.

There is a form of mania at work here, but the results are propulsive and ecstatic.

Lu seems intent to immerse us fully, deeply, intimately into her gossamer creative vision--and she succeeds. An astonishing first album.

Recorded quickly, with most of the 10 songs featuring Anohni’s original vocal takes, it’s an album that manages to wear its heaviness lightly and quickly buries its way under your skin.

Yet another dial-shifting record.

This is a carnival of imagination with an intricate balance to its sequencing and a cohesion of sound and concept to die for.

Previously unheard on any other archival release, these versions genuinely add to his already considerable myth.

To get the full effect, listen to the album from start to finish, over and over again. It’s a blast.

Gold Record marks another stage in one of the most intriguing about-turns in recent American music. The curmudgeon of Callahan’s early records might now meet humanity with a wry chuckle and an observational benevolence bordering on empathy.

It’s typical Monk--angular, mercurial, introspective--played by his regular quartet of the time, plus French saxophonist Barney Wilen.

From first note to last, Chronicles of a Diamond swaggers from the speakers. Even the love songs have new light cast on that hoary old topic by the roaring fire of Burton’s voice, while Quesada layers psychedelics and electronica into the orchestral mix, always conjuring new charms from familiar elements.

Songs such as The Wheel and Stockholm Syndrome offer thrills that can’t be denied, a preposterously exciting scrapyard soul.

The modulations and switches in pace remain as bold as ever, and Clark has a knack for memorable melody and a winning voice with shades of Kate Bush and Leslie Feist.

It’s the knockout closing pair that illuminate the band’s mastery of dynamics, unbearabletension and cathartic release.

Carnage was clearly made in the same creative breath as Ghosteen. We remain in the grip of Cave’s loss and its fractal of consequences – a haunt enabled further by Ellis at the peak of his powers.

You Want It Darker could be addressed to fans pining for a return to Cohen’s bleakest songwriting; or a lover, or a higher power.

Modern Country is a beatific and expansive ambient record daubed in acoustic and electric guitars, analogue oscillations, some really scary bells and no words; its meaning can be fluid.

There’s also great ingenuity in the shorter interludes comprising little more than random chatter over a simple melody (Can’t Stop). An album with this much flair and originality is hard to fault.

Cynics will cry foul, that Beyoncé remains an entitled superstar, raging at a paper tiger. Those cynics will be ignoring one of this year’s finest albums.

It's a downer, but timely and affecting, with moments of beauty.