An album of stunning acoustic folk-blues... Hiatt is at his absolute sharpest in terms of songwriting, and the arrangements, most often just guitar, bass, and mandolin or a second guitar, are fully fleshed out and never feel spare or slight.

It's one of the best rock and roll records in years... the disc is a layered, beautiful thing that touches on every influence the band has revealed through its years with a refined production style that sounds at once edgy and glitteringly smooth.

Cuomo tones down his angst and replaces it with a sunny but dirty '70s rock core.

Not only does every song here work beautifully on its own, but the recording listens cohesively front to back, from the frosty chime of "Unsound" to the enchanting blues of the closing "Healer."

Gung Ho feels like it's operating slightly outside the constraints of time, as if it were simultaneously a product of the past four decades and a look back at them from a vantage point far in the future.

There will be few albums released this year that are as exciting, artistic, and, yes, eclectic as this one, and it's scary to think of what Wyclef will be capable of when he gets all of the elements in their perfect proportions.

Harris is making music that stands with -- and perhaps eclipses -- her most well-regarded work.

Bachelor No. 2 makes good on the promise hinted at by Mann's work on the Magnolia soundtrack. In her mastery of sophisticated melodies and sly turns-of-phrase, Mann brings to mind a number of heralded composers.

Bowie at the Beeb isn't just a historic document; it's a fascinating portrait of a man ascending to the height of his musical powers.

Smith has shifted his focus away from crafting the perfect pop epic; though this description fits several of the new tracks ("Son of Sam," "Junk Bond Trader"), there are just as many melodic fragments or simply structured ballads ("Everything Reminds Me of Her," "Somebody That I Used to Know").

Listening to Breach, the meat-and-potatoes rock of Bruce Springsteen and especially Tom Petty comes immediately to mind... Breach is one of the most anticipated rock releases of the year, and it clearly is worthy of all the talk it has generated.

On Reveal, the sounds vary, but the songs cohere well. For a band into its third decade, making a record with no apparent weak link is an accomplishment.

An outrageously accomplished and daring album-

The biggest surprise here is Cave's singing. Forsaking the bluesy moans and wails of older works like The First Born Is Dead and Kicking Against the Pricks, he pushes his voice in new directions...

But fans of the band certainly won't miss the amplification, because they, like the band, have grown up. That's one reason why most of them will conclude that And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out is the band's very best album.

The perfect soundtrack for workers clearing out their cubicles and trudging away after their short-lived high-tech careers abruptly ended. The 11 songs capture a bittersweet tone perfectly -- sadly witnessing cultural wreckage and detritus but finding glimmers of beauty.

Though not much older than Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Nelly Furtado is an artist whose music stands head and shoulders above the manufactured pop pap that rules the charts right now.

Unlike his previous efforts, the guitar isn't the focal point here; instead, it's the ambience created by tape loops, scratching, and Burnside's singing and talking that makes the record both edgy and relevant.

The surprise is how extraordinarily well it all fits together, songs and guest vocalists pulled from all over the landscape, all blues and all inescapably Willie.

Miss E is a Top 40 radio breakthrough waiting to happen, while staying solid and true to its hip-hop roots.

At nearly an hour and a quarter, the album does feel a little long, especially when it falls prey to the ponderousness that made Adore drag...

Musically, the group goes way beyond Britpop, a movement largely of its own invention, to survey Burt Bacharach-style suavity on "The Universal" and "To the End," hedonistic dance pop on "Girls and Boys," and Lennon-esque soul-baring on "Tender."

Edited and mixed with Sandman's oversight prior to his death, Bootleg: Detroit was taped by a Morphine fan at the band's March 3, 1994, show at Detroit's St. Andrew's Hall, capturing the band and its hyper-aware fans at the height of pleasure.

Ray offers up a wonderfully realized survey of underground rock.... Stag is the strongest solo debut in recent memory.

Like a rainy day, the music is cinematic and pulses with understated energy. The prominent drums, like dance beats on codeine, tick by metronomically -- and their interplay with Moffat's mumbled, half-spoken, too-human voice is already remarkable.

Outkast's fourth album, Stankonia, is a far more complex effort than the critically acclaimed Aquemini. While Aquemini dealt with Big Boi and Dre's -- the self-described "player and poet," respectively -- contradictory personalities, Stankonia addresses the contradictory impulses of hip-hop itself.

The stripped-down arrangements and meditative flavor of the songs bring to mind such uncluttered efforts as 1983's Hearts and Bones or even Simon's 1972 solo debut.

Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea has to rank as a work more musically accessible than her early material and more emotionally direct than her later stuff. It's an intriguing song cycle that stands up to -- and in fact, demands -- repeated listenings.

These songs don't require repeated listening to foster appreciation; they affect immediately -- and relentlessly.

That Sylvian has managed to fashion his extensive career into a fulfilling double disc is impressive enough. But the fact he manages to do so while still coming off as a vibrant, vital artist -- some 22 years after making his recorded debut -- is what makes Everything and Nothing especially exquisite.

A sonic extravaganza for effects-loving headphone devotees, Amnesiac is another Radiohead effort that requires a bit of a leap to get into but is pretty unforgettable once you're there.

Moves with a quick tempo that whips through the album's 15 songs and assorted skits.... There's something innately joyous about many of the group's songs, whether it's how the J5 MCs play verbal double-dutch over the pulsating "Jurass Finish First" or the assembly of sampled snippets that drive the playground anthem "Monkey Bars."

Nicks' sixth solo album is her strongest since 1983's The Wild Heart.

You Had It Coming stands as his best work since 1989's Guitar Shop.

Plaintive, nakedly honest lyrics collide with keen observation... an hour of enrapturing atmosphere.

These 14 tracks forego the polish that distinguishes today's chart-topping fare, but each one bristles with a frisson in which honesty and artifice fuse, fashioning an enduring mini-masterpiece of pop.

Parachutes is a fully realized and expertly crafted masterpiece, each song holding its own quite well, but when grouped with the rest, they make up an impenetrable fortress of sadly beautiful, melodic, glorious Britpop.

Saratoga, however, reaches a whole other level. A truly excellent show, it features a wonderful extended version of "Daughter," an absolutely kick-ass rendition of "Even Flow," and Vedder's most consistently strong singing throughout.

As expressive as Hammond's guitar work is on signature songs like "Heartattack and Vine," it still has a sweet sound, and that, too, is mostly a new context for Waits' songs. The horror and the hardness is less immediate, slightly more mannered.

The concept album is more than an afterthought, it's musically revelatory and one of the best records of the year.

A welcome antidote to the hard rock and bubble-gum pop flooding today's airwaves.

Enter Faith and Courage, an album that reclaims O'Connor's status and stature as it presents us with a kinder, gentler, and matured artist who still sings like a wily archangel and writes with passionate, purposeful clarity.

[Glen] Ballard's production, arrangements, and co-writing duties have massaged the 12 songs into a searing rock album.

As always, Alvin's guitar work is wonderfully supple and emotive, and stands out as the centerpiece of his arrangements. But, even more gratifying, a decade after leaving the Blasters, in which his brother Phil handled the vocal duties, Alvin has finally found his voice as a singer.

Maroon is BNL's grown-up album, still full of clever wordplay and winking couplets, but also dealing with dark and sometimes disarming matters of adulthood.

Unlike the then-career-spanning three-CD set Live 1975-1985, which was notorious for its sanitizing overdubs, Live in New York City for the most part captures the feel of a live Springsteen show.

Yet for all its adrenaline-rush thrills, the RFTC sound is also surprisingly complex. Like Phil Spector's '60s pop masterpieces for The Ronettes and Righteous Brothers, the sonic density of Group Sounds is actually composed of virtuoso performances and subtle nuances...

Now, as the group starts its third decade, U2 has found what it's looking for is good music, songs that ring with melody and hooks -- and meaning -- while still weaving in some of the ambient and electronic textures it explored on releases such as Achtung Baby, Zooropa, and Pop. The result is a richly crafted and filler-free pop album on which each song sounds like an individual work, calling to mind mid-period Beatles titles such as Rubber Soul.

A mesmerizing 13-track suite that ebbs and flows with a continuous hallucinatory lushness from start to finish.

Working from a crate stuffed with quality cuts that blur the lines between trance, techno, and tribal house, Oakenfold deliberately showcases selections that err on the melancholy or contemplative side... Contrasted against the sometimes formulaic feel of Oakenfold's other comps, this is a stellar reminder of why he's remained a superstar for so long in a genre that's notorious for its short attention span.

It's not precisely rock and roll, more a summary of the stylistic fusion that has evolved over his last five albums: unequal parts rock, bluegrass, folk, Irish, and punk.

Haines' secret weapon lies in the hands of vocalist Sarah Nixey -- a cross between Olivia Newton-John and St. Etienne's Sarah Cracknell. Her singing style supports Haines' music with a deceptive beauty, as she wraps her voice around lyrics that belie that sweetness.

A 79-minute sonic sojourn of hard rock delivered with an arty, fusion-conscious sensibility rooted most obviously from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Jane's Addiction.

On the group's first live album --a two-CD set recorded during triumphant return shows at London's Wembley Arena this summer -- however, the maturity that has started to pervade their personal lives, and Noel's music, is evident.

Van Helden's compositional modus operandi doesn't vary much between the 11 tracks, but it's a combination that rarely fails to deliver a knockout punch. He introduces one element -- a vocal snippet or a jazzy drum break -- and milks it for a spell, before introducing a contrasting timbre. The two begin to climb in and around each other, as Van Helden tweaks and twists various effects, bringing the music and momentum to a dizzy, unsettling pitch.

An energetic and ambitious collection-

Building on Whitey Ford's organic folk-pop rap, Eat at Whitey's develops the songwriter's street-style troubadour fixation even further. This time, there's more singing than rapping, and his gruff vocals actually sound stylish, especially on the provocative "Black Jesus" and the memorable "Black Coffee."

The result is not only a more ambitious album than one might have expected, it's also a substantial step forward from Urban Hymns, the Verve's own crowning achievement.

Peppy but relaxing chill-out tracks as sweet, shiny, and peculiar as its memorable moniker.

As a full album, Interlude falls just short of cohesion. But in the place of unity is a confectioner's pastiche of underground pop from a band that still has plenty of music to make.

Displays a broader sonic reach than its predecessor.

Sounds nothing like a swan song, but rather like what should have been a mid-career album from a band whose ideas and abilities were still in full effect.

[Co-producer Mirwais Ahmadzai's] deft touch for crafting disarmingly warm songs out of synthetic tools gives Music a rich, human quality that nicely underscores Madonna's quietly personal -- if purposefully vague -- lyrics.... it's the music that ultimately sucks us into Music.

A rousing, driving smack in the face of all things pop, punk, and hard rock.

An ardent and successful attempt by the British quintet to divorce and distance itself from its past and to reinvent both itself and our notions of pop music, using soundscapes rather than songs, and instrumental choices that are a far cry from the group's previous forays into its own brand of guitar rock.... odd, perplexing, and utterly fascinating...

Wasp Star adheres to the bouncy melodicism and skewed humor that's been XTC's stock in trade for 25 years.

Sailing to Philadelphia represents yet another high watermark in his impressive recording career.... If there's anything to quibble about here, it's that the CD's energy sags because it contains so many ballads and mood pieces.

Overall, God Bless the Go-Go's is a spirited, entertaining album that was worth the wait.

It's smartly crafted black comedy from hip-hop's greatest white MC, a strong storyteller and a master of the metaphor, who produces staggeringly popular music that's mostly meant to be enjoyed with both a pained grimace and a smirk.

Without the thundering drums and over-amped testosterone of the originals, the songs are revealed as the beautiful blues-based writings they in fact are.

The lyricism is, as always, witty, wry, and full of cleverly deployed twists, along with literary and cultural allusions and smart metaphors...

By most standards, Mosaic Thump would be considered an excellent album, but this is De La Soul.

Jones' fans may be disappointed at the lack of original material and the shortness of the set -- just over 37 minutes -- but as a showcase for the singer's interpretive talents, it's dynamite.

Although its moods swing across the dial, it more than delivers on the group's initial promise.

OCS is quite simply straight-up and ultra-refreshing, expert in crafting great pop songs and equally adept at letting the music do its talking.

While Lovers Rock is not any sort of departure from the quiet ballads that marked the group's first three albums, there is an element of freshness that aligns Sade with the current electronic music insurgence while still maintaining a distinctly analog outlook on love's foibles.

One of the group's most adventurous outings...

For all the back story that precedes her, and even with an already overplayed first single, Everybody is a terrific debut.

All Hands on the Bad One returns to concise song structure, making it more accessible and ultimately more satisfying.

If one wanted to quibble, one could say that the Cash-Rubin collaboration is starting to feel just a little formulaic.... yet Cash continually surprises with his ability to completely inhabit material by writers much younger than him.

The band has introduced cleanser and furniture polish into the summer cleaning, sweeping away the rough edges and brightening up the melodies, which results in the group's best-sounding album to date.

Fans who have waited patiently for a proper follow-up to 1989's acclaimed Disintegration should be pleased, if not necessarily bowled over by Bloodflowers, a deeply felt album with a similarly downcast mood.

Reed has lost neither his lyrical bite nor his sonic perfectionism.

The music on Return of Saturn... is a bit darker than it was on Tragic Kingdom, but it's no less energetic.

As best-of joints go, The Evidence is solid, featuring a bevy of T's greatest cuts, as well as a few left-field inclusions.

Their sound has congealed into a silvery core, rooted in moody dance music, and incorporating bits of acid jazz, lite funk, and minimalist classical stylings.

With hushed arrangements that feature little more than acoustic guitar and piano over bass and drums, plus the occasional steel guitar or pump organ, the album is Young at his simplest and most easygoing.

Not only is this "collection of previously unreleased material, rarities, and B-sides" far better than most such discs, but, quite frankly, it's also superior to most regular albums.

Joined by a bevy of bluegrass talent, including Jerry Douglas, Chris Thile, and Alison Krauss, Little Sparrow is a richly wrought, beautifully performed labor of love for Parton.

Destiny's Child vamps, stamps, and oozes its way through a set of sparely arranged showcases for its layered vocal weave...

Bright, punchy, and well crafted, it slathers an extra layer of grinding guitars on top of the Vol. One sound while maintaining the group's melodic trademarks.

It would have been a shame if this album went unheard, as it is the most fully realized Painters album to date and finds the band, as well as Kozelek's songwriting, in peak form.

There is much temptation in all of this, but little satisfaction. It all sounds like someone named Shelby Lynne, for her voice is impeccable throughout. But despite its title, the album comes no closer to suggesting who she might be than her previous outings have. And too few of the songs -- despite their technical virtuosity -- beg to be played over and again.

The irony, of course, is that More Light is a perfect fit within the Dinosaur Jr catalog and, in fact, would rank as one of its better entries, a spirited, 11-song outing on which Mascis' writing and performing sound fresher and more muscular than they have in years, certainly since the early end of the '90s.

Rock affirms that he is no overnight sensation...

The record succeeds on the strength of Williams' tremendously appealing musical personality and her winning songs.

The only significant problem with Kidman and McGregor's numbers, which constitute half of this 15-track set, is that they don't work as well without the accompanying visuals.

In a genre that is often as repetitive as it is flighty, the witty and musically well-informed Essential Mix, though unrevelatory, works beyond the club floor, too.