Fabulous.

This is his best since [Supreme Clientele].

Add 3121 to the mounting pile of evidence: Prince is the black Beck.

It takes a few listens to sink in, but Everything is transcendent, shimmering, layered, and smartass emo-pop fully ready for stadium saturation.

Grand National's main skill lies in their ability to twin their fine songs to tight electronic productions, striking the perfect midpoint between live organics and cool digital sequencing.

Her uncanny, often eccentric lyrics have always been delivered with an inherent passion behind the impulse, but rarely have they approached the boldness of these dozen.

His most consistently compelling release in decades.

Pay the Devil reiterates Morrison's own musical diversity and flair for making any song his own.

Although this isn't the masterpiece that the self-titled Black Mountain disc was, it certainly gives devotees lots more music to listen to until their next disc comes around.

A moving, eloquent gift to Jackson's entire audience.

Despondent and furious by turns.

Reverberate[s] with the wistfulness and introspection that have forever been his trademark.

In drawing on the theatrical, macro-orchestrations reminiscent of Scott Walker and expanding on the slapdash, quirky, musical humor of the Red Krayola's Mayo Thompson, this album reaches another peak for Bejar and is one of Destroyer's best works yet.

You'd buy this album for the same reason you buy Robyn Hitchcock, for the observations, sardonic-ism, and sarcasm--not to mention Eef's singular, strained voice.

Both her most musically spare and artistically complex [album] to date.

Black Cadillac is darker than its predecessor, but with melodies often more complex and lyrics more stunningly poetic than anything its creator has conjured before, the album is more transforming than depressing, and exquisitely beautiful.

He continues to take chances and not all of them pay off.

Blige, never far from the thoughts of the lovelorn, didn't need a breakthrough, but anybody with an ear for artful confession will be glad she's given us The Breakthrough anyway.

Oral Fixation Vol. 2 finds Shakira reclaiming some of the bite she showcased on 1998's smashing Donde Estan Los Ladrones?

Their songs are infectious, silly and often weirdly beautiful.

Sweaty, head-spinningly good dance music.

The amazing thing is not that there are still so many unreleased tunes in the solo Pollard/ GBV vaults, but how engaging this stuff is despite fidelity that at times is atrocious.

A fabulous collection of delirious, dizzy alt-pop.

This is music you listen to when drugs don't work anymore.

A record that is wholly satisfying: not too overwrought and never self-assuredly slick.

With Extraordinary Machine, she shatters already sky-high expectations.

Not so much a series of songs as it is a musical mood.

It's a stunning, confident piece of work that suggests the band is merely getting started.