You don't even need to know about the box-set's extras: if teenage angst is the root of rock and roll, then 'Quadrophenia' is its definitive statement.

A work of pure, true genius.

It is a genuine classic album. ... Lal Waterson was a hugely significant and individual songwriter, and her spirit--alongside Mike’s energy, his unique, rasping voice and his own songwriting--plus the time capsule who’s-who of a support cast from the British folk scene of the early 1970’s--make this curious work of art individual, heartfelt and fun.

Never bettered, this is the world’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band’s crowning triumph. Own this!

‘Mr Morales & The Big Steppers’ is one of his most profound, complex, revelatory statements yet, a double album fuelled by sonic ambition, the will to communicate, and Kendrick’s staunch refusal to walk the easy path.

A glittering glam-pop bounty of androgynous pop bots, dock prostitutes, Depression-era outlaws, cowboys and nun-baiting schoolgirls, GYBR remains a vital and versatile vision of brilliance that deserves to be heard.

This masterpiece isn’t dulling any time soon. Working on the premise that they were Generation X’s own Velvet Underground, this is their ‘White Light/White Heat’, and one of the most important rock records of all time.

First spewed forth in 1973 this blend of Iggy's guttural moanings and James Williamson's precise spiky guitars is rightly regarded as one of the most seminal, ferocious, uncompromising, crude, sleazy, nihilistic rock albums of all time.

It is a beautiful, enigmatic, joyous, sultry, utterly fabulous and insanely-inventive album that delivers above and beyond its expectations, quite a feat for a record conceived by one of the best British artists around at the moment.

The rugged, ragged ‘Twenty Things’ sits against the bolshy ‘Sad Lads Anonymous’, a record whose sonic breadth is matched to the assured nature of its construction.

With this expertly curated and brilliantly sequenced collection, BadBadNotGood have demonstrated that there’s still life in the compilation, and have shown the benefit of getting professionals on board to create them.

SOPHIE manages to incorporate the personal without detracting from what set her apart in the first place, and it makes for a record that’s as affecting as it is thrilling.

'Legends Never Die' is poetic, prophetic and poignant.

The album is full of anticipation. At times it’s ugly and overblown. But it’s a collective vision, one that reflects back on our own inputs into the dataset as well as at our folk stories of survival and resistance.

‘Iechyd Da’ is a forward-moving record rooted in love and loss, marking a significant chapter in the musician and producer’s career.

Overall, the ensemble sound incredibly close to the freewheeling jams fans are accustomed to; in short, they meet the sky-high potential teased on their first record.

Theatrical and majestic, ANOHNI’s supple world-building acts as a mirror to her soul – ‘My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross’ may well be her masterpiece.

With 37 previously unreleased performances, On Air Volume 2 is essential for any Beatles collector. For everyone else, it’s an informal insight into the world’s greatest group on the verge of an exhilarating ascent.

Gone is the Primary Colours influences of Portishead's Geoff Barrow, or the punchy impatience of Strange House, and in that place stands an intellectually collective five-piece, fully immersed in the confidence of their own astonishing abilities.

Although coming quickly off the back of their debut might give people a cause for concern, the conviction with which it’s delivered should put to bed any negative preconceptions. An absolutely vital record.

uknowhatimsayin succeeds in flipping our expectations of a Danny Brown album, delivering a project that’s masterfully produced and exquisitely executed.

The album is a bold, idiosyncratic collection of songs crafted under intense time pressure after producer John Congleton insisted that Grant have all of the material ready to go before entering the studio. Such a challenge certainly seems to have focused the mind.

Multitude is the perfect return for such a formidable musical talent, serving not only as a reminder of his innovative talents, but also highlighting how much richer his soundscaping and storytelling has grown over his hiatus.

Sabrina has created a bold body of work, exciting and unfiltered, as she navigates the highs and lows of her life up to this point.

Overall, ‘Makes Me Sick, Makes Me Smile’ is beautiful, explosive, and honest – and a stunning debut for Pretty Sick.

A very clever album that plays with musical codes and conventions brilliantly to create something greater than the sum of its parts. This could be the bravest Low album in recent years. It surpasses ‘Double Negative’ in a way that is surprising, but also feels obvious.

The closing run of tracks on the album are some of the most musically interesting she has released to date.

A damaged but delightful long-player, then, perfect for fans of Daughter and Camera Obscura.

Lucky Shiner is one of the most innovative and mind-melding albums of the year and one that just keeps on giving.

Brilliant album; an album that will become – in time – as significant and important to Gahan’s career as Johnny Cash’s ‘American’ series was to his enduring legacy.

Meet The Humans is not just his best solo release to date, but also arguably the finest album in which he has been involved full stop. Capable of moving and energising its audience in equal measure, Mason has refined his art to a remarkable extent.

Overgrown remains closer knit, and paradoxically less fragmented than its illustrious predecessor, ideas rotating core values guided by an affirmatively unseen hand. Which ultimately makes this an even better record.

A heart-wrenching collection of songs that urges the listener to give themselves over to this album as much as Ethel Cain gives herself over to you.

One of the best albums Everything But The Girl have put their name against. A rich, atmospheric song cycle, it has the emotional heft of The Blue Nile and the production nous of Massive Attack. In the end, it could only be Everything But The Girl.

Mirror Mirror is a raw, nocturnal and very northern record, and one that's nailed its bleeding, hedonistic colours high up the musical mast.

A hugely impressive, frequently stunning return, ‘Black Rainbows’ ranks as one of the year’s most imposing comebacks.

Taylor Swift’s quiet, exquisite album.

Ghosteen is not a blissful or comfortable album, but it is a hopeful one. The gaping wound of ‘Skeleton Tree’ is scarring over as Cave pulls away from the past’s savage undertow, content in the knowledge that peace will come. It’s a paean to how all things bright and beautiful can be thrown into blinding relief once you’ve known real darkness, another open letter straight from artist to audience that cuts right to the core of what means to have loved, lost and loved again.

Whilst the lyrics are direct and, in your face, the production is just as precise and thought out. It flows with Kano’s quick pace and ability to turn on the heat so quickly. The album offers 10 tracks of quality and meaning over the meaningless repackaged corporate sound that is found more often than not in this day and age.

It’s honest, dark, funny, tragic, moving and incredibly catchy. This is PUP’s finest album to date. No easy job. At its heart this is a slow descent into self-destruction. And we feel all the better for it.

Clements and Griffiths have sculpted something truly special out of their final time with their friend and, while too late for all of the numerous lists, it deserves to be held up as one of the most affecting and impressive releases of a difficult year.

This set of tracks will stand with their most masterful.

It’s a truly delightful experience that delights in its unexpected and uncompromising approach to positivity. The art work and overall feel of the compositions may speak to a chilly, typically Nordic solitude, while the music of this record is anything but. A late year treasure that shouldn't be overlooked, it is as timely as it is timeless, and as needed now as any musical work of the last year or so.

‘Unlimited Love’ is exactly what it says on the tin. A celebration of union, friendship, and life, all manifested across 17 tracks. Littered with lyrical easter eggs and distinctive Chili Peppers funky flare, this record is a regal return.

‘To Love Is To Live’ is a sonic poltergeist with sentiment to boot.

‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’, Creeper have created something that simultaneously pays homage to the bands that came before, and which is totally cutting-edge in the modern rock landscape.

Instead of throwing perspective on her fears, anxieties and problems and helping to alleviate them, that context and duality only amplifies them. They become her, and she becomes them. ... ‘Hurt A Fly’ is one of the more optimistic-sounding songs on the album, but even its hopeful tone is laden with the threat and/or promise of everything crashing down. The tender strains of ‘Pass’ also offer a glimmer of hope, but one that, inevitably, eventually burns out and turns to dust.

This is Hey Colossus' best LP yet--by some distance.

A long time coming, ‘Heaven knows’ is a debut album that was well worth the wait from PinkPantheress, and a sign of a promising career from the singer.

Khruangbin’s is extra special. It's not as reliant on electronics and is a treasure trove for those whose record collections happily travel the world and don't stick purely to English. Turn the lights down low, kick-back, and enjoy.

With a limitless blend of genres, there are songs that your pop princess can access alongside her punk sister, uniting them in their struggle.

This latest set sees Clark back in domineering form. There’s not a second wasted on the album’s taut track list, the songwriter managing to balance her teenage inspirations simultaneously, go back to basics, and break new ground all at once.

Ultimately 'Saves The World' is a bold, colourful, lyric return, one that is asserting while remaining utterly honest, completely true to themselves.

Not only is this their biggest album to date, it’s also their best. It builds on their remarkable career, as a duo and solo artists, to date and makes us question what jazz should be doing in 2022. ... It’s brave, accomplished, daring and wonderfully catchy in ways you don’t expect.

Nili Hadida’s first foray into solo music is fearless and successfully breaks away from her band dynamic, as it showcases her evolution and experimentation in developing a unique palette of brilliant sounds.

‘Saint Cloud’ is the refreshed, reformed and matured Waxahatchee – and it’s glorious.

Code Orange’s aim is not to upset the status quo but to rob it. Are they delusional? Absolutely, but the sheer, clear-eyed ambition they exhibit in pursuing the impossible is compelling enough to make ‘Underneath’ an absolute must-hear for anyone who dares to dream differently.

YU is a swagger drenched, masterful treatise from a woman with a new perspective, new weapons, and the confidence to use them.

I have seen the future of dreamy pop, and its name is The Maccabees.

A broad, diverse and enriching album, the ten tracks which make up Culture Of Volume are each distinctive but seamlessly connect and click together to produce a piece of work that will both delight and enthral.

What ‘Perfect Saviors’ succeeds in, however, it exploding those aspects ever outwards, renewing The Armed and emboldening their most ambitious, rewarding album to date.

One of our greatest living guitarists has conjured up something truly special.

Injury Reserve’s new album is a truly dystopian impression of despair, smashing together polar opposite genres to create something wholly new.

Makaya McCraven breathes new life into not only the album but Scott-Heron’s legacy.

A more concise LP that continues LUH's mythos, whilst also branching out sonically, Love Hates What You Become reinforces their necessary purpose. Fearless, life-affirming and without compromise, Lost Under Heaven's future blues have the potential to be a soundtrack of a generation.

A core message for hope in a fragile world (delivered via singers like Moses Sumney and Tawiah) completes this delicate musical tapestry perfectly, resulting in a quietly triumphant comeback from the British masters.

Her second album is an enchanting collection of beautifully raw songs, the faint trace of tape-hiss in the quieter moments combined with the rootsy feel of songs.

Despite the visceral joy and catchy melodies of the music; it's Joseph Talbot’s lyrics that are the main event. Part social commentary, stand-up routine and motivational quotes lyrics.

Channel Orange demands to be listened to in a single sitting.

Fuelled by rapturous and disjointed guitar work and bittersweet lyricism, this record will easily be in the running for one of the best records out of the UK this year.

Imbued with a rupturing rave-punk sensibility.

Showing clear progression and monumental ambition, TNP have crafted a stark and dense knockout performance.

‘Coral Island’ is huge in scope and ambition, while also remaining staggeringly consistent. The bar is set high from the off, and they never fail to reach it. A lazy comparison: it’s as creative as ‘The White Album’ and as unified as ‘Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake’. A truly superb experience, it feels as though The Coral have painted their masterpiece – a one way ticket to ‘Coral Island’ is a truly an offer you can’t turn down.

The Betas were a formidable live band, and the radio session tracks here are as good as, and sometimes better than, their studio counterparts. There’s little in the way of actual rarities, though.

‘The Family’ is the perfect BROCKHAMPTON album. It has a flawless balance on energy fuelled moments with more melancholic ones, and the departure in sound from previous efforts makes for a compelling full listen.

Whilst we aren’t handed the next chapter of The Libertines story on a platter, the beauty and tumult of the band is in the subtext. It’s in John Hassall and Gary Powell joining Barat and Doherty’s mythic duo on vocals for the first time on ‘Man With The Melody’. It’s in the closer, ‘Songs They Never Played On The Radio’, which was born in 2006 and finished for ‘All Quiet…’, one of the most beautiful Libertines songs of all time.

Stuffed with bomb-ass beats and rhymes that will bang from Cali to Darlington.

It’s reality music, and while obviously tailored around the life and times of Shawn Carter, offers so many narratives that the common man can relate to in astounding measures.

Everything suggests that, on the strength of this set, The Land of the Brave won’t need a referendum to prove its independence.

Stunning debut mixtape ‘Send Them To Coventry’. The 15-track project is a musical kaleidoscope, fusing elements of afro-swing, dancehall, grime, and rap. Sonically, it speaks to the fluidity of Black sounds.

‘MOTOMAMI’ blows away the lingering strictures of lockdown, and finds a true modern icon bathing in personal freedoms.

The Bones Of What You Believe is an exceptionally strong debut where every track is a potential single.

I See You is perhaps the bravest album of the band’s career, the one laden with the most changes, with the most prolonged journeys into the unexpected. Yet it also feels resolutely like The xx.

Some of the tracks cry out for a bar or two to be spat over, but when you hear that hollow synth on Teeza’s ‘Rum And Coke’, you’ll be sold on the grime renaissance.

The pacing can get interrupted somewhat by the sheer amount of skits on here, and a Jay Sean featuring ‘Any Day’ slams on the brakes mid-album, but other than that this is a tightly packed, lightning-quick swing at the racism of British society. Riz Ahmed might now be more famous for his acting, but he’s been making music since he was a teenager – and on this album, it shows.

This isn’t download territory--it’s a journey, and if you buy a ticket, you have to put the time in to get to the destination. But what a destination.

Another impressive feather in one of the most versatile caps in Parisian pop music.

Cheeky, subversive ‘I Saw The Truth Undressing’ seems to sum up this wonderful, enlightening record.

Although 'Elephant In The Room' is not quite as diverse as his 2018 effort 'Pieces Of A Man' or as fresh as his breakout tape 'Wave[s]', there's a lot to love about the album, and it's likely to one that ages gracefully over time.

All one can do is let the album play through again, though, is indicative of the great power this exhibition of completely engrossing, electrifyingly ambitious avant-dance(hall) possesses.

This preference for impulsiveness and reaction off of one another when making their music comes through in the warm, emotive feel of the whole record.

‘Invisible Forces’ is a complicated album, but not cluttered. James Heather’s elegant runs, and elegant is the only real word to describe his playing, are thought-provoking and moving. Throughout the pianist delivers emotion-heavy music that is oddly catchy.

Beautifully accomplished, ‘Weather Alive’ stands as an imposing career-high by a fine, fine songwriter.

‘Stay Close To Music’ is, in all sincerity, a masterpiece that seeks to amplify the voices that have been pushed aside for far too long.

A very welcome return.

‘12’ is not an album to take lightly. It is an album to listen to intently as often as you can. With each listen you learn something about what it takes to be a great artist, Ryuichi Sakamoto is a great artist, but it also teaches us not to take things too seriously because one day it could all be over.

This one will grow and reward with every new listen, as you get to know the troubled character behind the barbed words.

‘For Those I Love’ is a truly exquisite achievement in which the redemptive hope that love and friendship provide is never allowed to sink beneath the waters.