It’s not as remarkable a transformation as the one Rick Rubin performed on Johnny Cash, but this is a fine collection and as pleasurable a listen as it undoubtedly was to record.

It's a masterclass in why they were, and still are, the greatest rock band to grace the Earth.

A definite tour de force for indie hip hop.

'Love And Theft' is a much tricksier, elusive and - important, this - entertaining beast, one that mingles reflections on ageing with a host of jokes, both good and bad, and some wickedly limber music.

This release at least gives some sense of the visual brilliance, media spectacle and utter fertility of artistic energy that came together in Tropicalia.

'In Search Of' throbs with an innovation hewn from the patchwork of the past yet anxious to transcend it and head for undiscovered planets. The real revolution is here: support future music, reject imitation - 'In Search Of' really is one of the best albums you'll hear this year. [Review of UK version]

"Orphans" is that rarity of an album: one that will satisfy hardcore fans as well as the uninitiated.

Delivering his lyrics in a breathless barrage, 'Boy In Da Corner' packs the energy flash of London MCing into its grooves and for that alone it deserves attention.

'Elephant' is already this year's most crucial purchase.

Their records sound very different, but they're both astounding.

His eye remains sharp.

Not since Oasis in their gloriously unstoppable and unapologetic heyday have we been given the opportunity to embrace such straight-ahead, ebullient, desire-fuelled guitar music.

Once you've taken in how wonderful it sounds, it'll be time to thrill at how much of it there is, then how dense it all is.

What 'Original Pirate Material' makes abundantly clear though, is that - whilst Skinner may not be at the very cutting edge of Garage's club soundtrack - he's a man blessed with an astonishing aptitude for pop and a mainline into the Zeitgeist.

Show[s] that the early chapters of the Staton story may not match the later commercial success, but trump the four-to-the-floor stuff with grit-in-the-grooves southern soul.

“Funeral” is the sort of perfectly-realised record you’d hope from a band at the top of their game. For a debut release it’s unmatched in recent years. Hearing it is to wake from a black and white slumber and to view the world in widescreen Technicolour.

It's eclectic, electrifying, eccentric and more than a little bit ludicrous, but Sir Lucious's ambition is as infectious as its madness is dazzling.

Untrue is a devastatingly accurate depiction of urban UK--plugging the listener into the matrix of some godforsaken south London satellite, with its identikit fast food joints, repellent inhabitants and anonymous decaying sprawl.

Throughout the album, Primal Scream set a furious pace that only narrowly stops itself before the last note is spat out. In the preceding 65 minutes, what you get is as monumental a sonic statement of the times as 'Screamadelica' was over ten years ago, the first great album of the millennium and probably the best record of the year.

A modern day classic.

Squeaky genius.

A unique and beautiful work that will be returned to again and again. Definitely, already, an album of the year.

'Since I Left You' is nothing short of stunning.... There's more imagination in this hour-long odyssey than most sample-based artists manage in their entire career. Not since DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing' has an album showed what you really can do with a bunch of old vinyl.

"Modern Times" offers further evidence that this man remains more than capable of greatness.

It's hard to believe a better advertisement for music's capacity to be simultaneously adventurous and entertaining, funny and moving, leftfield and mainstream will be released all year.

This is music that sounds like it was plotted by sad psychics graduates in lab coats. It's clean, melancholic and sterile (in a totally non-derogatory sense) - full of gently undulating rhythms and melodic pulses.

Merriweather Post Pavilion's rare combination of great songs and vital invention make this one of the year's most important records, already.

'The Sky Is Fallin' is a beast.... 'God Is In The Radio' has got just such an awesome riff, like the Lord himself hotwired to a Marshall amp.