What strikes you as the cast of thousands run through the Guthrie repertoire on these three discs is just how singable they were--Woody played fast and loose with his melodies, but his words still score and sear.

Even kids who don’t like rock’n’roll might find this infectious invitation hard to resist.

Spoon have been together for over 20 years now, yet it’s clear from this ninth full-length that their inspiration remains plentiful. In fact, Hot Thoughts is a surge of vivid creativity that veers between straightforward indie-pop and more experimental art pop.

Throughout, they’ve remained a surprising and, more importantly, single-minded unit.

Cool Ghouls have a very thorough grasp of how psych should be repackaged for today. Animal Races offer harmony-laden 60s folk-rock with a slight slacker feel, not unlike Quilt.

Smash The System is another complex smorgasbord that fans of Haines’ music and sense of humour will lap up. And that non-concept thing might just be another arch attack.

The rave presets of old will appease older fans while the more intricate synth work will satisfy more recent converts. Still, it’s the deeper tunes here that point to an intriguing future.

While the cynical may snigger behind their hands at this degree of conceptualisation, it makes for a suprisingly tight, focused release.

There’s an easy charm about the whole project that lends it a robust confidence.

Between its open-skied romanticism and thorny honesty, Stars’ sustained momentum seems assured.

A thoughtful and subtle gem.

With the cleaner production (and techno wizard Trentemøller’s post-production) serving to highlight rather than smooth its bristling urgency and naked emotion, it seems destined to win hearts and minds.

While the relaxed vibe is continuous, the music isn’t repetitive but there’s nothing really new here: rather it’s an extension of what Sade’s band Sweetback and trumpeter Roy Hargrove’s RH Factor were doing well over a decade ago. Even so, it’s an enthralling fusion of sounds and styles.

End-times prophecies have always been a part of Gorillaz’s world view, but here Damon Albarn’s lyrics allude to personal burnout. There’s something poignant about hearing Stevie Nicks’ weathered voice twin itself to Albarn’s while singing about reaching a place “when you can’t help yourself anymore and the madness come”.

The result perhaps misses the conceptual cogency of earlier Tree peaks. But it doesn’t want for controlled reach. Over a tight 48 minutes, C/C weds a reinvigorated affirmation of band identity to expansive energies, all to confident effect: “The sum of all, of new and old,” as Wilson’s lyrics put it.

Mug Museum emerges as another low-key intelligent pop gem from Le Bon.

As you’d expect, plucking the most successful songs from their respective albums and reconfiguring them has both an impressive cumulative effect and sets them in a new context. But fans will have all of this music already. The real interest comes with what else is in the package.

Understandably ruminative in nature, it’s a renewed sense of creative vigour which provides the driving force on a piece of work which stands among the composer’s best.

Non-Believers offers up a more fragile, exposed side of the songwriter. While the catchy, jangly hooks that have defined Superchunk for so long are present on these 10 tracks, they feel more tentative, gentle--even slightly unsure of themselves.

If the trappings are lovably stiff and arthritic, the songs are zeitgeist thunderbolts--especially so when a baying, screaming audience charges the very air with O-face abandon.

PUP’s ability to enliven a tired genre with an abundance of ideas and exuberance is a small but exceptional feat.

The scattergun concept inevitably results in a broad range of styles and not all of them are entirely successful. ... Still, the above are minor quibbles, as the bulk of the album is a gorgeous concoction of disparate inspirations finding hitherto elusive homes. The guests get their works in progress nailed by an esteemed craftsman, while Rundgren himself, a man with a partial history of self-sufficiency bordering on the behaviour of a control freak, sounds reinvigorated by allowing others into his world.

A really gorgeous record, and well worth seeking out.

The result is a beguilingly inquisitive album, its meanings and methods nurtured into rich, sun-blushed blooms.

One of this set’s major strengths lies in the equal space given to fleeting names who made their statements then vanished.

Once more riotous than riot grrrl, Luscious Jackson return as a welcome blast of old school New York grit, happily still brandishing their smouldering, idiosyncratic magic.

Stewart hasn’t deviated from his love of pop music history. He understands its nooks and crannies as well as its hooks and melodies and handles them with reverent care.

A record that’s strongest when at its most unassuming.