The only thing holding Happy Birthday back from being classic is its brevity and maybe lack of ambition; other than that, the quality of the songs, the impact of the vocals, the excellent production, and his ability to reference the past without aping it combine to make it a superb start for a promising solo career.

A much darker, more ambitious set of songs than the Knife's previous work.

Whether or not you prefer the rowdier version of Harper and his band, it is inarguable that this recording is a concentrated effort coming down on the side of a couple of musical notions that weave together artfully and meaningfully.

Quite a few people are doing this kind of music in 2013; precious few are doing it this well.

Stylish and yearning, Love Yourself: Tear is BTS at a polished and focused peak, cohesive enough to feel like it was conceived in one particular period rather than cobbled together like some of their previous releases.

Rose's own songwriting gifts are on ample display throughout Own Side Now, with lyrics that show a knack for poetic turns and artful understatement in equal measure -- a combination too seldom found in young songwriters' work -- and humble but hummable melodies that make the most of her grounding in both alt-country and pop.

Listeners who came of age during the alt-rock revolution and were disappointed, even outraged, at Liz Phair's Matrix makeover in 2003 should find In Exile Deo is exactly what they were looking for.

Compared to "Hello Young Lovers," Exotic Creatures does sound a little starker at points, but it's often also subtler and slyer, tempering bombast in favor of sprightly but also uneasy melodies on songs like 'The Director Never Yelled "Cut'"

The knack for adding that sudden feeling of positive release is perhaps best summed up by the title of another song with a similar touch: "Rising."

Brutal, unrestrained, and unapologetically ferocious, Utilitarian proves Napalm Death certainly aren't going to mellow with age, and fans of their merciless sound wouldn't want them any other way.

Two Wounded Birds is a well-crafted and powerful debut from a band that arrived in full control of both its sound and its songs.

It's chock-full seductive, attractive melodies and sweet singing, but its lyrics are searing enough in their emotional and spiritual honesty, that they cut to the bone. Great.

Far from seeming aimless, the spaciness is controlled: guitars and bass build to occasional crescendos that then fall back to earth, and the prolonged periods of murmuring electronics do not lack texture or tension. It's this almost cinematic pacing that gives IN///PARALLEL its unique appeal.

Oldham's brand of folk music is certainly old enough and weird enough, but there are noticeably fewer moments of beauty and fewer lyrical revelations than on his best material.

The EP is fine, by all means, but it's definitely not the Aphex release to reach for if you're expecting to be challenged or blown away by something utterly unique or exciting.

At times, Dream of Delphi's soothing yet awestruck moods play more like a soundtrack than a set of songs, but those who savor Khan's powers of expression as much as her art pop savvy will find a lot to love here.

While it's hardly the stark, across-the-board tonal sea change suggested by several of its most immediately ear-catching cuts, And Then We Saw Land is at once an adventurous outward journey and an invitingly familiar return from an always intriguing, intrepid, and under-heralded band.

is still the same Perkins who turned misery into moving music several years ago, but he's learned to dress up those sentiments in engaging Americana attire, a move that softens the blow but rarely cheapens the art.

No Shame isn't a soundtrack to party. It's music for reflection, and coming from an artist who made snark her specialty, that's a step forward.

Their sound will never grow tiresome; it only gets better with repeated use.

Texture is ultimately the dominant force on the album, no matter the volume or source, and hearing how the possibilities are explored song for song within the context of contemplation and hunkering down against a kind of impending threat can be very rewarding.

Little Heater is a lovely, evocative album that touches the heart, the soul, and the intellect with equal force; this is the work of a singular artist working at the top of her game and it demands to be heard.

In the end, the street-worthy effort seems more influenced by Maybach Music than Minaj, as it forsakes the paparazzi and gossip pages for the better and continues on the path first laid out on the man's mixtapes.

It's a trivial if fun diversion.

Toy doesn't sound especially innovative, but it certainly demonstrates that Yello haven't been resting on their laurels, and at its best, the album applies new thinking in electronic pop with the melodic and production approaches that have always been part of Yello's music, for a set that's fresh but unmistakably their work.

Thomas' atmospheric pieces are just as compelling as his songwriting, however, and anyone intrigued by these tracks should check out some of his many extracurricular projects, particularly the dark, jazzy free-form explorations of Billowing and the Krautrock-inspired instrumental pop group Hydropark.

III is much more concise than other Lindstrøm & Prins Thomas albums, but it still reaches toward the outer limits the way that only their work can.

Tess Parks' simmering vocals on the title track drive home the range of Korody's colorful vision, simultaneously offering up a reimagination of Manchester's swirling '90s peak, while at the same time feeling futuristic and unfamiliar.

The highlights are many, but "Black Flag Freestyle" with That Mexican OT sounds like a direct homage to Memphis greats Three 6ix Mafia.

This is by far their most accessible and cohesive record yet, and despite a couple of well-meaning but ultimately derivative hiccups in its second half, Awoo should bring a much larger audience into the fold.

Mouse on Mars sound only like themselves on Parastrophics, an album that's a rebirth and a welcome return for one of electronic music's most restlessly creative acts.

Durvitz's raspy voice and lucid, lyrical stories always hold just a hint of desperation, and even decades into a staggered career, these new tunes can’t help but feel like part of a larger narrative that began during the band’s '90s glory days but finds further, greater refinement here.

Perhaps Ghost on the Canvas doesn't revisit every high in Campbell's history, but it pays honor to his legacy and feels like an appropriate and subtly moving farewell.

Crush is a fully realized progression, and one of the best indie rock albums you'll hear in 2010.

Though the album contains plenty of odd twists and turns, there's enough of the old Melvins to keep things from straying too far from home, offering more than a few comforting oases for listeners to refresh themselves before they head out to explore some of Hold It In's weirder moments.

Fortunately, he hasn't matured out of his core strengths: his vitality, his expressiveness, and his knack for twisting the vagaries of everyday life for urban youth into material for songs.

The duo can still cast a mood, and that's what makes this debut all the more frustrating -- all the parts are here, but they don't come together as often as they could and should.

You've almost certainly heard other acts do what Shovels & Rope do on Swimmin' Time plenty of times; the difference is, this duo can do it better than most, and that's enough to keep them going until they're capable of developing a more unique personality to call their own.

Portugal. The Man and the Last Artful, Dodgr crowd the space somewhat with tandem featured appearances on three tracks, but only "Nature of the Beast" sounds like it belongs on another project.

Throughout the set, Tyler and his band marry their earthbound traditional styles with more intergalactic psychedelia, hitting jam band heights without ever straying too far from the red dirt of their home planet.

The eclectic set is built around the concept of a convergence of multiple realities administered by a mystical jukebox.

One of his more satisfying solo albums.

In almost every way, Sees the Light is an impressive leap forward for Goodman that shows she's more than ready to make La Sera her full-time musical outlet.

Hymnal's serene beauty may make it his most sublime music yet.

It's hardly fair to wish hard times on songwriters just so their work might sound more real and meaningful, but if they have to suffer, one can at least hope that they are able to turn it into the kind of revelatory art that Lerche has on Please.

Though darker than her previous albums, Undercurrent is also more resilient. Jarosz reaches through her musical and personal histories with vulnerability and willingness. She comes out on the other side with songs that possess narrative savvy, melodic invention, and a refreshing sense of self-assuredness.

[A] cleverly devised and skillfully performed album that's pleasingly nostalgic, happily (for the most part) danceable, and best of all perhaps, represents a return to form after their ill-advised foray into radio-ready modern pop.

A major disappointment to say the least, Pretty in Black is such an indifferent and transparent record that it makes one reconsider the quality of the album that preceded it.

The singer and songwriter's second album similarly displays different approaches that skillfully build off and depart from the previous release.

Darnielle can sometimes be too clever, loading in more than a song can bear, but he keeps that tendency in check for the most part on Heretic Pride, and the result is a wonderfully accessible and varied album that hits all the right buttons at all the right times.

Daft Punk are such stellar, meticulous producers that they make any sound work, even superficially dated ones like spastic early-'80s electro/R&B ("Short Circuit") or faux-orchestral synthesizer baroque ("Veridis Quo").

This is a modern classical work that, while haunting and beautiful, bears the enduring weight of witness to the madness of a war that was to end all wars yet, as catastrophic and senseless as this shared massacre was, the long shadow of its historical implications remain.

Tweet has lost nothing vocally while gaining a decade's worth of wisdom. As ever, she exudes euphoria, longing, and irritation with the slightest of adjustments, and remains one of the best soft-voiced, low-volume singers around.

Another gorgeous album.

Citizen Zombie sidesteps the pitfalls of having to live up to former glories by disregarding them altogether and reaching instead for new, weird heights.

Other artists may be bigger than Shakira while others may make more fully realized albums, but as of 2005, no other pop artist attempts as much and achieves as much as Shakira, as this often enthralling album proves.

On Again into Eyes, they take listeners down a fairly well-traveled musical road, but it's still an enjoyable journey.

Three albums in and Lemuria are starting to explore past the point where their heroes left off, and while it's not quite uncharted territory, it's certainly moving in the right direction.

If "back-to-basics" sounds like your ideal Foo Fighters mode, then Your Favorite Toy is one of their best to date.

Where the latter two releases felt like "Hail Marys" tossed into the musical ether, Ocean serves as a return to the kind of sharp-tongued, Beatlesque retro-pop that fueled 2005's "Novelist/Walking Without Effort" and the aforementioned "Letdown."

An addictive, densely packed pop gem that ranks among 2002's best albums.

No hooks, no lyrical drama, no surprises, nothing at all inside the pretty package.

A soft and amiable album that frames Jones' "soft-focus Aretha Franklin" voice with a group of songs that are as classy as they are quiet.

Ikara Colt creates an edgy, electronic/punk-inspired sound with Chat and Business, and the end result is impressively slick.

Clem Snide has crafted another gem.

Though they may be more focused, Enon will never be straightforward, but that's one of the band's, and album's, strengths.

Deftones sticks a little too close to familiar territory this time around.

Thirteenth Step is the sound of a musical and lyrical maturity that normally doesn't occur until a band's third or fourth albums.

Besides the limitless charisma that seeps out of Mystikal's loud, rude rapping-meets-shouting-style of vocal delivery, the album also benefits from the production and songwriting variety that No Limit was never able to accomplish...

Hello Hurricane is by far the San Diego rockers' most natural, effortless outing to date.

Ultimately, All the Women I Am it falls flat; it feels awkward in its stylistic mimicry, and has no center.

As a songwriter, Ubovich still seems to be getting his sea legs; many of these tracks seem to be more about jamming than delivering melodies that will stay with you after the record comes to a close.

While covers records are common, the taste, energy, and imagination Inter Arma apply to Garbers Days Revisited is anything but. As a whole, it stands head and shoulders with any recording in their catalog.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune is meant to be some sort of parody of current R&B production techniques, or a conscious effort to upturn Swamp Dogg's music and send it someplace no one would expect to find it. Either way, it's obvious that Swamp Dogg still knows how to write a song, and even at the age of 76, he's still vital, passionate, and eager to throw a curveball at the expectations of anyone and everyone. Talk about Total Destruction to Your Mind.

Challengers is their biggest grower yet, a dense collection of carefully constructed pop and brain power pop.

As with most extreme death/doom albums verging on the funereal, this one requires a little patience, but the payoff is well worth it.

It has that same slightly unnerved but ultimately comforting effect, and like Neon Golden, you might want to take it everywhere with you, even when you can only replay it in your mind.

Where All Is Fled builds on Hauschildt's Berlin-school/kosmische influences while exploring new dimensions, resulting in his most immersive, accomplished solo work yet.

Omni deliver the songs with all the punch of a band twice their size. They beat the tar out of the sophomore slump and come away with another instant classic album.

Much of the album meanders and loses focus. When the band hit their mark, as they do when "Pictures of Today/Victory" ramps up, or with the strident, beat-heavy march of "Motionless Duties," it makes the process of digging through the rest of the scuzz worthwhile.

There are a few lesser moments, but they don't distract; Slipstream reveals Raitt at another creative peak.

This is the kind of album that can fully define her sound, but is still multifaceted and well crafted enough to be exciting.

No one surpasses her as a master of poetic regret, and few albums examine the peculiar beauty of depression with the skill she brings to Lost in Space.

In another regard, Rave On Buddy Holly is quite different. Encouraged by producer Randall Poster, the 19 artists involved do not settle for mere replications of Buddy's hits, they play fast and loose, sometimes radically reinterpreting the original.

Ware continues to express a multitude of emotions with superb elegance. The material, unfortunately, is on a lower plane.

While not a terrific album, the good often outweighs the occasional filler.

This mixture of clattering, ramshackle arrangements and smartly put-together tunes... is an intriguing new direction for a band that previously seemed more interested in artsy, diffident post-rock.

Thing of the Past succeeds on three different fronts. Certainly, excellent song selection is one, inspired musicianship and arrangements another, but the actual sound of the recording is equally important in putting Thing of the Past across.

Victory Shorts is an assured, confident, and quite often brilliant album by a band that is clearly influenced by the past but never falls prey to easy nostalgia.

There's a strong sense that Valley aims to reinterpret a kind of never-never land of angelic male singing and electronic-driven arrangements that seems to recombine a variety of impulses from the '80s into a combination that never could have existed until a later moment.... A strikingly good debut effort.

The Legendary Demos is a fantastic example of a collection of unreleased material that really works rather than some lackluster hodgepodge of archived filler.

Everything else is instrumental, and suited equally well to either careful listening or playing in the background when some of your hipper friends come over for dinner.

Mark Knopfler has brought some star power to The Sailor's Revenge, but he's also treated Bap Kennedy's skills as a performer and tunesmith with the care they deserve, and this is a dark but frequently beautiful set of Celtic-flavored contemporary folk.

Something that is notable throughout that's been a hallmark of the band's work is the attention to the drumming--for all that there's the flowing wash one might guess, there's also an actual sense of impact rather than simply skittering along.

A Different Arrangement might not be the kind of album that one could cozy up to on a sunny summer day, but on a cold, wintery night it just might be the kind of sound you want to hear as you burrow under the blankets.

This 2012 overview of Laibach has eight extra years to cover, and with one bonafide career highlight occurring during that time, the absolutely epic "B Mashina", which was a key feature of the Nazis-on-the-moon, dark comedy film Iron Sky.

Despite using occasional strings, steel drums euphonium, woodwinds, and even a mellotron, this is not a slick affair.

The control and variety they display throughout Long Distance Song Effects shows that Goldheart Assembly have come into their own here.