When all is said and done, they remain fantastic songwriters, able to convey a variety of emotions without relying on the trappings of punk. The corners may have been sanded off, but it has only revealed new and interesting textures underneath.

Gregory Porter's sophomore effort confirms the talent that was so apparent on his debut.

Not only is it nice for long-time fans of his work, it gives those looking for someone making these kinds of desperately beautiful, painfully human songs a new artist to discover and love.

Despite its arcane references and philosophical nature, Blómi remains approachable and is often quite moving. That Sundfør continues to make such consistently challenging music and be justly rewarded for it is its own small miracle, and with Blómi she reaches yet another career high.

Riderless Horse does indeed present her in a new way, though the remarkable talent that was on display in her previous work is still here, as powerful and moving as ever.

Sprawling and intimate, breezy and affecting, Women in Music Pt. III is a low-key triumph.

It's obvious that Superunknown was consciously styled as a masterwork, and it fulfills every ambition.

Close to the Noise Floor: Formative UK Electronica 1975-1984 collects four discs of the alternately thrilling, grim, silly, and just plain bizarre stuff.

There's a Dream I've Been Saving is a prime cultural artifact documenting a high point in an independent era in pop recording, production, and D.I.Y. aesthetics. It deserves a Grammy for content and design.

It adds up to another pitch perfect album by the band, certainly one of their best and most devastatingly pretty works. In a career full of brilliance, that's saying ever so much.

It could be argued that Live at the Fillmore, 1997 is the definitive live portrait of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: not only do they sound mighty, this freewheeling eclecticism rooted in 1960s rock and pop is the best showcase of the band's aesthetic.

Musgraves has a sense of humor, too, and all of these traits add up to make Same Trailer Different Park more than a collection of songs just aiming for the country charts.

It's the work of a master musician/producer paying wonderful tribute to Scott-Heron for sure, but it's also a fully realized McCraven album, chock-full of his instrumental, arrangement, and production prowess. If you didn't know better, you'd swear this was a collaborative date.

That's a lot of repetition but whether it's taken in either its single-disc or double-disc deluxe editions, The Sound of the Smiths is the best of these posthumous overviews.

Freed of commercial expectations and paired with an empathetic band, Wynonna will sing anything she damn well pleases and she's wound up with a monster of an album.

None of these are precisely new tricks for Swift but her writing from the explicit vantage of other characters, as on the epic story-song "the last great american dynasty," is. Combined, the moodier, contemplative tone and the emphasis on songs that can't be parsed as autobiography make folklore feel not like a momentary diversion inspired by isolation but rather the first chapter of Swift's mature second act.

Joe Strummer 002 is worth its weight simply for containing remastered versions of all three Mescaleros albums, but the copious liner notes, ephemera, and bonus disc of demos and rarities make it essential.

Most of LongGone feels deeply organic, with Redman and his bandmates feeding off each other and working to build something cohesive and bigger than their individual contributions.

The fine track list, together with the rarity value, should make this a high priority on the purchase list of Neil Young fans or, indeed, rock fans.

Anyone who enjoyed The Dirty South as it appeared in 2004 will find The Complete Dirty South rewarding, and those who haven't heard it owe it to themselves to hear it in uncompromised form.

Yours, Mine & Ours is a truly grand record, another in the string of classic releases by Joe Pernice.... The kind of record fans of intelligent pop music played with real emotion should purchase. Immediately.

Chutes Too Narrow's breezy subtlety is less accessible than the Shins' debut, but that doesn't mean the album lacks great songs.

Michael Gira is a man unafraid to follow his muse wherever it may take him, and To Be Kind is another example of his singular vision writ large without compromise.

Taken together, Valentine represents both a bold musical step and a signal that Jordan is ready to move on in more ways than one, at the same time that it leaves some of her distinctiveness behind.

American Band is an op-ed column with guitars, and it presents a message well worth hearing, both as politics and as music.

Come All Ye: The First Ten Years is essential listening. For fans, all of this is necessary, for the curious, start with the studio offerings (there are two fine offerings entitled Five Classic Albums, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2) or the double-disc Gold from 2008.

Ultimately, War Music doesn't sound especially innovative, particularly stacked up against their 1998 masterpiece The Shape of Punk to Come. But it speaks to a world still wrestling with problems that have divided society for centuries, and Refused aren't rehashing old arguments so much as they're launching one more campaign in a war they cannot bear to surrender.

A remarkable album with more gateways than a knowing mixtape, Essex Honey shows that Hynes is as ingenious as a would-be DJ, A&R, and talent connector as he is as a songwriter, producer, multi-instrumentalist, and singer.