The album is not just the best country has to offer (if the genre were modeled on his standard, its radio stations would be difficult to turn off), but more: it's the best that pop music has to offer, too.

The problem here, though, is that with the exception of the above songs ["Love Ain't a Love Song," "Oh Beautiful!," "Never Give All Your Heart," and "Trouble Town"], and maybe one or two others, the songs on Different Shades of Blue shade toward the generic side of things, and no matter how wonderful and gorgeous the guitar tones may be, it's hard to make a generic song sing memorably.

The pairing of Lund and Cobb on Things That Can't Be Undone is a feather in both their caps; as an album, it forges a new path in country music, yet remains exceptionally close to the tradition's heart.

Cayamo Sessions at Sea works best as a commercial for the ocean-going festival, but it also offers glimpses of some very talented artists crossing paths and sounding like fans, as well as musicians, as they make their way through some songs they clearly love.

This is a burner from start to finish, enjoyable for anyone with a pulse.

It's hard to imagine where METZ can go after pushing their sound and skills into the red zone as they have on Strange Peace, but with their third album, they've left no doubt that they're one of the most singularly powerful rock bands in North America, and you ignore them at your peril.

A major step up from their earlier material, Kingdoms in Colour is where Maribou State truly come into their own.

One hopes that M.C. Taylor's dark clouds have parted, but on Terms of Surrender he's taken his troubles and made something beautiful and inspiring out of them. If you want to use music as therapy, this is the way to do it.

Things Happen That Way is solid, fun, and a bit sad, but a fitting, heartfelt sign-off from an American treasure. It's quite beautiful. One hopes, however, that the deleted tracks will surface on a later release.

Somewhere Under the Rainbow manages to feel intimate and hushed even when it's rocking hard and spilling out messily. All of the Official Bootleg Series releases are valuable documents of various phases of Neil's career, but this one has a personality that sets it apart.

There are bands that lavish in the fondue of modern hard rock without the cheese, but not Ghost. Ghost is fun.

While it may not be the band's most ambitious or experimental work, Constant Future is a work of cohesive beauty, showing a real sense of vision in its execution that more than makes up for the lack of any gimmicks added in for art's sake.

These tracks amuse and torment in roughly equal measure.

The crushing intensity on this collection is commonplace for both bands, but comes together with more swampy layers than either can muster on their own.

Easy on the ears, heartfelt, and subtly detailed, City of No Reply establishes Coffman as both an innovative and accessible artist.

Even if the first cut is the deepest, second album Fast Food is still wicked sharp.

The downside is that, much like his earliest material, Change Is Coming has a light feel that's undeniably enjoyable but also a bit tossed-off.

I'm Staying Out is cut from the same cloth as her first full-length, While You Weren't Looking, but it expands on the ambition of that fine record and shows Cary growing from strength to strength as a writer and a performer.

Throughout this collection, Rye Coalition shamlessly worships at the altar of Kiss, Grand Funk Railroad, and Spinal Tap via weathered, punk-inspired chord progressions, muddy bass lines, lead-footed drum patterns, and hammer-handed guitar riffs that will shake, rattle, and roll hockey arenas until the end of time.

Like Erykah Badu and other retro-soul artists that have followed her, Alicia Keys is trying to redefine modern R&B by injecting it with jazz and blues. In Songs in A Minor, Keys accomplishes her goal with poise and skill.

It's hard to shake the feeling that the National is highly influenced by and studied in the bands it emulates, but the album is still worth a listen for fans of moody country-tinged lounge music.

Hanna straddles the line between cheeky and obnoxious throughout.

The 12 songs on Thrawn have been culled from six studio albums released between 2003 and 2009 (Anderson has released more than two dozen albums independently) and serve as an excellent introduction to his work.

It's a fitting album that sums up and shines a light on all the things that make/made the band so enthralling.

Sometimes some things need to perish for others to flourish, and these songs show that Standell-Preston, Smith, and Tufts evolved into a group that can not just survive, but thrive in the face of hard times.

While the band's elemental sound doesn't show much in the way of innovation, the spirit of true rock is so strong within it that it doesn't really matter.

With In Times, Enslaved prove once again that they are among the few survivors of their generation that have never repeated themselves, nor have they morphed into something so unrecognizable that they're merely another metal band. This is vital, bracing music.