Different Every Time goes much further than previous comps in communicating the vast range of Wyatt's musical persona and is a brilliant introduction for newcomers.

Each of these albums is full of Cooder's superb, goose pimple-inducing guitar work and rich musical thinking, but given how impressive his film work has been, Soundtracks is a fine collection but ultimately something of a disappointment.

His castoffs and extras equal other people's gold, and $ingle$ 2 is worth its weight in trash.

A smart and resourceful exercise in pop that works on several levels, Springtime Carnivore is an impressive calling card from an artist who clearly has interesting things up her sleeve.

Simple Minds have finally come to terms with all the fragments of their musical identity, focused them in a complementary manner, and delivered a whole with an unapologetic pop savvy and flair. It is easily their most consistent offering since Once Upon a Time.

Palme doesn't mince words; its pleasures are meticulously crafted and perfectly executed, and they succeed or fail based only on which way the listener falls in regards to Arnalds idiosyncratic voice, much like Joanna Newsom's.

Songs like "Transparent Powers" and "Selfish Thoughts" find this variety of musical muses floating by beneath Amos' emotive, Will Oldham-esque howl.

Darkness has been a frequent companion on She Keeps Bees' earlier releases, but most of Eight Houses seems to take it a step further, verging between sad and threatening, yet ultimately powerful.

On Soft, Bodan is assisted by several producers, and while the backdrops range from light drum'n'bass to the kind of stark and lurching beats heard more commonly on labels like Tri Angle and Modern Love, the album isn't quite as scattered as the singles.

Nothing Important's best moments clearly belie its title.

The end result is something unexpected: a compilation that makes us hear an artist we know well in a whole new way.

These are brightly produced songs perfectly suited to Midler's vocal style, stage bravado, and cheeky sense of humor.

It can be heard both as a portrait of Allen's career as Afrobeat's bannerman rhythmnatist or--perhaps more accurately--the soundtrack to his own musical innovation and evolution through it. Either way it's a stone killer.

By owning her mistakes, she turns them into strengths--and delivers a winning first album in the process.

Every song has a brilliantly shiny chorus, chord changes that inspire deep nostalgic feels, and a snappy, tough-minded lyrical outlook that fit the era and still sounds right in 2014.

The Ting Tings aren't quite ready to grow up and stop partying, but the maturation on Super Critical takes them out of the "overbearing pop flash in the pan" category and suggests they may have even more interesting statements ahead of them.

While No One Was Looking confirms plenty of folks heard fascinating things in the music Bloodshot has brought to the marketplace, it's a great listen that's full of fine surprises and passionate music.

This is most easily recommended to casual fans and folks looking for an introduction to the group's music.

Even if there's a lingering predictability in the paths the Foo Fighters follow on Sonic Highways, they nevertheless know how to make this familiar journey pleasurable.

By and large, the featured performers--mainly McCartney's peers, including his good friend Steve Miller, Billy Joel, Bob Dylan, Brian Wilson, Jeff Lynne, Roger Daltrey, and Willie Nelson, but also a handful of younger performers and old pros, too--stick to both familiar tunes and familiar arrangements, which means The Art of McCartney often gets by on sheer enthusiasm

Sea Island feels like an evolution of the sounds and ideas he explored on his previous full-length, 2012's excellent Sketches from New Brighton, and the short-form releases that followed it, the piano-driven Intervalo and his split EP with the British ambient group Fieldhead.

While the sheer bulk of this set means it's most likely to be heard by hardcore fans, anyone with a genuine interest in Wilco will find a lot of great music that fell between the cracks on this set, as well as a fascinating map of the many roads Wilco did and didn't take.

Dear Youth does an awfully nice job of explaining why the Ghost Inside elicit such devotion. There's no posturing here, just peers trying to work things out the only way they know how: through unmitigated volume.

At its best, Seeds is a fine tribute to Smith and the sound of enduring unimaginable loss.

Though the way Pink zigs and zags on Pom Pom can be dazzling or confusing depending on listeners' patience, in its own way it's one of the best representations of what makes his music fascinating and occasionally frustrating.

Casual listeners may find this to merely be a pleasant and inviting ambient work, but a lot of love went into these nine pieces and repeated spins will reveal great depth and many layers to get lost in.

The producer likewise incorporates vocals, either mostly or completely sampled, that tend to evoke senses of longing, losing grasp, and persevering.

This vibrant jumble of audio adrenaline with flecks of deep thought is, at the very least, an intriguing stab at taking stadium EDM experience somewhere bigger, and better for the soul.