Pop music styles change faster than they wear out, and Mohager convincingly makes the case that there is more to say in the music of the '80s, even if fashion has banished it to its own radio formats and nostalgia tours.

All blunders aside, Burning at Both Ends is an album that has a lot to offer for Set Your Goals devotees, and might even make converts out of the uninitiated.

It's the more familiar works which ensure that Basement Jaxx vs. Metropole Orkest is an uplifting, feel-good record which manages to straddle the unlikely worlds of classical and progressive house with ease.

With Collider, Roberts proves himself an essential part of the R&R landscape.

Samuel Flynn Scott's vocals often come across as nondescript but aim to be familiar rather than remarkable, suiting the sense of easy immediacy here -- the appeal of being what you expect.

Joe Ely is still one of the best things the Lone Star State has to offer, and Satisfied at Last shows he's not about to stop making albums worth hearing, and still finding things to say within the style he's made his own.

As an album, Standing on the Rooftop may not be as striking as its predecessor, but perhaps it wasn't meant to be. It is a seemingly effort that pushes the familiar toward an uncertain future where pop genres cease to need to exist at all.

Whether this is a one-off or a bridge to something more substantial, it's satisfying in the present and will likely increase in stature as years pass.

For Shelton's fans, this is a whole helping of what you like best, and it's carefully formulated to be exactly that.

For the most part, she is still able to deliver her tunes with honesty that makes you think about feelings she's conveying, not her recording budgets, as is the case with many over-processed country stars out there.

Vol. 2 shows the full breadth of the group's sound, from the ballads to the rockers to the various gems in between.

An easy recommendation for its obvious audience, but Together/Apart is a bit more than that as well, giving the genre of indie hip-hop some mass appeal whenever it decides to wild out.

Unfortunately, there's an underlying feeling of insincerity. More often than not, the lyrics are literal interpretations of song titles.

The Secret is a giant leap forward for Farka Touré as an artist to be sure; but it's a stone killer for listeners.

You should know from Hernandez's track record that there will be plenty of hooky melodies and songs that will be stuck like glue in your head and on your lips, and he certainly doesn't let you down here.

Casablanca Nights should serve as an inspiration to producers everywhere as an example of how to do an "And Friends" record the right way. For the rest of us, it's a thrilling blast of heartbreak beats and sweet club emotion.

There's an amusing irony that one of Sebadoh's most straightforward and tuneful albums is accompanied by an hour's worth of the sort of indulgent four-track murk Sebadoh seemed to be actively moving past, though as such things go, there's plenty of adventurous lo-fi sound collage to be found, as well as some prime examples of Barlow staring down his neuroses.

It's the band's most impressive outing to date, and easily one of the best metal albums of 2011.

Player Piano offers enough of Hawk's characteristically inventive sonic tinkering -- including, the title notwithstanding, an intriguing emphasis on organ sounds -- to merit repeated listens, even if these productions do sound worrisomely flat at times.

There's no denying that, a half-decade late or not, SebastiAn has delivered.

This shifting back and forth between tradition and avant-garde tradition, as it were, defines much of the rest of the album -- call it maturing or call it other interests, but it's a comfortable enough listen, as appropriate for the schizophrenic beast that still gets labeled indie rock as anything else.

Most of the successive leaks and singles continued the trend, and King of Hearts, in turn, is clearly the singer's best album yet.

For anyone who was left out in the cold after Def Jux closed their doors Ox 2010: A Street Odyssey is the album you've been looking for.

Experimental while always pop-oriented and engaging, Was I the Wave? is a great summer afternoon album for chilling at the beach or day-driving with friends.

Sagara shows the Norwegian to be an equally effective mood painter without his trusty beats, and in some respects, his accomplishment here is his most adept and impressive yet.

While his technical acumen remains uncontested, the addition of blistering bluegrass singer/guitarist Michael Daves and notorious engineering luddite White into the mix has helped to temper Thile's signature refinements into something raw and primal.

Sure, as sheer sound, it's executed well -- more assured, musical, and, well, professional than any of their other albums, their age lending them a dexterity absent in their hits -- but the deliberate retro-rage begs the question: who exactly is this music for?

Very much like its predecessor, Devil's Music derives most of its noteworthiness and novelty (and arguably, for better or worse, much of its musical interest) from an impressive, sometimes head-scratching roster of guest vocalists drawn from pop, rock, rap, and reggae.