What matters, what it all boils down to, is The Strokes write incredibly powerful songs, and those who allow the media -- or better yet their reaction to the media, what I call the anti media -- to influence their opinions are missing out.

The Photo Album is evidence of a band that's maturing, slowing down and trying new things.

An improvement over his lo-fi solo debut and his over-produced second disc, but it misses as often as it hits.

As if its size alone weren't enough to set the album apart from his preceding Spiritualized outings, Pierce has removed all the sounds he thought were immediately identifiable as Spiritualized -- delay, phase, Telecaster, Farfisa -- and left the songs as largely orchestral numbers.

There are no shocks or surprises, but instead, How I Long... thrills us softly, its tiny layers and details all intricately woven together into a cohesive and aesthetically delightful tapestry.

Rain on Lens isn't awful, but boy, is it a long way from The Doctor Came at Dawn.

Low Kick and Hard Bop doesn't necessarily lend itself to all listening situations, and may even be tiring at times. It can, however, enlighten and surprise the listener.

A work of real substance, brimming with honesty, humor and beauty.

Orchestral swells, kaleidoscopic tones and childlike fragility imbue All Is Dream with the theatrics of a trip through wonderland.

A dozen mini-masterpieces of crisp, multi-layered production and tight, jangly guitar, a cohesive but loose effort that recalls the warmth of summer even in the cold chill of a New York March.

Kannberg has made an album of fine indie pop that few could have expected.

Continuing an audio development from Dots and Loops, Sound-Dust is littered with a giddy array of hand percussion instruments — marimba, vibraphone and glockenspiel stir up a polyrhythmic stew, its busyness and complexity sounding like the product of painstaking studio assemblage.

Björk continues to mine the fine line of minimalist lushness that her last album gave birth to; with tiny, crackling, skittery beats weaving open-toned ambient beds in which her breathy, pushed-forward vocals lithely lay, the closeness and drama of her every syllable commanding attention.

It's not far from the sound that Yo La Tengo have made their own, especially in their more contemplative, less psychedelic moments...

A jangly collection of contagious pop tunes made melancholy by a dark songwriting style.

No one who bought Vegas will be disappointed by Tweekend, unless they're looking for some statement of artist growth. That's the only area where this album falters. It is otherwise a solid collection of thundering Big Beat grooves.

Time (The Revelator) is ostensibly a solo album, but gives every evidence of being a near-telepathic collaboration between Welch and Rawlings, in which every element is carefully balanced to give the songs maximum impact.

Ancient Melodies of the Future sounds more like "vaguely familiar melodies of the past," but so do some of the best albums in rock.

Where Maxinquaye was both engaging and coherent, working up to a kind of weird gestalt by way of good songs and dark sounds, Blowback is hit-and-miss.

It's no different from the formula that made Fatboy Slim and the Chemical Bores such big hits, but something's different this time around: Basement Jaxx have soul.

The glassy-eyed micro-manic bass-'n'-breaks belligerence on show-offy tracks on this Squarepusher longplayer is either tellingly tired or terrifically tiring, with Jenx's wicked licks of brown-note boogie either spuriously slow in the foot or a swift kick to the collective ass of a collectively ass-kissing musical community.

As forward-thinking as this sounds, it just kind of makes Gorillaz an Archies/Josie & The Pussycats for the new millennium. It also makes them and their album fit in with everyone else in the progressive hip-hop canon, all of whom see fit to make slightly ludicrous concept records.

The spirit of Syd Barrett seems to loom over this record more than either of the previous Radiohead longplayers, and that's not a bad thing at all.

Plaid excel at the little moments where the music breathes -- moments all too rare within the regularized patterns of most beat-oriented electronic music.

On their second proper longplayer, Air project that melancholy forward, depicting romantic recollections from a future world in which "technology" has attained sci-fi levels.

. Ditching some of the more Cali-like, pop-like and psych-like vestments of past longplayers, Argyle Heir finds the quartet-cum-sextet making the most medieval indie-rock this side of dungeon-dancing Helium honcho Mary Timony.

While the sound is often thick -- layers of dewy guitars, keyboards, old organs, bass, drums/beats -- it's always concerned with the "space" of the piece, such thickness often casting insular environments in which Eitzel's voice can wander lonely.

Unlike previous albums, Ovalcommers wheezes and squirms its way inside.

Ágætis Byrjun is one of the most sublimely immersive albums to come along in ages.

Confield presents one of the purest approximations of "machine music" we've heard yet. It's profoundly unsettling, but that's half its beauty; it's a sonic Frankenstein that refuses to let its plug be pulled.

The album straddles R.E.M.'s past and their future, sounding fresh, assured -- and on par with their best previous efforts.

Research has led me to conclude that the correct, and possibly only, way to fully appreciate this album is at extremely high volume on a decent hi-fi whilst massively stoned out of your gourd.

All for You is, for the most part, signature Janet.

The record spans time and genre, reinterpreting everything from ska to country-tinged folk as if it were the product of a whimsically inaccurate translation device from another planet, and in the process creates a new musical language altogether.

Even in the record's most strung-out moments of tension and distortion, Unwound sound nothing more than soft and sweet.

Mind you, Kelly Jones' voice is an acquired taste. If you warm to it, however, you'll then enjoy a wealth of simple country-tinged pop songs.

Her most skillful and soulful work thus far.

Across Old Ramon's sprawling 70-minute set, Kozelek is still a master of his sly charade, disguising sprawling webs of complex guitar chords and considered narratives as humble, simple acoustic ditties.

Cave's latest finds the singer in perhaps the finest voice of his career, armed with a set of melodic ballads and mid-tempo rockers which exemplify his dedicated, traditionalist's approach to the songwriter's craft.

They're merely using Psychocandy as a workaday aesthetic strategy and, despite loads of melodrama, they never sound pretentious about it either.

Yes, it's fun rockin' pop. But, unlike a lot of today's pop music, Guided By Voices keep their depth.

Amongst the bubble-and-squeak, there's much audio delight to savor...

The astonishing way in which the latest outing from San Franciscan deconstructionist darlings Matmos was put together is of such novel conceit it threatens to overshadow the final product.

Attention to detail particularly benefits the lush and endearing "Good Fruit," the rare track wherein lovelorn earnestness replaces self-conscious repartee.

Group Sounds may not be astonishingly great, but it mostly rocks with the raw, excellent sound RFTC has come to own.

The record maps for, and makes for, an unhurried listen, stringing between buttery grooves with an apparent smoker's-delight vibe; the set only goes up a notch when The Pharcyde step up to the microphone, their goofy, lithe lyricism upping the relaxed pulse for a pair of fine moments.

While previous records have consisted almost entirely of a simple guitar/vocals/drum-machine arrangement, this fourth longplayer finds different sonic deployments.

Spoon's most ambitious album is also their best.

The only obvious goal seems to be shorter, more direct songs, delivered with more straightforward demeanor.

Kozelek has delivered a wondrous collection.

Throughout, there's little doubting Malkmus's charisma as a performer...

Things We Lost in the Fire finds Low enamoured with harmonies, drawing from such disparate sources as Swans, the Beatles, Wire, and Simon & Garfunkel.

They do a good job of mixing humor and fun with their politics...

Rainer Maria have never been more skillful in their playing or stronger in their singing than on the slickly recorded A Better Version of Me -- which some may see as a problem.

Little Sparrow proves that 1999's The Grass Is Green was no fleeting burst of inspiration; Parton hasn't been so consistently exciting since the '70s.

The Bay Area punk-rockers mix early Ramones with '80s metal.

Spending much of its time suspended in hollowed-out tones smudged only by desolate beats, Aaltopiiri is probably Pan sonic's most intense listening experience.

The songs on Mama's Gun slip from one to the next effortlessly, coming together as a set of sedate, buttery-smooth grooves.

Once you fall for "Yellow," the rest of the album will kick in, and fast.

Singer/writer/producer Jason Lytle has a little bit of Neil Young in his voice and Radiohead in his production style.

Their debut album flits between uneasy ambient pieces, pop songs buried in layers and loops, and crunchy takes on the IDM sound.

This is one of the best albums of 2000.

Mostly downbeat, the album feels, at times, as if it were created beneath a black cloud.

This is gloriously trashy glam-rock with an updated cybernetic edge.

Green Day have created a great punk-meets-rock album.

A slow-burn knockout.

Unwinds slowly, slipping between ghosted noise-and-field-recording passages and the sustained explosions of big, bombastic caterwaul that have become Godspeed's signature sound.

The music roars along, occasionally slowing to build tension, then letting loose with a corrosive guitar assault.

A shimmering set of utterly gorgeous songs.

Elastica throw out crackling melodies with little regard for the listener.

The grooves are righteous and the vibe is right.

One-upping their previous masterwork, 1997's The Dandy Warhols Come Down, Thirteen Tales... will trip you out, especially when listened to on headphones in the post-midnight hours.