'Smile' stands up with any of the great music of the 20th century. [25 Sep 2004, p.63]

Ultimately, ‘Kid Amnesiae’ not only offers a mood piece, but also a companion and secret history behind the making of two essential, landmark records – and the rebirth of a great band.

An album that, lacking the neatly redemptive arc of 'good kid, mAAd city', is also grand and slightly unwieldy.

Ghosteen is one of the most devastatingly accurate accounts of grief that you’ll ever listen to. Yet it’s also, astoundingly, one of the most comforting. Few mediations on grief manage to navigate despair and catharsis as well as this.

The boundaries for African music are constantly moving, and across this album, Amaarae pushes them even further.

DAMN. is by far his shortest release to date – but the ideas, thoughts and feelings it contains are massive, weighty things, from sexual tension to deep, dark depression.

It’s a vision of which DeLillo, Picasso or Eliot would be proud, and serves as a fitting close on a record that aspires to be the musical equivalent of the Great American Novel. It would be foolish indeed to assume that ‘Rough And Rowdy Ways’ is Dylan’s last word, but it’s certainly a historic address.

The good--no, the astonishing--news is that this constantly engrossing record repays a decade and a half's faith and patience. D'Angelo has scuttled down the digital chimney with an early Christmas gift with long-lasting rewards: not just one of the best records of 2014, but one that will stay with you throughout next year, too.

From the start, it’s clear that this isn’t some posthumous dig around in a bucket of old offcuts in an attempt to bleed some money out of dedicated fans, but rather a slick and gratifying fulfilment of one of Petty’s long standing wishes. ‘Wildflowers & All The Rest’ feels less like grave-robbing and more like bringing back one of the all-time greats back to life.

On ‘Debí Tirar Más Fotos’, Benito revolutionizes Puerto Rico’s folk music and reclaims his reggaeton throne with game-changing fusions that are authentic to him and what he believes in.

On the self-described “club record”, XCX offers pure party girl hedonism. .... Yet these heady songs also see XCX at her most raw, smuggling the reflections that spill out in the early hours of the morning through the guise of club bangers.

There’s groove here. There are innovative experiments in atonality. And there’s a record that says as much about the lives of young people in 2019 as any we’ve heard released so far this year.

‘Conflict Of Interest’ could sit on the same shelf as Dave’s ‘Psychodrama’ as an album that depicts honest tales of London through the art of true lyricism, a tradition that will never die out.

‘A Comforting Notion’ feels urgent and important, brimming with all the promise of the next great cult act.

No other record released this year will provoke such conflicting emotions in you. Skeleton Tree is both beautiful and harrowing, hard to listen to but even harder to look away from.

It is an astonishing record – one that continuously stops you dead in your tracks, encourages curiosity, and builds a new world for you to dive into, while connecting to the sounds of all of Rosalía’s previous releases.

Probably the most gutsy, timeless recording of his career. [5 Aug 2006, p.29]

It's the best thing he's done since his game-changing debut, and heartening evidence to suggest the self-professed Louis Vuitton don is in a good place right now.

Though there’s always a lot happening on the surface, at the core of ‘Baby’ are songs so finely hewn that they’re never overshadowed.

Rosalía isn’t so much carving out her own lane as building her own ultra-modern, super-bendy sonic motorway. It’s one you’ll want to hurtle down again and again.

It would be unfair to call the album a time capsule of present times, however chaotic those are, as it feels like the uneven collection might morph into something else when revisiting it next week.

Noname isn’t bringing us a romantic rags-to-riches story; here she acknowledges the pitfalls of fame (as well as the occasional perks) with whip-smart honesty. Just like ‘Telefone’, it’s flawless.

‘One Foot in Front of the Other’ cements the accolade [Britain's next great pop star] – Griff has got the golden touch right now.

Arguably the most personal album of Smith’s career. Mortality may loom, but there’s colour in the black and flowers on the grave.

Rightly championed as a vital new voice in the world of rock, Nova Twins haven’t let any of that pressure get in the way of creating a flamboyant, fantastic second album that’s as playful as it is powerful.

Assured and unapologetic, it’s charged with a dark, smirking wit that’s impossible to turn away from, and achieves an incredibly impressive feat: not only does Self Esteem detail the fear, uneasiness and anger of being a woman – keys clutched between our fists – but also manages to make us laugh at the sheer absurdity of being forced to navigate a world that has, quite unbelievably, normalised misogyny.

Lemonade is strikingly varied. ... Where her huge team fails to innovate is on the album’s drab middle few cuts about acceptance and forgiveness--chief among them the horrible hoedown ‘Daddy Lessons’, which blends whooping with boring rhymes (“Daddy made me fight / It wasn't always right”). But the final four tracks see quality return, and penultimate track ‘All Night’, in particular, is one of Beyoncé’s most nuanced vocal performances to date.

This singular record will remain a stunning collection to be cherished for years to come, and a remarkable high on which to end Wood’s tenure at the front of the band. It’s a future cult classic.