Greatest-hits compilations in general are something of an endangered species, given that streaming-service playlists can now generate them for you, but there's still something to be said for getting a band's own take on what they deem essential.

Unless you approach Electronica 1 as a collection of unrelated songs designed to be cherry-picked for playlists--and given the generic title, maybe that's the point--there's little to hold it together.

Divers is not a puzzle to crack, but a dialog that generously articulates the intimate chasm of loss, the way it's both irrational and very real.

Thank You is still undeniably a Beach House album, a familiar mix of warm tones and chilly sentiments. With the imprint still fading on Depression, Thank You’s impact is undeniably dulled, causing a strange "too much of a good thing" problem.

Future is YACHT's would-be critique of our pre-dystopian, post-Internet culture, but it rarely comes off as more than a charismatic cover band singing us yesterday's news.

With an album replete with Spanish guitar jams, wide-eyed hip-hop, and psychedelic rock k-holes, there isn't much ground left for Raury to cover. Now, he must figure out how to do it all just a little bit better.

Alone is less stripped-down than Impersonator, but it feels less confrontational, too.

The production values are higher, and there’s even more of Palomo's queasy pitch-shifting, 16-bit synths, and disembodied samples--more of everything.

The Documentary 2 solidifies him a grade-grubbing student of hip-hop, one with far more resources and drive than natural talent, but a student all the same.

Repetition is key to this music, but after several cycles, tracks begin to plod, broken up only by Khan's vocal work. The Sexwitch interpretations lose vital elements from the originals like horns, organs, and bells.

She expresses no hesitation here, and for that, her band has never sounded better. Sure, you can come for the twin guitars and the loaded rhythm section, but at last, Cottrell has made it clear you’re staying for her.

The result sounds like something that's already been comp'ed to death by Putumayo.

Diaphanous of texture but heavy of spirit, Safe revolves upon this tension, the pressure point of a soul under strain.

No No asks a lot of listeners, that we unpack all of these fun inferences even as we're being assaulted by the 143 different sounds Co La casted into the vestige of a snare drum. No No, on balance, is worth the effort.

A pristine dream magic seems to inform Apologues--the fluid serenity of the music projects a lulling, murmured unreality that suggests that the album is a figment of the listener’s imagination even while it is in play.

Some can't be saved, which happens when you keep expanding..... More often than not, though, the center holds, and it makes Ultraviolet look like a scratchpad for what they ended up doing here: radically shaking up their formula--from the inside out--and come back with compelling results.

Clutch work best when they keep the pulley of punchlines and pummeling riffs running at max speed, and as a result, Psychic Warfare proves a tad too meandering to eclipse Earth Rocker or Blast Tyrant

If there isn't a Deerhunter sound, there's a Deerhunter perspective that runs through their work, best summed up in "All the Same"—"take your handicaps/ Channel them and feed them back/ Until they become your strengths." The weird era continues.

Nothing about Timeline is bad. It's a pretty strong release for a brand new imprint to build on. But if the same record were released from, say, Stones Throw, we might sigh, and chalk it up to another good-but-not-great album from a label that still hasn't quite figured out a unified new direction.

Dilly Dally always sound like they're being crushed throughout Sore, in a good way: They inhabit the dank space beneath dead weight, the place where the good stuff festers.

A good listen to the album today reveals some ways it was ahead of its time.

We might not learn a lot of specifics about him, but there’s a lot of honesty in his music if you look for it.

The question, going into this album, was whether he could give them purpose and meaning--whether he could put his technical mastery into the service of music at once experimental and lyrical. Where All Is Fled answers resoundingly in the affirmative.

Complicated arrangements and gorgeous melodies reveal themselves to you as rewards for your patience. Over time, even the alien voices begin to sound natural, even inviting.

The mechanics of dance music might inspire feelings in listeners, but within the genre, overrun with the egos and opinions of "bro-teurs," her emotions are revolutionary.

The extras dug up for the Tug of War reissue (the Super Deluxe Edition of each also contain DVDs of era-appropriate ephemera) make for some interesting listening—demo versions of "Wanderlust" and "The Pound Is Sinking", and a version of "Ebony" with just McCartney on electric piano. But those pale in comparison to the veritable alternate LP included in Pipes of Peace.

It's generally a meditative set, and only on the album's final track, "Exit the Acropolis", does Dozzy return to the sound with which he's most closely affiliated: Tapping out clicks like 808 hi-hats, and weaving three or four layers of mouth harp into enveloping contrapuntal pulses, it's the perfect approximation of Berghain-styled techno.

Shopping’s idea of choice doesn't mean one agenda at the expense of another, but establishing a welcoming space for all comers. It works because their naturally scatty, riotous spark means they could never sound neutral.