Infectious, progressive, immediate dance music.

In 2010, when oversharing is the norm, Pinkerton can seem almost quaint for its willingness to hold back. All told, it's roughly 10 percent as confessional as the average overheated Tumblr post or Gareth Campesino! lyric sheet. Maybe that's why, to this day, "El Scorcho" is still the sort of song that lonely teenage boys vigorously lip-synch to when they think that nobody's looking. Its lyrics can be vague enough ("I'm a lot like you...") to fit all sorts of specific yearning.

Although none of the new material is even remotely bad, a handful of diverse tracks on the album's second half exceed the high standards set by the hand-picked singles.

Its power and poise never ceases for 90 wonderful minutes.

One of the most satisfying, a nearly unclassifiable mammoth of sound that manages to weave brutality, atmosphere, and aching melody into a body-enveloping cocoon that sticks around longer than the average Hollywood movie.

Album of the Year stands as one of 2010's most innovative and adventurous albums of any stripe, incorporating traces of African jazz, latin music, psych, metal, and more in its relentless attack. It bangs hard from start to finish, and it's guaranteed to send producers scrambling to rerecord their drums in its wake.

Of all the bands in the rock canon, Wire may be the best embodiment of the term “forward-thinking” that is so vogue nowadays, and Object 47 keeps with the mantra with stunning results.

Not only does The Woods jumpstart a moribund genre, it also serves as a wake-up call for the zeitgeist.

Have One on Me isn't at all a ploy for greater likability. It's an affecting, indulgent, and thoroughly fleshed-out monument to Newsom's considerable ambition.

[It] turns out to be a proper Silver Jews rock album, which is to say it has the feel of a drunk snapping into his second wind long enough to belt out a few.

Set Free is a triumph, full of tunes that affect well beyond their modest means.

Tame Impala possesses an uncanny ear for reconstructing psychedelia that spans decades while remaining undeniably present.

With less of the anxiety that marked his earlier albums, that world is a joy to get lost in over and over.

C'est Com..Com..Complique is superb, a monument that could only have been sculpted by the group's original hands.

Folk-ambient doesn't get any better than this.

It's his finest work yet, which is saying something, and the kind of record that will resonate for years not just because it's reveres history, but because it understands it and isn't afraid to demand answers from it.

Public Strain improves on Women in every way, which is no small feat. It's 13 minutes long than its predecessor, but Women doesn't use the extra time to spread out. The band keeps the tension up by building the various lean sounds of that record into new, more muscular variations.

There's still plenty about the group to satisfy long-time fans, and there's a wealth of quality and innovation to win them some new ones.

An ambient record that doesn't bore or get bogged down in its insistence on fading into the background.

By trimming thirty minutes off their standard record’s length, the members of My Morning Jacket have paradoxically managed to broaden their sound, cutting the fat to give us ten songs that jive, moon-walk and cock-rock in equal measure.

Man Man's music will irritate you, make you laugh, put you off and then bring you back for more.

Like all Gogol Bordello albums, Trans-Continental Hustle is instantly enjoyable, but even more lyrical and musical layers emerge on repeat listens that show you just how smart and (simple) Gogol Bordello can be.

A Deeper Understanding is an epic, panoramic record, but its effect is an intimate, personal one. The way these song stretch out make them grand, but they still leave space for you, the listener.

Fin creates a passionate kind of poetry not only in its music but also in its listeners.

It is Chance’s ability to transition fluidly between self-imaginings that makes him such an impressive and likeable rapper. It’s also part of what will make Acid Rap one of the major hip-hop releases of this year.

A powerfully uncomplicated rock album.

However, like so many singular artists, Wyatt's presence spans the record and ultimately gives it its necessary gel. His multi-octave voice booms, croons, and cracks across the album with stunning clarity and consistency.

Sure, he takes his cues from old sources, but the result -- dreamwave, or chillwave, or whatever--is so unique and lush that Palomo should be content to ride off of the high you imagine he might get from making something so effective.

Past albums might have romanticized drugs and booze as the way out, but here it's music, and the album feels more healing as a result, even if its ode to the sweet sounds that came before it presents its own complications and delusions.

I think we should all be thanking our respective Higher Power right now that [Lekman's] hiatus was brief, because the album he would eventually make, the stunning Night Falls over Kortedala, is among the best of the year.

Although The Cross Of My Calling ostensibly provides an outlet for the band’s Marxist ideologies, its impeccable musicianship, arrangement and production make any political sloganeering irrelevant.

[Pfeffer] pruned this album to an essential thirty-two minutes, in which every note (and there are a lot of them) has its purpose and every bizarre genre switch leads somewhere important and ends before wearing out its welcome.

Ragon has the skill to twist all his found objects into something real and new: a strange breed of robust neo-folk with a fiery art-punk streak.

The music may not always be easily accessible, but it is almost always interesting.

They owe nothing to a far-gone musical moment, nor can they be pigeonholed. Limbo, Panto may be one of 2008’s most startlingly great debuts.

Marshall still manages to wring pathos out of her work, if not to the same degree and not in the same way.

We're now at a place where we can pretty well look at Dylan's career as, essentially, an entire body of work--and, even when considering all of the obvious highlights of his past half-century, Tempest still stands out.

With its out-of-this-world visions and lines like “Floating off the edge of the ocean/Out into the galaxy,” Dystopia gives listeners the urge to escape to distant lands.

This is an album that proves that Stars are fully themselves, confident in their genre experimentation and fearless in the emotions they express.

Sky Blue Sky is Wilco's first step toward aging well, but it transcends transition and is an album that sounds right in its place and time.

Up From Below is an album to be commended, even if it might lead to the scourge of other hippie hipsters appearing in buses across the nation.

This is pure, unadulterated energy, seething catharsis taken out on throats, fingers, fretboards and drum heads by a band going on 22 years, and showing no signs of weakness or irrelevancy.

Vidal’s newfound penchant for quiet introspection, providing a fantastic centerpiece to this EP, which contains more riveting ideas and modes of expression than most full-length albums.

Black City is his thesis on how he's capable of delivering a dark, lustful album just as easy as he can mine more bubbly, melodic sounds. Beyond this, he's delivered one of the more cohesive and thematically sound albums of the year so far.

Seventh Tree ultimately may have club-happy "Supernature" devotees shaking their heads, but for those of us who cherish all things weird and wonderful in the land of Goldfrapp, it is a welcome (and much-needed) return to form.

Except for the intense, melodramatic middle mentioned above, every other track on this album could be a successful single.

Difficult. All very difficult. But cheap dates get old quick, don't they?

In short, Thursday is a mixtape of subtleties.

Pilot Talk II is brilliant because it builds on its excellent predecessor, but finds just a touch more focus.

The duo successfully crosses Clark's talent of romanticizing morbidity through melody and Byrne's knack for eccentric pop by using a prominent horn section both as a bridge between the two and an unfamiliar element that distinguishes this as a partnered effort.

The indie-rock universe hasn't coughed up a record as rhythmically thrilling as Mirrored in ages.

With nothing wasted, it leaves you wanting nothing more.

It's a lot to take in, but the simple, hypnotic beauty of the stark landscapes Tyler has created here reveals itself more with each subsequent listen.

Tronic isn’t quite hip-hop’s "Smile," but Black Milk is certainly open to pushing similar boundaries of possibility.

The album lives up to its name in every way on this powerful, bruising, yet generous record.

Right now, I can’t think of a better album to listen to after having a shitty day. Glasvegas is a masterpiece of modern miscreant malaise.

This album, with all its unmoored, frenetic energy, is a fantastic pop album, even if it doesn't posit anything new.

Dissolver is easily Iran’s most cohesive album-length statement, and it proves that there is more to the band than idle four-track trickery.

Credit Callahan then not just for his latest vision, but for how he done it.

To have a release that's altogether thrashing, infectious and emotional achieves a depth that the slew of garage rock revivalists today fail to encapsulate.

Ghostface can rest easy in the fact that Apollo Kids shows that the drop in quality on Wizard of Poetry was just temporary, and amongst rappers who are 40-years-old or older, he's the definite champ. There aren't even many graying rockers making art as vital as Apollo Kids, radio play or not.

Wildbirds & Peacedrums make experimental music that really carves out its own sonic space, that intrigues and engages without ever really attempting to "challenge," because that's not what it cares about.

There's No Home offers a rewarding finish as a slow syncopation turns to an eerie final verse featuring Jana and John and Matthew Brownlie.

They manage to make the grandest songs imaginable seem like they were composed with only you in mind.

Full of simmering restraint, Jukebox sounds lived-in and genuine, less a genre experiment than full fledged statement.

Even for Deerhoof, this is a tricky album to work your way through. But even if you never quite figure it out, it's unlikely you'll get tired of trying any time soon.

Here they've proved that their success isn't all charm or happenstance. Woods have gotten to this point by following every creative impulse, and they seemingly have a million more possibilities stretching out ahead.

Some Funeral devotees may be disappointed by the more straightforward approach on Neon Bible, but their numbers will likely be easily replaced.

For a debut album oozing with influences, Stuck on Nothing is doubly impressive in the way that it not only makes a definitive mission statement for a truly exciting new band but also manages to keep such a strong sense of itself in spite of itself.

With this album, Marnie Stern has proved once again that there are several effective ways to emotionally recontextualize her craft. Or, to put it simply, she's managed to produce one of the most fun albums of the year.

Easily the most exhilarating rock 'n' roll record to emerge in 2008.

Wake Up The Nation comes across as a lean, physical record with enough lucid zingers to make you hungry for more.

Bilal and McKie place emphasis on the craft of each song and the arrangement of each instrument. Bilal's voice is treated as one of these parts, so there is a flat quality to the sound. This may frustrate fans of Bilal's voice or those expecting a conventional star-centric album that places the spotlight on a voice or an instrument. Instead, Bilal's feelings are the centerpiece here. That alone makes Airtight's Revenge a welcome return for a needed voice.

Now We Can See might not be fist-clenching Thermals fans’ first choice, but it shows there’s way, way more to the band than fist pumping yellers. They’re built for the long haul.

The album's affinity for traditional hooks, mixed with Johnson's ability to depart from the traditional makes this album one of the Fruit Bats most listenable and enjoyable.

You won’t hear anything on The Rhumb Line you haven’t heard before, but that doesn’t prevent it from being one of the year’s best debuts.

Hobo Rocket will fit nicely, next to the rest of the nostalgic but new psychedelic records of 2013. Even though it is certainly spontaneous and short, the feeling of joy is intensified, even if it is for a moment.

Their voices and sound may be immeasurably more ragged and weathered, but if Neurosis' idea of "consistency" continues to include this kind of additional exploration at this point in their career, may their journey never end.

An album that is warm and inviting without being overpowering and rich and varied enough to warrant repeated listening.

The best part of Treats is that it makes you rethink the possibilities of this kind of music. It is possible for a former girl-group member and a former hardcore guitarist to get together to make an album that is more daring and more fun than anything you'll likely hear on Top 40 radio this year.

It’s the ultimate inner battle of good and evil, one that even the best of us wrestle with when making ourselves vulnerable to the entanglements and snares of love, and one that Khan has found her most confident and enthralling voice in yet.

As the name suggests, the tracks on Early Fragments are disjointed in terms of their release date and the band’s maturity. But this is to their credit, as the juxtapositioning only adds to the unpolished, lo-fi nature of their material.

Expo 86 just straight up rocks. It never lets up on the monstrous riffs it delivers in its first 10 seconds.

It represents the peak of their career to date, excising the self-indulgent tendencies of before and replacing it with raw, spontaneous, and unfettered power and release that simultaneously addresses the visceral and refined.

Boston Spaceships is his most accomplished musical vehicle working right now, and Let it Beard is one of the finest releases in his endless discography. Period.

This Is Happening is a record that knows -- made by a band that knows -- that disco is better when it's just not so satisfied with itself.

While the album has the signature Wavves sound, the songwriting and production is taking on a sophistication that only comes with a progressing level of musical maturity.

Heems and Kool A.D. might be deconstructing rap for the purposes of delivering ingenious and challenging verses, but Relax is one of the best capital R rap albums out this year.

Molina has created a genre all her own, and Un Dia is its pièce de résistance.

It's rare to find a band with such breadth of vision, and although indie kids might balk at Saint Dymphna's shameless embrace of the dance floor, the rest of us will be lost in its agitated reverie.

This semi-collective sound-making only adds to the expansiveness of the band’s gestures.

Darnielle’s lyrics never let nostalgia float off in the ether. There’s a geography to Goths that adds complexity and specificity.

Atlantis is a shining example of pop music in the 21st century should be.

She continues to extend a thoughtful arm, whittling intricacy into something poignant and manageable.

He never panders to them; instead, Plastic Beach's guest vocals are anchored by Albarn's own melodic flair. His falsettoed ennui shines through, and the songs are loaded with Albarn's pet sounds.

Still only 20 years old, Lorde could have been forgiven for floundering under the weight of expectation. Instead she’s reasserted her status as today’s ultimate alt-pop artist with a record that balances the contemporary with the classic in typically immaculate style.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra has produced the rare indie pop record that seizes you on the first listen but also rewards repeated playing.

The songs never sound cluttered despite the cavalcade of divergent sounds that make up the album, and Pearson’s vocals are adeptly deployed as just another instrument.