Graduation's pre-leak talk wasn't as substantive as it was with Kanye West's first two albums. As with just about any other artist's third album, it had to be expected. The College Dropout was one of the most anticipated debuts of the early 2000s, while Late Registration had people wondering why Kanye would feel the need to work so extensively with multi-instrumentalist rock producer Jon Brion (the J Dilla of the chamberlin) and whether or not Kanye's hubristic tendencies would get the better of it. With Graduation, there was Takashi Murakami's artwork, a silly first-week sales competition with the decreasingly relevant 50 Cent, and chatter about synthesizers running wild. That was about it, but it all seemed loud and prevalent, due in part to a lack of high-profile rap albums released in 2007. Graduation is neither as bold nor as scattered as The College Dropout, and it's neither as extroverted nor as sonically rich as Late Registration. Kanye still makes up for his shortcomings as an MC and lyricist by remaining charmingly clumsy, frequently dealing nonsense through suspect rhyme schemes: "I never be picture-perfect Beyoncé/Be light as Al B. or black as Chauncey/Remember him from Blackstreet, he was black as the street was/I never be laid-back as this beat was." The songs that are thematically distanced, introspective, and/or wary -- there are many of them -- are, in turn, made more palatable than insufferable. That his humor remains a constant is a crucial aspect of the album, especially considering that most other MCs would sound embittered and hostile if they were handling similar subjects, like haters new and old, being a braggart with a persistent underdog complex, getting wrapped up in spending and flaunting, and the many hassles of being a hedonist. Those who have admired Kanye as a sharp producer while detesting him as an inept MC might find the gleaming synth sprites, as heard most prominently throughout "Flashing Lights" and "Stronger," to be one of the most glaring deal-breakers in hip-hop history. Though the synthesizer use marks a clear, conscious diversion from Kanye's past productions, highlights like "I Wonder," "The Glory," and "Everything I Am" are deeply rooted in the Kanye of old, using nostalgia-inducing samples, elegant pianos and strings, and gospel choirs. So, no, he's not dreaming of fronting A Flock of Seagulls or joining Daft Punk. He's being his shrewd, occasionally foolish, and adventurous self.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

Following up Sound of Silver was never going to be easy for LCD Soundsystem. There was so much positive reaction from music fans, the press, from everywhere, really, that almost any move James Murphy made was bound to be seen as inferior, or at the very least, flawed in some way. To his credit, he doesn’t try to do anything dramatically different on This Is Happening. There are no attempts to hit the top of the charts (a point made crystal clear in the song “You Wanted a Hit”); conversely, there are no attempts to dirty up the sound or make it more challenging. There are no radically new elements added to the LCD sound, nothing subtracted either. Murphy is definitely a savvy enough musician to know when things have gotten stale and need to be changed up; he at some point must have decided (correctly) that the time for a reboot hadn’t arrived yet for LCD. Another record of long, dancefloor friendly disco-fied jams mixed with punchy rockers and paced with a couple introspective midtempo ballads is still perfectly acceptable, especially when it’s as tightly arranged, energetically played, and thoughtfully constructed as Happening is. Murphy’s highly skilled production is all over the record, from the squelchy layers of synths, the dry punch of the drums, and the tricks and surprises that bring the songs to life, to the way he makes it sound like a live band when it’s just him (though there are the occasional people helping out, most notably Nancy Whang on backing vocals). And while there isn’t a song as staggeringly emotional as Silver’s “All My Friends,” or as simply and heartfelt as its N.Y.C. tribute “New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down,” Murphy continues to expand as a songwriter and lyricist. He’s still the master of deadly zingers ("Eat it Michael Musto/You’re no Bruce Vilanch") and hilarious streams of lyrical gems (all of “Drunk Girls”), but songs like the nakedly emotional "I Can Change" (which includes the sweetly romantic plea for someone to “bore me and hold me and cling to my arm”) and the insistently melancholy “Somebody’s Calling Me” show continued growth and impressive range. Of course, if you aren’t all that interested in lyrics, artistic growth, and feelings, you can just crank up songs like "One Touch," "Pow Wow," or "Home" real loud and dance. At heart, Murphy remains a dance music producer and these tracks reveal him at the top of his game. This Is Happening doesn’t quite reach the monumental heights of Sound of Silver, but it serves as an almost-there companion and further proof that LCD Soundsystem is one of the most exciting and interesting bands around in the 2000s.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

Following up Sound of Silver was never going to be easy for LCD Soundsystem. There was so much positive reaction from music fans, the press, from everywhere, really, that almost any move James Murphy made was bound to be seen as inferior, or at the very least, flawed in some way. To his credit, he doesn’t try to do anything dramatically different on This Is Happening. There are no attempts to hit the top of the charts (a point made crystal clear in the song “You Wanted a Hit”); conversely, there are no attempts to dirty up the sound or make it more challenging. There are no radically new elements added to the LCD sound, nothing subtracted either. Murphy is definitely a savvy enough musician to know when things have gotten stale and need to be changed up; he at some point must have decided (correctly) that the time for a reboot hadn’t arrived yet for LCD. Another record of long, dancefloor friendly disco-fied jams mixed with punchy rockers and paced with a couple introspective midtempo ballads is still perfectly acceptable, especially when it’s as tightly arranged, energetically played, and thoughtfully constructed as Happening is. Murphy’s highly skilled production is all over the record, from the squelchy layers of synths, the dry punch of the drums, and the tricks and surprises that bring the songs to life, to the way he makes it sound like a live band when it’s just him (though there are the occasional people helping out, most notably Nancy Whang on backing vocals). And while there isn’t a song as staggeringly emotional as Silver’s “All My Friends,” or as simply and heartfelt as its N.Y.C. tribute “New York, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down,” Murphy continues to expand as a songwriter and lyricist. He’s still the master of deadly zingers ("Eat it Michael Musto/You’re no Bruce Vilanch") and hilarious streams of lyrical gems (all of “Drunk Girls”), but songs like the nakedly emotional "I Can Change" (which includes the sweetly romantic plea for someone to “bore me and hold me and cling to my arm”) and the insistently melancholy “Somebody’s Calling Me” show continued growth and impressive range. Of course, if you aren’t all that interested in lyrics, artistic growth, and feelings, you can just crank up songs like "One Touch," "Pow Wow," or "Home" real loud and dance. At heart, Murphy remains a dance music producer and these tracks reveal him at the top of his game. This Is Happening doesn’t quite reach the monumental heights of Sound of Silver, but it serves as an almost-there companion and further proof that LCD Soundsystem is one of the most exciting and interesting bands around in the 2000s.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

Jeff Buckley was a mess of contradictions: a perfectionist who believed in spontaneity, a man who was at once humble and vain, a musician who shunned his father's tumultuous legacy while creating one of his own. These are some of the reasons why he took his time writing and recording the material for his second album, laboring over many songs for months at a time. Given such painstaking methods, it shouldn't have been a surprise that recording was an equally fastidious process. Buckley recorded enough material for an album with producer Tom Verlaine, but deciding that the results weren't quite right, he scrapped them and moved to Memphis to record the album again. He reworked a few songs as home demos as he prepared to cut the album, but it was never made -- Buckley died in a tragic drowning accident before entering the studio. As a way to enlarge his legacy, his mother and record label rounded up the majority of the existing unreleased recordings, releasing them as the double-disc set Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. Excepting a few awkward moments and middle-eights, it's hard to see why Buckley rejected the Verlaine productions that make up disc one. The material isn't necessarily a progression from Grace; it's more like a stripped-down, edgier take on the sweeping, jazz-tinged goth folk-rock that made the first album so distinctive. Neither the nearly finished first disc nor the homemade demos and re-recordings on the second disc offer any revelations, but that's not necessarily a disappointment. Sketches adds several wonderful songs to his catalog, offering further proof of his immense talent. And that, of course, is what makes the album as sad as it is exciting.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo

In the midst of their 2010 world tour, LCD Soundsystem stopped off at Miloco Studios to record their live set. Utilizing a full band with skills honed to a fine point by the road, the resulting album is incredibly focused and powerful. Both the band and frontman James Murphy are at the top of their considerable games as they motor through what could almost be a "greatest hits of LCD" set (minus a few choice tracks like "Losing My Edge" and "North American Scum"). Highlights are rambunctious charges though "Daft Punk" and "Drunk Girls," the lovely Eno-inspired "All I Want," a forcefully funky take on "Pow Pow," and a stuttering "Us v Them." Since Murphy creates the Soundsystem's records mostly by himself, it’s very interesting (and impressive) to hear how the band takes the precise studio sound of the albums and makes it come alive. Everything that makes LCD so impressive is captured on London Sessions and then some. The propulsive beats of the locked-in rhythm section of Tyler Pope on bass and Pat Mahoney on drums, the complex and funky interplay of the guitarists (Matthew Thornley and David Scott Stone), and the keyboard manipulations of Nancy Whang and Gavin Russom (on what looks like enough vintage electronics to launch an early Apollo rocket) are equal to the studio albums. The group vocals that back Murphy, both chanted and sung in doo wop harmonies, are quite different than the usual LCD approach and help to humanize the sound even more than usual. When you put Murphy’s unusually elastic and inspired vocals, which range from insistent to hilarious, on top of the band’s sound, you’ve got the 2000s equivalent of Talking Heads when they expanded the group and became a huge force of oddball funk. It’s a more intense and synthesized version, and Murphy is no David Byrne (since he’s more likely to be in a dirty T-shirt than a big suit), but this wouldn’t work half as well if he were. His hopped-up hipster everyman with a bruised heart style is perfect for the band’s small-club intensity, and the album leaps out of the speakers with an intense power that makes it more than just a commemoration of their 2010 tour; it’s a vital addition to their already near-perfect catalog. It’s also more proof that LCD Soundsystem just might be the best band of the decade.© Tim Sendra /TiVo

Although The Long Goodbye: Live at Madison Square Garden isn't LCD Soundsystem's only live recording, it is easily their most definitive. Recorded during their farewell show, the album captures the band's final performance in its entirety, leaving nothing out as James Murphy and company play their way to early retirement. The celebratory energy of the explosive opening track, "Dance Yrself Clean," makes it clear that this show is meant to be a party and not a wake, and to that end LCD Soundsystem spend the next three hours working their way through their incredible back catalog, delivering everything from their iconic first single, "Losing My Edge," to the sprawling "45:33." While no one likes to see a great band call it quits, fans couldn't ask for a better goodbye than one that gives them the chance to relive the band's final show whenever they want, making The Long Goodbye an essential buy for hardcore fans of the now-defunct dance-punk outfit.© Gregory Heaney /TiVo

Last Day of Summer, Summer Walker's debut mixtape, charmed with its immediacy, spontaneity, and unguarded approach to songwriting. The follow-up, classified as a true album, is more thought-through and sounds more honed -- all ballads and slow jams, driven production-wise by London on Da Track instead of the still-on-board Arsenio Archer -- but there's no confusing it with the work of anyone but the same artist who broke through with "Girls Need Love." Walker remains more than adept enough as a lyricist and vocalist to distinguish herself over bleary trap-styled productions -- not a minor feat in 2019. She does it to best effect on "Me," seductive and threatening at once, just above a whisper: "I would never shoot you, baby/Maybe just wave it around, all in your face." This also features another one of Walker's bare self-recordings, with her anguished voice accompanied only by a guitar with strings struck just enough to serve as a kind of punctuation. Like earlier reputation-making cuts "Session 32," "Just Like Me," and "Riot," "Fun Girl" contains some of her frankest lyrics and rawest emotion: "Love who I want and fuck who I choose to/Don't take no shit and won't be used." The only negative development here is the featured appearances. Smartly chosen but too common, they tend to get in the way.© Andy Kellman /TiVo

For a decade, every single Dierks Bentley release placed at least in Billboard's Country Top 20, usually making it to the Top Ten. That streak came to an end in 2013, when "Bourbon in Kentucky" -- the first single from his in-the-works seventh album, Riser, and a duet with 2013's hot star Kacey Musgraves to boot -- stiffed, going no further than 40 on the country charts. Such a thing doesn't happen to a big country star, so action needed to be taken: Bentley revised Riser, adding some levity to an album that nevertheless remains highly contemplative. As Bentley notes in his brief liner notes for the album, he made Riser during a period when his father died and his first son was born, so the fact so much of the album is reflective is little surprise, but Riser remains subdued even as Dierks loosens up: "Drunk on a Plane" isn't raucous; it's a diligent march that suits its tale of post-breakup revelry. Apart from "Sounds of Summer" and "Back Porch," two not-bad attempts to reckon with bro-country, this is all mature and measured stadium-sized modern country, with the guitars not twanging but echoing like the Edge. Riser isn't an outsider's manifesto, it's the work of a guy taking stock as he's facing middle age, reconciling his dreams with his reality, finding strength in his family and the music he loves. With all these big issues, it's no wonder that Riser doesn't quite feel brimming with lighthearted singles, but it's a sturdy, often absorbing record from a singer who is determined to be in it for the long haul.© Stephen Thomas Erlewine /TiVo