Editors' Choice for July 2008

MODERN GUILT may also be also his most immediately accessible and pop-oriented album ever.

— Charity Stafford

Piano Man ruminates on love, lies, and life on this 1977 breakout, his strongest set of songs.

— Patrick Sullivan

A fresh, invigorating feeling that can only be achieved by a hot young band just coming into its own.

— Jim Allen

SOMETHING FOR ALL OF US marks the solo debut by Canadian indie-rock mainstay Brendan Canning (Broken Social Scene).

— Eric Schneider

Guy still plays and sings like the urban blues monster he's always been.

— Anthony Tognazzini

Easily one of the best Bowie concert albums available, LIVE SANTA MONICA ’72 is ideal for Ziggy acolytes and glam disciples.

— Eric Schneider

Solidly swinging, earnest hard bop, played with dynamism and conviction.

— Mark Keresman

FATE sounds like a logical progression for the Philadelphia combo, rather than a calculated bid for mainstream attention.

— Charity Stafford

The duo of Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray offer up sun-baked slices of indie pop with straightforward melodies as well as sonic texture.

— Rovi Staff

EDDIE LOVES YOU SO finds the singer revisiting ten of his finest compositions from decades past.

— James Steiner

This 10-track collection presents singles and compilation tracks recorded the previous year by the Brooklyn indie-pop duo High Places.

— Eric Schneider

This 21-track complete anthology gathers both early 1980s albums by influential Hoboken act the Individuals, plus three rare single-only tracks

Kerli's spooky yet uplifting album debut is simultaneously mainstream and strange, and one of the most unique major-label releases of 2008.

— Rovi Staff

Iranian producer compiles her first album in eight years, featuring a variety of guest vocalists.

— Daniel Fetherston

Mars was at the vanguard of New York City's late-1970s No Wave scene.

— Jim Allen

Two big names in Indie psych/experimental team up for album’s worth of new takes on traditional songs and improvisations.

Nasir Jones' controversially untitled LP follows the impressive trifecta of GOD'S SON, STREET'S DISCIPLE, and HIP-HOP IS DEAD.

— Kenneth Herzog

ENGINE is carried by Halstead’s gentle vocals, thoughtful lyrics, and spare, folk-tinged arrangements.

— Eric Schneider

Offered online entirely free of charge, Nine Inch Nails’ eight album, THE SLIP, is a taut set of industrial tracks.

— Eric Schneider

This is music for the revolution—it points fingers, speaks truth, demands justice, and takes no prisoners.

— Anthony Tognazzini

Swedish duo Pacific! create brilliant electronic pop with modern textures, old-school influences, and heartfelt songs without a clunker among them.

— Rovi Staff

Patti Smith's incantatory reading of her elegy to Robert Mapplethorpe, with beautiful backing music by MBV's Kevin Shields.

— Paula Carino

Ever since going solo in the early 1990s, Paul Weller has pulled consistently further away from his mod-rock origins toward an organic singer/songwriter sound.

— Jim Allen

A cunning blend of artifice and naturalism fueled by vintage keyboards and hand percussion.

— Dave Shim

With his quiet, half-asleep voice and fittingly laid-back arrangements, Knapp is a master of the gently melancholy mood.

— Eric Schneider

Featuring the hits "All I Want To Do" and "Already Gone," country duo Sugarland's third album is their mainstream breakthrough.

— Charity Stafford

Scott McCaughey (Young Fresh Fellows, Minus Five) and Steve Wynn (Dream Syndicate) chronicle their shared obsession with baseball.

— Charity Stafford

Sleek 2009 electro-pop debut from duo of Theo Keating and Simon Lord.

— Jason Thurston

The Twilight Sad master atmospherics on this radically gentle EP featuring strikingly different versions of songs from their debut full-length.

— Rovi Staff

Announced the arrival of four young men from Dublin who would conquer in short order.

Stew, charismatic head of the Negro Problem, stirringly reveals his atypical path to adulthood in 2008 Broadway rock opera form.

— Jason Thurston

Uwaifo's meld of traditional folk melodies with the sounds of highlife, soul, roots rock, psychedelia, and funk was utterly infectious, as these '70s tracks reveal.

— Rovi Staff

TWO MEN WITH THE BLUES brings out both the jazziness that's long been a key element of Willie Nelson's sound.

— Jim Allen