Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2013

Bangerz is the sound of Hannah Montana gone Miami Vice.

It’s the density of wit, ideas, and verbal invention that makes this one of the year’s defining hip-hop releases.

The Monkeys keep on evolving ... their fifth LP is this quintessentially English retro-rock band's most American-sounding record, especially rhythmically.

On much of Trouble Will Find Me as well, the terse phrases and single-tone exclamations of guitarists Bryce and Aaron Dessner hang around Berninger's baritone gravity like clouded starlight.

Make no mistakes, though: . . . Like Clockwork still runs on Homme's grizzled-dude-against-the-world intensity

Reflektor is closer to turning-point classics such as U2's Achtung Baby and Radiohead's Kid A – a thrilling act of risk and renewal by a band with established commercial appeal and a greater fear of the average, of merely being liked.

This is Daft Punk conjuring the musical era that first inspired them, when disco conquered the world with handcrafted grooves and prog-rock excess magnified emotions in black-lit bedrooms.

Yeezus is the darkest, most extreme music Kanye has ever cooked up, an extravagantly abrasive album full of grinding electro, pummeling minimalist hip-hop, drone-y wooz and industrial gear-grind.

Vampire Weekend have gotten better at just about everything they do.