September 26th
album anniversaries

Abbey Road was the last Beatles album recorded together, though Let It Be reached shops later. Its first side gives individual songs room to stand apart, from the low-slung rhythm of “Come Together” to George Harrison's “Something.” The sound is unusually full without obscuring the players.

The second-side medley joins shorter pieces into a larger shape, letting fragments answer one another across changing moods. Harrison's “Here Comes the Sun” offers another kind of clarity, with its acoustic guitar and synthesizer details making a familiar melody feel freshly lit.

Tracey Thorn's voice gives the title track of Protection a patient, intimate centre. Massive Attack build around it with bass, restrained beats and space, continuing their mixture of hip-hop and dub while allowing different singers to change the atmosphere from one song to the next.

Nicolette brings another vocal character to “Three” and “Sly,” while Horace Andy maintains the connection to reggae. The arrangements avoid rushing their ideas. Long passages of repetition let a small instrumental entrance or a shift in the voice carry unusual weight.

Olivia Dean's second album explores affection, uncertainty and self-respect through a warm soul-pop sound. Working with producer Zach Nahome, she keeps the arrangements close to the voice, with rhythmic detail and melodic turns doing more than large production effects. The twelve tracks give those different forms of connection their own space.

“Nice to Each Other” moves with an easy lift, while “So Easy (To Fall in Love)” draws on an older pop-soul vocabulary. The songs feel conversational even when their arrangements become more sweeping.

R.E.M. turned up the distortion on Monster after the more acoustic settings of Out of Time and Automatic for the People. Peter Buck's guitar often works in broad, vibrating blocks of sound, while Michael Stipe tries out voices and characters that can feel difficult to pin down.

“What's the Frequency, Kenneth?” makes that change immediate. “Let Me In” brings grief into a dense wash of guitar. The contrast keeps the record from being simply a louder version of the band: its surfaces repeatedly hide more vulnerable material.

Thom Yorke released Tomorrow's Modern Boxes through BitTorrent, turning the arrival of his second solo album into an experiment in distributing music. Made with Nigel Godrich, the record pares its sound down to electronic rhythms, bass and a voice that often seems to hover between the beats.

“A Brain in a Bottle” begins the sequence with a restless pulse. Across eight tracks, the arrangements leave space for small changes in texture and timing, giving the quieter passages as much presence as the drums.

Art Official Age arrived alongside Plectrumelectrum, but the two records approached Prince's music from different directions. Here he worked with Joshua Welton on a studio album that moves through electronic funk, ballads and a story about awakening after suspended animation.

The spoken “affirmation” passages connect that framing to songs such as “Clouds” and “Breakdown.” Rather than the compact band format of its companion, this record makes room for programmed sounds and layered vocals, with the narrative returning between the songs.