The ongoing journey of Sam Beam from bedroom mystic to ringleader of a slick stadium indie rock band is completed on 2011’s Kiss Each Other Clean. While the previous Iron & Wine album, The Shepherd’s Dog, was also very produced and pro-sounding, this album is huge. Beam, a cast of many, and producer Brian Deck have embellished the songs with a ton of studio tricks, a wide variety of instruments from flute to squelchy old synths, and a tightly arranged, loosely flowing feel that anyone who was initially enraptured by Beam’s early recordings might be hard-pressed to recognize. (Though Beam’s voice is still as haunting and intimate as ever for the most part. As is his beard.) Once you accept that I&W are now as established as a “real” band on par with Wilco or the Flaming Lips, some questions arise. Are they still any good? Can Beam still capture a heart with a tender melody and an aching vocal despite all the tricks and sax solos? Does the musicianship on display overpower the songs? Will Beam survive in the big leagues?

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By late 2009 Comet Gain had been a band for over fifteen years, so it made perfect sense for the group’s leader David Christian to head off in search of a new format for his songs. Setting off for Brooklyn (with keyboardist Anne Laure Guillain in tow), he met up with members of the Ladybug Transistor and Crystal Stilts (and original Gain drummer Phil Sutton) to make a record under the name Cinema Red and Blue. Not surprisingly perhaps, given Christian’s strong vision and inimitable style, the record sounds mostly like a Comet Gain record and has none of the echo-y psychedelics or rich arrangements you might think members of Crystal Stilts and Ladybug Transistor would provide respectively. Apart from a few covers on side two, Christian wrote the bulk of the songs and they sound like Comet Gain songs, rife with seething emotions, finely detailed observations, punk rock myths and pop dreams.

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Detroit producer and MC Black Milk always seemed much more honored than annoyed when his work was compared to that of the late J. Dilla, so don’t think the sonic surprises on this 2010 effort are driven by a desire to end the association. That said, Album of the Year is a distinct break from the smoky Detroit funk Dilla championed, as it pulls inspiration from the worlds of rock and funk-rock. A four-man live band is employed to provide the guitar crunch and acoustic drum fills, but instead of the organic Roots style, Milk cuts these recordings into a stuttering and loopy soundscape that’s entirely hip-hop. These block-rocking beats are irresistible and instantly gratifying as tracks like “Oh Girl” feel both new and comfortable on first listen, but thanks to the man’s growth as a lyricist, the album is also a rich experience that rewards on every return.

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Frankie Rose and the Outs’ self-titled debut album could have been viewed as a textbook case of bandwagon jumping when it came out in late 2010. The fuzzy, heavily reverbed take on classic girl group pop played and sung by women was quite popular — and on the verge of being overdone. Rose was no Frankie-come-lately, though; she played drums with an early lineup of the Vivian Girls (and wrote their best song, “Where Do You Run To”) and was in the live version of the Dum Dum Girls (as well as the Crystal Stilts, though she was the only girl in the band). Her credentials being in order is only part of the battle, though; she’d need to make a decent album to escape bandwagon-jumping charges. Let the record show that she has exceeded expectations and all charges have been dropped.

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At the major-label department of artist grievances, Bilal can take a number and wait in line until he decomposes. Though his career was placed on a worn path, the fact that he joined the land of the leaked, shelved, and dropped borders on tragic. When he debuted in 2001, he was the one for whom the neo-soul tag seemed most limiting, as he was more ahead of his time than a throwback. Elements of his first album, 1st Born Second — like the bold, otherworldly vocals and askew Mike City and Jay Dee productions — presaged the left-field R&B that bloomed later in the decade. Love for Sale, issued on promo vinyl, filched online by a portion of Bilal’s justifiably insatiable following, and subsequently mothballed by Universal, would have been emblematic of that development.

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Montreal’s Arcade Fire successfully avoided the sophomore slump with 2007’s apocalyptic Neon Bible. Heavier and more uncertain than their near perfect, darkly optimistic 2004 debut, the album aimed for the nosebleed section and left a red mess. Having already fled the cold comforts of suburbia on Funeral and suffered beneath the weight of the world on Neon Bible, it seems fitting that a band once so consumed with spiritual and social middle-class fury, should find peace “under the overpass in the parking lot.” If nostalgia is just pain recalled, repaired, and resold, then The Suburbs is its sales manual.

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The duo of Bethany Cosentino and Bobb Bruno are firm believers in simplicity. The songs they record as Best Coast are straight-ahead verse-chorus tunes influenced by various strains of pop and rock from the last 50 years (doo wop, garage rock, girl groups, early punk, ’90s indie rock), played without frills and sung super-earnestly. In the hands of people less talented, the end result could have been generic at best, snooze-inducing at worst. Cosentino’s copied-from-her-diary lyrics might sound juvenile (and cringy) if not sung with a touching sweetness and melancholy that’s unadorned by irony. The reliance on simple statements (“I love you”, “I miss you”, “you make me crazy”, etc.) related to affairs of the heart and the multiple references to weed would start to grate unless surrounded by instantly memorable melodies, sharp hooks, and production that adds just the right amount of noise and reverb to the songs. (The lyric about how she wishes her cat, cover star Snacks, could talk is pretty genius, though.)

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By time of Kylie Minogue’s eleventh album, 2010’s Aphrodite, she had been releasing records for over 20 years. Most artists who’ve stuck around for that long end up rehashing their past catalogs and/or growing stale, but Kylie manages to avoid these fates by constantly working with new collaborators, keeping up on musical trends without pandering to them, and most importantly, never taking herself too seriously. Sure, she’s serious about making great dance music, but she never confuses her status as a pop icon with a desire to send out a message in her music. Aphrodite rarely strays past sweet love songs or happy dance anthems; its deepest message is “everything is beautiful.”

You have to credit the songwriters (big names like Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters and Calvin Harris, as well as behind-the-scenes people like Sebastian Ingrosso, and Pascal Gabriel) for tailoring the efforts to Kylie’s strengths. Also on board is exec producer Stuart Price, who puts it all together, giving the record a focused sound that was lacking on her previous record, X, which touched convincingly on a myriad of styles and influences, but which ended up sounding a little scattered. Here the main sound is the kind of glittery disco pop that really is her strong suit. The various producers keep their eyes on the dancefloor throughout, crafting shiny and sleek tracks that sound custom-built to blast out of huge speaker columns.

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