Play It Loud.

Music makes the critics come together in 10 of their top CD picks of the past year

New York Times pop music critics Jon Pareles, Ann Powers, Ben Ratliff, and Neil Strauss give you an earful on the virtues of Voodoo, the greatness of Grammar, and other top CDs worth a listen.

D'ANGELO: Voodoo

A long-awaited follow-up to his 1995 debut, Brown Sugar, this sophomore CD is a set of slow, ecstatic funk trances, with one of the most beguiling mixes (curtains of bass and vocals overdubbed five or six times) that a million-selling album has ever had. The subsequent industrywide sprint to sign neo-soul acts like D'Angelo is proof of its vision.

--Ben Ratliff

RADIOHEAD: Kid A

For an album about loneliness so profound it threatens to dissolve identity itself, the British group Radiohead, who last released OK Computer in 1997, all but abandoned its guitars, lyrics, and pop-song dynamics. It came up with gorgeous, multilayered songs, balancing patterns and disruptions, that would seem grandiose if they weren't so genuinely plaintive.

--Jon Pareles

OUTKAST: Stankonia

Music can play sneaky tricks on society, revealing its obsessions in a warped mirror. Outkast's hip-hop psychedelica has its gangsta fantasies and eats them, too, as the first-class tricksters Andre and Big Boi revel in self-awareness.

--Ann Powers

U2: All That You Can't Leave Behind

The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen return to spirit-raising, guitar-loving, stick-and-drum-banging rock `n' roll, while singer Bono sets aside his worries about Kmart culture to tackle greater problems vying for the human soul. A powerful, uplifting album that doubles as a self-help manual.

--Neil Strauss

EMINEM: The Marshall Mathers LP

More twisted than a milelong lanyard, Eminem's second album is not just a series of quick-tongued, nasty fantasies and nonchalant Dr. Dre tracks. It's also a hall-of-mirrors argument about words versus actions, and how crazy anyone would be to make Eminem a role model. The album raised hackles and got under listeners' skins; when Eminem runs out of ideas, he regularly reverts to homophobia.

--J.P

ERYKAH BADU: Mama's Gun

Cool, teasing, and self-assured, Erykah Badu slinks through another album of supple funk vamps and glimpses about inner-city womanhood. In stripped-down music that recalls the old school Sly Stone and Marvin Gaye, she reflects on tough choices and the nuances of sensuality, always taking her time.

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