Music: Wilco: Yankee Hotel Foxtrot

These guys get filed under "roots rock" because they have been known to sing like Byrds and rhyme 'n' strum like Dylan. Now they have thrown together every instrument and influence at their disposal, futuristic synthesizer atop old-fashioned piano, to prove they're no nostalgia act. The result is gorgeous. Half the songs are close to perfect: the melodies stick, the newfangled keyboards breeze in and out with supernatural grace, the words submerge the listener in both sadness and blissed-out reverie. The band has lost its "roots" and found its voice.

--By Benjamin Nugent