(FORTUNE Magazine) – Moby 18 V2

Moby's 1999 opus Play was the last masterpiece of the 20th century. Even with half the globe panting for a follow-up, New York's Captain Fantastic of the Console reveals nary a ping of performance anxiety on 18. Who else can squeeze so much solace and joy from a heap of software?

Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers A Night in Tunisia Bluebird/RCA Victor

If the phrase "prestigious jazz reissue" makes you feel as if you're in Sunday school, think again. This 1957 album is nothing less than a fierce tempest of percussion. Even a track with an eggheady title ("Theory of Art") surges and rattles like a runaway train.

Cee-Lo Cee-Lo Green & His Perfect Imperfections Arista

Atlanta is to hip-hop what San Francisco once was to psychedelia: a safe haven for the freak flag. Cee-Lo's new solo album, like OutKast's Stankonia, absolutely overflows with genre-bouncing innovation. Lesser rhyme-slingers can settle for a mere booty call; Cee-Lo yearns to "Spend the Night in Your Mind."

Richard Hawley Late Night Final Bar/None Records

Hawley's lush, lonesome, ale-sozzled ballads have one foot in Royal Albert Hall and one foot in the gutter. Songs like "No Way Home" bring to mind the young Michael Caine in a tuxedo, sitting on a wet curb at 3 a.m., eating fish and chips from a greasy tabloid.

The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion Plastic Fang Matador

For a decade the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion has specialized in scorching, sexed-up, punk-funk catharsis. If we take the White Stripes out of the equation, Spencer might be the only white man in America who can utter the phrase "Baby, have mercy" without coming off as a total buffoon.