Madonna Japan

Madonna's run at the top of the charts lasted so long, longer than almost any other star, it's almost impossible to squeeze all the hits onto one collection. And so it is that Celebration, a double-disc, 36-track set that also has a companion single-disc condensation, misses a few songs, hits as gorgeous as "Rain" and as goofily camp as "Hanky Panky," but truth be told, they're not greatly missed on this parade of pop genius that's hampered only slightly by its non-chronological order. Out of order, it does emphasize Madonna's consistency, and the bigger problem with the collection is that it mixes up album mixes, single edits, Q-Sound mixes pulled from The Immaculate Collection, and a couple of stray odd edits and mixes. This is a mess, but not quite enough to dilute what is one of the greatest bodies of work in modern pop – even in this mixed-up confusion, these singles are a joy to hear.

If boiled down to a simple synopsis, the Beatles' LOVE sounds radical: assisted by his father, the legendary Beatles producer George, Giles Martin has assembled a remix album where familiar Fab Four tunes aren't just refurbished, they're given the mash-up treatment, meaning different versions of different songs are pasted together to create a new track. Ever since the turn of the century, mash-ups were in vogue in the underground, as such cut-n-paste jobs as Freelance Hellraiser's "Stroke of Genius" – which paired up the Strokes' "Last Night" with Christina Aguilera's "Genie in a Bottle" – circulated on the net, but no major group issued their own mash-up mastermix until LOVE in November 2006.

Four albums in 15 years is not exactly prolific when it comes to making records. But Annie Lennox has never been one to rush things, and her recorded output as a solo artist in life after the Eurythmics has been stellar. The last time she issued a recording in 2003 with Bare, a collection of deeply committed emotional songs that set a new standard for her artistically, though they were written in the turmoil following her second divorce. Perhaps the reason she hasn't had the time to record is her activism. She's involved herself in causes that range from her primary concern, raising awareness about AIDS/HIV (and she refers to this in the album's notes), to the environment and poverty. But Songs of Mass Destruction isn't a political album by any means, unless the personal is – and often it is. This is another album of love songs; dark love songs. These are breakup ballads, statuesque embers of pain and rage that have simmered down to the traces of that dull ache of emptiness that always exists in the aftermath of something profound.