Every year, the bounty of pop music grows more and more (my apologies to the 2,637 songs in my inbox as of time of writing that I haven't gotten to yet, out of you don't want to know how many).

Music critics—myself included—have spent much of the past several years bemoaning the decline of capital-“E” Events in music: no new superstars to crown, no more tentpole albums to unify us, no more ...