Sultry suits her fine, but when she reaches for the sadness in these self-written songs, she can’t summon the sense of conflict that was embedded in ’50s pop.

B'Day never cools down, and swaety up-tempo numbers prove the best platform for Beyonce's rapperly phrasing and pipe-flaunting fireballs. [Sep 2006, p.138]

The music, coproduced by M.I.A. confederate Switch, warps and wanders too, from rock-rap to dancehall to new wave to folk.

It's delightfully wacky and right in character. [Dec 08/Jan 09, p.80]

Save all this stuff for when you're in front of the mirror, kids. [Aug 2004, p.131]

Amerie's heat is irresistible, in large part because it's subtle. [Jun 2005, p.108]

It's fed-up and proud at the same time, a kind of Desperate Housewives meets Trailer Fabulous. [Oct 2005, p.144]

A throwback to his trunk-rattling G-funk heyday.

Sadly it's undercut by music that tirns Brian Wilson into merely another Brian Wilson imitator. [Sep 2008, p.85]

A letdown after Chicken-N-Beer. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.111]

His blunt, hauntingly direct performances open up new perspectives on a song. [#11, p.133]

Jet frequently manage to turn in the kind of bulgy-veined, streamlined gonzo rock that [Oasis] haven't managed since the mid-90s. [Nov 2003, p.114]

She's a surprisingly convincing country singer. [Sep 2006, p.143]

Panic's cherry-picking yields several good songs, and a few brush up against greatness. [Apr 2008, p.76]

It feels like a record assembled by a focus group. [Oct 2007, p.107]

As groups like Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem are making analog programs ring clear as Marshall stacks, Williams makes them sound mysterious, creepy and sexy again--even when geeking out on a cover of Bow Wow Wow’s big hit, 'I Want Candy.'

[Has] a relaxed good humor and a genuine feel for the pulse of Western swing. [Apr 2006, p.114]

On her third album, Clarkson finds a Third Way: She makes nice with the pop machine and takes back the mall while keeping her integrity and personality intact.

An utterly original if slightly queasiness-inducing album. [Nov 2003, p.109]

Sometimes the music can feel as cold and clinical as Kraftwerk, but even then, the lyrics emote wildly. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.106]

Miller ups the melodic ante, staking his claim to becoming his generation's answer to Nick Lowe or Marshall Crenshaw. [#10, p.123]

Some of the brightest three-part harmony singing since Crosby, Stills & Nash first gathered around a mic 30-plus years ago. [#17, p.144]

The rich studio gloss and unmistakable vocal mannerisms she's cultivated over 30 years cover nicely for the weakness of her new material. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.114]

She shows the breadth of her talent and the depth of her sentiment. [Nov 2003, p.118]

Severe... it's hard rock rigorously stripped of frivolity and glamour. [Oct 2004, p.128]

Paired with the Kids’ fidelity to verse/chorus pop, Pryor’s boyishly confident, hopeful delivery can sound pro forma, even mindless.

Recorded in Matt’s childhood bedroom with their trademark teenage palette (a Casiotone, Matt’s nasal whinge and Kim’s bubbly punk beats), their sophomore album plays like the indie-musical version of one of those yesterday-I-was-a-teenager-but-now-I’m magically-an-adult ’80s movies.

If she doesn't follow commercial formulas, she's following creative ones, and selling herself short in the process. [Jun 2005, p.111]

You could roll your eyes and complain that these guys are still pimping teen angst in middle age, but really it sounds more like it’s matured into the longest-running mid-life crisis ever--30 years and counting.

Even at its weepiest, his music, thankfully, stays vivacious. [Apr 2006, p.116]

This is all folded into a weirdly ambitious disco-rock record (Madonna collaborator Stuart Price produced) that occasionally takes on fun topics like desert-motel nooky, but more often gets bogged down in ruminations on Why We’re Here, not to mention What It All Means.

A rare case of one step back, two steps forward. [Nov 2006, p.144]

The minimalist tracks rate among his best. [May 2006, p.109]

Earth is the sound of a band coming to that inevitable realization: five patrician perfectionists who've resolved to sound sloppy, even (or especially) at the risk of fucking up. [Jan/Feb 2006, p.98]

The crisp acoustic production is too unerringly tasteful... but that's forgiveable. [Mar 2004, p.120]

Here, they simply sound jittery, putting romantic complaints to studio-worked music that's oddly brisk and busy, with a dissonance that drowns out the emotion. [Nov 2008, p.73]

The result is severely mellow, but too sensuous--the basslines thick with libidinal tug, the vocals steeped in contented, coital afterglow--to ever get boring.

It's in the quieter moments that Sparta truly shine. [#9, p.154]

His calm articulation and clean beats never waver--where once he copped to vices and joked about dirty asses, now his “naked funk” is all about a craft that won’t quit. That’s impressive. But it’s also limited.

Lauper hasn’t sounded this relevant since her 1983 debut, when she celebrated female masturbation.

Only the relatively sprightly "Just Got to Be" and the haunted-house voodoo of "Strange Desire" cut through the mire. [Oct 2006, p.130]

The oompah-oompah music-hall bounce, jolly sing-along tunes and attitude of playful whimsy haven't changed. [Jul 2007, p.116]

Aside from their outsider appeal, Join the Dots proves that the Cure's other trump card was Smith's misery-drenched knack for gleaming pop melodies. [Mar 2004, p.138]

Sadly, Sneak Attack also reflects the influence of Professor One's recent ubiquity on the college-lecture circuit; windy speechifying interludes take up a third of the record. Too bad -- when he does rap, he shows twice the gusto of many rappers half his age. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.112]

For [O'Connor] to record a full reggae set, covering each song exactly like the original, rivals Gus Van Sant's odd shot-for-shot remake of Hitchcock's Psycho. [Oct 2005, p.141]

At times you wish Branch and Harp would dig deeper. [Jun 2006, p.149]

Amid the frenzied melancholy, there’s filler and a histrionic misstep or two, but for those willfully lost in the perpetual adolescence Smith has always documented, here’s the new soundtrack to Saturday night.

Coherence dissolves over the album's spawl of 72 minutes and 16 songs. Barnhart can still be quietly metaphysical now and then, yet too often he settles for a less lovable tie-dyed legacy: cutsiness. [Oct 2007, p.106]

As limp as a broken guitar string. [Oct 2004, p.114]

A surprising return to form. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.114]

Labored production isn’t the only problem.

The album's an impossible mess, but so lively that it's worth sifting through the shrapnel for the tasty bits. [May 2006, p.106]

Half of their new truckload feels typically phoned-in. But sometimes they surprise you, nailing the signature sounds of their '70s boogie-metal brethren. [Nov 2008, p.72]

There are no future standards, but no sugary returns to childhood, either. [May 2004, p.124]

Rae's music sticks in your mind like a pleasant scent you wish would linger. [Jun 2006, p.143]

Happily, [their] dogged consistency works in their favor. [Jul 2005, p.117]

Hearing "Cactus" and "Subbacultcha" transformed into droning ambient jazz is upsetting, yet somehow perfect for this listen-once-and-destroy disc. [Dec 2004, p.134]

The bonus disc of dance remixes merely piles another layer of fastidiousness atop the already epically fussed-over tracks. [2007 Aug, p.120]

The Clan's lyricists remain as aggressively word-drunk as ever, balancing the music's pop conciseness with oblique rhymes that compel repeated listening. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.116]

Even the most hardcore riddims here percolate with moments of silky soul, pop and gospel. [Aug 2004, p.128]

You've heard it all before--at least twice. [#10, p.128]

Similar inventiveness [to that on debut album 'Vertigo'] has been markedly absent from the London duo's subsequent work, and sadly, Lovebox continues the trend. [#14, p.136]

On their fifth album, they crack the window, slow the motor (except on 'Shopping Bag,' a jazz-punk binge and purge) and take side trips into primeval glades where runic rites are conducted on acoustic guitars.

A vehement kiss-off to California's Central Valley. [Nov 2005, p.136]

The album is often duller than its predecessors, with bummed-out banalities repeated from previous records; at times, she seems to be dragging herself through her own songs.

Her woodwind-like voice and lucid sensiblity are hardly weird, but Andrews pushes her toward a dreamy and daring edge. [Apr 2005, p.117]

The bigger the gamble, the stronger she feels. By the end of the record, she’s lassoing the moon, getting through her loneliness the way she got past teen pop: by sheer force of will.

Enough human warmth sneaks through to make this second album exciting and affecting. [Nov 2005, p.133]

The album could easily have come from Boards of Canada or any number of downcast groups--if it were shorter. [May 2008, p.78]

The material sinks or swims on the quality of [Duritz's] brooding. [#8, p.116]

Musically they offer nothing that hasn't been heard in every coed dorm via their 1989 hit "Closer to Fine." [Apr/May 2002]

Etheridge backs up her verbal cliches with musical ones. [Mar 2004, p.117]

Its 12 tracks are unusually raucous and raw, as Kravitz finds a comfort zone with turbocharged punk and arena rock. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.111]

There's no unnecessary reverence, so the roots move that could have tagged Aerosmith as geezers proves instead that they're still wild boys. [May 2004, p.118]

Offers something for everyone -- and ends up an intermittently engaging but overall shapeless collection. [#4, p.112]

Only on the album-closing "Summer Never Ends"... do the gals sound like they're relaxed and doing their own thing--not trying to make Paula's Boutique. [Sep 2004, p.140]

The subtle, heartfelt results may not help them shed the "emo" tag, but should propel them beyond cult status. [Apr/May 2002, p.116]

Coheed have found their sweet spot.

He can go from dazzling to deadeningly dense over LP lengths, so this smaller dose is appealing. [Apr 2005, p.112]

This time they've vacuumed all the loose dirt out of the silicon chamber and left a low-funk environment. [Nov 2006, p.154]

There aren't many things worse than a pretentious hippie. [Apr 2006, p.112]

This compendium of pop standards is as good an introduction to the great American songbook as any.

Texturally, it's a middle ground between her searing early album Under the Pink and the sun-dappled 2005 The Beekeeper. [Jun 2007, p.105]

The emotional terrain is much more treacherous here, and more rewarding for it. [Oct 2003, p.114]

The Garbage machine doesn't always function so pristinely. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.105]

Cute but not too sugary, smart but not too brainy, [Stacy] Jones's songs practically define pop-punk. [#14, p.130]

[McCoy's] delivery is laudably cool for a Warped Tour MC. But it’s gunk on the gears of this dancing machine.

Satisfyingly sloppy.

No new fans need apply here, but those who know and love his sound will find that this self-styled career summation, a nod back to late Husker Du with computerized updates, sprouts horns with repeat listens. [Aug 2005, p.112]

Underneath his architecturally impressive hair, front guy Justin Pierre is a savvy melodic songwriter and, refreshingly, he’s completely incapable of taking himself seriously.

Keith and co-writer Scotty Emerick can't resist country cliches, but at least they use them brilliantly. [Jul 2005, p.118]

Though its sound is still cloudy and distant, the group takes tentative steps toward Everything But The Girl territory. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.123]

The mood is too inconsistent to connect. [Oct 2003, p.127]

A sound that is almost vintage Bowie.... Even so, many of these 12 perfectly harmless songs plod where instead they should spring. [#8, p.115]

On this eight-song EP--available for free on his Web site--the amiable 42-year-old lends his peach-cobbler drawl to songs about maimed soldiers and power-drunk bullies, a doleful cover of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s 'Fortunate Son' and 'Mission Accomplished (Because You Gotta Have Faith),' which deploys a Bo Diddley beat to excoriate a leader who “drove us off a cliff and told us we were flyin’.”

[A] tightly coiled second album. [Jul 2007, p.119]

Us[es] Nevermind as a trusty road map. [Apr 2006, p.116]

Instead of sunshine-pop sugar, there's the cloying tang of saccharine. [Jun 2005, p.109]