Trademark G-Unit, pakced with a few thunderous club jams and too little else. [Oct 2006, p.128]

The line between this credible Faces-cum-Skynyrd jam band's best and worst material remains slimmer than even their most ardent fanatic might hope. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.105]

There's something about the precision of the gear changes and the crisp efficiency of Rob Schnapf's production that hits the spot, however derivatively. [Apr 2004, p.134]

It's ultimately unconvincing. [Jun 2005, p.115]

Thomas's songs derive power from being derivative. [#13, p.98]

Faceless is exactly that. [May 2003, p.120]

They fluctuate between those two poles while their by-the-book hard rock continues to split the difference between Black Crowes and Guns N’ Roses--though no longer with the wit that fueled their coke-y 1999 breakout, 'Lit Up.'

Every chorus is a rousing tribute to overstatement. [#17, p.137]

It’s a steadfast assault, whether he’s brooding over dust in the wind ('If Today Was Your Last Day') or idealizing a girl (“She ain’t no Cinderella when she gettin’ undressed/’Cause she rocks it like the naughty Wicked Witch of the West").

A whip-smart, 13-song satire on FM-radio machismo and lyrical cliches. [Nov 2006, p.140]

Green's cutesy Bacharach-ish chamber pop loses all novelty after a few spins. [Apr 2005, p.118]

Korn are ultra-confident, forgoing the blandishments of heavy-rock virtuoso conceptualist Michael Beinhorn, who produced their last album. [Mar 2004, p.121]

The anti-sentimentality gets a bit relentless over 18 songs. [Aug 2006, p.118]

Roman's politically spiked lyrics sound shrugged-off and flimsy. [Sep 2004, p.141]

What initially feels jubilant soon turns grating. [Jul 2005, p.115]

The End is rather ordinary--severe, belligerent riffs and vocals that sound as though singer Chud gargles molten lava. [#12, p.148]

Rossdale still has that sexy catch in his throat, but his new songs are ass, evoking a mealy-mouthed, cliché-ridden, bombastic Chris Cornell solo joint more than Bush, and whoever Auto-Tuned the vocals has some explaining to do.

The real problem is sounding like Alice In Chains; afloat without a genre, the gang too often turn their emotional intelligence to making kinda dark, vaguely artistic middle metal. [Sep 2005, p.138]

They are still greasy rock & rollers who know how to keep a party going. [Oct 2004, p.120]

The Five... go for the high-flown pap of '70s singer-songwriters Dan Fogelberg and Dan Hill, playing off Ondrasik's fey falsetto and fondness for lush, string-sweetened arrangements. [Mar 2004, p.117]

There's little to indicate an intrinsic personality unusual enough to demand your attention. [#10, p.118]

Perry’s creative-writing-class punch lines don’t always justify her self-congratulatory drag-queen tone. But she hiccups quirkily enough, and myriad big-name producers (from Dr. Luke to Glen Ballard) keep the new-wave synth hooks hopping

Begging can be sexy, too, but for SWR it’s just another joyless act by a hateful species.

Where past albums documented a litany of bummers, cascading melodies now airbrush moments of depression or kinkiness--even the horny groupie of 'Natural Disaster' sounds like a girl you could take home to Mom. Higgenson’s new outlook is surprising.

Monotonous in its R&B pleasantry. [Mar 2005, p.137]

Showcases the melodramatic but never overstated croon of a showman who, in another era, might've been a Las Vegas legend. [#14, p.135]

Singing on nearly every song, the techno star gets more up-close-and-personal here--a ballsy move for someone the Lord didn't heap with vocal gifts, but one that pays off. [Apr 2005, p.124]

Their sixth album is shambling and empty, spiked infrequently with a good bassline or an almost-good chorus, and even the jokes founder on the band’s contempt.

The wan, wimpy Weird Revolution relies on tired drum loops and flat rap vocals. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.121]

Consists almost entirely of antagonistic digs at 50, Eminem and Dr Dre, none of which are terribly sharp. [Jan 2004, p.105]

On this clamorous, relentless album, a violent death lurks in every bar (“Rider Pt. 2”), licentious catcalls have replaced slinky come-ons (“I Like the Way She Do It”) and guns seem to fire of their own accord (every other song here). In doses, it’s rousing. Over the course of a whole album, it’s exhausting.

The novelty of the all-star show has worn off, especially as the caliber of the all-stars has declined dramatically. [Nov 2005, p.140]

13 tracks of Disney-channel-ready pop, buffed and Pro-Tooled almost beyond recognition--and it's not half bad. [Apr 2007, p.111]

Shock gets dull, though, and Bizarre's bloated debut is profoundly unfunny. [Jul 2005, p.115]

Fans of the Stooges' early-'70s masterpieces wondered what they would have sounded like with a big-league budget. Here's the answer: loud, surly and still barely civilized. [Apr 2007, p.120]

A low-rent version of the Streets without Mike Skinner's wit, they're just a couple of palookas mouthing off in the pub. [Nov 2005, p.131]

For most of Charmbracelet, she sticks to a gauzy, breathy, phone-sex coo, muzzling her inner diva until the final verse or a few ultrasonic high notes in the fade-out. [#13, p.92]

The songs are soggier, the sentiments more banal. [Dec 2005, p.154]

Kravitz has evolved merely from one set of retro-’70s surfaces to another, with uncharacteristically uninspired hooks.

Their collaboration suggests a nice philosophical dissonance, but only in theory. In practice, Scream is nearly awful.

Though The Great American Songbook is bad, it's not shamefully bad--if only because it's too tasteful to risk sinking that low. [#11, p.143]

This mismatched combo brings out the best in each other only on the refreshingly lightweight 'Call Me.' [Nov 2008, p.76]

Mostly he just sounds bored, a pretty boy tired of being denied his inner turmoil.

14 Shades is nominally heavier than the group's two previous albums, though the band tempers its harsher instincts to let Lewis ruminate unmolested. [Aug 2003, p.132]

Never Gone's rock ballads are painfully and sometimes powerfully earnest demands for meaning and redemption. [Aug 2005, p.108]

Beneath the highlights, she's still a messy troublemaker whose brain is as spicy as the rest of her body. [#17, p.146]

Despite scattered flashes of uncharacteristic lightness, she rarely tempers the fury that drove the originals with the more accepting perspective that's guided her subsequent efforts. [Jul 2005, p.119]

Isaacs’s indistinct, flannel-waving wail doesn’t add anything to these titanic anthems of soul and struggle, which don’t say much beyond: Dave Navarro, still breathing, still taking meetings.

Without the blue-eyed soul conviction of the original, it's enough to make even second-tier grunge has-beens like Seven Mary Three seem like innovators. [Dec 2003, p.145]

Exhaustingly awful. [Dec 2004, p.140]

There is little... to compare with either the work of his Genesis heyday or his still heartbreaking 1981 solo debut. [#12, p.139]

The nu-metal and new wave sendups are too conventional to work as either comedy or music--and the nonstop woman-bashing becomes repugnant fast. [Nov 2005, p.131]