Fundamental ingeniously explores political chicanery through imaginative set pieces about private relationships. [Aug 2006, p.113]

Since his 2005 debut, T-Pain has seen his Auto-Tuned swagger jacked by everyone from Kanye to Lil Wayne, but he has kept his sound fresh with a bottomless bag of hooks and a grainy rasp that the computers can’t buff away.

Point is the sound of a post-everything pop auteur rediscovering his attention span. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.111]

His best album since Vauxhall & I. [#27, p.140]

The tone of these literate tunes remains as light as Chesney's singing of them stays soulful. [Mar 2005, p.136]

The tracks are catchy, meaty and modern. [Sep 2007, p.131]

Lively and loose, cut with collaborators including her talented Scottish boyfriend Johnathan Rice, spooky folkie M. Ward and actress-singer Zooey Deschanel, the 11 songs (many of which she has performed live for years) encompass Southern-gothic folk, Appalachian blues stomps and 'The Next Messiah,' an eight-minute, Who-style rock mini-opera.

Somehow the emotions bleed through, raw as hell. [#17, p.132]

Longtime devotees may miss Morrissey's Smiths-era vocal histrionics, but his supple croon has matured into a thing of beauty. [May 2006, p.103]

Tighter and freakier than her debut. [Jul 2006, p.102]

Dear Heather is top Cohen. [Nov 2004, p.131]

The songs are weirder and darker than their gentle melodies indicate. [Nov 2005, p.141]

Movement and change remain his inspiration. [Oct 2007, p.107]

Veteran producer Phil Ramone helps Lynne emphasize the loneliness of 'You Don't Have To Say You Love Me' and linger in the sensual transgressions of 'Breakfast In Bed' until this drastically rearranged but delicately rendered tribute feels like a candid self-portrait painted in watercolors and tears. [Apr 2008, p.81]

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

With a thick strain of the DJ humor found in the music of De La Soul and Daft Punk, Kinky know no borders, slapping Mexican norteno with techno until it sounds like neither. [Apr/May 2002, p.114]

Her reach is remarkable. [Aug 2003, p.120]

The result is a mess but--thanks to Bemis’s passion, humor and knack for inserting multiple hooks into a single song--an exhilarating one.

The biggest draw is the Iggy-Jagger sexual charisma of 22-year-old singer Julian Casablancas, whose self-possessed cool is astonishing. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.130]

It sounds so damn joyous. [Nov 2005, p.134]

They're so straightforward, you can forget how crafty, even sly, Smash Mouth can get. [Sep 2003, p.129]

It's not so much what Zevon says as how he says it: with an air of ragged, nothing-to-lose spontaneity. [Sep 2003, p.133]

Murdoch's gift for loopy, tender, unshakeable hymns, stomps and meditations is untouchable. [Nov 2003, p.109]

Lost in Space... pushes her in a new direction. [#9, p.152]

Hypnotize has a little bit of everything: protest, pretension, comedy, brute force, delicacy, compassion, crassness, fury. [Dec 2005, p.143]

What elevates this power trio above any number of punk revivalists... are precision and craft. [Apr 2007, p.115]

Their final album is no solemn headstone. The languid beats are hazy with heat-distortion organs and porny electric guitars; the spirit is carefree.

Streetwise, self-aware and clever. [Aug 2003, p.124]