His similar-sounding interpretations lose their oomph a few tracks in.

Ultimately, it's hard to shake the feeling that something is missing.

Gone are the inspired melodies and sweet emotional turns of their past triumphant albums, replaced by boring philosophical musings and wafer-thin tunes.

We'd rather watch the Dandys than listen to 'em.

While this sounds mostly like incomplete leftovers, there are a few tasty treats: The lonely guitar of "Knives Out," that dirty beat pulsating under "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors" and the hypnotic body-ponging of "I Might Be Wrong."

His backing band's heavy-metal veering leans toward the generic. Only the Igster's sometimes fierce (but fading) yowl adds enough soul--and insanity--to make them at least momentarily credible.

Given that this may be your final release, this is no way to say goodbye.

This spinner of wispy, earnest vocals, sad-eyed melodies and country sensibilities lacks that special spark of passion to keep one's interest.

This is mainly just D12's other five anonymous members moaning on about the lack of credit they get by dropping the most underwhelming rhymes this side of the last Dogg Pound album.

A mixed bag at best.

Headed for a prom near you... it's the Goo Goo Dolls.

A few moody moments work, but this CD should come with a warning sticker that reads vacant.

[It] offers only occasional flashbacks to the seedy glamour of the debut, instead settling on lightweight MOR clichés.

But once those fleeting, producer-driven thrills die down, the remainder of the album takes a middle-of-the-road, midtempo stance that goes from covering her age issues on "17" to getting downright silly and insipid about looove with "Saturate Me."

Exactly as gratingly infectious as you might expect.

It's a well-produced disc, but the cavalcade of stars and cartoonish beats make the songs sound more dated than the originals.

10 mediocre new songs.

Though perfect for hipster English-lit teachers, ravenous Reed fans will find themselves saying "nevermore."

Grand Champ would make a great single. As it stands, it's about a full hour more of DMX hollering gruffly than anybody really needs.

The experiments sometimes work, but the album is mainly weighted down by cryptic religious ramblings that sap the pop life right out of it.

Nearly missing are the charming sax and violin song augmentations. Gone are the tunes that are too long but always find their way back. And gone is some of Matthew's long-faced songwriting personality--now all gussied up in a swirl of quick hits, easy ballads and electric guitar.

If she had just shown up and sang her ass off, Stripped would've been a better show.

A rather complacent set of radio-ready lite alt-rock.

Nothing here is gonna rock your world.

The actual music merely offers more of the same oddly faceless brand of heavy rock the group has been cranking out since its 2002 debut.

The transformation leaves her bland and boring, rather than bright like Britney or bold like [Michelle] Branch.

The whole deal threatens to take off occasionally, but in the end, it doesn't rise beyond meandering.

Little gems are overwhelmed by sprawling jam tracks that, well, blur into each other.

Plodding jazz-rock tunes that are 30 years old at this point.

The band sounds strong but derivative of its own best work.

The ballads sound more mawkish than ever and the rockers sound, well, a lot like bad Bruce Springsteen rip-offs.

If you're not already into it, you're not missing much.

After too many calls for the end of humanity and playing the Satan card a few times, all the yelling becomes little more than a humorless joke.

Tracks like "Lonely No More" might strike a chord because people will think it's a funky new Maroon 5 song. However, Backstreet Boys-esque ballads like "Ever the Same" and "When the Heartache Ends" are just way too much to handle.

Dated songs like "So Excited" and "Do It 2 Me" end up sounding like they're, well, 20 years old.

Shelve this one next to that Adam Sandler CD you haven't listened to in four years.

All bluster and noise and no substance.

Even Santana sounds bored, absentmindedly delivering Latin rock-influenced guitar licks behind a parade of stale melodies.

She fails to bake any new ideas, leaving us with the same old sad love songs and confused-girl anthems that the Texas torchbearer has always churned out.

A little less than half of this stuff is worth singing about.

A disc that sounds like it's... 1998.

His voice is rough, the melodies fall flat, and there's even a guitar solo by Eric Clapton.

Short on the kind of sweet 'n' simple coffeehouse ditties that made the Alaskan-born folksinger a fan favorite.

A frustratingly half-assed album, full of great ideas executed in the poorest way possible.

Even if they aren't Never Gone, their inspiration certainly is.

It's so predictable and so painfully trendy that More Than a Woman might as well have a former Mouseketeer's face on the cover.

Most of Future/Present dabbles in drab mainstream pop, with songs ranging from fairy-tale cute to charmless good tunes that are weighed down by overwrought production.

This collection of quirky tunes is largely directionless, with Gough's indistinct voice sounding lost and uncertain in a swell of pianos, strings and horn arrangements.

His pontification gets in the way of his songwriting.

What sounds great on paper feels like hollow tribute on closer inspection.

Shows the SoCal outfit mining the same bright pop-rock riffs that are being done better by the younger kids today.

The First Lady should be the last album on anyone's shopping list.

Too much of the disc is filtered through clinical and slightly jazzy rock that renders it a tiny noise about nothing.

Only the faux-reggae of "Jamaican Girl" lets some much needed light in between the blinds.

The album is so "been there, done that" that Twain often sounds like she's ripping herself off.

Despite a few promising creative bursts ("Love," "Black Sweat"), it's another case of dashed expectations, as the disc dissolves into a bloodless puddle of smooth-jazz grooves and lyrics that wither at the hands of the singer's recent religious ideals.

FutureSex/LoveSounds isn't nearly as good as its slinky predecessor.

Seventy Two & Sunny breezes by with the worst kinds of countrified clichés... sung by a guy who was never meant to carry a harmony.

Predictably packed with hip-hoppy dance numbers and chiming ballads that don't dare push her vocal range, J.Lo vibelessly goes through a series of songs about love, fidelity and how real she is.

A thoroughly dull collection of acoustic-based country-rock ballads you could hear at any local open-mike night.

This bummer sounds more in league with Yanni than Moby.

Employing actress Brittany Murphy on the ridiculous "Faster Kill Pussycat" hardly helps, as does reducing Pharrell Williams' talent with a caricature of a tune like "Sex 'N' Money."

Rife with hyper-marketable flamenco guitars and jazz pianos, it's world music for people whose idea of adventure is a trip to Banana Republic.

Although he has sensibly cut back on the droning that defined his last disc's stand-out single "Strange Condition," this release shows few other signs of growth.

It's business as usual.

The fortysomething performer doesn't have the stamina he used to, and the album quickly turns into a long run of listless ballads and silly cries for privacy.

Unfortunately, it lacks much of the spark and spunk that made the original disc so memorable.

She throws so much sparkle, shine and, yes, glitter at us that even tracks about her friend's suicide and her recent breakup are as glossy as her latest publicity shot.

There's nothing as instantly likable as "Frontin'," and even with the presence of some bigwig collaborators the disc sounds strangely inspiration-free.

The B. Coming attempts to document the emotional upheaval Sigel went through during his trial and conviction, but from the start the sober moral tone and forced gospel choruses make it obvious the MC's mind is on other matters.

Fails to whip up much excitement.

The end result of all this sermonizing will likely inspire you not to renounce sin and its sordid ways, but feel the itch to grab some hooch and a few George Jones albums and have a rip-roaring time.

It sounds like he wrote his lyrics by taking random words out of a thesaurus.

If he approached these songs with the slightest hint of subtlety, he might get his point across, but he's happy just hammering everyone with his trailer-park politics.

Record buyers will find nothing as good on Atomic as the breakout bubblegum slacker-punk of "My Own Worst Enemy."

Anyone order more of the same?

Chapter V is merely a carbon copy of, uh, chapters I-IV, simply rehashing the same punishing riffs and self-pitying lyrics.

The first word that comes to mind while listening to Destiny Fulfilled is: boring!

[A] thoroughly underwhelming debut, an album that merely paints within the lines already drawn by Pavement and the Pixies.

Less immediate than their brilliantly untouchable 1998 album Mezzanine, this project is unsettling, uneasy and, okay, sometimes unbearably depressing.

Most of the good parts of the Britney that originally hit us, baby, one more time (then oops!...did it again) drown in breathy vocals and multiproduced, tweaked-to-perfection studio gimmickry.

A largely boring affair.

What once sounded like the future's music a decade ago just sounds creepy and dated now.

Gold Medal's tempos are sluggish and the lyrics are emotionally vacant.

A set of predictable, plastic, street-tough R&B jams.

Has a polish that verges on parody.

Sadly, Keith's least-clever disc yet was almost completely written by him for the first time.

While the band's wounded vulnerability and breathy melodrama will probably imitate enough to sell well, this is predictable second-rate stuff.

There's something high-concept going on here, if you listen closely enough. Sad thing is, you probably won't want to. There's something high-concept going on here, if you listen closely enough. Sad thing is, you probably won't want to.

At their best they sound like a female Black Sabbath tribute band, at their worst they sound like slutty old goth rockers. Frankly, neither is all that appealing.

Though not terrible, Trey Anastasio's latest is miles below what he's done before.

His crisp voice has dulled, and his inspiration has gone with it.

In the end, Island makes Dave sound like he's just not enthusiastic about making music anymore.

It doesn't help that the best song here, "Feel," sounds like a bad Richard Ashcroft B-side; the worst is a seven-minute mariachi stomp about traveling to Las Vegas with a monkey, called "Me and My Monkey."

It's not exactly a convincing change of gears, nor is it particularly groundbreaking--unless you consider jamming as many four-letter words as possible into three minutes (on "As I Come Back") novel.

Velvet Revolver sounds like a hungover bar band playing catch-up, wading through tired blues licks and meaningless grunge imagery.

Sure, sanitary party jams like "Switch" will get the PTA meeting rocking, but there's just no getting around Smith's insipid rhymes.

Feels like it was designed by committee.

Aside from some cool collaborations with Missy Elliott, Twista and Method Man, Kim spends most of the album lecturing her fans with less-than-stimulating lines.

Therapy's diagnosis ultimately is not positive, because the disc's split-personality disorder results in too much incoherence.

Weighed down with bland lyrics and blander arrangements, it meanders off into chick-rock clichés and lazy easy-listening melodies.

For the most part, the vitality is gone.

From the amateurish cover art to a succession of clumsy diss tracks aimed at Fiddy, Blood in My Eye merely makes the Tupac disciple look desperate and directionless.

Despite the fact that nobody bought their lackluster last two albums, Art Alexakis and his two lackeys are back with the even more banal and unnecessarily loud Slow Motion Daydream.

Carrying none of the charm or innovation of the duo's earlier ABBA tribute, this set is salvaged only by a relatively straight reading of Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill."

Human Conditions is as bloated and directionless as its awkward title suggests, weighted with meandering songs without melodies, lyrics straight out of freshman-year philosophy class and a sickly slick sheen.

There's little here that Our Lady Peace, Foo Fighters, Everclear and a half-dozen other post-grunge bands don't already do better.

This sub-par group's darker efforts to push society's hot buttons and dis others are ultimately more silly than sinister.

He can still work a guitar and woo the pants right off of you, but after listening to another round of patchouli-soaked ballads like "Baptized" and "What Did I Do With My Life?" you really begin to consider running the other way.

Finds the sexy singer too often wading in the oversimplified pop influence of heavyweight producer Glen Ballard, her country sass and personality replaced by hackneyed and bland musical doodles.

Like the soundtrack of a very bad Jazzercise class.

The Philadelphia quartet continues to believe that barbershop harmonies, sugary ballads and New Jack Swing beats are where it's at. It ain't.

It says a lot about an album when the best song, "Get Right," is actually a leftover from Usher's Confessions.

It's hard to believe these men were once innovators.

The duo's seventh album sees an invasion of unnecessary guest stars, such as Lloyd Banks and Yayo, and a disappointing lyrical turn that celebrates monotonous Detroit staples like guns, cash and bumps.

All the Right Reasons doesn't so much pick up where 2003's The Long Road left off, but damn near replicates that album in whole.

Carey's once glorious voice is all over the place, her rainbow-and-stars lyrics come off like the notebook doodles of a 12-year-old girl, and her song selection is shocking.

A headache-inducing mess of rehashed classic rock riffs and stale grooves.

If he keeps going like this, it's a good bet that his best days are behind him.

Appallingly not so good.

There's little to dig here as the guys sound like a three-headed John Mayer or a trio of little Joe Jacksons.

With nothing to react against and few new ideas to air, P.O.D. mostly operates in default mode, relying on hitmaker-for-hire Glen Ballard to inject the music with new life. Sadly, he doesn't.

It sounds like the band is trying too hard to recapture the quirk factor, and the overdose borders on annoying.

Unlike previous albums, The Altogether doesn't really take the listener on some mind-altering trip. It simply throws together some half-baked novelties, some wasted and underwhelming guest appearances and a bunch of rhythmic ideas that would have sounded infinitely better a decade ago.

In the end, his big head seriously weighs down the quality of Quality.

Ed Kowalczyk and crew burden their sound with angry guitars, pseudoraps and needless swearing torn straight outta the Fred Durst book of lyric writing.

Basically disco with a new-wave spin, it's nothing you haven't heard before--in 1983.

An album that lacks severely in all areas, including production, direction and inspiration.

There are no new ideas, no points of interest.

A subpar album.

All the spiky edges have been worn away.