A mixed bag of carols, contemporary pop songs (their take on Mel Torme's "The Christmas Song" is a quirky trip) and five originals.

Much of Britney Jean devolves into an abyss of electro-neutral bangers produced by the reigning kings of danceable obviousness, Will.i.am and David Guetta.

Here there are spirited, pitch-perfect replicas of the Who's power-chord bombast ("Best Song Ever"), Van Halen's louche boogie ("Little Black Dress") and Def Leppard's stadium-sized glam ("Midnight Memories").

Essential? Hardly. But one listen to the lovely "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Feet," confirms that it's also pointless to quibble with such an oft-blissful tribute to harmony and artistic curiosity.

There’s a bravery to Hynes’ vulnerability here. He finds what he’s looking for, and he doesn’t flinch.

The result isn't the clean-up job it might've been; Bugg, 19, still sings with a nasal edge that wouldn't last more than a round on "American Idol." Yet the songwriting here feels more evened-out, less appealingly pugnacious than it did last time.

Picked by music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas, the second volume has a lot of good makeout songs and just as many calls for courage.

The L.A.-based duo succeeds by mixing the best aspects of yacht rock, soft rock, boogie rock, meadow rock and country rock--but with the added urgency of gangsta rap.

There's some excellent production work from old M.I.A. hands like Switch and young rap titans like Hit-Boy, and the hazy, hopeful theology of "Y.A.L.A." ("YOLO" for reincarnationists) is a cool premise for an album of post-colonial uplift in the Internet era. It's just a shame that so much of the record feels more like an Assange-style data drop than a pointed, insistent statement.

There are other duds, including the clunky arena-rock goof “Manicure” and “Donatella,” an excruciatingly lame homage to her friend Donatella Versace.... But Lady Gaga approaches other fresh modes with more spirit, particularly in a handful of songs that pull deeply from R&B

He does manage to out-Mumford and out-Sheeran his countrymen on the rustic single "Bonfire Heart" (ironically, co-written with super-pop penman Ryan Tedder). Whether you want to hear James Blunt plowing that field is a conversation between you and your god.

Even in his rare clunky moments, Eminem burns with purpose on MMLP2.

The album is definitely tongue-in-cheek but suggests a real affection for these standards, putting Bad Religion in a long line of acts that find religion interesting even if they don't believe in it for a second.

This is an R&B record, and a solid one.

Genre jumping aside, it's the patterns as much as the riffs that are beguiling here.

Full of dull riffs and saggy rhythms, Uncanney Valley makes you wonder why exactly frontman Travis Morrison reunited the group in 2011.

Full of dull riffs and saggy rhythms, Uncanney Valley makes you wonder why exactly frontman Travis Morrison reunited the group in 2011.

Clark wrote or co-wrote all 12 of these songs with the feistiness of Loretta Lynn and the songwriting gift of Dolly Parton.... This is the country debut of the year.

Prism has neither fat nor pretense. In its own masterful way, in fact, Perry's new work contains as much of-the-moment sonic surprise as any other modern pop album this year.

The boy next door has definitely left the building.

Tinged with nostalgia, the songwriter has made a record that sounds contemporary but not desperately so, one that suggests his work with the Beatles but not reductively so.

Throughout the album, you get the sense that Krauss is doing stuff she’s been waiting for years to try out, and that appears to have pushed Miller into fresh territory as well.

On Melophobia they're in a class of their own among big, unit-shifting rock bands who can play with the scrap and imagination of van-tour vermin.

The debut solo record from half of the duo the Clipse and member of Kanye West’s G.O.O.D. Music collective is hard and minimal, filled with state-of-the-art beats that pop with bravado.

Savvy recyclers committed to their own era, they make what worked yesterday work again today.

Jackson and album producers Keith Stegall and Adam Wright infuse a back-porch feel in original numbers here and savvy selections from other writers, including Jackson's new spin on John Anderson's 1982 hit "Wild and Blue" and Adam Wright's sharply witty "Ain't Got Trouble Now."

Yet for all the attitude herehere's also "Do My Thang," a live-it-up club jam co-produced by will.i.am--Bangerz reveals that Cyrus isn't just a twerk-bot programmed to titillate (though there's always a need for one of those in pop music).

A 12-song sequel that comes on stronger than its ingratiating predecessor.

About half the record is orthodox Kaskade--clean-cut rave with a dreamy shimmer--that fans will devour, but which doesn’t move the genre much. But the other half is a laudable effort to broaden the palette for what big-tent EDM can do.

This record should do the trick for everyone.

At times jagged and sharp, sure. But mostly the work of someone who rides the waves without much interest in making them.

The song ["A Town Called Jubilee"] plods along, one of a number that could have been trimmed to make an excellent record start to finish. But the successes are many, and highlight an artist who seems devoted to caring for his muse and its many unexplored corners.

If you've ever fallen in love with a Costello record, be prepared for a new obsession.

His renditions don’t supplant the original recordings, but shine new light into some of the many nooks and crannies his elegant songs contain.

It’s chaotic and expansive in the best sense: The Allstars attack many blues and southern rock ideas--and let loose doing it. As a result, World Boogie feels like a journey.

For an act founded in anonymity and reserve, it turns out the Weeknd's most convincing work of art is Tesfaye's own rollout as a star and storyteller.

Though long and featuring a bounty of ideas, The Electric Lady is surprisingly slight.

Higher as an album is decent enough, but it's hardly essential.

This might be the most inviting pop record of 2013, with a bubbly ebullience that makes even its most familiar moves feel fresh.

Over the Rhine seems to inhabit another time, one that sounds awfully appealing here.

Much of the album was reportedly written in the throes of deep depression over the death of Case's grandmother. But she came out the other side with a beautiful, insightful record to show for it.

Lyrically and vocally, he is hardly nuanced. His humorless, monochromatic tone tempers Hesitation Marks with many shades of dry bummer, the well-worn path winding through a field of flowers.

Eleven songs that hit the mark where last year’s overwrought "Born and Raised" mostly missed, Paradise Valley is a more lyrically restrained and less generically reflective affair. And musically, it’s bigger, more accomplished and more approachable.

Doris features instrumental interludes, expanded mid-song diversions and enough surprise to warrant repeated--obsessive--evaluation.

There's little studio sweetening applied to Campbell's boy-next-door voice, a smart move that gives his age and condition the honest respect he's earned in what's been a difficult but brave fight.

However well-crafted and hummable it is, Exhibitionists is hardly groundbreaking. Each song feels borrowed rather than handmade.

The Civil Wars is darker and more expansive than the group's sometimes-snoozy debut, with more varied tempos and instrumental contributions by Nashville pros.

Is anything here going to be as iconic in their catalog as "Everybody"? Probably not. But there are far worse records than this to greet you at the pearly gates.

Blurred Lines is a celebration of plasticine funk, warbly bass and plump booties.... Just as often, though, Thicke and his producers, which include himself and collaborators Pro J, Dr. Luke and Timbaland, dip from the cheesier realms of '70s pop.

The Other Life is a showpiece for Jennings' familial knack for outlaw-country hell-raising.

Stars Dance is exactly the kind of album one makes in 2013 if you want to keep the pop sugar of the Disney tween cabal but mix in some broken glass and a club bathroom nosebleed.

Pure Vida overwhelms as often as it inspires.

Amelita might be the most buoyant album of 2013, a lighter-than-air set of summery folk-pop tunes with titles like "Sunshine" and "The World Smiles."

Where Does This Door Go feels like a once-promising OK Cupid date that's gone off the rails.

Two young dudes couldn't make a synth-pop record so polished and seamless, one with a maturity matched only by the constant quest for surprise. Only the Pet Shop Boys can do that, as evidenced by Electric.

It all sounds entirely of Bill Frisell’s unique world, yet still like a previously undiscovered land that sounds well worth a visit.

It's a real album in a singles-driven genre, and a record certainly worth slowing down and savoring.

Content? Sure. Complacent? Not yet.

"Magna Carta Holy Grail" certainly is shimmering, heavy and at times sonically stunning, and Jay-Z can toss a brilliant metaphor like it's nothing. But a true masterpiece harnesses intellect and adventure to push forward not only musically but also thematically.

Connick's music has none of the attitude the singer often summons outside the studio.

This album, produced chiefly by Jones and/or the Avila Brothers, has the hallmarks of those great Memphis sessions of yore--sultry organ work, a lithe rhythm section and lots of meaty horn accents--with touches that bring it comfortably into the 21st century.

Taken together, the 11 tracks on Kenny Dennis feel like chapters, and combine to create a work as accomplished--and entertaining--as a well-imagined graphic novel or confidently told short story.

In moving away from the band's stultifying idea of beauty, Kveikur gets at something livelier--and far more lifelike.

Cole's not an especially charismatic MC, but he has a welcome self-awareness and good taste in backdrops.

Yeezus is minimal but powerful, a record filled with more aural space than anything on “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” his excellent 2010 album.

The Wack Album feels awfully short on fresh ideas.

Any of these songs could have appeared at any point in the group's discography. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. A full-body massage, after all, is just as pleasing the fourth time as the first.

It’s hard to imagine a more inviting dance record being released in 2013.

A record that feels wonderfully askew, making Personal Record a challenge worth taking.

Homme is one of the few singers and lyricists today who know that rock 'n' roll is built on a mix of menace and dark humor, and almost every track on ...Like Clockwork has a moment that makes you want to drive to Joshua Tree, pound some beers and start fires in the shape of pentagrams.

With Once I Was An Eagle, she's finally made a record that matches the magnitude of her vision, and puts her well ahead of almost any twentysomething singer-songwriter peer working today.

To the National's credit, its exploration of the dour has never been this subtle, but by never shifting the mood, the band has also never been this draining.

Carefully rendered and unabashed in its optimism, it's as personal as anything Strait has ever recorded. And it's completely devastating.

There's a fine line between evolution and de-evolution, and which process Fitz and the Tantrums is experiencing on its sophomore effort, More Than Just a Dream, depends on what you liked about the L.A. band's breakout debut.

A brave, surprising third effort that's both challenging and confident, catchy but progressive, expertly imagined and executed.

Their switchblade-sharp vision incorporates acute observational powers about the human condition and savvy compositional skills that come together in songs that are piercingly honest, funny and sometimes both.

Chesney's tone-deafness here seems especially egregious because it's surrounded by better, smarter material.

Authentic not only misses the mark, it doesn't even come close.

The band does black and white, but nothing in between.

The album feels like a predictable progression, too logical an evolution.

The album's sonic sophistication never impedes the primal charge the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have always delivered.

Tyler's Wolf may lack in editing and aural oomph, but it more than compensates with wit, if you can get past the way he seems to revel in tossing off invectives and then doubling back to defend them.

Accompanying himself on a guitar that probably cost 10 quid, Bugg holds two fingers up to yesterday and moans about being stuck in Speed Bump City in scrappy early-rock ditties as full of Buddy Holly as they are of Bob Dylan.

Wheelhouse [is] perhaps his most ambitious album to date, taking on such hot-button topics as spousal abuse, Southern provincialism, racism and social justice alongside characteristically well-crafted mainstream country fare.

Bombino and his band have released a killer document not only for fans of North African guitar music; anyone who has ever appreciated a master player make magic on a Fender while a band, which on Nomad is augmented by a few Auerbach’s go-to session men, organizes structures behind him, will find comfort in Bombino’s music.

The results are as distinctive as they are rewarding.

With its easy rhymes and hummable choruses, the album doesn't ask the listener to work any harder than Shelton himself is prepared to work.

mostly, I Am Not a Human Being II shows us Lil Wayne responding weakly to the unsettling prospect of weakness.

Timberlake is reminding us that as quickly as music moves today, great style persists.

The indie folk darling's brand of Latin- and electronic-tinged pop yields a broad range of musical and sonic textures here.

With 14 magnetic works, the album is so packed with vivid Bowie-isms that it seems like he's been storing away one plump specimen per year so that in the proverbial wintertime he'd be ready for a glorious feast.

None of it adds much to Moore's legacy as a guitar innovator and post-punk aesthete, but you leave the record feeling as sweaty and beat as you would hauling a couch up to a sixth-floor walk-up.

Unlike Nine Inch Nails' big radio hits, the majority of the songs here don't brandish catchy hooks or compact slogans designed to grab you in passing. They start out quiet and often stay that way, forcing you to lean in and immerse yourself.

The album washes near the end with a series of spacey slow jams, but then Bilal clears away the atmospheric clutter for "Butterfly," a stark ballad built around his soaring falsetto and rippling piano by recent Grammy winner Robert Glasper.

They've captured a sound as tangibly uplifting as pop music gets. The Mavericks are back and indeed, just in time.

Awash with beats, rhythms, electronics, the occasional guitar and Yorke's soaring if still mostly unintelligible tenor, Amok is a record to get sonically lost within, a work whose every measure teems with a quality and a precision that only musicians at the top of their game can touch.

Those with a patient appreciation for Cave's dramatic sense, and the ways in which his singular musical voice has evolved over years, will find much to focus on within.

Iceage still thrills here, hurtling through tangled, fuzzed-out hard-core jams that rarely stretch past the three-minute mark.