When it comes to carrying the torch for an earlier generation's idea of rock 'n' roll perfection, no one means as much business as Liam Gallagher.

The Blueprint 3 splits the difference between its two predecessors, with Jay-Z sounding hungrier than he has in years on about half the tracks, while sharing time with guest stars or grappling with undercooked production on the rest.

Freshly single, Usher does everything but buy a waterbed, an Italian sports car and announce, "Mothers, lock up your daughters."

This album might actually be a devotional record of sorts--to downtown New York's musical DNA, and to the idea that dancefloor hedonism can be its own kind of grace.

At 78, Nelson reminds us that his deceptively effortless vocal style can still touch the heart.

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.

There's no "Babies" here, which is really too bad--as awkward as the song is, it fleshes out Bedingfield's vision better than Jerkins' Mary J. Bligean "Angel" or Rotem's Fergilicious "Piece of Your Heart." ("Tricky Angel," the most adventurous club track on "N.B.," is also absent.) Of the new material, the self-empowerment anthems "Freckles" and "Happy" show Bedingfield's best side.

L.A.X. might not hit the heights of its two predecessors, but it is one of the more complete and satisfying major label rap releases of the year.

The album would be much better without its excess of undistinguished ballads, but that aside, it's a more accomplished version of "Confessions," the hooks more effortless, the singing even better, the songwriting more consistent.

Jenkins instead comes on like he never left the scene. In fact, with its pulsating rhythms and crisp guitar fuzz, the new record actually does a better job of extending the band's early work than did its lukewarm previous effort, "Out of the Vein."

Love 2 is not a make-out album in the traditional sense. It's about the love of silence, stillness, of being a conscious human being and watching the world float by.

That fixation on headphone-trip arcana doesn't mean the new songs lack hooks: "A Stitch in Time," for example, opens with a folky acoustic figure that openly echoes "Disarm," one of Smashing Pumpkins' biggest hits. But "Songs for a Sailor" seems indifferent to what's happening on the radio right now. It's a blast of arty alt-rock escapism, short and not so sweet.

Faithfull delves into what she seems to know best: decay of all varietals, including the decay of passion, of relationships, even of civilizations in Tennessee songwriter-playwright-actor R. B. Morris' benedictory "That's How Every Empire Falls."

"Light Grenades" refines the band's attack modes: melodic and muscular, gentle and intense.

There are not as many revelations as on Rice's acclaimed 2002 debut, "O," but it still can be sonically thrilling.

For fans who will miss his less-than-entirely-jovial exit from his day job on "Community," Because the Internet carves a place for him in today's Web-addled indie-rap world, even if some offline fresh air might do him some good as well.

It works equally as a setting for his quieter moments (the tropical "Caipirinha") and for the melodic vocal rages that defined Faith No More's hits. [4 Jun 2006]

The Rejects are best at small ideas with a long shelf life. "World" forgets that at points.

Whether history declares it a tragedy or a farce, this is one album that's more than a pop exercise. And for that, Axl Rose can finally take a bow.

Though uneven, the group's 29th studio work (including 2011's "The Smile Sessions") contains a number of elegant, shockingly beautiful moments that not only do justice to and expand on the sound of Southern California in the 1960s but serve as a bittersweet and at times heartbreakingly brilliant coda to five decades in music.

It's the band's most fully realized record, and that should keep them at the front of a dwindling pack.

Richards often errs on the side of wispy and ephemeral on her new album, Light of X, but albums can do worse things than wash over you like a hillside sunset.

On his collaboration with Fatboy Slim (a.k.a. Norman Cook) on the story of Imelda Marcos, Here Lies Love: A Song Cycle About Imelda Marcos & Estrella Cumpas, Byrne gets bogged down in the fertile ground of his boundless imagination.

With its redemptive sins, Come Around Sundown ends up being a portrait of light and dark worthy of the rock and roll bible.

What leaves an impression is Grande herself, deeply cheerful yet with guns blazing, an innocent newcomer no more.

While some recent Korn records sometimes got lost in the sludge, "Twisted Transistor" and other new tracks reach back to find harsh, and intimate, hard-rock hooks. [6 Dec 2005]

Like the verbal tricks he loves to employ, the appeal of Robbie Williams might still be too tricky to be truly universal. But this album proves that he is a great brain teaser.

Though it tails off toward the end, the second Weezer-Rubin collaboration (and the band's third self-titled album, out June 3) is a rush, starting with a sustained, four-song soliloquy on pop music's allure.