Try as they might to sound different, or even to touch on issues bigger than their own narcissistic garbage, LP still sound like they're stuck back in 00, which is where they should have stayed.

There seems to be something unsettlingly artifical about the whole Beirut project, as if idea man Zach Condon is playing some strange cultural appropriation game for which he’s the only one privy to the rules.

Over-emoting at every turn, she obliterates otherwise innocuous soul, R&B and reggae-inflected songs with gimmicky vocal histrionics, strident attempts at melisma and the kind of callow self-help lyrics that are apparently mandatory for all young pop stars nowadays.

A deadly dull set of cliché-packed piano ballads probably isn't the best way for aging harmony synchers to prove to their shrinking tween audience that the old Boys (sans Kevin Richardson) have still got it.

The novelty of it all has quickly worn thin.

Without any clever arrangements or production gimmicks to rely on, Keys tries to compensate for the obvious shortcomings by oversinging each syllable in a way that would make Patti LaBelle cringe.

Unfortunately, all the intricately picked little guitar figures don't make his raspy yelping sound any less like a wet cat stuck under a couch.

The Audience's Listening is kinda like a Fatboy Slim B-sides collection circa 1998 without the catchy bits.

If maturing means 14 (regular edition) tracks of footy-stadium-worthy anthemic choruses ad nauseam, I don’t want 1-D to grow up.

A combination of insipid songs and uniformly soulless performances, it deserves high placement among the other legendary Macca misfires Pipes Of Peace, Press To Play, Off The Ground, Tug Of War and Red Rose Speedway.

His flow is generic and instantly forgettable and his lyrics are trite, inconsequential and full of self-importance.

His bored delivery and ridiculous lyrics about peanut butter sandwiches and rich kids make his two-minute tunes on this 20-song binge stretch out painfully into what feels like forever.

The boring beats and throwback rhyme flow (circa 92)--which is weak even by Edmontonian standards--put Afterparty Babies somewhere beneath Don Cash’s home demos and the outtakes from Organized Rhyme’s Huh? Stiffenin’ Against The Wall.

Kroeger’s voice sounds more like a wounded goat than ever before, and their blatantly recycled songs touch on familiar themes like strippers, sex, prostitutes, drugs, sex, drinking and sex.

Now and then you get a glimpse of ideas that could’ve made the album more powerful if they’d been further explored. ... But the songs are so spiritless and phoned-in that those moments are too little, too late.

Will.i.am has to be one of the worst rappers of all time, a fact his solo album doesn't just confirm, but stamps in red.

This album belongs chained up in the vaults.

Unfortunately, Furtado doesn't have the rhyming skills, vocal chops or attitude to pull off any one of her new personae.

It all adds up to a whole that’s somehow less than the sum of its parts.

[An] utterly vacuous, unlistenable album.

All 11 tracks feature painfully predictable song structures and lethargic chord progressions devoid of anything resembling a hook.

The painful White Chalk is either a studio experiment gone horribly wrong or a crafty bit of career self-sabotage by a sensitive artist who'd rather make sculptures in the desert than play pop star.

P.O.D.'s new album sounds exactly like all their other ones.

Sadly, this landfill isn't biodegradable.

As it turns out, Scherzinger’s not interesting enough on her own, so she’s padding out her shtick with four glorified backup singers in tow.

Here I Am concerns itself with the kind of bland, radio-friendly R&B pop that equates sex appeal with self-confidence.

Robert Smith, Franz Ferdinand and Wolfmother offer glimpses of what this project might’ve been, but then along comes 3 Doors Down-clone Shinedown and it’s off with the heads of everyone involved in this nightmare.

Rather than the thoughtful songcraft and inspired peformances of Banhart's pre-Roberts Young God recordings, what you hear now is the zoned-out noodling of someone who foolishly believes his own genius hype.