This smart if self-conscious album makes it clear who the Lips would like to be, but it's hard to tell who they really are.

Sometimes the former Midtown singer's snark falls flat, as with the title 'Pete Wentz Is the Only Reason We're Famous' or the part where the singer brags about his ass. But Saporta does have some pop gifts, apparent on the disco 'Living in the Sky With Diamonds.'

Pop Psychology opens with the biggest, shiniest songs he's come up with, each taking on a slippery aspect of post-modern romance.

Sheeran’s unobtrusively sweet voice easily slips between genres, but he struggles to connect with many of his A-list guest artists, deepening the album’s isolated mood.

This third full-length album continues to mine past gold, integrate rock and jazz elements, and work Maxwell's beautifully supple vocals around old-school styles.

Love Goes doesn’t quite have overwhelming moments to match the titanic power of signature hits like “Latch,” Smith’s career-making hit with house duo Disclosure, or 2017’s “Him.” In some ways, that’s OK.

His lyrics have always run the risk of feeling overthought, and Pieces of a Man is no exception; for all his talent, Mick sometimes verges into dorm-room thoughts (“cottonmouth get you soon enough/wake up and realize the moon is us”) and cringeworthy high musings (“Fuck is woke if you conscious but still in the bed”). But his heart is in the right place, and his elevated lyrical aspirations steer him right more often than not.

Like much of Tove Lo's work, it's admirably uncensored, but may leave you craving a shower, however close to home it lands.

The cleaving of The Alchemy Index into awkward chunks of opera violates a fundamental rule of prog rock: Go all the way out, or don't go at all.

Yachty is a great ambassador for Michigan rap, but as Michigan Boy Boat illustrates, he’s far from the best practitioner of the style. He is the protagonist of the mixtape, but he isn’t its anchor.

Sexing up the affair are new songs by artists like Sia and Ellie Goulding, a couple of hot Beyoncé remixes and the occasional classic (Rolling Stones, Frank Sinatra).

The stark, minimalist production by TV on the Radio's Dave Sitek is so cool and aloof that these snacks never feel fully cooked.

We're placed squarely in Michael Jacksonland, a bizarre place where every sparkling street is computer-generated, every edifice is larger than life and every song is full of grandiose desperation.

Vapor Trails is Rush's most focused effort in many years, thanks to a renewed emphasis on songwriting.

The lively romp "Lion"--which incidentally sounds great in concert--proves that the Felices translate best on record when they're being their boisterous, rootsy selves.

He rarely strives for the depth of Lamar or the intensity of Q; there's plenty of clever imagery on These Days . . . ("Residue on my debit card/Don't tell my moms," he rhymes on "Ride Slow"), but a fully realized dude never quite comes into focus.

The slower stuff vagues out, and the bonus disc of ambient instrumentals ought to come with a controlled substance, but elegant relationship songs such as the torchy "Forever" suggest this talented softy has found a sensible way to come down from a multiplatinum high.

Some of the music is gripping--the modal-sounding chorus and blippy groove of 'My People' suggests an R&B version of Radiohead--but other tunes feel like absent-minded doodles, and Badu's social consciousness nets middling returns.

On about half the cuts, Eve sits back and allows her featured guests to take over completely. This ploy might make for an interesting mix if either the huge roster of producers or Eve herself had managed to exploit the walk-ons' uniqueness - DMX, Mo'nique, Gwen Stefani, Drag-On and Styles of the Lox all make undistinguished cameos

It's a rare rocktronic mix that actually grooves, even if the ride can be a little jittery.

Marianne Faithfull's singing voice is like an open wound, a raw badge of suffering and self-examination that sounds best when the music gives Faithfull room to bleed. That happens on about half of Kissin Time.

This guy is less interested in building his resume than pinning down his own dark artistic impulses on his own terms.

Much of it is polite and pretty. [21 Sep 2006, p.88]

This album piles on the bump 'n' grind.

Peter doesn't quite have a full batch of tunes here--the weird, World War II–themed '1939 Returning' is one of a few songs that could use an actual chorus--but for much of the album he manages to make his dysfunction sing.

Cover versions that once seemed inspired now feel somewhat obligatory.

While the album flirts with a few radiant moments, Smith's endless yearning isn't wrapped in as many irresistible packages.

Devils Night's high points are some of the most accomplished hip-hop we'll hear this year. But the balance between humor, shock, raw talent and psychosis that Eminem achieved on his last two albums is off.

Almost every song features a skull-rattling groove and one or two darkly melodic hooks. [16 Sep 2004, p.79]

R&G begs for a little more R and some cleverer G -- or, if Snoop really wanted to be bold, no G at all.

The band is excellent, but Mandell's melodies sit uncomfortably amid the burly arrangements, and her lyrics, inflated to match the broad-shouldered music, lapse into poetastery.

Case continues to refine her mix of alternative-country music and film-noir sensibility on Blacklisted.

Cerebral, meticulous and frivolous, Production is a disco-science celebration of pop trash that most electronica gurus would be too spiritually elevated to deliver. Mirwais' knack for song puts him in another league altogether

Junior Senior's track-building smarts and way with a hook add up to non-annoying bliss on a handful of tracks.

This fire hose of arch-pop cleverness will overload even the sharpest mind. [Jul - Aug 2022, p.120]

Another slow, meandering CD.

Sure, 70 million bong hits have rendered B-Real and Sen Dog confused political theorists (complaining about taxes during a recession? What up, Glenn Beck?). But when they write what they know, they strike a nice balance between visions of bong-water Armageddon and Nineties light-'em-up boom-bap.

On their first album in four years, Still Got That Hunger, Rod Argent's piano and Colin Blunstone's vocals go for a more straightforward blues-rock sound.

This solid seven-song EP, his first official release, doesn't sail out too far from the formula of Ty's Beach House mixtapes.

Air's electro-pop generally lives up to the group's name. But their fifth LP sounds a bit, well, polluted.

The last holdover from Xzibit's underground days is also his sole weakness: cartoonish hooks that sometimes spiral solid material off in an awkward direction. Otherwise, Man vs. Machine is state-of-the-art.

Davey Havok builds lyrics around the vague concept of a souring relationship, and amid some fetching singalongs (the Cure-y, uptempo 'Veronica Sawyer Smokes'), he gets his dark mojo working.

Why settle for pseudosleaze like Peaches when Paris delivers the real thing? [21 Sep 2006, p.82]

It gives credit to his cheerily assured worldview that Pain's roboto soul sounds like inspiration.

Dandies can still harmonize you into a trance, but they've replaced the dreamy drone of 1997's . . . The Dandy Warhols Come Down with more diverse atmospherics.

More often than not, however, he gets swallowed by the larger-than-life brands and presences of those he surrounds himself with, like Eminem who steals Sean's thunder with the quality, agility and fire of his guest verse on "No Favors."

The beats, by Pittsburgh homeboys ID Labs and others, whip up aural smoke billows, and Khalifa's are just off-kilter enough to give you a contact high.

It’s lean music for lean times.

At 30 tracks and classified as his fourth album, The Last Slimeto feels like an overstuffed, overlong and sometimes-compelling compact disc from the No Limit years.

Blue Lights is uneven, but the good songs are really good.

Minimalism can be tiring, so the group has a secret weapon: solos, of all shapes and sizes, scattered at random.

30 songs of soft-focus gorgeousness can make his comfy hideaway a bit claustrophobic.

They still favor mannered Anglophile synth pop that has somehow retained its "alternative" branding three decades after the Eighties.

Wyclef's third solo album, while entertaining enough, is short on the sane, humane pleasures so plentiful on the first two.

Utah Saints aren't content with mere danceability; Two is listenable, witty and rich, and not afraid to rock.

At its best, In the Blue Light amounts to a dream set list for devoted PaulHeads who wish he’d do entire shows of rarities and not bother with oft-played hits like “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Graceland” and “Late in the Evening.”

If you're into nodding your head and scratching your head at the same time, Dead is for you.

On his second solo record, guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. hedges his bets with familiar guitar-pop exercises alongside tracks that find him stretching into uncharacteristic territory.

Not "authentic"--amiable.

The downside of Glitter is the downside of all Mariah Carey albums. They're called "ballads," and Mariah still likes them big and goopy, with zero melodic or emotional punch.

Beyond Good and Evil shakes with vitality.

Paul Smith's vocals are full of New Wave artifice, but he's also more earnest than many of his post-punk peers. [25 Aug 2005, p.100]

On their second album, this New York synth-pop duo trumpet the power of "Dumb Disco Ideas." And they've got more than a few of them, expertly cribbed from classic Depeche Mode, Italo-disco, Giorgio Moroder, New Order, LCD Soundsystem and more.

The Beasties could have knocked out all twelve jams in a lazy weekend in 1992, 2007 or anywhere in between.

Her debut, which topped the British charts earlier this year, lacks the bad-girl brio of those grads [Amy Winehouse and Kate Nash], but it shows off a vocal instrument that smokes the competition.

This New York band's brash second album rages with the upbeat, beat-wise humor that hard rock has suppressed ever since grunge.

There is enough substance to justify the band's sometimes goofy style.

Bringing Back the Sunshine brims with horn-dog hookup jams like "Sangria," where he makes a sloppy hotel-room encounter sound like the modern equivalent of a trip to Margaritaville.

The melodies tend toward the lush, while underneath, Valo’s bandmates rock with fury and efficiency, ensuring that all the heartbroken laments are badass enough for hardcore metalheads. Not a bad trick.

The reconstituted New York Dolls stack up awfully well against the original Seventies band, whose glam rock inspired thousands of acts.

[Daniel] Johns' much-improved vocals and flair for the theatrical complement his new, more inventive guitar style.

Autumnally pretty tunes that are also full of quiet gravity, as if Neil Young and a lover popped Valium and decided to hash things out on record.

From her luscious, aching croon, and her ensemble's solemn high-mesa twang and groove..., you'd never guess she wasn't covering Patsy Cline standards.

It doesn't all come together seamlessly. But the same down-home smoothness and rumbling gravitas that fired Eliminator keeps things flowing.

There are moments of pop bliss on the Petties' latest to rival their Eighties hits. [Feb 2020, p.85]

Common can be too, well, common: a nice guy, whose boasts and bromides are too predictable to really inspire.

As a utilitarian background soundtrack, it'll do nicely.

Dotted with spry little riffs and Jenkins' pseudo raps, Ursa Major is a slick but heartfelt disc that packs pleasure even if you're not Nineties-nostalgic.

Too often, it all sounds boastful and sad in the same moment, like a promising young fighter warning you he can hit so hard it doesn't matter if he's too messed up to form a fist.

The grandiose production, by Lou Giordano (Goo Goo Dolls, Live), matches the quasi-mystical visions mapped out in the songs....

The lyrics? Unmemorable. But that leaves your mind free to wander the quiet spaces between the notes. [10 Feb 2005, p.84]

Poison Trees shows Carrabba still can't help peeking back at his past.

The hair-shirt single "You Can't Count on Me" and the cheerily grim "Hanging Tree" are little masterpieces of pop craft, their arrangements and Duritz's invitingly petulant wail often echoing golden-era R.E.M. Sometimes that craft is enough: The latter song is so packed with guitar fireworks that its buzz-killing lines about freezing to death barely register.

The Lost Tapes II, is a grab bag of loose tracks from this era, four very different album sessions, and naturally it’s a messy display of the many sides of Nas – storyteller, street life narrator, conscious MC, rap showboat, true-school historian, emo diarist – at both his most essential and least essential.

WSC specialize in Elvis Costello-y power pop and caffeinated danceability. [8-22 Jul 2004, p.126]

As on the last few Oasis outings, particularly the arrogant Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, from 2000, Noel's nerdy-architect tendencies are counterbalanced by the bratty and hedonistic snarl of his brother Liam.

Sodden ballads rear their mopey heads in the second half. [10 Feb 2005, p.80]

Both albums could have been trimmed... but there's enough good stuff to recommend to Furnaces fans. [24 Aug 2006, p.95]

Piled atop one another, the less-inspired tracks remind us how very much nicer it is to get the one perfect gift you never dreamed of than a lot of crap you don't need.

Per usual, there's filler, none too embarrassing--Paisley's pro enough that even his apparent phone-ins are well-crafted. But over 16 tracks, you can't help but wish that one of country's greatest would shoot consistently higher than easy chuckles and sentimental homilies.

Tag-team singers Charlene Kaye and Allen Tate flaunt killer instruments, though their performances can want for drama.

Fast, full of old-fashioned hooks and newfangled techno hiccups, campy as a tent full of Boy Scouts and yet easy on the cheese.

[Battle Born] might be their wildest neon-Springsteen fever dream yet.

It's even more hook-slathered and fetchingly tuneful than the first.

In the end, Diamandis can't quite shape Froot into a coherent vision.

The songs tap folk tradition without getting stuck in it; they’re full of struggling lovers, an ’84 Ford, a baby in a suitcase and some memorable melodies.

Imagine Grand Funk Railroad mainlining Metal Machine Music and you're halfway there.

It's a brutal approach that tends to trample her fragile vocals and rarely flatters her winding tunes.