American Idol's 12th victor deserves better than this much-delayed hodgepodge of styles and ideas.

The record has its charms (the single "Thrift Shop," a cheeky ode to second-hand duds) and its virtues (the marriage-equality anthem "Same Love"). Unfortunately, Mack­lemore's virtuousness overwhelms his far more modest charms.

She sounded more like a star when she cameoed in Zero 7 than she does on most of her own album.

Such moments excepted ["Oh U Went" and "Wit the Racks"], the content of Business Is Business feels bland, especially for an expectations-thwarting artist like Thug.

Their fifth disc is rife with signs of rock ambition - acoustic songcraft, sweeping guitar solos - folded into their vaguely emo, synthed-up sound.

Despite a charmingly lithe voice, her song writing has a way to go.

With Side B, it’s more of the same.

The problem is that Wayne has very questionable taste in rock. He splutters and wails over tracks stuffed with aggro stomp and bland riffage; it sounds like he's been holing up with a bunch of Spymob and Incubus records.

Inevitably, Ryan Leslie is a producer's record; its cutest moments--neo-New Jack bounces, lonely electro loops, nursery-rhyme Auto-Tunes--studio gold.

The ornate tracks are as wow-worthy as the guest list--so it's surprising how same-y the mood of wallowing grandeur can get.

Too many forced climaxes here lack the organic sense of drama the Mumfords summon at their best, and the pan-African elements aren’t integrated into the pop-rock song structures, so the lively polyrhythms and keening vocals merely decorate the swelling choruses rather than transforming them.

[Producer Ron] Fair's [music] is concentrated sugar water, and Gray... too often pens lyrics and sings tunes just as cloying.

While Snoop's voice is an easy match for the sound--both are low-key but hard-hitting--most of the tracks don't quite cohere.

Nasir is among the weakest Nas albums, but there’s nothing spectacular about its failure. It is, simply, the one thing Nas has avoided being all these years, through revolutionary highs and car-crash lows: dull.

It's nice that 10,000 Hz. Legend sounds very little like Air's masterworks Premier Symptomes and Moon Safari. Unfortunately, it also sounds like Air trying very hard not to be Air.

On bright pleasures like the New Wave-y 'We Will Walk,' Light comes close to becoming an attention-holding pop album. But it's dragged into earnest tedium by good-natured platitudes hippie-soul moments like 'Thunder,' on which Matisyeezy sounds like a self-serious indie rapper with a major vegan bent.

Examines small-town origins, fatherhood, and matter of the heart with extra earnestness but few surprises. [Aug 2020, p.73]

They rarely take these topics [mental health, relationships, addiction, and their faith in God] too far past surface level brushes, resulting in a lot of talking sad and saying nothing.

OK Go still know how to write a tight pop-rock song.... But their singer might need to... lighten up. [25 Aug 2005, p.103]

For an artist whose music aimed for maximum accessibility, often to a fault, Avicii may well be remembered as an innovator. Sadly, this record feels like he was just getting started.

Too often here he squanders his effort trying to pump life into flat material.

The political commentary could be stronger--"No justice for us blacks/But they send just us to Iraq" is as sharp as it gets--and though Story has got radio-ready appeal, Banner could learn a lesson from his buddy Wayne: Interesting and crowd-pleasing aren't mutually exclusive.

White Lies' polished synth rock effuses more melodrama than any young group should be allotted.

They get halfway to a hot neo-New Wave record. [14 Jun 2007, p.102]

The club, not love, is her salvation, as she proves on 'Do It Well,' the only track that lets J. Lo do her thing: dance.

What the album could use is a few more drink-clinking splashes of summertime fun, but despite the usual army of A-list writers and producers, there isn’t really anything here to rival the sticky, inescapable punch of “Sugar” or “Moves Like Jagger.” A little more escape might’ve been welcome. But whether it’s trying to be light, serious, or somewhere in the middle, Jordi can only get it done in half-measures.

Most of Feedback is lightweight and forgettable. [7 Sep 2006, p.107]

On Album Six they're back with a retro-neo-aggro sound that would've been too intense for modern-rock radio in 1999.

The fun comes when he abandons the sequel concept in favor of a New Wave duet with Ke$ha and a decades- tardy anti-disco tune ("Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever") in which Alice tries to rap. Slapstick was always his strong suit.

Tracks with Future and 2 Chainz highlight his limitations on the mic, and without the Dr. Luke-assisted buoyancy of 2012's Strange Clouds, the album falls flat--moments of well-meaning ambition not withstanding.

Songs like the fluffy synth jam "Champion" make it sound like they spent too much time at Pharrell's beach house.

These collaborations reveal one fatal flaw in the album's formula: All the imported noise makes the X-Men's delicate routines of cutting and juggling seem hopelessly obscure.

Despite smirk-worthy lines, Loso's chest-thumping slickness feels less than fresh.

If you like rock gratuitously big and laced with soggy self-pity, frontman James Allan, and his enabler, superproducer Flood, are here to help.

Even a goofy Eminem cameo (the "Allen Iverson of safe sex") can't save "C'mon Let Me Ride" from sounding like an over-the-top hookup plea, and "Final Warning," a domestic-violence drama, feels vaguely like tabloid fodder.

There are toe-tapping moments, but the best song is a Roxy Music cover. [Jun 2020, p.71]

Like Dorian Gray with a blowout, nu-metal holdovers Papa Roach have made their latest album sound like an eerie time capsule from the early 2000s.

As it lilts and sways, you can't help but wish that McCombs would just snap out of it.

Despite some uproariously bad crooning (in both French and English), this isn't always as terrible as it is crazy.

Unfortunately Imagine Dragons’ actual vision is one that is milquetoast, formulaic, nearly anonymous, free of any real lyrical insight. ... The one place where the Dragons themselves really shine is an outlier in their catalog: “Zero,” made for Ralph Breaks the Internet, is a giddy college rocker that does for the Cure, David Bowie and Jimmy Eat World what Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson did for Prince, Gap Band and Zapp.

He's a consummate crowd-pleaser, but he's best when he gets weird.

The most enjoyable bits here are the least grandiose.

The Bright Lights of America, Anti-Flag's second major-label album and eighth overall, proves for the billionth time that good intentions don't always make good music.

Love & War is sharp and bright, full of limpid melodies, punchy brass arrangements and, in songs like "Change" (with rapping by Wale), beats that gesture to 1974 but feel thoroughly 2010.

Playful spirit is in short supply on a record where club beats, acoustic strumming, and parched guitar lines usually get siphoned into unobtrusively earnest background pop. [Jun 2020, p.71]

Sparks emotes about bad love amid beats that mix snazzy electro with stadium-rock bigness. She also comes off like a scrubbed-up deep feeler who doesn't distinguish herself.

Doesn't do justice to the power and passion of this scorching young band. Go see them live.

She Is Coming is an unkempt little EP that tries to cram her wild oeuvre, from molly to Mark Ronson, into just six songs. That said, you can’t deny Cyrus remains a freak of pop nature.

Like a Maroon 5 with some vulnerability beneath the pop sheen. [Jun 2021, p.77]

Mostly, Lamb of God stick to conservative values that metalheads can respect and everyone else can continue to ignore.

The album is oddly inert, lacking both the brute force and big choruses that raised Linkin Park to rap-rock godhead status.

Snow Patrol fall back to the blandly inoffensive safe zone--though at least they sound a little brighter.

Uncaged, sounds, well, caged.

Factor in the music’s kitchen-sink vibe--anchored by a Chamberlin keyboard that triggers tape loops of various instruments--and the album is a lot to take in. But the task can be rewarding.

This soundtrack would be a great bonus disc for the movie's eventual DVD release, but as a stand-alone it falls way short of their vastly superior debut album.

It's refined, minimalist, often quite lovely and even chiller than Trent Reznor's Social Network score.

Dirt has more mood pieces than songs, and the lyrics get just plain goofy.

Kittie sound like they want to pursue harder extremes but can't decide whether to snicker or snarl, to play doomsayer or dominatrix.

This album sounds like his band's final aria--the death scene.

You're advised to ignore the ridiculous plot particulars and concentrate on the album's modest pleasures: chiefly, Plan B's lovely, Smokey Robinson-style tenor and deft melodic touch.

Occasionally they attempt to rise above their signature light Brit-pop sound with slightly heavier tunes like "My Eyes Wide Open," but it comes off as forced.

Unfortunately, the tunes aren't so hot, and Common Existence veers between overbearing and pretty ordinary.

It's perfect mood music for teen girls and the sensitive guys who want to hold their purses.

Cruz's singing lacks personality, and Rokstarr is ultimately a collection of decent, but generic, Eurodisco tracks without a star--"rok" or otherwise--to hold a listener's interest.

Caillat has a fine voice--clear and ringing, with a hint of a rasp--and she can write hooks. (She co-composed every song here.) But the simpering puppy love grows wearying over 12 tracks, especially because Caillat fails to convince as a romantic heroine.

Isn't songful enough to recommend to anyone besides old fans and aspiring art rockers. [6 Apr 2006, p.69]

Bush of Ghosts seems half-baked, putatively cerebral yet underthought, interesting only because somebody famous did it.

With Sting's familiar bass sound driving most tracks, and Shaggy's production partner Sting International (no relation) providing bounce and clarity, 44/876 contains much of the sizzle of classic reggae or dancehall, though a little more substance would've been welcome too.

His new release might be his most sophomoric yet.

Their debut feels equally crowdsourced for maximum popularity, but fractures under its many moods.

The vintage-Daft Punk cheese platter "Celebrate" and album-ending­ Bowie joke "Keep a Watch" are foamy fun, but too often Ice on the Dune just feels like a lobotomy on the dance floor.

Ciara sounds a bit incidental on her third disc's dance jams. She fares even worse whenever the tempo drops, thanks to meek vocals and a stale sensibility.

Finding the best bits in these sleepy songs often feels like hard work.

The album's baffling mono feel weakens the French Kicks' already anemic sound.

The rest of Rudolf's self-produced debut is a middling rock record dressed up in sleek digital clothes.

At its best, King’s Disease is a slick Illmatic redux, a fresh portrait of Nas’ now-mythical hustler years that expands his Queensbridge universe with new characters and anecdotes and finds him in vintage form as a rapper and storyteller. At its worst, it is a misguided attempt to paper over abuse allegations and a stark showcase of his increasingly questionable politics when it comes to women. 26 years after Illmatic, Nas still has room to grow.

FaltyDL's signature clanky percussion and eerie vibe save tracks like "In the Shit" from becoming easy-listening, but it's not quite enough.

Daft Punk may have become the victim of their own animatronic satire.

None of the actors have the vocal character of the late Dave Van Ronk, whose biography inspired the film and whose bluesy "Green, Green Rocky Road" caps this set, or of another folk singer--the young Bob Dylan--whose rarity "Farewell" signals a new era dawning in the film and on this collection.

Vultures is a serviceable record. The production, in typical post-My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy fashion, is sparse. While it won’t be confused for a masterpiece, it shows that West is still good at being a producer. He puts Ty Dolla Sign in position to sound as bubbly as he’s been since the Obama era.

Together they highlight his strengths (ace horn arrangements) and, especially, shortcomings.

Star Matthew Morrison couldn't rap his way out of a 98° rehearsal. But Amber "Mercedes" Riley crushes Jazmine Sullivan's 'Bust Your Windows,' and the Gleeks' 'Don't Stop Believin'' is a triumphal moment against which resistance is futile.

His obligatory jet-setter brags about high-dollar shopping sprees and b-words he's f-worded strain for credibility, not fooling anybody.

There are a few surprises, like when the sappy "Friday Afternoon" busts a left into Black Sabbath, but for the most part it's formulaic all the way.

The band plods more than pushes, and while the riffs stick, the songs generally don't.

Their fourth record lacks the innocent fun of their first hits. [Apr 2020, p.87]

His rants get boring over track after track of bland Nineties G-funk (a promised collaboration with his estranged N.W.A homey Dr. Dre never came through).

Beyond Cook's own uncannily elegiac "Beautiful," the songs are only as good as the concept, which wears thin fast.

Underwood's voice is as powerful as ever, but Blown Away tries too hard, ratcheting up melodrama with strings and effects.

Nelson's voice is perfectly preserved, but an overstuffed band of Nashville pros provides stiff arrangements, and Willie has already released better versions of several tracks here.

Maybe subtlety's not his thing, but Turner's got a goofy kind of grandeur.

Bryan just can't match, say, Kenny Chesney's knack for lonely contemplation. Given the drinking songs he's best at, he'd be better off pretending spring break lasts all year long.

The sound on Baptized somehow links U2 to Rascal Flatts, adding Springsteen stances in "Wild Heart." More unexpectedly, there's also a banjo shuffle.

Self's intense sound feels like much ado about not so much.

Splitting the difference between hooky modern tunecraft and old-school hush, "Un-Break" is a high point, a track fans of Pink and her papa might all get behind.

Chris Brown's sixth album is adventurous musically and a total mess lyrically.

Standouts [are] "Where the Sky Hangs" and "My Brother Taught Me How to Swim." But much of the rest of Kindred is so relentlessly up, it starts to feel suffocating.

For all of its melancholy, Such Pretty Forks feels personal but never profound. [May 2020, p.89]