Most of the time he sounds like a pipsqueak trying to play grown-up--a Lothario whose pickup lines land, time after time, with a thud.

These road songs lack the rascally attitude of Bentley's knockout 2005 singles.

The voices can't equal, say, Bananarama's depth of feeling. But in tracks like "Captain Rhythm"--which partly suggests "Da Doo Ron Ron" on Jupiter--the Pipettes still ride the dance beat like a rocket ship.

Johansson's voice is unremarkable and her pitch sometimes unsteady; she's a faintly goth Marilyn Monroe lost in a sonic fog.

The magnetic pulse holds everything together until Ghostland Observatory try to mess with the formula.

It's inconsistent, veering from Drake (always solid, but distracted here) to very average MCs like Gudda Gudda. One bright spot is sassy newcomer Nicki Minaj.

At its best, The Lemonheads sounds exactly how you want the Lemonheads to sound. [19 Oct 2006, p.132]

He aspires to be more than the face of so-called "mumble rap." Yet Lil Boat 2's best moments are when he reverts to the familiar.

Doves amble as they surge, swirling in a middle distance between Radiohead and Coldplay. [Sep 2020, p.68]

For all its prettiness, Liberman tends to fade into the background. Even Carlton's wistful vocals often disappear into the mix.

Often sounds like stale glam-pop fandom. [23 Mar 2006, p.67]

This EP collects recordings from the sessions for "Viva la Vida," Coldplay's most sonically tricked-out record, but the new songs feel too conservative after Viva's world-music-laden sprawl.

One Direction are simply five pretty guys with a few decent songs and not much personality. Call them One Dimension.

The draw is Davis, who spits scarred-teen scat like a guy whose parents just signed him up for military school. Not easy when you're pushing 40.

The album slides into tedium and worse. [8 Mar 2007, p.86]

Ultimately, Kamikaze’s length and curtailed guest list make it less grueling than Revival, but Eminem’s indignant grandstanding has no discernible relation to the rap world he complains about.

Despite a few feverish moments, 98 Degrees remain slightly below average.

[Many] of the songs sound like Blink castoffs.

Her second album is hit-or-miss, with failed attempts at pop crossover (the Timbaland collabo "Breaking Point") and sub-Rihanna reggae moves. Still, the high points are worth digging out.

Even longtime fans will have to wonder what the point is.

It's often cute, rarely precious. But it also has some sort of "concept." And hard as it may try, it isn't Bjork. It isn't even Deerhoof.

She dresses [her songs] up in the kind of shamelessly poppy hooks that make Top 40 programmers giggle in delight and "real hip-hop" heads shake theirs sadly. If this is the future, it's one strange place.

Odds 'n' sods collections rarely have a favorable ratio of unearthed revelations to throwaway tunes -- even for critically acclaimed, British, neotraditionalist, jammy rock bands with gloriously raspy singers.

The best moments come in the ballads like the blues-tinged 'Four Rusted Horses.' In such songs Manson is almost endearing, just a big melancholy dude with face paint. It's a less glamourous job title than Anticrist Superstar, but these days it suits him better.

The Johnny Rzez­nik-assisted opener 'Declaration' sets the tone--guitars, lots of 'em--and 'Light On' has its Soundgarden-like charms, but without the right hook, 'Life on the Moon' and 'I Did It for You' come off like assembly-line active rock.

The icy synths of "Vortex" and "Fallen" evoke vintage Carpenter dread. But the prog-pomp of "Domain" and "Mystery" are the aural equivalent of too much CGI.

His wit is always comforting, but more predictable and less durable than before.

The tunes--or at least whatever M. Shadows feels like bellowing--sound like the kind of lame, nu-metal angst-mongering that dominated the radio in the late Nineties.

The band's thrift-store pastiche, from that track's skidding-siren hook to a few not-quite-ecstatic EDM-style builds, has a manic, self-aware intensity – call it grandiosi-twee. And try to take it in small doses.

This soundtrack for the hottest show on TV could use more of the beat-you-with-a-broomstick fire of Taraji P. Henson's character.

Every rose has its thorn, and every airport bar has its 22-year-old divorcee. But not every album has two songs from different reality shows starring Bret Michaels.

Made In China soon disintegrates into demo-quality slackness. [8 Sep 2005, p.116]

As refreshing as it is to hear Ja do something besides the singing approximation he's been practicing the past few years, the boasts here feel utterly tired.

Pryor delivers wounded-boy bromides that are so shopworn, they sound indifferent.

Enjoy the band's extraterrestrial makeover; it's far more amusing than the music.

The band's 14th studio album shows them clinging to relevancy with grim resolve, and occasionally hitting the mark.

Here, he sings against syrupy, obvious orchestral arrangements, driven by a beat that sometimes seems on the verge of a nap -- all of which encourages Stewart's worst habits: He sounds lazy, glib and uninvolved, just the opposite of when he still mattered.

Radio 4 show a real lack of gusto. [28 Oct 2004, p.98]

Kitschy lyrics spin out of control here.

They're still pumping American-Coldplay ballads full of sky-groping choruses and symphonic rushes.

Despite their fakeness, Boomkat fill the smarter-than-your-average-pop void left by fellow film-music switch-hitter Vitamin C.

Mudvayne write some decent guitar hooks (check the title track), but their imagination is parched, with most songs hewing to one formula: riff, whimper, shriek, repeat.

On Myths, they expand their suspiciously indie-ish rock riffs with tales of centaurs ("4 Horsemen of 2012") and Cyclopses ("Isle of Her"). Glowsticks are go! Or not!

On their fourth LP, they ditch the guest stars to bluster, drop stale references (Yes, "winning"!) and obsess over chicks.

Gonzalez's more sincere side peeks through in moody, orchestral tracks like "Solitude," and the harmonica-heavy ballad, "Sunday Night 1987." Still, as its title implies, Junk leans too heavily on the quirks from the past, rife with the least flattering odds and ends of a time long gone.

Their fourth album has all the bluster of arena alternative, but none of the confidence.

Given her chic image, it's a surprise how dull, dreary and pop-starved Born to Die is.

Chingy is charming in presence and in singsong flow, but not particularly engaging. [25 Nov 2004, p.91]

You can't really go wrong with such great material, but this cynical ploy to sell an oldies tour is completely superfluous.

The album seems like it's full of the slurred, narcissistic half-truths that lurk at the bottom of a shot glass.

Queen 2.0 are competent enough to rock arenas, but don't expect a repeat of the glory days.

Hefty Fine proves only marginally more welcome than a Jerky Boys reunion.

All the humorless gloom and doom feels oppressive after a while. [18 Sep 2003, p.74]

Hard to stomach. [19 Oct 2006, p.134]

With his gasping vocals serving up warmed-over pleas, Hamilton Leithauser aches but never sounds like he's really hurting.

As blandly charming as Hill's all-American drawl. [11 Aug 2005, p.74]

Seemingly every track... contains nothing but raw bile toward those who have wronged Alexakis. [21 Sep 2006, p.88]

There's still too much of Brian Karscig's ultracampy 'Big Balls'--style vocals, and it sometimes feels like these guys have confused expanding their range with finding new sources to rip off.

Listening to Khaled’s albums is like searching for blessings amidst the chaff, and the signal-to-noise ratio is generally low. But God Did isn’t as torturously bad as, say, 2019’s Father of Asahd.

Their latest is a rudderless band's reach for roots and realism.

Unfortunately, they don't have enough good musical ideas to pick up the slack.

Long on rote melodies and slickly produced SoCal stomp.

Do You Sleep at Night offers little in terms of actual ingenuity. Instead, it presents a smattering of existing tropes thrown at the wall with little in terms of depth.

The 18 tracks of Beerbongs become an ouroboros of new-money narcissism: Post's obsession with flexing, partying, and banging groupies feeds a growing paranoia that the people around him only like him for exactly those attributes. And it is no small irony that the album's most convincing moments occur when he drops the cool rapper pretense and gets all lonesome cowboy.

Her slow, earnest songs... don't have the texture of those from her three previous albums.

Unfortunately, Catalano wouldn't waste an "uhh...whatever" on the hammy, bombastic third disc from Leto's band, Thirty Seconds to Mars (with Leto's brother, Shannon, on drums).

Twenty years later, on their first album since 2010, the Arizona guys still sound sweet. They're also hall-monitor dull--these meat and potatoes sure could use some fresh gravy.

On Somebody's Miracle, she goes for a folksy, acoustic style, but she still oversings, holding notes too long and tackling pop choruses she doesn't have half the voice for.

Wears thin long before its halfway mark.

Espinoza's melodies evaporate in a way Smith's never did. [9 Dec 2004, p.180]

A stitched-together, underedited collage of half-finished tunes, random guitar blurts and keyboard flotsam that will be loved by its admirers and royally annoy everyone else. [14 Oct 2004, p.98]

Overbaked synth funk...Golden Greats cries out for a hotshot guitarist to take charge of the music -- somebody like John Squire.

The combination often proves too bleak.

Sounds like Coldplay covering Barry Manilow.

Room Noises has some encouraging, lovely moments, but Eisley have yet to prove that they're anything more than a killer talent-show entry.

Second Round is wholly lacking in the playfulness that made his debut, Cheers, a varied delight. [21 Sep 2006, p.88]

[A] forgettable art project. [4 Mar 2004, p.66]

Unfortunately, the vocalists riding on top of the grooves, from the limpid Clair Dietrich to the ridiculously affected Jeremy, are uniformly l-a-m-e.

Too bad Stories brings so little to the EDM conversation.

She's grown into her voice. Now, if only her music would grow up too.

Another album that gets further away from the band's core appeal.

The combination of self-pity, grandiosity and leaden spirituality can get trying. And all those attempts at musical worldliness can feel like stylistic tourism.

Ultimately, your Chiddy Bang tolerance rests on your ability to endure the self-consciously cute.

Paul said in 2007 that his next disc would focus on youth violence in Jamaica, but there's little sign of that on the party-hearty Imperial Blaze, which is full of snazzy electro beats and tunes that sound like pale versions of past hits.

For sheer virtuosity, you gotta hand it to the guy - he sure can make a lot of really weird noises. But who cares?

Sarah McLachlan's first disc since splitting from her husband, Ashwin Sood, feels scattered: The carefree single "Loving You Is Easy" feels out of place.

Unfortunately, the latest LP by Ceremony--who dabbled successfully in Strokes-style rock on 2012's excellent Zoo--is stifled by too much restraint.

Somewhere, though, this Irish girl's crisp pop debut went awry.

Syncopated sludge that will connect only with aging burnouts and the angriest of young 'uns.

An absence of memorable narratives, punch lines and wordplay makes the songs pass without distinction.

Valente has a pleasant, if thin, voice--she doesn’t have the chops to elevate this material into anything memorable.

Donda occasionally gestures toward the truly shapeless writing on that LP [Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red] but stops short of sounding as if West is truly articulating his id.

Too self-consciously crafted for its own good.

Country-crossover schmaltz.

This album could easily have been released in the mid-Nineties, when Size and his V Records crew pointed the way forward. Ten years later, it is just a skittery nostalgia trip.

There are some decent pop moments: 'When I'm Gone' is a seize-the-day anthem with a cathartic refrain. But most songs, like the angry barnburner 'The End,' are barely distinguishable from a dozen or so other Warped Tour bands.

The default mode here is a soupy power mumble: Passion Pit without the passion, Imagine Dragons without imagination.

Most of the songs are pitched too high for her register, the production sounds cheap, and love has dulled whatever street edge she might have had.