A clunky mix of late-Nineties easy listening and 2000s emo pop. [Mar 2021, p.73]

Punky but sloppy, as if the band were denied rehearsal time before the tape started rolling.

Erykah Badu still hasn't found her way through the haze.

What's left of his sound is an oddly squirrelly strain of drum-and-bass. [12 Dec 2002, p.98]

The Mums were much more likable back when they were pretending to be coal miners who churned their own butter. Compared to this stuff, that was a decent look.

Farrell's new explorations into electronica rock are satisfying as neither electronica nor rock.

Even when he picks up the pace, he sounds a little weary.

It's all piss and vinegar and posturing.

The Ladies' inoffensive singalongs seem just plain tired.

Many of these sketches are too diffuse.

Even guest turns from Run the Jewels and Skrillex can't add enough energy to make Big Grams feel like anything more than an attempt at landing a better festival slot.

As quality control at Khaled HQ dips slightly yet noticeably, it might be time for him to receive more undeserved blame than undeserved credit. ... With no commercially undeniable moments like the Rihanna showcase “Wild Thoughts” (from Khaled’s Grateful), Father of Asahd grooves along like an adequate 54-minute stretch of hip-hop/R&B radio (with no commercials, at least).

Most of Simulation Theory could be about our surveillance state and/or a relationship. The blurring results in clunkiness.

There are a couple of decent Brit-pop numbers... but the rest is utterly forgettable, shoddily produced retro rock that at its worst sounds like a Brighton-accented version of the Spin Doctors, minus the hit songs and amusing facial hair.

She still can't project any personality of her own. [27 Jan 2005, p.58]

Let's hope Nashville will take her back, and quick.

Folklore is a Whoa, Nelly! redux, without a single as good as "I'm Like a Bird."

Would've been far more compelling had he been limited to forty minutes max. [5 Aug 2004, p.109]

The band's piano rock suggests a more earnest, less arty Coldplay. The Fray are going for introspection and dramatic sweep but don't rise above bland pleasantries.

The album is undone by Leto's baffling, pretentious poetry and the sanitized quality of the heavy guitars.

Lewis raps about tiny dogs and nasty, food-based sexual acts with a cadence that doesn't have the slightest prayer of rhyming ("Wannabe") and the entire thing implodes spectacularly.

The 16 songs on Changes focus almost exclusively on the logistics of having sex when you are both hot, young, and working in fields that require a lot of time apart. The concept itself is kind of funny, but the execution is often unimaginative and cliché, especially given how earnestly Bieber delivers every line, no matter how ridiculous.

The problem isn't overheated rhetoric, it's half-baked songs.

Their ballads now get choked up over bygone glory days, while their Gary Glitter and Bryan Adams riffs sound re-purposed for sports and strip bars.

For all their songcraft, Robbers haven't yet filched enough ideas to fill an album. [10 Mar 2005, p.115]

As you'll see, every English rock star is required to celebrate this milestone with an overblown album about God, humanity and the cosmos.

A CD of biblical rap would have been vastly more interesting than just tepid updates of the Run-DMC sound. [3 Nov 2005, p.96]

This album is all surface-level, free of sharp punch lines ("I been Hungary like Budapest") or metaphors that connect.