With 7, instead of blurring the country and rap lines further, he takes the well-trod path to the rock and rap border. Like country-rap, rap-rock is a genre we’ve endured for a long time, maybe too long. Lil Nas X’s version is much more nuanced, if a tad straight-laced.

Rise shows where the band’s three stars’ personalities unite in a Venn diagram and work together well. It’s just that these Vampires sound best when they’re sharing the same blood source.

Madame X is so admirably bizarre, all you can do is stand back and watch the girl go.

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.

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.

Regardless of how you view the album Kind Heaven, it’s best digested in microdoses.

Released just nine months after Stay Dangerous, 4REAL 4REAL flies well below the lofty standard YG set with his first two albums and smells of his eagerness to get out of his label contract.

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).

In a vaguely concept-album move, the pacing of Hurts 2B Human is telling. Pink sings “I abhor reality” on the sugary dance song “Can We Pretend” featuring Cash Cash. But when she digs into what’s getting her down, it’s the most brazen and heartbroken she’s ever sounded.

This is one of BTS’ droopier releases.

While the songs aren’t top-shelf Sia, for a session that comes across more like an arcade game than a coherent album, that’s fine.

The album’s feel and sound is resiliently explosive, especially on the three-song mini mega-mix of sorts that kicks things off. ... The rest of the album feels a little more perfunctory, never quite being of a piece a la their euphoric 2010 return-to-form Further, or offering uniquely memorable high-points a la Born in the Echoes’ “Tomorrow Never Knows”-tinged face-melter “I’ll See You There.”

The LP isn’t overly burdened by the bold-faced guest spots you’d expect on a follow-up by an artist coming off a Top 10 debut. Instead, it gets tripped up by a different sophomore pitfall: Now that he isn’t an underdog, Khalid lapses into a little too much new-star introspection, exploring an ivory-tower aloneness that can recall the Weeknd’s goth-‘n’-B.

Eighties pop shine cut with pedal steel/fiddle poetry, Texas swing, cantina blues and achingly-crooned nostalgia that generally doesn’t feel hard sell, even when things gets treacly. Which of course, they do.

Bless ‘em for their ambition, and too bad it didn’t yield more than this muddled set.

Even if he primarily composed on pan flute, it’d still be what it is--another edition of their signature precise, poker-faced California pop-rock. ... Though this time out the sense of irony is somewhat less blanched and the music a great deal more fun.

Wasteland, Baby! has enough encouraging displays of maturation to feel like a transitional moment for Hozier. At its best, the album carves out a space for the singer to work out his creative tensions as he finds new ways to make his straight folk influences more accessible without losing anything along the way.

The Lavigne heard at the beginning of the record is almost an entirely different person by the end; the hard part is figuring out which part you like more.

The result is an uneven record that leaves country’s most irreverent hitmakers sounding needlessly cautious.

Morrison’s latest is further proof that he’s still one of the most moving, unrivaled singers of his generation, but it’s hard not to wonder what would happen if he embraced his inner-mystic songwriting voice once more.

His blend of garish Day-Glo net art and brawling homage to the glory years of DMX and Onyx may be a commercially effective millennial update of Rotten Apple thug rap. But aesthetically, his distinct lack of lyrical talent and annoyingly hyperactive presence often undermines the whole thing.

There are plenty of moments where Oxnard clicks, like the chugging, bum-rush rhythm “Who R U?” ... Still, there are missed opportunities.

On an album with 14 songs, there’s certainly some filler (see the sleepy “When You Leave”), but for the most part, Knopfler’s blues-roots blend, infused here with a fresh dose of jazz and funk) remains sturdy.

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.

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.

Save the few fire-breathing dragon moments of Lollapalooza-era churn, it’s the Smashing Pumpkins in name only, and that ice cream truck has long left the gas station.

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

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.