The production on their sophomore effort, Remind Me Where the Light Is, is both a blessing and a curse, inflating some effects to dazzling prominence while pushing a host of crummy, outdated ideas to the forefront.

Unlike his arch rival, 50 Cent, the Game has always been an impressive rapper but a substandard songwriter. The trend continues on Drillmatic, with equally frictionless results.

Flamingo makes a pretty strong case that Flowers doesn't have the best grasp of what it is he does well.

If slower numbers like the Princely "4 the Rest of My Life" and the Billy Joel-reminiscent piano ballad "The Good Life" are forgettable by comparison, it's because they prosaically articulate the joie de vivre that's already been made abundantly clear in the uptempos. On an album that gets off to such an effervescent start, such blunt pronouncements only serve to kill the vibe.

Zeitgeist is the Pumpkins' most aggressively metal album to date. But heaps of guitars, vocal overdubs, and ridiculous effects don't mask a lack of inventiveness or even plain ol' quality songwriting.

Most of the covers on With a Little Help from My Fwends don't aim for creative rearrangement; they tend more toward pointless sabotage.

Listening to Red Pill Blues makes one yearn for an era when there at least seemed to be more room for genuinely ambitious, artful Top 40 pop. In other words, I'll take the blue pill.

Left to his own devices, Bates's skittering effects and big, cavernous soundscapes can leave a metallic aftertaste like a mouthful of antibiotics, but the album's female guests--including Norwegian singer-songwriter Susanne Sundfør--provide the blood for Trágame Tierra's big, beating heart.

By the time Jennifer Hudson gets back to good old-fashioned balladry, it's too late: we're saddled with the same Diane Warren song ("You Pulled Me Through") we've heard at least a dozen times before; a ridiculously trite and histrionic you-stole-my-man duet with fellow A.I. alum Fantasia ("I'm His Only Woman") we've heard at least a half-dozen times before; another Stargate/Ne-Yo concoction we've heard...well, you get the point.

The album itself is kind of an afterthought; what its creation says metatextually about the artists responsible for it is more interesting than any of the music it contains.

Trippie Redd’s Mansion Musik is repetitive, shoddily produced, and lacks any real structure.

The First Time features some of his weakest hooks to date and a slew of songs that are so unsatisfyingly short so as to feel half-finished.

The Vision will reward your temporary suspension of good taste with a solid hour of instantly gratifying party jams.

It's the sound of a promising young singer who tried and failed to produce compelling music on the margins, turning back and self-consciously striking a more conservative pose. It's not as interesting a story, maybe, but it's also not as problematic.

In the end, it's not the occasional missteps that mar The Fountain so much as its consummate, consistent mediocrity.

Curiosity and whatever remains of her pop fanbase will likely give Do You Know a strong start, but it's hard to imagine that it will sustain any momentum or help Simpson build a reputation as a credible artist in Nashville.

Rather than build on any of the sounds she experimented with in the past, Perry seems content to stay in her lane when, at this point, she has nothing to lose.

With 11 different producers credited on just 10 songs, it's no surprise that New Life is so scattered and uneven, but the album still sounds shockingly cheap.

If the album's greatest sin was simply sonic banality, it would be a lot more palatable. Far worse is the cynical nature of the album's roosty overtures.

Had Supermodel ended with this potent one-two punch, one might be inclined to view the rest more charitably. Sadly, it finishes with two bits of acoustic muzak ("Fire Escape" and "Goats in Trees") and a bid to beat Imagine Dragons at its own game with the kind of frantic Meatloaf-goes-electronica favored in YA-movie soundtracks.

Whether it was classic rock or the blues, Buckley’s covers were never simply exercises in imitation, always revealing a part of him, but it’s his original material, too little of which is found here, that truly provides a glimpse into his soul.

Posner's B-boy sound may be derivative as hell, but the album stands to turn him into the latest DIY sensation.

Whenever he’s feeling especially vicious toward his adversaries, YG can seem like a schoolyard bully. ... Even when YG is effectively able to place his misogyny within a more acceptable context, like cussing out the supposedly negligent mother of his child on “Baby Mama,” his venom lacks creativity.

Since her production team more or less comes through for her, it's ultimately on Lavigne's slight shoulders that Goodbye Lullaby is such a strident, ineffectual attempt at a serious pop record.

The leaden pillow talk of Alter the Ending deigns to simulate a whispered avowal of wounded love delivered straight to your ears, but Carrabba's lyrics suggest someone who needs you, not someone who loves you.

For a burgeoning artist still establishing his signature style, Khalid settles into a surprising complacency here, failing to experiment with the template of his debut.

50 doesn't fare any better on the softer side: 'Amusement Park' proves he's one of the worst lyricists alive.... It's not just the metaphors, though, it's the execution.

At heart, Don't Look Down is a vaguely hip-hop-inflected homage to '90s pop, not so much uninteresting as underwhelming and repetitive in its orchestration.

Digitalism is at their best when immersing themselves in the trappings and embellishments of full-blown electronica, and they tend to suffer when trying to escape them.

It's not that The Sweet Escape is an unwelcome diversion or that it comes too soon on the heels of Stefani's debut (it's been two full years), but it's starting to feel like No Doubt's future—you know, the one left in question after 2001's Rock Steady, the band's third consecutive creative zenith—is being squandered amidst all the solo stargazing.

There are moments here that hint at brilliance of the West Coast veteran's early G-funk staples, which only underlines the fact that a more faithful sequel to his magnum opus would best serve his fans and his legacy. Doggumentary is far from that, its major player distracted by his desire to replicate modish hood-bangers and experiment in areas too far from his comfort zone.

Were Kirwan's production a bit meatier, Bloodless Coup might be able to overcome the lapses in the band's songwriting.

Unfortunately, The Sellout doesn't just embrace the fluffier side of the Gray persona, it smothers it in an awkward, goofy hug.

He drops his share of deafening clunkers, poisoning some songs so badly that they become unlistenable. But others, mostly those where he stands back and croons harmlessly in the background, are deliciously chill.

The album too often seems to be striving to display diversity at the expense of artistry.

Establishes her as the progenitor of what could be called electro-ethno-pop.

This Is War is made serviceable by its polished showmanship.

The formulas employed throughout Love Is Dead are often trite but the undeniable excitement and awe with which she approaches them is just as frequently refreshing.

The band's ninth album, Korn III: Remember Who You Are, is boring, melodramatic, self-righteous, dim-witted, and chock full of cliches-just like most everything else Korn has released over the past two decades.

To the extent that the production and arrangements mask Caillat's inadequacies as a writer and performer Breakthrough is a marginal improvement over her debut, "Coco."

Feedback, for the most part, disintegrates into a cloud of unremarkable noise.

While Goodbye Alice In Wonderland is a return to form for Jewel, said form is bland, mostly colorless, and devoid of any truly memorable cuts that elevate the album to a disc worth spinning more than once.

The album is consistently uninspired, with each song showcasing an incredibly gifted performer grown wearyingly complacent.

The game at the core of Spot the Difference may be mostly meaningless, but it tricks us into a different kind of comprehension, granting a new face to songs that now no longer seem as stale.

Yet for all the patchy unevenness that comes out in places, the album is also a consistently likable effort.

The rest of Nobody's Daughter is largely hit or miss. The album is bookended by songs composed solely by Love: The title track is lyrically amateurish, filled with the kind of macabre imagery you'd find in a high school student's poetry or a Nine Inch Nails album, while the bonus track "Never Go Hungry," on the other hand, impresses for its effortless couplets.

So off-putting as to alienate the band's fanbase.

It's best enjoyed on its own flawed, bombastic terms.

The band may have paved the way for the likes of Coldplay and Snow Patrol, but they still haven't found their "Clocks" or "Chasing Cars."

Too often here, Sheeran feels like a supporting player, especially when he strays from his wheelhouse. For instance, if the singer wants to lean into rapping more, he’s not likely to benefit from doing so on the same track as Chance. And when Sheeran trots out his bad-boy routine, his music feels ersatz. It’s playacting of the worst kind.

Whether her strategy is to sing-song her way beyond the abrasive edges or to conversely turn her voice into an even more abrasive element, Furtado makes it all work.

What's most surprising about Paris's album is that it's really not all that bad; released by any other, ahem, artist, it would likely earn better notices than recent albums by the likes of Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff, or Ashlee Simpson--not that that's really saying much.

There’s a weightlessness to it that seems to signify the slipping of a long-held burden from Bieber’s shoulders. His most personal offering to date, the album feels like a reflection of actual experience as opposed to a projection of a fantasy.

Golden Delicious as a whole, feels like it has the potential to be great but falls short.

Listeners are subjected to nothing more than a glorified boy band trying desperately to recapture a second wind.

Regrettably, such ear candy [like "Blame"] is few and far between.

Raditude is a thematically vacant and sonically uninspired collection of ditties tailor-made for mainstream radio; it consistently fringes on unlistenable.

Bloated, brainless, and completely lacking in self-awareness, it's a groaning monstrosity of an album, one that can't even put its overwhelming excess to any suitable use.

Lupe's half-assed, club-ready radicalism is ultimately the most frustrating thing about Lasers, and not just because it provides numerous and obvious examples of rap's self-styled emancipator consorting with his avowed enemies.

Meaningfulness is a noticeable rarity on Streetlights, and the absence of a talented foil like DJ Quik is felt throughout, but the album nonetheless basks in breezy contentment.

There are plenty of "real" songs on Wonders of the Younger, and the more simplistic sing-alongs sound boorish and annoying in their company.

Fireflies is flat-out terrible, the end-all be-all example of how the major labels on music row have diluted the soul out of an entire genre of vital popular music.

Guitarist Casey Calvert reprises his role as the group's designated screamer, but his vocal thrashings are featured less prominently here, relegated mainly to solos near the end of songs. Surprisingly, this ends up being a bad thing, because while the screaming is grating at times, it provides one of the principal elements of the band's sound.

Throughout rEVOLVEr, T-Pain struggles to sound up to date, but the only way he achieves this is through a depressing obsession with brand consciousness.

Unfortunately, neither Why You So Crazy’s eclecticism nor its polish can make up for its lack of memorable songs. For all their stylistic diversity, most of the tracks here ride a single musical hook.

Moonshine in the Trunk is a mostly upbeat, feel-good summertime album that largely minimizes Paisley's tendency toward hokey power balladry and whatever the hell "Accidental Racist" is.

Surprises are few and far between.

Lines suggests that the Jonas Brothers simply don't have--or, more charitably, haven't yet developed--the chops to make it once the current teen-pop bubble bursts.

Reintegration Time is a neat, reserved album, if not satisfying as a close approximation of the band's live sound, then as a more low-key exploration on a parallel path.

Boyle has proven herself capable of doing one thing and one thing only, and Someone to Watch Over Me simply doesn't change that.

When he calls on his rotating cast of collaborators and follows his creative impulses, Grubb makes Wakey!Wakey! a far more rewarding project than one might expect from someone associated with a show that once cast Kevin Federline in a multi-episode arc.

If such a broad spectrum of influences suggests a wicked case of ADHD, it also keeps Sweet Sister compelling for its entire duration, which isn't the backhanded compliment it might seem to be.

The five-strong troupe play fast and loose with the same elements that have served them so well across the last decade.

The New Classic mistakenly tries to frame Azalea as hip-hop's newest can't-miss egomaniac, focusing on the riches instead of the far more interesting rags.

Civilized is nothing if not a glossy, grand act, its welcoming veneer far more interesting than whatever truth lies behind the curtain.

When Rise Up settles into this pro-marijuana groove, the album does begin to serve its purpose, however stunted that purpose may seem. Beyond that, there's very little to savor here, with the two emcees struggling to tender a memorable verse between them during 14 tracks spanning just under an hour.

The songs that work on The JaneDear Girls are the ones that emphasize their melodies and hooks above the actual content of the songs or the girls' performances.

Unfortunately, after that impressive opening salvo ["Bang Bang"], the album largely relapses on tired MOR pop.

Twelve years into a career made leaden through a devotion to keeping up appearances, Matt Pond PA finds itself spinning in an ever-deepening hole, where questions of good and bad become secondary to the material's unvarying refusal to do anything but match expectations.

By virtue of the fact that Lotus is Aguilera's shortest album since her debut, it boasts less filler, but also fewer obvious standouts.

Sure, her voice remains full, brash, and loud. But ultimately, so much of what passes for hedonism on Bionic feels synthetic and compulsory.

The few tolerable moments across How Do You Sleep at Night? come from either outside voices, including a minute-long verse from Fousheé on “Sweet” that outclasses the bulk of Tezzo’s trite observations, or whenever Teezo is shamelessly copying from others, as he does on “Mood Swings” and the Steve Lacey-lite “Familiarity.”

Guetta might be one of the only people given partial credit for creating a sea change in pop music who's also unquestionably the least compelling example of that style.

If Version 2.0 was techno-pop perfection posing as rock, Bleed Like Me is its noisy, long-haired cousin playing metal riffs in the garage.

Sure, Morningwood is trashy, enjoyable, and utterly insignificant entertainment, but so is shotgunning a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

The majority of the highlights on Man of the Woods, from the faux-Stevie Wonder groove of “Higher, Higher” to the smooth dance-floor glide of “Breeze Off the Pond,” could have appeared on any Timberlake album, give or take a few pointedly rural references to roadside billboards and canoes. The songs that hew more closely to the Americana vibe, meanwhile, are mostly embarrassing.

The fact that he sings many of his own hooks might seem like a useful skill, but the combined blandness of his singing and rapping only increases the overwhelming blandness of Only One Flo, an album that seems insistent on reminding us how dispensable he actually is.

Overall, there's little to recommend about T.R.U. Story, with the album perhaps best serving as a warning that not everyone can make the transition from pinch hitter to bona-fide star.

Look What You Made Me will burn brightly for a few more weeks on the strength of its club readiness, but with Berg's flaccid delivery, misguided confidence, and no desire to shake up well-worn subject matter, the album should fade into oblivion like so many other disposable pop-rap LPs.

Having set the bar incredibly high with their earlier work, Cold War Kids falls prey to the expectations game; beyond its forgettable mediocrity, Mine Is Yours is also a crushing disappointment.

For a once fearlessly progressive pop star, the otherwise lovingly executed and heartwarming Kylie Christmas feels like a bit of a missed opportunity to innovate a well-worn genre.

Disappointingly one-note.

On one hand, some of experiments fall well outside Brown's songwriting wheelhouse, like the hideous seven-minute butt rock "Junkyard," or the vaguely offensive Caribbean-lite "Castaway." On the other hand, the album is a showcase for what's clearly a versatile group of musicians, and its strongest five-song stretch turns on a dime from pseudo-gospel with bagpipes ("Remedy") to pop-country ("Homegrown") to big band ("Mango Tree") to heavy K-Rock fodder featuring Chris Cornell ("Heavy Is the Head") to lilting country-folk ("Bittersweet").

Unfortunately, too many of the songs on Havoc lack that specificity and Morissette's inimitable POV. Her best material has always traded in forces of tension and change, but she spends most of the album sounding like she's leading a meditation.

The overwhelming impression given by The Great Escape Artist is that they never actually tried.

It's irreverent, in-your-face, sexually nebulous, and infuriatingly catchy.

Although The Weight of Your Love doesn't succeed to the same extent as other, older European rock albums drenched in American influences, it makes for a nicely retooled, if occasionally misguided, formula.