The music is the same. As immediate and worthy as some of these songs are, the chugging guitars and oar-bank handclaps and background HEY!s don't sound like the work of a band that really likes this music and wishes it'd been around to make it at the time and probably deserved to be, the way the Donnas' old jailbait anthems could; they sound like bad one-liners.

Their musical gifts haven’t left them... and their overwrought yet empathetic lyrics signify that their bandwagon jumping is misguided rather than crass.

If you’re a fan of the genre, don’t bother with Dangerous Dreams unless you’ve absolutely exhausted your current dance records.

taTu, somehow, miraculously, still matter.

More than anything in his career, Escapology is literally riddled with confession and confusion.

The parallels with The Prodigy’s similarly dreadful Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned abound, but the difference here is where The Prodigy’s album was just offensively bad at every corner, here Norman Cook seems to be striving to make the most mediocre album humanly possible.

Were Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned released in 1999 when everyone else was releasing their mediocre post-big beat follow-up album, though it would still be unlistenable, it would also be excusable.

Make Believe seems so simple compared to [Weezer's] other albums.

Languid, lifeless, and generic.

While traditional rock fans may have a difficult time swallowing Cake’s meticulously produced, pop-obsessed, genre-bending concoction, fans of Moby, Beck and The Flaming Lips might make for easy converts.

There’s precious little to get, well, excited about here.

While the drop in adrenaline has left room for some good ideas, they’re not fleshed out well enough, and with the lack of a single flat-out rocker, there’s nothing to get excited or exhilarated over.

There’s hardly an honest word on In My Mind; any sane listener’s bullshit meter should red-line after about fifteen minutes of it’s textured repulsiveness.

Unlike many R&B artists, Destiny's Child are actively bad at singing ballads, which mostly turn out mawkish, aimless and dull.

Like many comedy albums, it delivers initial laughs, with few surprises for continual listening.

The Others are one of the worst bands I have heard in a long, long time.

For the most part, songs lumber along with little forward motion.

Five decent tracks (only three new) does not make a good album, and that is why Street Dreams only improves on Fabolous’ debut marginally.

Todd Smith might be the last straw for many fed up with his current direction.

The sparkling electronic/acoustic subtlety of 2001’s The Invisible Man has been replaced here by excursions into poor trip hop, and this low-key solo effort lacks a good polish and a harsh editor.

This album is 80% total shite.

Rotten Apple... doesn’t try to address Banks’ shortcomings, it just buries them under tectonic plates of NYC sturm und drang and more of Banks guffawing end rhymes.

Sadly, there’s no escaping the fact that Squire’s solo debut is a one-paced, uni-directional affair.

Accomplished and full of bluster but ontologically completely hollow; this is The Vines.

From the onset, this disc excels on a new level.

Do you have any idea how dull it is listening to someone being calm and content?

On his few appearances on “The Re-Up,” Em sounds completely lost, grasping for a new subject for his roving mind, or even for a reason to keep rapping.

Electric Six make junk music for junk times, and they’d be nigh-unbearable if they weren’t so much fun.