Never mind the cultural appropriation bollocks, here's ethnotronic industrial pop.

It's just annoying to listen to.

Most of the songs here aren't even good enough to be considered for a knockoff commercial targeted at the "indie-inclined" twenty-something demographic.

Forgettable melodies and arrangements abound on the mid-tempo tracks that comprise the bulk of Moonshine.

It is Moby’s right (as well as his wont) to repurpose the same songs, the same structures over and over again. It is my own right, however, to choose to listen to something else entirely.

Their insides have been swapped: the dirty, heavy, colossal, dark-nastiness has been replaced with arena-rock aspirations and fresh-white, paper-thin production.

So, largely unimaginative arrangements, flat delivery, a surfeit of vague ecological metaphors that wash like spray on the rocks (you can have that one for free, Mr. Hansen), and a lack of any sense of connection, of need, of reality.

There is no sense of nostalgia here, only pure awkwardness and honest decadence that take the definition of 'kitsch' to unexpected artistic levels.

Many of This Unruly Mess I’ve Made’s flaws could’ve very well been forgotten, or at least temporarily swept under the rug, had the actual music been good.

Dry Land Is Not a Myth fails for two reasons that could have been easily corrected: (1) rock albums, especially rock albums purporting to be "psychotropic," should never be produced by artists whose primary working medium is the remix, and (2) Church's weird, pinched vocal delivery, which the editor remedies with a variety of fixes characteristic of overproduced music (see point 1).

Simply put: the lyrics are simply too vacuous and cliched, the production tinny and lacking any real thump, and Scwhartz’ charm? Nowhere to be found.

Katy B’s stultifying lyrics, paired with an EMI-sponsored coterie of established DJs, producers, and vocalists, surgically selected as if delegates of their respective niches, evince only the sound of the culture industry at work.

Its complete lack of anything unique just reeks of someone in the background, someone with a suit and a cigar, shaking hands with these fellows and telling them they’re “gonna blow up.”

Raditude is not a great album or even an interesting one.

If there is a compliment to be paid to Hurley, it is that the band refrains from delving into the sort of WTF territory they've explored of late.

Booze and Reynolds maintain a consistent level of awfulness throughout, but really bring their A-game to songs like the bludgeoningly-repetitive 'Sparkly Sweater,.'

No, at best, The King Is Dead is a patchwork of genre exercises, giving listeners little more than a chance to play "spot the influence." But even then it fails, for it taps only a very shallow stream of tradition, focusing on a series of folk facsimiles from the 70s and 80s that never quite add up to the real thing.

A slightly boring rock frontman adopts a pseudonym to make a solo album, and it sounds like his main band, recorded in a just-passable studio.

Ultimately, Nas’ decision to sacrifice lyrical and aesthetic sensibility for controversy, hype, and pop-appeal exposes the commodification and hollowness of his artistic voice and vision.

Señor Smoke suffers from nothing more then a total lack of discernable hooks to balance out the glaringly juvenile lyrics, cheese-filled synthesizers, and schlock-rock guitar stylings.

The more you listen, the worse it gets.

The majority of tunes on offer here do very little to build on the ideas and panache exposed on Soft Control.

While this is drastically experimental by their standards, there is nothing here you haven't heard done infinitely better many times before.

There's nothing inherently wrong about writing songs about enjoying booze and drugs, but this isn't something I'd put on under the influence of either. Just imagine what it sounds like sober.

The other 14 contributions barely stand apart from one another, a rushed bile of the same sounds being used over and over again by unidentifiable producers, with only Bonobo delivering a track whose atmosphere extends beyond that of gimmicky tie-in music territory.

It's pretty much all the same synth leads, bang-bang beats, and tired rhymes as every other Aftermath related project since The Eminem Show, which wasn't that great either.

Bibio aims to express an exquisitely blurry mind-state; instead, his lack of focus conjures only a musty shadow of the varied, sportive electro-pop album he strains to create.

Despite what they’d like us to think, The Red Album sounds like every one of Weezer’s misfires since "The Green Album": a few songs that work and a whole slew that flounder completely.