Working on the humane assumption that all screamo records can't be equally horrible, the reviewerati have singled out this big-ticket effort... Unburdened by theory, however, I find that its distinction boils down to slightly subtler tunecraft and dynamic range.

Like most schmoograssers they're committed to virtuosity for its own sake, and like most young musos they've been too focused on technique to learn much about how music interacts with life.

His voice devoid of Newman-Waits grit, his eclecticism even and controlled where theirs bristles with jokes, oddity, and gusto, how does he expect to connect with anyone but other likable progressives, and rather detached and inscrutable ones at that?

For her fans, the news is that she's invested her profits in studio musicians. Takes talent to make that more boring than solo acoustic, no?

Face it, folks--when it comes to putting good old rock 'n' roll on record, a bass player really helps.

No dolt, she figures it's in her best interest to sound like one--as well as an insider outsider like Gush and Bore, whose horrible lessons in playing it safe she takes to heart.

Beyond some rich-and-famous irony, not a single suburban detail soils an hour of good intentions. And you know the music overreaches too.

Occasionally her pushing-30 doubts about the single life are touching, like when she imagines Gavin Rossdale would make a good dad. But after five years, two producers, one Spin cover, and one lead review in Rolling Stone, the single Interscope sent her back to the salt mines for is the best thing on her automatic-platinum follow-up.

It's not that these songs are all obvious or overdone--this nonfolkie had never heard a few of them. It's that they're so soft they squish even when Alvin tries to rev one past you, which usually he doesn't.

There are better beats on the damn Jadakiss CD.

Norah Jones is herself, give her that. I hate to think what this phenom will have to go through to get that far.

Mediocre pop songs with pretensions.

Where once these Norwegians were extolled for their subtle melodicism, here their schlock candidly attacks the jugular.

When she goes ragga on the way out I wish she hadn't been groomed for something bigger and blander. But she made her choice.

These Danes aren't tuned-in enough for stereotype play.

These 10 well-culled copyrights, two from the '80s and only four from 2000, are something new and ominous, because they're dull. They smell of equine methane: the old-fart hegemony that fuels alt-country, AC radio, and literary anthologies canonizing Ry Cooder, Ernie K-Doe, and Spooner Oldham.

There's no economics, no race, hardly any compassion. Joe name-checks America as if his hometown of Berkeley was in the middle of it, then name-checks Jesus as if he's never met anyone who's attended church. And to lend his maunderings rock grandeur, he ties them together with devices that sunk under their own weight back when the Who invented them.

Inferior to not just Nirvana but Oasis.

Lest you doubted it, this is grotesque.

Deeply anonymous.

It's only a mix record (two mix records, why stint in utopia?), so how bad can it be? Start with four tracks featuring Dead Can Dance and/or Lisa Gerrard. And for that mass appeal--Blade Runner!

These meanderings are the kind of indulgence that ends label deals.

The sole outright attraction of her pathologically modest follow-up is "Then Ya Gone."

He claims his Dave Matthews-sponsored major- label debut was his chance to make a true band record, and I guess his boys are trickier than Crazy Horse, just not in any way you haven't heard before.

Rainer Maria is the genuine collegiate article: impressionistic and overwrought.

Aiming to fill the Queenhole by injecting video-game sci-fi and radio-head sonics into a pop-metal base, the Korn protégés forge a "startling vision of a future world in which communications technology has been turned against us, becoming a tool for government surveillance rather than personal convenience." Gosh, how'd they think of that?

These ill jockeys are just a two-inch ruler for Marshall Mathers to measure his dick against.

Bad laptop Blondie.