Her chin-up ditties don't connect every time, but her abandonment of home recording will win new listeners anyway.

It's vital beginning to end--vital even when it's misguided.

He's at his best in the fictional-mythic mode that prevails here.

This unusually songful set is well up among their late good ones, its dissonances a lingua franca deployed less atmospherically than has been their recent practice.

Reduced to a tuneful 18-song essence that watches too much television, their mildness seems diverting and their Englishness definitive.

Like the empathy of so many young men, especially artists, his is more self-involved than saints like us prefer. But at least he expresses empathy--to memorable melodies that very nearly bear up under the repetitions his rarely witless or superfluous lyrics require.

It's the rare guitar geek who acts like strings and horns are where he's always belonged rather than where he hopes he'll fit in.

Their second album isn't quite as good as their first album because its hooks are slightly less inescapable.... But the difference is slight, and other differences are positive.

The drums get busy at times, but never fear--this sounds more like Rounds than it does like anything else. Just a little funkier.

The Brit accents on the pseudo-triumphalist, vaguely Jeezy-sounding four-cameo opener are grime enough for me--most gripping grime I know, in fact, and pretty damn fine Jeezy-sounding pseudo-triumphalism to boot.

They turn in their best album since 1996 even though some schmuck from the Charlatans ruins track two.

No "Ms. Jackson," no "Rosa Parks," no "Bombs Over Baghdad," no "The Whole World" either. Just commercial ebullience, creative confidence, and wretched excess, blessed excess, impressive excess.

In a time when so many bands don't know why they exist but keep on vanning anyway, his honest tale is touching and instructive.

Once his political songs fell flat because he wasn't scared or angry enough. Now when he's a shit you wonder why you should care--which is kind of hip-hop, don't you think?--but Bush has him so scared and angry he makes up for it, with a dedicated posse of El Lay studio vets getting in their licks.

It could be argued that music this masterful waives all claim to the sound of surprise--until you pay attention.

This is the stuff of one-shot art-punk.

Since all the lines make sense, and almost all the stanzas almost make sense, you keep waiting for the songs to make sense. And waiting, and waiting, through calm, memorable arrangements that are never in a hurry.

Here the defining flow is sonic--a shadowy, guitar-drenched tone poem of the streets.

Lyrics swirl around sensibly and the formidable tunesmithing never goes down the drain.

Everyone who says this isn't a sentimental record is right. But it admits sentiment, hold the hygiene, and suggests that he knows more about love dying than he did when he was immortal.

This being anthropology, pretty much, a sampler is the ideal introduction.

For once he makes sure he's understood--a matter in which melodies that might otherwise seem overfamiliar are of great service.

The Hives explode where a hundred other punk bands are proud to rock.

The Strokes' privileged formalism is annoying, so too their delight in romantic dysfunction. But they're smarter than the playa haters who aren't smart enough to target these blatant shortcomings.

Exactly the unpredictable effort you'd expect, it utilizes a new bunch of Portland buddies to render the old noises into background music as it explores such themes as Yul Brynner's makeover and piracy on the coast of Montenegro.

At 78 minutes this is too long, and especially given his history, "The Lost Children" is offensive. But the first three tracks are the Rodney Jerkins of the year, "2000 Watts" is the Teddy Riley of the past five years, and even the prunables offer small surprises.

He thinks he belongs up there in front of that expert new band, singing or shouting whatever banality, profundity, or turn of phrase he's written down, and his level of enthusiasm combined with his level of craft will convince anyone who still likes, you know, songs.

Their tunes have always seemed too facile, but seven years divided by three albums doesn't equal glib, especially with those years deepening their lyricism rather than their cynicism.