2006's uncanniest country record.

Thankfully, if anything differentiates the terrific Get Awkward from its hardly inauspicious predecessor, it's that this one may be even less complicated. Whereas the debut made room for actual relationships and a couple of headlong jams, this is a tighter, blunter assault, affording Pearl only just enough room to summarize B-movie plots or super-soak society.

His first two albums were well-crafted, uncompromising in their focus, and exceptionally entertaining. The Recession makes it three.

This is the funniest hard-rock album I've ever heard; also, the hardest-rocking funny album I've ever heard, since if you take away the jokes you've still got the power of the music.

Too bad John Hughes isn't making the kind of movies he used to, because stellastarr*'s self-titled debut is a prom soundtrack worthy of Ducky.

While none of Bon Iver's background notes scream "new"--dissolved love affair, check; band breaks up (Vernon's freak-jug outfit, DeYarmond Edison), check--the chilling, rusty grandeur of For Emma will stop you in your snow tracks, however little it snows around here.

The result is a kind of compactness: a guttural groove so tight it helps Waits come off as a giant.

They've said their piece and torn each other into pieces–we're left to rubberneck at the crack-up.

James Blake's most compelling moments come when you can't tell where he stops and the machines begin.

Blue Eyed... pegs him as a nimble architect of texture and melody, chiseling experimental forms into something refined.

Eye Contact delights with its danceability and synthetic pleasure, but it's frontwoman Lizzi Bougatsos who holds the jams together.

Its darkness relative to the other stuff here (blues shuffle, surf pastiche, Les Paul tribute, B.B. King duet) is startling, even if the tune turns out to be about his wife.

A great pop album that reconciles his sudden wealth, attachment to home, and desire to rule the world.

Quality stuff. Sorta like 'Send for the Man,' but better.

The music is so sunny and luminous it's practically ablaze, radiating positive energy from all angles.

Busta's best record yet.

The arrangements, referencing indie-rock more than participating in it, pile on heft to the small-life tragedies: Matt Brown's sax toughens up Spoon's welterweight ranking, while [Eggo] Johanson's piano gives it roots, rag, and bonus rhythm.

Like all of her wordplay--as written, sometimes spontaneously spoken, and occasionally sung--it fits.

Love Is All's boisterous clamor is the real draw here. The band skips over cerebral tricks and hep posturing, instead going straight for adrenalized kicks, and it's a rush that lasts long after the record ends.

It's not stretching to suggest that they've complicated house music's ease so effectively that Kish Kash often resembles, well, postpunk.

Weaponry is essential: a particularly overwhelming headphones album not unlike some of Boredoms' more hypnotic work.

The trick to their aural freak-out is not too different from those in the past; it hides in the arcane black box manned by Noel Harmonson. The echoplex, with its Möbius strip of tape loop, warps the guitars and yowls like parallel sheets of Mylar and sheets of acid, focusing the entire band into ray-gun pulses that match the pounding of Utrillo Belcher.

You could always dance to Ozo's beats, but this time they supply more hip-churning swing than alt-rock stomp.

No doubt about it, from first note to last, Mar Dulce (loose translation: "the Sweet Sea") is a most tasty dive.

The group never abandoned its orquestra live, and that may be why this return to form sounds so welcoming.

He's an intuitive r&b stylist, with a firm sense of song structure (he's written for Justin Bieber and Beyoncé) and a conversational talk-singing voice that is as indebted to Justin Timberlake and Pharrell as it is to R. Kelly.

Painful as the backstory gets, the work itself remains lovely and luxuriant.

Filled with startling jump cuts and puzzling reverberations, The W is the best-produced Wu-affiliated album since GZA's 1995 Liquid Swords.... Eight years after their first single, it's a thrill to hear Wu-Tang sounding so unhinged. But it's also a pain in the ass. With nine voices, nine styles competing for your ear, even the most carefully crafted Wu-Tang album flirts with chaos, and the listener is left to separate milestones from mistakes. The W bursts with inspiration, but what does it all mean? You can't help wishing there was someone in charge.

The band's newfound willingness to experiment leads to overkill.

A.R.E. Weapons is one of the most interesting records ever to use disco electrobeats and synth washes for rock'n'roll effect.

Spiritualized's latest aural triumph... In truth, half of Let It Come Down is just sludgy crap, but the half of the chalice that's full truly runneth over into the realm of, um, the awe-inspiring. If not the sublime.

The Stage Names shares the frenzy of pre–"Black Sheep" songs like 'The War Criminal Rises and Speaks,' and if it isn't as monolithic as the album that spurred the band's rise to "Believer"-subscriber prominence, it does contain several fine examples of hyper-articulate hysteria.

Anthony Gonzalez nurtures nostalgia but isn't enslaved by it, and Saturdays=Youth teems with equal parts ache and pomp as a result.

Lucky Day isn't about transforming the human condition, just about remaining Mr. Lover Lover--the man with a fluid waistline and the promise of good bed time.

They're just two talented Hollywood kids proving how fun it can be to watch TRL.

Yet even if the lyrics actively discourage the application of your undivided attention, this is !!!'s most songful work yet.

'Basso Profundo,' sticks out like a sore thumb, overindulging the band's penchant for melting-pot quirk before the listener's had a chance to acclimate, throwing off the balance of an otherwise perfectly paced album.

It's a low-key and playful exit, without highs or lows.

The results of this musical promiscuity are mixed, but The Cookbook yields far more bangers than bombs.

It's a unique and occasionally maddening formula, but what makes this supremely rinky-dink fourth-grade-production-of–Pirates of Penzance racket captivating is the unflappable way they sell all this circuitous dream logic, instead of just reverting to uncaring, insufferable twee.

That's Black Up's predicament: It wants to be experienced viscerally, but it's being stripped of life by over-intellectualization.

Unpredictable is pure product, buffed-and-shined modern r&b.... But Foxx has also created a work geared toward sexual pleasure that will work its way into many a late-night floating-world session.

There are a number of words to describe contemporary mainstream r&b, but "elegant," "mature," "breezy," and "sophisticated" aren't usually among them. Luckily, they apply to John Legend's subtle follow-up to 2005's Grammy-winning, multiplatinum Get Lifted.

There's nothing offensive about anything on Volume One, which, with its catchy melodies, universally appealing lyrics, and mellow production, might just be a hit.

'Sing for the Submarine's' winking nods to old song titles ("electron blue," "gravity's pull," "high-speed train") are painfully self-aware. It's a sharp contrast to the rest of Accelerate, on which R.E.M. stop overthinking things--and start roaring toward the future.

Propulsive, addictive, ego-driven bursts.

It could have come across as professional formalism enhancing a half-assed satirist's latest free-market nightmare, but Working Man's Café adds lyricism to the reportage and makes itself useful enough.

Controversy aside, without any truly addictive tracks, you can't consider Nas's latest among his greatest. But it's hard not to appreciate the effort.

Just because there's an onslaught of verbiage and weird noises (like most pop these days) does not a pop album make. It is their most oxymoronic, though.

The lyrics are often corny and thin.

Opener 'From Nothing to Nowhere' also makes the case that Pinback's ready for some new fans: It's fast and furious, nicely setting a tempo that suggests they're not fucking around while conveying a (much-needed) immediacy through Rob Crow's voice.

The songs are still structured with minimal vocals and long repetitive jams, but they seem more crafted this time, not just meandering soundscapes.

It putters here and there across 18 ditties and doodles gracefully arranged, but played with two left feet and recorded to match.... This English Elliott Smith's got a plainspeak voice that compels with repeated listenings, and the subtle tunes are likewise sneaky, enlivened by all sorts of quirky bits...

It definitely doesn't disgrace the Boys' past, but that might be because Hitchcock's wise enough not to try to upend his classic material.

Nouns' title stinks compared to that of their 2007 debut, "Weirdo Rippers," but the jams are way better.

If the choice of songs and beat and instrumentation were sometimes restrictive, still the piano and the voice endured.

On Somebody's Miracle, Phair is more confident than on her previous mass-appeal bid, 2003's Liz Phair.

They're very much of their time--friendly indie kids from the Go! Team to Hot Hot Heat are cheerily dabbling in dance music nowadays--and much better than most of those peers.

It's got a few clunkers and slow spots, and, especially given the depressive tempos Johnson's so fond of, it's inadvisable to ingest in one sitting. But surprisingly Guitar is packed at least as solid as his last set, and it's less conventional to boot.

Less rehearsal, less production, and fewer layers of sound let Loretta's Lorettaness shine through.

Weaves enchanting pagan ditties out of cello and euphonium, some cornball New Wave moves, and the serpentine economy of Timony's keyboards and Renaissance-faire guitar.

Not a bad debut, finally, but someone should tell her that speaking for the young people doesn't mean merely becoming Shanice with attitude.

A song or two will keep you warm and contented, but take in the full album and April will smother you worse than a down comforter in July.

What makes this work, beyond Lang's ability to control both prickly and inspiring material, is her sensuality.

This whole thing sounds great, though: rue, clenched fists, and closed eyes mixed at an arena pitch.

It blows me away when someone can make nostalgia for the '60s or the '80s, or in this case both, sound relevant or recent or worth swooning over.

The brightest, weirdest spots—lags are around but ultimately forgivable—are thrilling.

Even more staunchly pop than their previous records.

Growing Pains could use more of this insouciance, or another song that harnessed all her gifts as well as Breakthrough's "Be Without You" did. Confusing confessions with wisdom, Blige would be more fun if she'd shut up for a while and luxuriate.

Like Rubber Soul and Revolver, or Bowie's Low and Heroes, Deserter's Songs and All Is Dream function as bookends rather than as separate works, though the latter, recorded under the cloud of [intended producer Jack] Nitzche's absence, does strike a few too many morose chords.

The best thing about 3121 is the opportunity it affords its maverick creator to school the children by recontextualizing historically resonant pop riffs and icons.

Curtis is stuffed with tightly wound 21st-century pop songwriting, full of that invisible craft and flow that renders a thing eminently listenable even if it's gratuitously raunchy, politically reprehensible, and sexually retrograde.

Trevor Horn's production has a pleasing fullness, opening the melodies without smothering them.

Places Like This ultimately shares qualities with its IM-chat womb: It's entertaining as hell, but eventually you'd rather just minimize the window and get on with your day.

Mostly the fascination here is with sounds-not-songs, which is fine for the year Portishead came back, as long as the Faint have enough dial tones and farts swiped from Thom Yorke's basement tapes to deck out Fink's traditionally one-note delivery when attention wanders.

Lost in Space finds Mann in a rut, albeit one with clear sightlines on relationship stasis, occupational drift, and the balm of (unspecified) addictions.

Even when veering wildly away from good sense--and 'Change' is hardly a sensical move--there’s an unwitting pop hit right around the bend.

Despite its rock-star cast, The Wind doesn't match the energy or the wit of Zevon's previous Artemis releases.

Jukebox's few truly memorable moments--such as the shimmering 'Silver Stallion,' which takes the jaunty country-rock tune popularized by the Highwaymen and turns it into a late-night whisper, à la her version of '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction'--are dwarfed by the merely adequate ones.

The Jesus and Mary Chain comparisons are still apt, though they're creeping out from under the shadow of 'Happy When It Rains' and heading toward something far scarier, as traces of Throbbing Gristle seem ready to disrupt their noise-pop vigil at any moment.

This Is Not the World sounds more like a Buzzcocks record--a merry collection of punk cut-ups.

Jenny is a definitely a chosen one in the talent department, but she doesn't really let on.

Listening to FannyPack is, in a sense, aural pedophilia--two of the three girls are in their teens--and while the project carries the sheen of Radio Disney, these girls use their duff way better than Hilary does.

A simmering, sultry affair.

In playing it straight, however, the Pups emphasize their abilities as skilled synthesists rather than merely falling back on their rep as inspired eccentrics, suggesting a band that, though grounded, has yet to plateau.

I increasingly doubt I'll crank much of whatever comes next from this self-enamored rascal nearing the limits of his gig, but he's had his uses: He's vexed all the right sticklers and coined ample catchy hooks during the commercial breaks.

Asleep at Heaven's Gate now continues that same kind of expert carnival of noise, even as its songs are longer (six of the 12 creep over five minutes) and flirt with jam-band explorations. Oddly, though, it feels like a step back.

Coldplay's new record is a little edgier, trancier, and more conversational than their last. It is called A Rush of Blood to the Head, and in waves and swells of major tunes and frisky then looping time signatures, that's just about the effect it has.

There's nothing wrong with singing witty lyrics fast and loud; there's just nothing very special about it.

Defiantly eclectic.

What, besides an extra layer of production syrup, can Believer cuts like "Ain't That Strange" and "Delicate" offer that almost any Old 97's barn burner can't?

Structure trumps texture throughout: "Make It All OK" is a formally tight breakup ballad, with spiritual overtones, that could fit neatly on a good singer-songwriter record, and others are arranged semi-acoustically, highlighting Stipe's cleanest melodies and most inviting vocal performances in years.

New Amerykah seems adherent to the old "cohesive studio album" mold of the soul/neo-soul eras.

It's more blunt than 2004's already pointed Shake the Sheets, and more streamlined as well.

There are growing pains here, there's doubt and sadness and confusion. And there's fear.

The problem with Greendale-the-CD is that too many songs rely on simple blues vamps that neither Young nor Crazy Horse manages to rave up into their trademark protogrunge.... But you keep listening because he's created real setting, plot, and character.

De La may have made their most formulaic album to date in order to speak against the formularization of hip-hop.

At times smart, sometimes schlocky, and frequently both, there's an unmistakable hit-seeking aura to Kissin' Time that flirts with Tina Turner's Private Dancer career-resurrection formula without stooping to be conquered by it.