You Had It Coming stands as his best work since 1989's Guitar Shop.

With hushed arrangements that feature little more than acoustic guitar and piano over bass and drums, plus the occasional steel guitar or pump organ, the album is Young at his simplest and most easygoing.

But for all its emotional directness and prodigious length, there's a point on All for You where it all starts wear thin and Jackson's moments of celebration and vindictiveness seem played out rather than genuine...

Strangely enough, it seems the further Black distances himself from his heroic work in The Pixies, the better he gets.

The irony, of course, is that More Light is a perfect fit within the Dinosaur Jr catalog and, in fact, would rank as one of its better entries, a spirited, 11-song outing on which Mascis' writing and performing sound fresher and more muscular than they have in years, certainly since the early end of the '90s.

There's a lot of great music here to enjoy. The political tone on the album is more problematic, though.

Production is a dance record, but Mirwais is no mere slave to the rhythm. While other artists keep the BPM pumped up, the songs here drift and simmer. "V.I. (The Last Words She Said Before Leaving," for example, creeps along at a funereal pace for more than six minutes and doesn't catch much of a beat until four minutes in.

Instead of serving up another platter laden with goopy ballads or attempts to revivify '40s swing, Midler sets her sights on more ambitious and varied targets this time, with engaging covers of easygoing soul tunes and a few spicier selections tossed in. The results, while promising, are a mixed bag.

A dense and textured rock affair that builds a bridge between grunge, goth, and industrial stylings.

The band is beguilingly hypnotic, making music that is decidedly off-kilter. Guitars swirl, grind, and mesh with fluid rhythms and haunting melodies.

Too often it sounds only half completed...

Oops! does succeed in making Spears sound sexier and meatier -- and not that innocent -- as its team of top-shelf producers (particularly Max Martin and Rodney Jerkins) supports her adenoidal vocals and breathy hiccups with bottom-heavy arrangements that provide a bit more thrust and pump to the proceedings.

Parachutes is a fully realized and expertly crafted masterpiece, each song holding its own quite well, but when grouped with the rest, they make up an impenetrable fortress of sadly beautiful, melodic, glorious Britpop.

These songs don't require repeated listening to foster appreciation; they affect immediately -- and relentlessly.

Manson's most ambitious, musically accomplished, and -- dare we say it? -- mature album to date. Holy Wood treads too much over the same nihilistic territory, raging against a God he claims doesn't exist, and describing in detail a life that he says isn't worth living. That said, there are some musically powerful moments on the album, notably the eviscerating power chords on "The Fight Song" and the galloping rhythms of "Disposable Teens."

This disc is all over the map, in terms of style, energy, and overall execution.... the band sounds fine but too often lapses into cuteness with songs that don't hold up beyond novelty appeal.

Despite the initial futuristic impression, Cole proves himself to be guilty of the same superficial high concepts that taint far too many dance music albums. Still, there's much to recommend here, especially when Cole sticks to the grooves.

It's one of the best rock and roll records in years... the disc is a layered, beautiful thing that touches on every influence the band has revealed through its years with a refined production style that sounds at once edgy and glitteringly smooth.

Kelly's new work offers about as much stylistic variety as he could possibly be expected to, while still remaining in territory familiar to his panting fans.... All in all, the production is sharp, with some fairly clever vocal and percussion arrangement ideas throughout.

Listening to Breach, the meat-and-potatoes rock of Bruce Springsteen and especially Tom Petty comes immediately to mind... Breach is one of the most anticipated rock releases of the year, and it clearly is worthy of all the talk it has generated.

The sort of disc that inevitably prompts skeptics to ask, "You call that music?"

Scorpion, her second solo album in three years, stands a good chance of blowing up the airwaves and charts, though it still battles with the hardcore elements that made her first album such a disappointment.

Every track is at least fleetingly familiar, often having that feeling of the B-side that you haven't heard in years.... Still, adding a few hits wouldn't have hurt the soundtrack's shot at longevity...

Flowers features the familiar psychedelic-tinged pop songwriting, chiming guitars, and unmistakable voice that have always been the group's trademark, but 20 years down the road, experience, nostalgia, and longing have tempered the band's sound.

The Electric Mile more than meets expectations because this fifth effort is the group's most fully realized.

Nicks' sixth solo album is her strongest since 1983's The Wild Heart.

The result is not only a more ambitious album than one might have expected, it's also a substantial step forward from Urban Hymns, the Verve's own crowning achievement.

A formless collection that drifts from one tune to the next, weighed down by a general sense of murk that pervades everything from Tchad Blake's production to the song arrangements and the lyrics.