It's about average for albums from Prince proteges.

Renaissance finds Richie in an oh-so-contemporary setting, encompassing uptempo dance, Latin-hued and funky pop, and power ballads. It also finds him working with such hitmaking producers as Rodney Jerkins, Walter Afanasieff, and Brian Rawling and Mark Taylor. While this may sound like a farfetched concept on paper, it works surprisingly well on disc -- albeit without breaking any new ground.

Power ballad 'What If' reveals that Tisdale can deliver the radio-ready goods, and 'Tell Me Lies' is convincingly spunky. But the rest of the material, as racy as it sometimes is, doesn't give the singer room to comfortably let loose.

Beyond a few faster songs ("Paper Jesus," "Falling"), the album gets lost in its own blandness. [13 Aug 2005]

The band's first new set since 2002 is full of these well-intentioned attempts to recapture some of that '80s pyromania (or in the case of the absurdly large power ballad 'Love,' herculean '70s prog-rock balladry), but without producer Robert "Mutt" Lange, who left for the much more profitable world of country years ago, the results are solid if unspectacular.

Different from the touching--but too sleepy--"America Town," "Battle" impressively tackles new territory.

Engineered for short attention spans at just 44 minutes, One of the Boys is still more than enough to make this one long, hot summer for Perry.

The album is hampered by needless skits and, at times, too slick production.

Overall, the album plays too stiffly for these experts of synth-hewn dance/pop.

The lyrics seem ripped from a teenager's journal, and his regular-guy vocals can't make them compelling.

Metamorphosis, which follows 2006's commercially stillborn "The Paramour Sessions," is the most polished and wide-ranging of Papa Roach's six releases.

The album is, while not terrible, not very memorable, either.

The set is somewhat of a shambolic affair, wherein kernels of good ideas get blown out, jumbled up or lost in execution.

Like its predecessor, the equally undercooked "The New Danger," there is a sense that a deadline crawled up before the music was cemented. [13 Jan 2007]

The set oozes with timely funk beats and the kind of well-crafted songs that No. 1 hits are made of.

Ultimately, G-Unit has returned to its aggressive roots, but it would've been wonderful to hear it rap over a more varied assortment of beats.

Too often Santana sounds like a guest on his own show.

Dovetailing with her choice of sound and arrangements that straddle convention and invention, Lopez mines new emotional depths. [31 Mar 2007]

An album that proves being rich and famous doesn't always blunt a band's creative appetite. [31 Mar 2007]

If crude tales of incest, child abuse, drug abuse and just about every other type of abuse are your thing, then... "Hannicap Circus" is for you.

It's a tightly woven scheme whose anthemic simplicity is deceptive and leaves room for sophisticated (but still fierce) arrangements. [10 Mar 2007]

While fans of her early-'90s material will find much to embrace here, those that rallied 'round the singer during her hip-hop days may feel lost and abandoned.

With constant acknowledgement of imperfections, Simpson separates herself from the peppy Lindsay Lohans and Hilary Duffs. [22 Oct 2005]

A respectable effort.

Sometimes it's good bizarre. Other times it's bad bizarre.

But after moving past those first moments of seeming artist/song incongruity, the listener will discover an album full of pleasant surprises and vocals that show Stewart in a most flattering light.

It's a shame that the end result, the first under the Queen name in 13 years, is not very memorable.

Aside from a few catchy club tracks, there is nothing all that exciting about Chingy's third album.