Along the way, it scores a lot of points, thanks to Nigel Godrich's earthy but twisted production.

Songs like "First Night" and "You Can Make Him Like You" conjure up a bit of Springsteen, a bit of Westerberg and far more catchiness than they should rightfully be allowed.

[The Crane Wife] not only matches past pop glories, in most cases, it tops them.

Evanescence fans can rest easy knowing The Open Door handily re-creates the sonic storm of the debut.

As concert recordings go, this is one of the best.

While a handful of the songs sound derivative, it's hard to resist the tambourine-enhanced exuberance of standout cuts like "Penny on the Train Track" and "I Gotta Move."

Crazy and fun, this is for the people who thought Gnarls Barkley's album was a little too tame.

On "Waiting on the World to Change," Mayer breathily imagines a world where frat boys get off their couches and have people sign petitions. Sigh. A little more of that and less of noodley songs like "Vultures" and "Gravity" would have been a good step toward reminding us who Mayer really is.

The group sounds as wonderfully debauched, degenerate and dejected as ever.

Thoroughly enjoyable.

The veteran singer-songwriter has opted to retreat into old-timey blues, rattling off clichés about blind horses and hog-eyed towns while laying down a halfhearted soundtrack of brushed drums, plucked guitars and woozy strings.

[This] downcast disc is actually an improvement on its predecessor.

The Day After sounds like something we've heard before.

Idlewild is a more down-tempo affair than its genre-splitting predecessor, but it wins points with stone-cold psychedelic soul classics such as "Mighty O," "Peaches" and "Hollywood Divorce."

Listening to her debut album, you get the feeling that she breezed in and out of the studio.

The result? An album that could just as easily bear the name of any other pop singer working the charts today.

It's too much.

Of course, it sounds ragged as all hell, but that was half of his old band's charm.

An arresting mix of the singer's political and personal strife set to a jazzy backbeat.

They're not exactly shaking up their own heavy-duty formula, but with the hell-and-handbasket thing going strong, what difference does it make to them?

The album's bluesy Americana-inspired tunes like "Saving Grace" and "Turn This Car Around" are, sure, kind of predictable, but they make up for that by being pretty darn good songs.

Let's hope we don't have to wait until 2040 for something else this good.

For a bunch of jokesters, these guys deliver some seriously good music.

Head-smashing songs like "Supermassive Black Hole" and "Invincible" all point to an album that strives to be nothing less than epic. It succeeds.

And by classics we mean poorly produced electro songs you'll hear once, chuckle and never want to hear again--unless you have a head wound or a Sparks fetish.

Most of these songs are just as good, if not better, than the ones that actually made the cut.

This could have been groundbreaking once upon a time, but there's nothing really new here and only a few songs ever rise above sheer novelty value.

The group sounds genuinely reinvigorated.

This set of songs comes with a chill of morbidity that's hard to shake.

Fundamental is the group's most inspired album in nearly a decade.

She mysteriously trims away her individuality and morphs into a J.Lo imitator.

Even if Keane hasn't completely gone down with Under The Iron Sea, the band is merely treading water here.

[It] shows things are as loony as ever in Busta's camp.

[It] feels more overly familiar and Velvet Underground-y than usual, which isn't a good thing for a band with such forward-thinking ideals.

Her vocal quirks can take some getting used to, but the oblique melodies and cosmic lyrics in songs such as "On the Radio" and "20 Years of Snow" demonstrate what a remarkable talent is mixed in with all the idiosyncrasies.

By mimicking the sound of every Hot Topic band crashing into one--with songs that pilfer from the Killers, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy--we have to wonder if they haven't just orchestrated their own extinction.

A blur of shouted vocals, tribal drums and scattershot riffs.

An urgent, soulful collection.

Edgier and more experimental than its predecessors, The Garden also ramps up the chill factor.

Listening to all this Edge-y guitar doodling and whiny wailing, the question remains: Why mess with a fun, 20-million-album-selling formula for this ponderous prog project?

The Texas trio sounds like a new group.

Unfortunately, she has also followed Ms. Knowles' lead in recording overly earnest, confessional ballads.

Sounds like they had as much fun making it as you're going to have listening to it.

Hoobastank balances heavy riffs with dark existentialism and hooks that closely imitate that of its breakthrough hit.

Weird, wonderful and, yes, super.

The reactionary disc is a step up from 2003's similarly political offering, Greendale, largely because it doesn't come disguised as some community-theater production.

On bluesy new tracks such as "Stubborn Beast" and "Moonshiner," she conjures a sensual, serious confidence that suggests she's ready to depose Cat Power as the queen of indie teardrop ballads.

The whole thing seems like a guided tour through the band's different incarnations.

In a meeting of the minds, the folk hero and the electronic-music guru produce an unexpectedly listenable collection of songs that doesn't really compromise either of their styles.

The band's naked ambition would be offputting if it didn't come wrapped in such resounding choruses.

Unfortunately, Jewel... chooses to revert to the soppy musical formula of her 1995 debut, Pieces of You.

Songs like "World Wide Suicide" and "Severed Head" even come close to recreating the hard rock thrills of the band's billion-selling debut, Ten.

Sounds exactly like you would expect a Tool album to sound.

The surprising thing about this retro rock trio is that it can actually rock.

Critics called it lazy, self-indulgent and amateurish--as if its predecessors somehow resembled Dark Side of the Moon. The truth is, this sounds exactly like Skinner's last two Brit Award-winning and Mercury Prize-nominated discs.

It's quite possibly his best album since 1982's Nebraska.

As lyrically inflammatory as ever.

For a better taste of Harris' harmonizing abilities, try her recent collaborations with young'uns like Bright Eyes and Ryan Adams.

It's the kind of album that finds its own cozy place somewhere between Lynyrd Skynyrd and Leonard Cohen.

Fun and fascinating.

An album that does his low-key legacy well, mixing classic rock-influenced guitar solos and quaint folk sounds with psychedelic effects and high-pitched melodies that put Rush's Geddy Lee to shame.

Essential? Not really. Fun as hell? Definitely.

In the end, even LL himself seems a little lost in his efforts to find Todd Smith.

A self-titled debut album steeped in beautiful but bland lovelorn ballads that tip a wool cap to vintage Elton John.

Tak[es] on the state of global affairs in a way that is both surprisingly direct yet somehow reassuringly weird.

These tunes find him not only reconnecting with his sense of melodic urgency but with his loins, as well.

The only sign of life is that filthy mouth and cherry-vanilla hair.

The band's recovery on Vision Valley is nothing short of remarkable.

The group cuts through style in pursuit of substance, using Fever to Tell's slow-burning hit "Maps" as a jump-off point.

The disc is all over the map, moving from booming dance cuts to gangsta fare, but it satisfies with crunk-tacular gems like "What You Know."

The Back Room is a fine album that proves you can look backward while paving the way forward.

Subtítulo... is not without its charms, but it borders on easy listening at times.

The music is as fine as the pairing is strange.

[A] low-key album.

At the end of the day, it's really hard to screw up these songs with that voice--try as he might.

Ultimately he fails to make a lasting impression.

While tracks like "So Sick" and "Stay" hit a few sweet neosoul spots, this perfectly pleasant disc is lacking that roundhouse kick that floors you.

There are some impossibly fun tunes in the mix.... But will this album really change your life? No.

His lyrics remain slightly twisted, the music is uniformly dark and the singer's still a little freaky.

There's no denying the music is ridiculously fun, as it bounces from Strokes-style garage riffs and Nirvana-esque angst to epic Brit-pop melodies and pop twists.

Thanks to soulful orchestral swells, the songs have lush contours, which soften the singer's macho stance.

The Life Pursuit is all swaying tempos and vintage summer-sad melodies that sound like a postcard from home.

The music on Comfort of Strangers is at times so complex and distracting that it often overshadows Orton's winsome voice.

The disc is made up mostly by mid-tempo classic rockers and sweet nothing ballads. Disappointing? Well, yes.

Sure, the band is still peddling the same vaguely Americana M.O.R. sound that the Wallflowers and Counting Crows perfected in the mid-'90s, but for once it actually sounds interesting.

Though it's an interesting idea and is at times stirring, the results don't always work as well as one would hope.

It sounds all too familiar.

It's [Lewis'] powerful voice and compelling storytelling... that makes the songs of busted relationships and failed faith really sting.

Wonderfully soothing, late-night music that is simply beautiful.

The band goes a different way now, and it's not necessarily a better one.

The music on the group's debut album... feels as if it was inspired by awkward adolescent feel-up LPs by the likes of Pat Benatar and Cheap Trick.

With Love and Squalor certainly won't change pop music as we know it, but it packs surprisingly huge melodies and shamelessly danceable beats.

An album that is as lovely as it is seductive.

Julian Casablancas continues to sing as if roused from a deep sleep, the rhythm section keeps the tunes as puckery tight as the band's trousers and guitarists Nick Valensi and Albert Hammond Jr. balance melodic strumming with some impressive shredding.

He fails to come up with an album that keeps up the standard set here by a couple of standout tracks such as "Strawberry Wine" and "Nightbirds."

Someone get this woman some drama, pronto.

Whether he makes it all work via his musical skills or chameleonic acting ability, we don't know, but it does work.

The most rewarding reworkings (Boards of Canada's "Broken Drum," Octet's "Girl") come from those who avoid novelty and realize that, underneath all the blips and glitches, Beck is just a soul man.