Lady Gaga has made a quintessential pop album with Born This Way.

They've recaptured the brash cheek of their best work on Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, which the trio has elected to release before the "delayed indefinitely" Part One.

Skip the heavily lifting and split the record into smaller chunks, which makes it easier appreciate the songs for the obvious care that Eisold has put into them.

Despite a slew of hit singles and eye-popping sales figures, Britney Spears has never released an album as coherent from start to finish as her latest, Femme Fatale.

It's an assured effort from the very start.

It's a record with a folky, sometimes psychedelic edge, but it's never self-indulgent or less than focused. In fact, Smoke Ring for My Halo is persuasive evidence that Vile has come fully into his own as a songwriter and musician.

It's been a long time since Radiohead made records with an eye toward anything more than satisfying the band's own creative impulses, if it ever did. Those who are prepared to stick it out, though, may well find The King of Limbs worth the wait.

At its core, The Party Ain't Over is a strong testament to Jackson's enduring talent, and White's vision for how best to deploy it. Even though Jackson was never actually gone, it's a pleasure having her back.

It's a loose, easy-rolling centerpiece to an album that shows, after several fussier efforts, how effectively the Decemberists can make use of open space in their music. The King is Dead--long live the king.

The Lady Killer doesn't have the same tightly focused future-soul sound as Green's other project, Gnarls Barkley, but that gives the singer a chance to show his wider ranging musical appetites with elements of vintage R&B, irresistible pop and even a couple of sleek spy-movie riffs.

The Promise demonstrates how wide-ranging Springsteen's musical interests and abilities were when he was 27.

Like many of Kanye's brainstorms, it's a crazy idea -- and like many of Kanye's crazy ideas, it works.

The wistful tunes are the big draw here. They're masterworks of pop production, with Robyn's wispy voice weaving through spinning swirls of sugary synthesizers and hip-twitching beats that make it all but impossible to sit still.

It's an odd sort of talent, making joyless slogs out of music that is supposed to be fun and exuberant, but The Beginning is at its core a shrine to forced joviality, and that's no fun at all.

It's provided great fodder as devotees of celebrity gossip speculate on who, exactly, she's singing about, but with Swift's endearing appeal as a singer and ever-growing skill as a songwriter, Speak Now makes for great listening, too.

A charming collection of breezy, hook-filled pop songs.

The circuitous path to success has done the band good: it's given Brown and company time enough to develop a winsome country-rock style without undue meddling from the major-label mediocracy, and it shows on You Get What You Give.

Produced by Wilco leader Jeff Tweedy, Staples' latest is a joyous celebration of life and faith on traditional gospel songs and tunes by Tweedy, Allen Toussaint, John Fogerty, Randy Newman and Staples' father, Roebuck "Pops" Staples.

By the end of Teenage Dream--hell, halfway through--it's apparent that neither Perry nor her collaborators had much to say that was meaningful, or even particularly interesting. It sure didn't stop them from saying it anyway.

Despite the catchy moments, The Orchard is not a distinctive record. In fact, aside from showcasing Duquette's inventive, propulsive drum work, the only chance the album takes is that it doesn't really take any chances.

The tunes are among the most musically diverse the band has recorded so far, with buoyant piano pop undercut by an air of melancholy on the opening title track, glittering beds of synthesizers on "Sprawl II," churning, punk simplicity in the guitars on "Month of May" and a propulsive rhythm driving "Half Light II (No Celebration)," layers of vocal harmonies and moaning strings floating atop the relentless beat.

Mostly, though, the album is noisy jumble of competing sounds and ideas, none of which ever develops fully enough to make MAYA into as cohesive a statement as her first two albums.

Though understated compared to their predecessors, these songs are smart and catchy.

His vocals here are mostly murmurs, and the musical accompaniment, though skillful throughout, lacks the punch of his previous albums.

He picks solid songs with themes just about anyone can relate to, and he sings them with a hint of twang in his warm voice. His songs feel like home, and his latest, Twang, is no different.

Although the alter-ego suggests that Banks would be happy to keep his own name out of it, the fact is that Julian Plenti is ... Skyscraper is the truest reflection of Banks' musical impulses, which don't always shine through in the democracy that is Interpol.

The New Milford transplant has released a slew of solo albums, including the excellent new collection Man Overboard.

It's a collection packed with groaning clichés and calculated banality, and while that's not so different from plenty of music in any era, Leave This Town is so formulaic, it could have come from a laboratory at DuPont, where they make plastic.