Lose the skits and a couple of ballads Ashanti may never be ready for, and her summery second outing delivers on the limited promise of her first.

Recall[s] both Fugazi's punk slam and early Santana's psychedelic sheen.

The pair simply revert to the beats and concerns that made them an institution in hip-hop's golden age; except for the occasional cameo (Snoop Dogg, Jadakiss), The Ownerz could have hit the streets a decade ago without raising eyebrows.

Everything Must Go is another great Steely Dan album, a hardy inclusion to their splendid canon.

The album may not improve on 2001's Sophtware Slump, but its pleasures lie in accepting reasonable underachievement, and knowing that speed kills.

Unfortunately, the album is a bit of a downer from a lyrical standpoint, making something like Jackson Browne's Late For The Sky seem almost upbeat in comparison.

There just is a real feel of lightweights here--be it in the band's often balls-less bottom end (a real problem with so many rock bands these days) or just in the overall music itself.

It's better than Souljacker, though not quite as good as Electro-Shock Blues and Daisies Of The Galaxy.

Highly recommended.

In the end, the disc is less odd than it is charming with more than enough twists and turns to keep it interesting.

The biting but insider-ish humor sometimes limits the potential audience, as Paul ironically marginalizes himself before the business and its politics can.

Newcomers will be shocked by his natural ability and old-time fans will just nod the same knowing appreciation and file the album next to the ever-growing mass of excellent if unspectacular releases.

Thankful is everything an American Idol viewer would expect from a debut album: the musical drama of Meat Loaf, Celine Dion, and the crew from Titanic, the R&B pyrotechnics of Whitney Houston, the (sub)urban melodrama of Mariah Carey and lots and lots of vocal gymnastics. That it all sounds like it came from a can is beside the point.

Beautiful, sparkling folk-pop reminiscent of Velvet Underground's Loaded era, but with distinctive swooning melodies.

Even without Timbaland, who filled G's first two outings with some of his finest future funk, Ginuwine has a game plan as solid as his abs.

World Without Tears... is the singer-songwriter's rawest album to date -- it's often closer to all-out rock than it is to either alt-country or the singer-songwriter tradition -- and it's also her best release so far.

Not terribly exciting for a long-awaited comeback, but a sensitive collection of songs for people traveling down life's lonely highway hand in hand with themselves, for sure.

An elegant masterpiece of unabashed Anglophilia, all slow-motion shoegazer guitars chiming like beautiful bells of doom and icy, disaffected vocals that sound like the Psych Furs' Richard Butler minus the three-packs-a-day larynx damage.

Full of juicy hip-pop hooks in the grand P. Diddy tradition.

The group's innate intelligence and almost shocking ability to forge something new and thrilling out of typical garage-rock influences always shines brightly through the thick Guinness fog.

The older, wiser BLACKstreet rides a sweet suite of slow jams to a level no teen quartet has seen yet.

Occasionally, things are dumbed down by the naive politics you’d expect from any teenager.

An extremely organic sounding album that can stretch throughout genres (reggae, blues, hippie rock) without letting the bong smoke escape.

On Slow Motion Daydream Everclear proves that it's still quite capable of delivering solid, rocking songs with memorable hooks, and frontman Art Alexakis still has plenty to say.

Street Dreams reveals itself as a hollow gem when Fabolous tries to have it all, unveiling a gangsta sneer so unconvincing it makes Nelly seem dangerous.

Impossible to pin down to a single genre or slavish style, Echoboy references everyone from David Bowie to Thomas Dolby to Roxy Music to nu electro, yet its sound, at times basking in cathedral drones, other times rent with oddball choirboy humming, is its own.

Further indulges his penchant for meticulously-crafted songs, exquisite production, and (sometimes painstaking) personal and spiritual introspection.

Corporate radio won't touch this kind of overheated pop, but American Hi-Fi's slamming musicianship and party ready anthems should wow any college DJ worth his university-issue condoms.