More than justifies the hype.

Nearly an instant classic...one of the most convincing and refreshing debuts in recent memory.

An absolutely amazing album....more riff-heavy and directly engaging than his former band's work...

The slick strings and piano emphasized later in the album aren't as moving as the cascading guitar and Enigk's vulnerable-boy vanity.

At their worst, Deftones can sound almost like a parody of themselves. But at their best, the band fashions a heavy, claustrophobic atmosphere in which Moreno spins his dark, personal tales of misery and heartbreak against a backdrop of music that careens from the ugly to the beautiful. Most of the time, White Pony finds Deftones at their best.

Faith and Courage shows a songwriter still in command of her talents.

Most of the album is, in fact, pop trash.

Remarkably mature and absorbing.

This stuff is too cute for its own damn good.

But unlike the band's overbearing forays into trip-hop and dub before, a new level of soul and texture emerge from Saint Etienne's neo-modernist stylings.

Spare as the overall sound of the album is, the interplay between the rhythms, samples and voices is vibrant and eloquent...

Movement in Still Life is a wildly effervescent, effortless sonic bouillabaisse that works dance, rock, hip-hop, pop, new age, trance, house, you-name-it simultaneously and makes it look easy.

Trickle sounds-feels-smells like both artistic breakthrough and new millennial trip-hop watershed.

The Platform is one of those timeless long-players, like Run-DMC's Raising Hell or EPMD's Strictly Business, where you'll want to commit every track to memory.

This new album... sees them mutating into less of a rock outfit and more of what is commonly called "adult contemporary" -- in other words, music for soccer moms and rich yuppies to play really loud in their BMWs-

What's most pure is Eminem's liberating fearlessness in taking hip-hop left turns and acting the fool. The best hip-hop stand-up comic since Biz Markie; all that and a bag o' chronic.

Probably the last good album we can realistically expect from Pearl Jam.

Ghosts & Flowers, like Sonic Youth's landmark Daydream Nation album, forces the listener to listen very carefully for subtle moments of beauty amidst the near silence and the absolute chaos.

Oops!... I Did It Again proves beyond a doubt that Britney Spears is The One.

A far darker, more turbulent kinda bop.... party music for the dedicated headphone-bobber, barstool shaker, chillout room-gesturer, living room couch-dancer.

That's right, we're talking stadium rock.

Amid R2D2-ish cutesy blips, pretty pulsing melodies, and lackadaisical effects, David rambles on about subjects he finds interesting, like a philosophical friend who's maybe had one too many glasses of wine.

Think of a universe far, far away, where Ministry, Raw Power-era Iggy Pop, Public Enemy, and Meat Beat Manifesto get together for a pissed-off, hyped-up jam. That's what XTRMNTR sounds like, and it's a downright amazing disc.

Smith retains the Lennon-esque simplicity and quirky lyrical phrasing that earned him critical praise in the past even as he digs deeper into his psyche and attempts to work through an off-kilter world.

One of the better pop albums of 2000, a multi-faceted offering that resists easy labeling while extending the band's mighty grip on the popular imagination.

Enlisting a heavy-hitting cast of helpers -- from the best unknown drummer in the world (Carla Azar) to one of the most creatively pure producers around (T Bone Burnett) -- Arthur has transformed a dozen of his best compositions from the skeletal coffeehouse-ready material they surely were at conception into richly-textured and deeply emotive mood pieces.

While the music is broader in scope than before, Konietezko has given no ground to his choice of lyrics.

Quite a few steps away from the "typical" girl-with-guitar record, this is the album that reveals Marshall to be quite a unique force.