His subpar wordplay is easily out-rapped and out-sung by guests like Future and 2 Chainz.

Haze is positioning herself as a top 40 infiltrator, which is fine, but she’s also diluted her uniqueness.

There’s not much new here, but Springsteen has always traded on a maudlin permanent nostalgia that only works because it’s so fucking earnest that it blasts through our attempts to be cynical about it.

The album is missing an emotional, drawn-out, heartbreaking ballad, but inspirational anthems like Retreat! find her sassing as loud and proud as ever.

While they’re great at the dreamy soundscapes, Toy are not as strong with fractured pop songs, and the vocals could still use some work.

The 30 songs follow the scene’s progression: the first half is classically minded R&B and soul that evolves on disc 2 into danceable funk, with Alexander O’Neal’s new wavey Do You Dare and Ronny Robbins’s electro-rap track Contagious.

It was always hard to predict which direction he might take next, but on his new album, Hardcourage, he’s surprised us by finally bringing all those disparate tangents together into a cohesive sound.

Williams is at his best when he’s being weird, so cheeky title track Swings Both Ways, which finds him examining his fluid sexuality with Rufus Wainwright, is good. But any fresh moments are balanced by too many unlistenable ones.

An hour of sprawling ambient electronic music made on a modular synthesizer, evoking the futurism of 70s sci-fi soundtracks while deftly avoiding cheesy retro trappings.

Unfortunately, the bass lines (all played by Mars Volta’s Juan Alderete) never quite capture the rubbery wobble of the era he’s trying to reference.

While there isn’t a chart-smashing Single Ladies or Baby Boy in the mix, the resulting 14 tracks (plus 17 videos) make her most complete album to date.

The record is full of earnest female backup vocals and frequent reminders (like wind chimes all over the place) that the music is homemade. Yet like a lot of modern folk, the songwriting sometimes gets lost in the shuffle.

A few songs are too long and self-indulgent (Do You Want What I Need, Hold Me), but the fuzzy synths, minor-key melodies and subtle worldy percussion make it very easy listening on the whole.

Despite flashes of melodic and lyrical inventiveness, production-wise Kelly sounds like he’s chasing innovators The-Dream and Mike WiLL Made It, especially on the strip club tracks.

It’s his excellently loose band (featuring M. Ward and Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley), intimate vocals and fondness for chimes that keep the disintegrating threads woven together.

The record revels in the band’s enjoyable madness.

At her best, Sumie evokes the poeticism of Joni paired with the headiness of Mazzy Star. But given the songs’ lack of variation in tone and tempo, an EP might have offered a more focused introduction.

If maturing means 14 (regular edition) tracks of footy-stadium-worthy anthemic choruses ad nauseam, I don’t want 1-D to grow up.

Bejar’s singing with admitted half-fluency in another language is no barrier to enjoyment. Actually, it removes an element of his style that can frustrate some of us.

On Sail Out, Jhené Aiko remains on her cloud, delivering 30 minutes of alt-R&B respite from reality, displaying soothing vocals, double-entendre-laden wordplay and a knack for choosing collaborators.

There is plenty of momentum on the first half of the record.... So, it’s a bummer that the last half of the album descends into bland and skippable.

The first release under eclectic singer/songwriter Solange Knowles’s boutique label, Saint Records, the younger Knowles weaves a collection of alt-R&B songs together seamlessly.

While the songs are hella catchy and pleasant, a little more grit and sorrow would have bridged the emotional disconnect.

At first, the minimalist acoustic guitar and Canning’s murmured vocals sound almost nonchalant, but his deft playing and nuanced arrangements elevate tracks like However Long and Bullied Days.

Their five-song EP produced by Dave Grohl and featuring covers of songs by ABBA, Depeche Mode, Roky Erickson and Army of Lovers is ridiculously lightweight.

Irony’s the entry point, the aesthetic and intellectual rigging that supports the record, a way into enjoying it.

Bad Religion’s Christmas album is one of the most unusual in recent memory.

It never really achieves the celestial heights of Cosmic Sky, every song after the opener feeling too much like an extended comedown, but From The Ages is an essential record for anyone who likes the sound of guitars sounding like guitars.

There’s a built-in redundancy to a Linkin Park remix album. Their music already sounds like hard rock that’s been tweaked by a knowledgable 15-year-old on his first laptop.

Protest the Hero have never been short on energy, but their fourth album lacks variety and rarely allows the listener to breathe.

Ortega is more convincing when she leaves the music biz out.

There are a few clunker lyrics--Grainger’s at his strongest when he’s singing about making love, not having sex--but overall it’s a worthy record from an artist who refuses to make the same one twice.

It’s an effortless but unpredictable experience. Hynes may not turn up until midway through a song, but he glides seamlessly into the album’s comfortable atmosphere.

For all of Lady Gaga’s talking points, the fusion of art and pop has resulted in a lot of familiar dance-pop--more artful for its campiness than its musical innovation.

M.I.A. is good at circumventing dance music clichés, often through sheer polyrhythmic excess; it’s hard to stay still during effusive bangers like Y.A.L.A., Matangi and tribal-trap anthem Warriors. On the flip side, Matangi’s forays into left-field pop (Come Walk With Me, Lights) are blandly saccharine compared with // / Y /’s pure pop moments.

While the Marshall Mathers LP sputtered toward the end, the sequel gets better past the halfway mark.

Free Your Mind is ego-free party music that will fit comfortably onto a variety of dance floors.

The most listenable song is the Chavril duet Let Me Go, which has zero of either musician’s “edge” and a whole lot of adult contemporary schmaltz.

She’s often a bundle of insecurities, vacillating between defeat and empowerment on fraught songs like Nobody Asked Me (If I Was Okay) and I Blame Myself. Her hooks, however, are as appealing and direct as they come.

Horns, synths and samples float above soulful vocals by members of Ruby Suns, Born Ruffians and Braids, while dense layers of texture and polyrhythmic percussion give way to beguiling melodies that worm their way into your subconscious.

Mostly, though, the barely 30-minute album is a non-stop rager.

Virgins is not a particularly pleasant listening experience, but it is undeniably emotionally powerful, and a worthy addition to his impressively unique catalogue.

Except for the dissonant pep of Heaven, Rose’s careful vocals float among bittersweet synths for 37 minutes of dreamy Cure- and Bangles-evoking pop.

They can still rage, summoning plenty of singalong anger on Donny Of The Decks and Things To Say To Friendly Policemen. But their targets feel more academic.

Black Radio 2 falls a note short of its Grammy-winning predecessor, but just shy of spectacular is still damn good.

It’s not a perfect record, but nothing this ambitious was ever going to be.

The five-piece Montreal/Toronto noise-pop band keep things compositionally complex throughout, and each song rolls seamlessly into the next.

Whether effervescent (the poppy Promise Not To Think About Love zips along on handclaps and a jaunty bass line) or solemn (elegiac closing track From Now On), her modern take on folk music often delves into the darkness, but always looks toward the light.

A far cry from the piano-tinkling heard in formulaic modern pop, Krug’s ivories are often filmic (Barbarian), or musical-theatre enough to evoke Hugh Jackman or Julie Andrews singing amidst a mountainscape (November 2011).

Mike McCready’s guitar solos mostly take a backseat to the band’s meaty rhythm section, and, sure, some of the 12 tracks are victims of awkward construction. But Lightning Bolt resonates, especially the band’s jarring (if kind of clichéd) conclusions.

Perry’s ballads are so unadventurous and heavy-handed (chiming U2 guitars and slow-building, reverbed drums), they start to feel like caricature anyway. Her approach works better on the feel-good half of the album made up of top-notch roller-disco anthems.

Fans of his ambient hip-hop and blissed-out impressionist R&B will be more pleased with Guilt Trips than those who prefer his clubby side.

The album is as focused as its predecessor (both are 45 minutes), but it is emotionally more expansive.

McCombs’s songwriting has become less opaque and more direct, without losing any of his signature poetry, mystery and dark humour.

There are a few too many “Get off my lawn, kids” moments, and the interludes are entirely unnecessary (hi, the Lonely Island), but as far as comebacks go, this album is anything but a non-event.

The capital-P pop star backs up her I-just-don’t-give-a persona with killer singing and decent songwriting, but keeps us waiting for a banger that never comes.

Plenty of boldface names are assisting here, but with the exception of Kendrick Lamar, who continues his streak of scenery-chewing guest verses on Nosetalgia, they stay out of the way.

It all adds up to an energizing, smile-inducing debut.

Overall, Feel Good nails the delicate balance between experimentation and restraint, making the listener feel... great.

Much of his old work still sounds more vital.

As far as comeback albums go, Seasons Of Your Day doesn’t disappoint, but few songs truly stand out.

Throughout, his rhymes hit the mark, whether he’s painting a bleak picture of the Detroit streets, battling his own demons (loneliness, molly, more molly) or rapping at length about drug-dealing without glorifying it Rick Ross-style.

Although it’s not as immediately catchy as their debut (but, hey, we’re almost saturated when it comes to revivalist bands), Glow & Behold proves they’ve got chops for a lengthy career.

Cabaret with Drake has a catchy hook and gorgeously cheesy lyrics only Timberlake can pull off. The countrified Drink You Away almost works. The rest is forgettable.

It’s a taut, punchy album full of winning charm, and blessedly free of cynicism and ego.

The closer, We Are Circling (featuring Buffy Sainte-Marie), acts as a coda, binding the whole concept together, underlining the sacredness of family, community, music-making and the passage of time.

It’s rare to hate one half of an album so much while genuinely enjoying the other.

While moments on Vapor City might have sounded completely at home at a 1996 rave, the mood and sound overall are more wistfully nostalgic than retro.

Songs are focused, multi-layered and crafted, sometimes even bringing Wilco’s more experimental moments to mind.

Mechanical Bull is adequate arena rock, a collection of songs fit to play on Guitar Hero.

On the whole, the band’s country-leaning indie rock pulses along for 49 minutes at a decent clip.

This isn’t Drake at his most exposed.... Production-wise, however, it’s his most mature, and frankly, most beautiful.

There are some missteps--the ballad Tripwire feels out of place in the general uptempo pace, and in (She Might Be A) Grenade, Costello lazily compares a girl to an atomic bomb (didn’t Green Day already do this?)--but when the album works, the band and the singer/songwriter sound more invigorated than they have in years.

Kiss Land is proof for the unconvinced: the Weeknd is a star whether he wants to be or not.

Considering it’s only 44 minutes long, MGMT’s self-titled third album feels much lengthier. This is partly due to the dense layers and constantly shifting textures, but it’s also a result of the abrasive digital distortion shrouding the psych-pop jams, making it a tiring listen even at its most melodic.

[The album] is not in the same league as his magnificent 2004 debut, Get Lifted. But Love In The Future, boasting production and writing credits by Kanye West, still has plenty of beautiful moments.

Whatever is driving her interest in self-identity is obscured by overwrought conceptualism and confused by a push to sound more slickly commercial.

2 Chainz likes to offset the raunchy with the heartfelt, but when the tone shifts to earnestly autobiographical, he sounds derivative.

Nobody Knows is a more complete, fleshed-out version of Beal’s vision, replacing his former no-fi folk with ominous, gritty blues and soul (not to mention a guest spot by Cat Power), but it’s still a work-in-progress.

The pair typically alternate between sexed-up dance-pop and psychedelic ambience, but Tales Of Us is their most pared-down effort in the latter category.

Tense, electronic, impeccably crafted and, yes, a little bit too long (classic 90s alt-rock), it’s a satisfying twist on the band’s legacy that doesn’t abandon its signature sound.

The album contains some of her best lyrics.

Vitality courses through every song on her sixth album.

Fun and charming in places, barely listenable in others.

It’s a more introspective, political and mature sound, but no less fun.

Taken all together, it’s a rousing record fit for serious-minded death metal fans convinced of the genre’s capacity to produce art--not just pained expression.

The Swedes have stepped it up in the songwriting department.

There’s no better way to describe the music than impeccably Superchunky.

It’s a meandering, angsty and deceptively gritty chronicle of the wonder years, but on repeat listens his guttural, conversational drawl and textured production seem to camouflage some seriously sentimental feelings.

Production, shared by J, Young Chop and Mike WiLL Made-It among others, at times subtly nods to the menacing beats of early Three 6 Mafia but is otherwise bland.

RTRWRA neatly combines those familiar chantable choruses, punchy guitars, pleasant harmonies and simple, clever lyricism--all in all, a great vehicle for that smooth, too cool croon of singer Alex Kapranos.

The sophistication suits the songs, which have a tragic seriousness without becoming a gloomy slog.

Created during Iceland’s dark, cold winter, Nepenthe’s intimate vibe immediately warms and envelops. In short: mesmerizing.

Hero Brother is a beautiful collection of experimental instrumental songs.

Despite all the gifted-beyond-his-years hype, that over-arching concerns still feel inextricably teenaged, albeit precociously so.

Ferg has enough lyrical promise and personality to make him a legit trap player, if not, quite yet, a lord.

It’s much more in line with Shabason and Adams’s work on Destroyer’s soft rock epic Kaputt, with its smooth sax, jazzy rhythms and 80s synth pop, but Elle’s breathy voice meshes remarkably well.

The band’s best album to date.