What makes BAYTL really frustrating is the fact that besides V-Nasty's appearances, the album has a chance to be excellent.

Sweet Christ, in no universe will Big Sean be greater than Notorious B.I.G. or Big Pun, and at the rate he's going he'll be lucky to end up a better rapper than Sean Combs, let alone Sean Carter.

Having blown out and polished away all of the music's industrial grit, Eisold reveals himself to be little more than a meticulously researched, clinical New Order cover act.

An Introduction to Elliott Smith [is] a compilation that maybe would have made some sense in 1998 but has no place in 2010.

In the Dark is a big, loud, dumb record, filled with songs about not respecting women you bang on the bus ("Someone's Daughter"), feeling empty inside ("So Lonely" and "I Don't Even Care About The One I Love") and being for real ("I Am For Real").

As with all covers records, the crucial issue is whether these renditions bring anything new to these songs. The answer is a resounding no.

Rather than mature effectively, Electric Six has pretty much reached the end; at this point, the band is just cashing out.

Even with slick production the instrumentation is lackluster, missing that rattling punk energy; in their overt politics and complete lack of subtlety, the lyrics are trite.

"Cartoon Motion" was a nice moment for Mika, but this second album does not improve or advance what he did before. In fact, he seems to have regressed through his venture into childhood on The Boy Who Knew Too Much.

It doesn’t challenge listeners or give them anything unexpected or even asked for, really (who's waiting around with bated breath for 'Ring-A-Ling?'), but it’s already a certifiable hit.

None of the band’s stylistic flourishes are pulled off well enough to convince you they could do one style effectively, nonetheless the 10 they try out here.

It essentially exposes Doherty’s biggest weaknesses: his trite lyrics, his less than perfect voice, and his inability to sound interested in anything he’s doing not under the title "Libertines."

Timbaland rose to the challenge of making Chris Cornell a solo star by producing arguably the worst album he’s ever had a hand in.

His lyrics certainly won’t help, but if he wasn’t a Stroke, this album could only be sold out of Fraiture’s trunk at open-mic nights in upstate New York.

It’s disappointing that a duo this good on paper could be responsible for an album as uninspired as A.M. Even the album’s better songs (the piano-led 'And I Wonder' and the sauntering 'The Wrong Turning') are limp and tedious at best.

Call And Response is an interesting (and by “interesting” I mean “awful”) remix album due to the fact that no one seems to want to mess with the originals for fear of alienating anyone or veering off from the song’s original composition (likely for the sake of the commercial prospects of the album).

The album has a consistent lack of meaning and genuine feeling.

Even if it came out in 1996, it would still be self-absorbed, turgid, over-produced and soulless.

By trying to define they’re own specific legacy, they’re actually ramming it down their listener's throats, and daring the music world to question them.

Earth to the Dandy Warhols is as much of a joke album as "Metal Machine Music," except I don’t see any rock ‘n’ roll scholars finding anything particularly smart in this slop 20 years from now.

If Red Album’s songs were formulaic, shiny, and easily digestible like everything on Green or Maladroit, the vacuity of the new songs wouldn't be as big a problem. But 'Heart Songs,' 'Thought I Knew'--these are just plain bad.

This album will sway neither the faithful nor the unbelievers from their positions along the borders of her stalled momentum.

The problem with the album goes past its unmemorable music.

Twenty seconds into Necessary Evil and I'm cringing, and it's only amplified by the fact that this very same voice once performed 'Heart of Glass' and 'Rapture.'

Mired in the generic neo-new-wave and self-consciously emotive yawn of contemporary fashion indie rock, Athlete's unimaginative music matches up nicely with the shallow lyrics.

The twelve songs here drip with coatings of sentiment and sparkly instrumentation that are saccharine and plastic.

In the end, Calling the World left me bored as hell.

Most of these songs are only pleasant for thirty seconds or so.