Her high notes are sweet and pillowy, her growl is bone-shaking and sexy, and her midrange is amazingly confident for a pop posy whose career is tied for eternity to the whims of her American Idol overlords.

"When I Built This World," a minimalist suite that feels like it's made for strings and Nintendo, is weirdly gorgeous, but otherwise this just sounds like two electronic greats e-mailing dorm-room demos.

The material, featuring production by U.K. soul vet Nellee Hooper (Soul II Soul), could be more memorable.

If you liked Franz Ferdinand's last album, Tonight: Franz Ferdinand, but thought it was missing something--perhaps a futuristic, stoner-friendly electro vibe?--you're in luck.

The magnetic pulse holds everything together until Ghostland Observatory try to mess with the formula.

Rather than a through-line back to the Pumpkins’ trip-hoppy Adore, Cyr often sounds like Corgan was going for a new-wave sound that recalls Talk Talk, and unfortunately he has neither the singular vision he had in the Nineties nor the melodic savvy of Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis to pull it off. Instead, most of the songs, all filled with neo-goth romantic lyrics, stumble and fumble over meandering melodies with no sing-along choruses to buttress them.

The album ends up feeling like a mixtape put together by a pair of old friends.

It's messy, funny and pretty crazy at points.

Lacking 'N Sync's tireless dancing talents or Britney's demented fashion sense, the Boys still harmonize as well as the faceless background singers who prop up lesser pop puppets.

Mostly tepid adult-contemporary black pop. [22 Jan 2004, p.69]

A compilation that never quite jells.

His voice is a deeper, huskier shade of British blues, but it's consistent in its strength and optimism all over Nine Lives.

The Johnny Rzez­nik-assisted opener 'Declaration' sets the tone--guitars, lots of 'em--and 'Light On' has its Soundgarden-like charms, but without the right hook, 'Life on the Moon' and 'I Did It for You' come off like assembly-line active rock.

There are some highlights--an electro update of the Stones' 'Sway' and a sweet harmony-laden take on Neil Young's 'Looking for a Love'--but other tunes feel too heavy for Malin's reedy voice.

On their careening second album, the Rifles prove that they're a band to watch, especially on the title track.

It's proof that, just when you least expect it, he can still rage compellingly.

Ross' eighth album, though, raises doubts about how he'll fare in the era of the confessional, emotionally bare rap superstar. The man who once boasted 10-car garages and uncollected favors from dictators is now trafficking in the same honesty that made Future a critical smash and J. Cole a commercial one.

Occasionally snoozy but always intoxicating.

Prince does his Hendrix thing over turgid live-band grind, and songs like ''Whitecaps'' and ''Aintturninround,'' where 3rdEyeGirl step out front, have a New Age-y alt-rock feel, like No Doubt in a Funkadelic phase.

Not everything is so distinctive, and there's some generic Modest Mouse/Arcade Fire indie histrionics. But the Tapes are finding their voice.

Kells' voice remains one of the most flexible and inventive instruments in pop, but, even for him, Panties veers too frustratingly between horny and corny.

Under Rug Swept just about drowns in psychobabble.

Ashcroft's mastery of balladry makes "Buy It in Bottles" his best since the Verve's "Lucky Man."

Sleep Through the Static marks a tentative step forward for this improbable superstar.

At their best, they conjure a California-commune Arcade Fire. But they can also verge on a hippie Hee Haw.

The Beasties could have knocked out all twelve jams in a lazy weekend in 1992, 2007 or anywhere in between.

Here We Stand keeps up its predecessor's swagger, but the album's debts to glam and Brit-rock forbears (there's some Bowie and Clash here, too) give you a vague sense you've heard these songs before.

Producer Youth helps balloon the intensity skyhigh, making McCulloch the Bono of spider-web bangs and black regret.

Even guest turns from Run the Jewels and Skrillex can't add enough energy to make Big Grams feel like anything more than an attempt at landing a better festival slot.

[He brings] a real, radio-friendly pop element to electronic-based tunes he hopes will cross over.

The drawback is that when he isn’t playing guitar, the music on this disc is oddly muted.

On their first album in four years, Still Got That Hunger, Rod Argent's piano and Colin Blunstone's vocals go for a more straightforward blues-rock sound.

Most of Solarized sounds like a so-so Portishead record with perfect cheekbones, an expensive haircut and rock-star airheadedness even Noel Gallagher couldn't manage.

Duff set out to make an adult dance-pop record, with surprisingly successful results.

Yours Truly, Angry Mob is one of the catchier guitar records you'll hear all year... But the Kaiser Chiefs can also be a little shallow.

As usual, his imperial victory-march hip-hop songs are fun, and mildly exhausting.

The songs here sound more than just professional--they sound surprisingly lived-in and earthy. [9 Feb 2006, p.64]

Reznor's torture-device beats only magnify the push-pull between them [him and his wife, Mariqueen Maandig].

Push and Shove leans toward synthpop-flavored ballads with grown-up themes: relationship struggles, the rewards of long-term romance. The songs are catchy, but Gwen Stefani doesn't have the voice, or the gravitas, for grandiose tunes.

He seems a bit misguided in places, confusing the message and the medium as he enters these uncharted waters.

Morcheeba make a lovely sound, but they seem to be broadcasting from a very bright and pretty hell.

Has a mixed-bag feel.

Glowing tunes about romance and childhood memories abound on You and I, a hopped-up album of caffeinated power pop that is spiked with a lot of youthful kvetching.

On his fifth album, he mostly sticks to that pop-rap formula, cranking his distinctly melodic flow to hyper-speeds and playing the good-natured hedonist on cuts like 'Party People.' But when he tries to come off hard on a handful of Dirty South brawlers, he ends up sounding generic

Their debut sounds like Europop on Special K.

Timberland gives the Fab Five a sleek funk track on 'Nite-Runner,' which could have been a leftover from "FutureSex/LoveSounds." Justin Timberlake even arrives to gloss it up--as far as Duran Duran are concerned, the union of the Timber-Snake is on the rise.

Postcards From Paradise, his 18th solo effort, is a masterful summary of Ringo-ness: his cheer, his cheek, his wisdom.

Even when it's aggressively quirky, Duo De Twang are the most original and fun sound he's slapped out in years.

The result is the most boring music ever recorded by a teenager.

There are a few surprises, like when the sappy "Friday Afternoon" busts a left into Black Sabbath, but for the most part it's formulaic all the way.

There's a little heartbreak here and there, but drinking--a constant theme, naturally--helps wash it away.

Without new tricks, Die Antwoord risk coming across as no more than a panoply of gimmicky voices.

It's a messy album, one that's instrumentally inventive, melodically underdeveloped, vocally overcooked and lyrically just plain lazy.

The Last DJ is quintessential Petty, by turns strident and starry-eyed.

Sure, Cruel Runnings is a bit of a one-trick pony--but, you have to admit, it's a pretty great trick.

A CD of biblical rap would have been vastly more interesting than just tepid updates of the Run-DMC sound. [3 Nov 2005, p.96]

For better and for worse, Artpop meets the mandate (of cranking up the cray). It's a bizarre album of squelchy disco (plus a handful of forays into R&B) that aspires to link gallery culture and radio heaven, preferring concepts to choruses.

On their second album, this New York synth-pop duo trumpet the power of "Dumb Disco Ideas." And they've got more than a few of them, expertly cribbed from classic Depeche Mode, Italo-disco, Giorgio Moroder, New Order, LCD Soundsystem and more.

This soundtrack for the hottest show on TV could use more of the beat-you-with-a-broomstick fire of Taraji P. Henson's character.

Both albums could have been trimmed... but there's enough good stuff to recommend to Furnaces fans. [24 Aug 2006, p.95]

The 23-year-old Trinidad- born Brooklyn MC's neo-retro hip-hop mashes up TV on the Radio's vocal cadences, old-school break-dance beats and the forlorn melodic tug of a Smiths fan (he dropped This Charming Mixtape in 2009).

Octagon's verses often feel unfocused and random, but when he bears down he can be mesmerizing. [13 Jul 2006, p.103]

The music is often quick-paced fluff with the retro exactness, and the soul, of a Pottery Barn sofa. But for the most part, lang's lighter musical tack encourages her to retire the galloping self-regard that can cancel the attractiveness of her voice.

Cruz's singing lacks personality, and Rokstarr is ultimately a collection of decent, but generic, Eurodisco tracks without a star--"rok" or otherwise--to hold a listener's interest.

He's far better in originals like "Gone, Gone, Gone" and his hit "Home," which build from folksy picking to hooting power-ballad choruses, a pleasantly popified take on Arcade Fire. Those songs are redundant too--but the tunes leaven Phillips' overbearing self-seriousness.

The project, a grab bag of new songs, leaks, and material previously teased on Instagram Live, is often bittersweet and deeply contemplative, even by Drake’s standards.

These songs are powerfully felt, even if they probably won't end up getting within sniffing distance of Young's towering canon.

Too much of a hood thing--not to mention rampant self-obsession and too many dark, murky beats--make T.I. vs T.I.P. sound light on fresh ideas.

Perry has always done a great job of letting us know she's in on the joke of pop stardom. Sadly, she doesn't always bring that same sense of humor and self-awareness to the joke of pop-star introspection. The album's raft of ripe-lotus ballads is larded with Alanis-ian poesy she can't pull off.

The title Bounce is meant to be an exhortation to America after 9/11, and if it doesn't exactly offer poetic catharsis, the existence of the eighth Bon Jovi record is reassurance of a different kind: Life goes on.

Lyrically, Morello still goes over the top, piling on biblical references and Dylanesque nonsense like "one-eyed crow, tappin' on the windowpane." But with a solid band behind him, he seems much more confident in his new role as a modern protest troubadour.

These two Australian brothers deliver Phoenix-like dance pop that's so big on airy hooks that its lyrical lightheadedness isn't too much of a problem.

Vulnerable is Tricky's most accessible album since Maxinquaye, but it has neither that album's shock of the new nor its enduring appeal.

Marilyn Manson-isms still haunt singer Jay Gordon, but this time he binds his secondhand poetics to a forward-looking glam too catchy to be denied.

Gringo's very modern garage-rock bedrock supports the experimentalism well.

There are a few whiffs, like the foul "She's a Hot One" ("She might be a mess, but she's a hot one"), but Bryan truly excels when he's all nostalgic for the uncomplicated ease of a summer fling in "Sunrise, Sunburn, Sunset" or subtly acknowledging the beauty of all types of love in the gently uplifting "Most People Are Good."

While they've spiffed up their sound for the dance floor, the band found some of its greatest inspiration in pop-wise hip-hop - "Lies Greed Misery," a sweet-and-sour gem, is guaranteed to make you jump.

Star Matthew Morrison couldn't rap his way out of a 98° rehearsal. But Amber "Mercedes" Riley crushes Jazmine Sullivan's 'Bust Your Windows,' and the Gleeks' 'Don't Stop Believin'' is a triumphal moment against which resistance is futile.

Wyclef's third solo album, while entertaining enough, is short on the sane, humane pleasures so plentiful on the first two.

What's surprising is that there's still so much life in what Manson is rehashing.

Folklore is a Whoa, Nelly! redux, without a single as good as "I'm Like a Bird."

Carlos Santana's signature tone meshes handsomely with Romeo Santos' breathy tenor ("Margarita") and sells even generic jams ("La Flaca," with Colombian star Juanes).

Third Eye Blind frontman Stephan Jenkins still rocks the same springy sing-rap, and he's still got a knack for spinning sunshine out of moody tunes.

More color than meaning, but seductive enough to lure you in and keep you there.

It's still a Moby album--patient tempos, frosted with strings and comfortably melancholy melodies. But working with his first outside producer, Mark "Spike" Stent (Gaga, Beyoncé, Massive Attack), has made him knuckle down; the writing is sharper than on 2009's sketchy Wait for Me or 2011's overblown Destroyed.

Her musical instincts are off, and she steamrolls nearly every song with her bombastic blues growl.

Few would argue that Of Montreal leader Kevin Barnes lost his freakiness in the feverish pursuit of soul-rock nirvana, but this five-track EP of outtakes from last year's False Priest nevertheless hedges his bets.

The music, sadly, can be just as tough to follow.

It's even more hook-slathered and fetchingly tuneful than the first.

Black Letter Days evokes an early-Seventies Stones bootleg -- a little bit country, a little bit rock & roll - minus the danger.

The big difference this time out is that the beats are as aggressive as Canibus' lyrics...

On Golden Lies, weighty midtempo rock hobbles the Pups' trademark blend of cow-punk, blues and hallucinatory instrumental rants.

It's perfect mood music for teen girls and the sensitive guys who want to hold their purses.

Ideally, Durk would have cut five or so songs and tightened Almost Healed into a clearer portrait of his struggle to leave his pistol-scarred past behind. Instead, he offers his fans a buffet of listening options, some better than others.

[Many] of the songs sound like Blink castoffs.

His 16th studio album, Y Not--recorded with a cast of all-stars including Paul McCartney and Joss Stone--is full of straightforward, sweetly melodic tunes, most of them about Starr's abiding optimism.

Sure, these mirrored LPs--10 songs given lavish orchestral arrangements and also offered as solo performances on a bonus disc--might be stronger as one cherry-picked set of unrepeated songs. But it wouldn't be half as interesting.

X may be their niftiest since Adrenalize.