Though she nods at Rihanna-style slither and Britney-esque grind, this is the sound of Gomez gliding gracefully into adulthood.

The backup ain't the Smiths, but its solid and campy, adding its own wit. As philosophical alt-rock standup goes, the man is still peerless.

Third Eye Blind are as earnest and energetic as ever but sadly uncatchy.

Space Invader does have a carefree abandon that Kiss' 21st-century LPs have lacked. It also contains any number of lyrics cringe-worthy enough for his old band.

Her first album in three years, Reasonable Woman, is also solid, a return to the aesthetic mean that works more than it doesn’t. None of the singles released from it so far have been hits, but they’re all resolutely competent examples of Sia’s knack for sweeping, feelings-heavy glitz.

On Rolling Papers, Khalifa, the 23-year-old Pittsburgh rhymer responsible for the jersey-waving hit "Black and Yellow," manages to give life to those kinds of cash-gorged perma-baked cliches by warmly luxuriating in the space between pop's fresh-faced exuberance and hip-hop's easy arrogance--between skater and playa, Bieber and Biggie.

As quality control at Khaled HQ dips slightly yet noticeably, it might be time for him to receive more undeserved blame than undeserved credit. ... With no commercially undeniable moments like the Rihanna showcase “Wild Thoughts” (from Khaled’s Grateful), Father of Asahd grooves along like an adequate 54-minute stretch of hip-hop/R&B radio (with no commercials, at least).

Bigger Love, his seventh album, shows off the emerging subtlety of his musical craft and social messaging.

Their ballads now get choked up over bygone glory days, while their Gary Glitter and Bryan Adams riffs sound re-purposed for sports and strip bars.

She's one of the most richly idiomatic female pop singers of her generation, combining the blazing timbral containment of Karen Carpenter with the rootsy looseness of Bonnie Raitt.

An indie version of Weezer's arena emo.

Like everything else he plays, Nelson's blues are unforced and natural.... The result is emotionally rich, musically savory and languidly blue from end to end.

By combining the cinematic ambition of Massive Attack with A Tribe Called Quest's soul-clap minimalism, Slum Village step forward on Trinity -- even if, at sixty-nine sprawling minutes, it could have used some serious pruning.

Chingy is charming in presence and in singsong flow, but not particularly engaging. [25 Nov 2004, p.91]

His new release might be his most sophomoric yet.

The coldness of the instrumentals is compounded by the duo’s vocal delivery.

Songwriters Justin Rice and Christian Rudder are fluent melodists, but the hooks can't redeem a peppy preciousness that veers into indie self-parody--the sound of post-collegiates far too convinced that they're clever and quirky.

The endlessly hooky Valley veers from funk-furnished, thrashing tragicomedies ("Waiting") to springy eulogies for the past.

Frontman John Rzeznik remains an assured singer. But amid his vocal polish is a new sense of strain, and for a band this lightweight, the additional anxiety doesn't flatter.

The beats and some sharp songwriting keep Milian's unremarkably airy voice from having to stand on its own. [18 May 2006, p.229]

Earthy, impressively diverse. [28 Oct 2004, p.101]

Kaiser Chiefs' fifth album is full of frothingly pissed-off working-class British rock, with shades of glam, pub rock, the Jam's lefty-mod broadsides and Oasis at their most soccerhooligan-y.

Ja Rule seems to be more interested in movin' on up (to the pop side) than keeping grounded on the gangsta grid.

The downside of Glitter is the downside of all Mariah Carey albums. They're called "ballads," and Mariah still likes them big and goopy, with zero melodic or emotional punch.

The last holdover from Xzibit's underground days is also his sole weakness: cartoonish hooks that sometimes spiral solid material off in an awkward direction. Otherwise, Man vs. Machine is state-of-the-art.

There are lyrical uh-oh moments ("Schizophrenic Playboy"), but Roses reminds us that note-hammering Brits from Adele to Florence owe Dolly a small debt.

Outside of its strong singles ("Only That Real" and "What You 'Bout"), Sincerely fades into rap's existing trends instead of bucking them.

The fruits of their shared labor aren’t perfect—one can pinpoint obvious echoes of Overgrown era James Blake on the album, and the prominent use of murky effects often feels like a crutch to distract from undercooked songwriting. But Secret Life is ultimately a strong outlier in each artist’s handful of recent releases.

The Mums were much more likable back when they were pretending to be coal miners who churned their own butter. Compared to this stuff, that was a decent look.

The band's thrift-store pastiche, from that track's skidding-siren hook to a few not-quite-ecstatic EDM-style builds, has a manic, self-aware intensity – call it grandiosi-twee. And try to take it in small doses.

The band's third disc is the sharpest distillation of its neo-college rock yet, with Animal Collective producer Ben H. Allen's arty, wall-of-sound approach brightening singer-guitarist Parker Gispert's underdog anthems while rarely slowing them down.

"Make better music," he wills himself on "Bolo Tie." And sometimes he does, especially when the beats turn soulful and artists like Leon Bridges and Chance the Rapper swing by for assists. With the exception of the exuberant "Downtown," coming up with "Thrift Shop"-style catchiness is rarely the goal here.

Many of the elements that drove Skrillex's initial success are still somewhere in the mix on Recess: the suffocating low end, the serrated edges, the industrial-strength aggression, the disorienting collisions of sound shards, the vocals distorted until they sound like alien transmissions.

No Mercy is the sound of a rapper addressing his idiocy without sacrificing his swagger. Sometimes, the gravitas feels perfunctory, like T.I. is just fulfilling a public-service requirement; other times, it totally backfires.

The album is oddly inert, lacking both the brute force and big choruses that raised Linkin Park to rap-rock godhead status.

Like most of Riley's music, it's full of gorgeous air, exposed emotions and rhythms that have a mathematical integrity.

Osborne impresses with the warmth and human embrace of her voice.

For people who enjoy watching celebrities fall apart, America's Sweetheart should be more fun than an Osbournes marathon.

It all adds up to a concept album about war that screams with a whisper.

Most of Ultra Payload feels pretty random.

The music, co-produced by Dave Stewart, plays up his jolly charm.

The band plods more than pushes, and while the riffs stick, the songs generally don't.

Deadmau5 brings a love of spectacle--and the humor of a natural ham--to his strobe-lit club anthems.

On his third LP (and first minus additional songwriters), 22-year-old U.K. roots revivalist Jake Bugg mixes Americana and British folk as skillfully as ever. ... He's less successful updating his sound.

His first album since 2006 is a proudly nostalgic testament to the Shaolin way, full of vintage, gritty New York beats, cameos from pals like Redman (plus Wu brothers Inspectah Deck and Raekwon), and a chill, shooting-the-shit vibe.

Perhaps the most significant proof of Yellowcard's maturity is their restraint: Violinist Sean Mackin's chops are showcased with much greater subtlety on Lights and Sounds.

Stone is best when she's rawest, bookending LP1 with "Newborn" and "Take Good Care," stripped-down tunes where her howl goes from plaintive to bone-shaking in a few lovesick heartbeats.

These nine buoyant, no-frills tunes could've been recorded anytime in the past 40 years.

You root for the good intentions and enjoy the glints of sunlight from singer/viola player Anna Bulbrook. But portentous verses thud like birds against fuselage.

They might not be as manic and frantic... But The Spine rocks without any loss of wit or melody.

Unfortunately Imagine Dragons’ actual vision is one that is milquetoast, formulaic, nearly anonymous, free of any real lyrical insight. ... The one place where the Dragons themselves really shine is an outlier in their catalog: “Zero,” made for Ralph Breaks the Internet, is a giddy college rocker that does for the Cure, David Bowie and Jimmy Eat World what Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson did for Prince, Gap Band and Zapp.

The band mostly avoids the mythic seriousness of the past in favor of party-ready stuff like "Country Girl" and meaty rock sonics.

By letting Dr. Dre take over the low-end-funk production, and rhyming about things he actually cares about, he comes up with a more painful, honest and vital record than anyone could have expected at this late date, up there with "The Eminem Show" or maybe even better.

His latest is two discs and all over the highway, from the solid rock of "Missin' Cleveland" to the banjo-glam ballad 'Tango With Your Mind' to the bossa-nova glide of 'Killing Me Sweetly.'

For all the glitzy sonic veneer -- echoed vocals, swirling, effect-laden guitars, time-travel keyboards -- the album never sacrifices the heart of the song.

The singing's understatement and harmonic sophistication help the band transcend overblown corporate rock and embrace sensitive emo pop.

Cry remains contrived, an album of crocodile tears from an entertainer who can sing anything but often means nothing.

It takes gall to put a song called 'No Surprise' on your second disc, but gall is something Daughtry does not lack, and that's what made him one of the only bona fide rock stars to come out of American Idol.

Many of Sleepy's songs sound oddly unfinished, relying too heavily on his insistent falsetto.

While Grobler's music often bursts with light, frivolous energy, this album has an undertone of dissatisfaction that's new.

Future mostly sounds like a bunch of so-so Smashing Pumpkins songs, stripped of everything except Corgan's adenoidal vocals, and then set to a chorus of synths and electronic drumbeats.

She's grown into her voice. Now, if only her music would grow up too.

He's just a bit too overeager--too determined to please all of the people all of the time.

They joyfully plunder rock riffs and hip-hop beats, but a logjam of lousy ballads suggests Bryan Adams embodies their ideal of maturity.

He’s equally rooted in old-school melody and beat-derived new-century songwriting. In its best moments, = brings together those two worlds. ... Yet as genuinely in love as he appears, his devotional songs tend to bog down in generalized sentiments and gooier melodies.

The band can still deliver the angsty goods (check out the gusty "My Shadow"), but Keane have proved themselves masters of--gasp!--pop perkiness.

Lewis is technically flawless, but behind lyrics about "the scars on my heart," there's little personality.

James Alex re-ups the Replacements' underdog thrash for a new generation, and he's so on point. [Jan 2020, p.84]

On an album where she's surrounded by dudes (including her pal Spank Rock), she makes being ladylike sound hardcore.

Her ballads and neo-disco songs are steeped in lovelorn melodrama, but her bland persona doesn't give the storms life. You're left with saggy stylistic gestures that seem to drag on, endlessly.

While the 21-year-old singer rocks more sass and self-empowerment on her full-length major-label debut (which, confusingly, shares a name with the four-song EP she released in September), she's also charmingly old-fashioned.

The end result isn't quite as lovable as they'd like.

Almost every song features a skull-rattling groove and one or two darkly melodic hooks. [16 Sep 2004, p.79]

It falters when the band indulges in out-of-nowhere rap verses or misplaced filtered vocals.

Music is the Weapon is a stale, mixed bag that aspires to the global ubiquity and incredible commercial success of Major Lazer’s 2015 spastic moombahton anthem “Lean On.”

It would be laughable if Flowers wasn't 100 percent committed, and if the hooks on Flamingo weren't irresistible. He is, and they are - and you'll be too busy singing along to giggle.

The songs he has chosen--have been reinterpreted so many thousands of times, he'd have to reinvent them to get anyone to pay attention, and the only thing new that Seal brings to the party is a feeling of swank Euro-sophistication that saps the music of much of its emotional oomph.

Ekko's debut solo LP similarly informs grand pop drama with indie idiosyncrasy – but never quite enough to distinguish it, his stirring tenor notwithstanding.

It's unclear if the sentiments are intended as poignant or as punch lines. But on a set wired with this much sonic wit, the sincerity question may be moot.

But there are more moments when all-too-human messes lurk beneath the veneer of producer Don Was' perfect pop tracks, moments when the relentless sunniness of the music is pierced by sober themes (the last song, "Tonight Is the Night I Fell Asleep at the Wheel," is a graphic account of car-wreck carnage) and dark, psychological-profile assessments. In turning the snarky level down a notch, Robertson and Page haven't sacrificed the band's good-time giddiness -- they've just opened things up a bit.

On Shaman, too many visitors sound as if they're climbing on a gravy train, handing over standard-issue love songs for Santana overdubs. It makes you wonder whether Santana ever met some of his collaborators.

Even when it's too adult-contempo (see Steve Vai grating new age cheese all over "Isfahan") this album always has one thing going for it – it makes you want to listen to some Duke Ellington.

The album is less a reboot than a re-affirmation of their ability to fuse over-the-top oversharing and Queen-ly operatic stomp with an elastic vision of pop.

Thicke dulled previous LPs with expressions of angst--here, he makes a near-perfect summer record by acting like his life is as perfect as his hair.

The best thing about Zeitgeist is that Corgan is back to what he does best: hard-rock architecture.

Coyne's kaleidoscope eyes were too big for his own good this time.

His loudest, most adolescent and downright unwholesome album since the Stooges imploded nearly thirty years ago.

The Crystal brothers score low on originality, but they certainly know how to make cheaply pleasurable noise.

The songwriting needs a personality infusion and more gray cells, but numbers such as "The Dance" have the enthusiasm of a puppy powered by a nuclear reactor, making the Music an apt opening act for the likes of New Order and Coldplay.

Whether skating over house beats on "Plastic Rose" or cruising through a ballad like "Denim Jacket," Levine proves himself a pliant star of Jacksonian ease and Stingly self-assurance.

This collection of favorites by the likes of Randy Newman, the Carpenters, Jim Croce, Bob Dylan and Elton John, among others, fits easily into her tastefully eclectic comfort zone.

Like Dorian Gray with a blowout, nu-metal holdovers Papa Roach have made their latest album sound like an eerie time capsule from the early 2000s.

Covers, then, is a fan's notes: a great singer-songwriter playing DJ, showcasing songs he loves for listeners who love him.

His obligatory jet-setter brags about high-dollar shopping sprees and b-words he's f-worded strain for credibility, not fooling anybody.

This record isn’t the return to form that it aims to be, but Chainz is back in his element here.

Johansson's voice is unremarkable and her pitch sometimes unsteady; she's a faintly goth Marilyn Monroe lost in a sonic fog.

As compelling as Trippie’s vocals and production are, each track leaves the listener feeling like he could be doing more as a songwriter. ... But overall, Trippie’s unmistakable mic presence, and ear for beats make the highs of Mansion Musik an overall enjoyable experience.

If you like rock gratuitously big and laced with soggy self-pity, frontman James Allan, and his enabler, superproducer Flood, are here to help.