The collaboration ultimately benefits both players, adding a touch of art house abandon to Hammond's at times studied formalism, and authenticity to Waits' Martian grease-monkey blues.

A curious time warp of a recording: loud, soft, tender, mean, thoughtful, reckless.

Ditching lo-fi aesthetics for a more radio-ready sound in the spirit of, say, the Raspberries or Badfinger, Pollard has wisely chosen not bury his songs in oblique lyrical references and muddy tape hiss.

From its thunderous beginning to its quiet, echoing end, MACHINA/the machines of God is perfect dancing-in-the-dark-with-yourself-'cause-you-have-angst-in-your-pants music.

A smart, sensitive blend of head and heart.

While Bilal's vocal gymnastics -- high-arching notes, off-rhythm choruses and complex harmonies -- add texture to these songs, many of them sound too musically similar to everything else in the neo-soul movement. He's at his best on the tracks that he or his partner, Dahoud Darien, have produced themselves.

Feeding everything from polyrhythmic samba marches and interstellar jazz excursions into his mixer-microprocessor, then topping them off with obsessive beat-programming, Tobin blurs the boundaries between organic and prefabricated, as if the coexistence of the two should be an undeniable rule.

Recorded at various venues between 1990 and 1996, the versions of the songs that appear on Live are generally rougher and more expansive than their studio counterparts. And they're not only loud: they're heavy. Mike Inez's bass feels like it's jammed in your spine. Vocalist Layne Staley -- he of the well-documented battle with heroin addiction -- sounds like someone in crisis who may implode at any moment. He grips you, and you lose yourself in his struggle. All of this helps make these performances vital.

A lot of what distinguishes Wonderful Life is its fragility. At its best, the music feels as though it could blow apart at any moment.

Longtime fans will no doubt be initially thrown by the lack of "motorik" beats and general rock action here. Yet after a couple of listens, many of Exciter's songs begin to worm their way into the subconscious.

Many of the 14 songs here are laced with the type of psychedelic lyrics that have always characterized Kirkwood's writing...

Such lightness of touch is missing from the between-song skits, which have Franti posing as a DJ on a community-radio show, conducting interviews and dispensing commentary on the death penalty. But the between-skit songs are terrific.

Melissa Etheridge's Skin belongs in a tradition of breakup albums that includes Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel of Love and Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear.

J.Lo has a feisty, damn-I-know-I'm-all-that attitude, combined with pulsating, insistent beats that leap out of the speakers and make you wanna move.

While the San Francisco-based songwriter is still crafting unmistakably Eitzel-esque gloom tunes, his latest, The Invisible Man, is his most eclectic outing to date, veering from the low-key electronica of the opening track to the understated atmospherics of "Sleep."

The new Ben Folds is a lot like the old one: as unpredictable as he is talented.

This maturing band is getting closer to a fully realized vision.

Harding has streamlined his lyrics and placed them in taut, soulful settings à la John Hiatt...

His most consistently slamming release since 1990's Brick by Brick.

Spears' new album does sound exactly like her last one.

With Lewis' weighty, tuneful voice and Mike Mushok's meaty, anthemic guitar, Staind recall the Soundgarden/Alice in Chains era of early-'90s rock. Free of phony posturing, DJ scratching and over-reliance on vapid thrash riffs, they're almost like an alternative version of today's mainstream metal.

And while not so instantly accessible as much of the band's recent output, the songs still manage to be catchy, if elusively so; this is an album that rewards repeated listening.

With guitars down in the mix (when they aren't unplugged altogether), Clapton's ever-evolving voice is the real centerpiece.

It ain't Dusty Springfield's Dusty in Memphis, but it's close.

Even though O'Connor adopts a penitent tone on Faith and Courage, this album is no concession to anyone or anything. O'Connor is still O'Connor: strident, contradictory, motherly, seductive.

Mandy Moore is a pop album to be proud of: every song has a good melody, a solid hook, and dramatically improved singing from its star.

A trip into the prettiest altered states the Lips have yet kissed.