Nelly's caught between a rock and a hardass place--he's too edgy to comfortably collaborate with 'N Sync's Justin Timberlake but too corny to dig into the Neptunes' sleazily sinister beats on lead single "Hot In Herre." [Aug 2002, p.109]

Clef sounds more invested in his music when he's appropriating other people's songs. [Jul 2002, p.109]

Straining to prove something to the haters, the Ring flee from their strengths, trading enthusiastic bash-and-pop for slow songs as soggy as deep cuts from a Train album. [May 2002, p.115]

Unlike When I Was Born, which made similar pileups sound subversive, Handcream often feels mapless. [May 2002, p.122]

There's plenty of that spacey/dirty sound on Loud, even when the tracks don't fit the trance template. [Apr 2002, p.122]

South's tunes tend to wobble in very slow circles, and Joel Cadbury has picked up soggy vocal habits from Coldplay's Chris Martin. [Mar 2002, p.127]

Is a Woman finds Lambchop turning into America's Tindersticks, replacing songcraft with baroque digressions. [Mar 2002, p.134]

Not many of the expansive, leisurely songs on Asleep In The Back stick in the memory once they've ended, but they swoon nicely. [Mar 2002, p.127]

Cool people probably think this sort of utilitarian grab bag dumbs down Beck-like eclecticism. But maybe it didn't take such a genius to come up with it in the first place. [Jan 2001, p.109]

These tunes dig deeper than the musings of, say, Michelle Branch, but none are groundbreaking or revealing enough to suggest that Pink has learned to navigate the space between fluffy and toughie. [Jan 2002, p.108]

If the studio stuff lacks punch, her live material pulls fresh meaning from her music's subtlety. [Feb 2002, p.110]

It's sad to see the rocker side that Lynne has unveiled in her live sets turned into histrionic failures like "Trust Me," "Star Broker," and "Jesus On A Greyhound." [Dec 2001, p.154]

Tough guitar scrimmages, soaring supergroup moments that last a lifetime, boner-like intensity, roto-toms--Astronauts has it all. [March 2002, p.130]

Amazingly enough, she does sound almost human. [Jan 2002, p.108]

No matter how much Lenny plays it hard, there isn't that much difference between his ballads and his rock moves. [Dec 2001, p.151]

Dilated Peoples continue to hold down hip-hop's middle ground with inoffensive mic purism and sophisticated production a la mid-'90s DJ Premier. [Dec 2001, p.158]

The thrills come when he jumps off the cross and gets on the dance floor. [Nov 2001, p.129]

The resulting cavalcade of "decent bits" seldom leaves an imprint in your memory, let alone your heart. [Nov 2001, p.130]

Golden State merely sounds like Bush--not as buffed as 1999's The Science of Things, but slicker than 1996's Razorblade Suitcase. [Dec 2001, p.152]

Aneurysm drumming and Offsprung power chords mimic the tiffs of teenage L-U-V. [Nov 2001, p.129]

These grooves shimmer brighter than anything he's done since 1999's disco-house monolith, 2Future4U. [Nov 2001, p.132]

Pierce's flimsy voice and material buckle under the weight of the Technicolor bombast on Let It Come Down. [Oct 2001, p.127]

There is a sense on V that Live will stay around long enough to ride into the state-fair sunset. [Oct 2001, p.137]

At its best, Weird Revolution is danceable and degenerate... It's a tight package, but the holes start to show on the title track... [Oct 2001, p.132]

It's a Wonderful Life comes off like a Magical Soft Mystery Bulletin. Yet, those iridescent orchestrations seem to be covering for the underdeveloped dirges that dominate the album. [Oct 2001, p.127]

These airy confections of analog-synth purrs and Chicago brass and Laetitia Sadier's obliquely humanist lyrics are distinguishable from one another by tone palette more than by hooks or style. [Oct 2001, p.126]

Guest shots from rock stars like Tom Morello and Scott Weiland can't make up for a sorry lack of head-banging hooks... [Sep 2001, p.163]

Unlike her major-label LPs, this is a stringently stripped-down, dark-side-of-the-mountain album that's near impossible to cozy up with. [Oct 2001, p.131]