These meanderings are the kind of indulgence that ends label deals.

What gave Shawn Christensen and his botched tonsillectomy the idea of joining the exalted ranks of Robert Smith and Simon Le Bon?

Like most schmoograssers they're committed to virtuosity for its own sake, and like most young musos they've been too focused on technique to learn much about how music interacts with life.

Where once these Norwegians were extolled for their subtle melodicism, here their schlock candidly attacks the jugular.

Lest you doubted it, this is grotesque.

This no-talent is masscult rock at its most brazen.

Beyond some rich-and-famous irony, not a single suburban detail soils an hour of good intentions. And you know the music overreaches too.

There's no economics, no race, hardly any compassion. Joe name-checks America as if his hometown of Berkeley was in the middle of it, then name-checks Jesus as if he's never met anyone who's attended church. And to lend his maunderings rock grandeur, he ties them together with devices that sunk under their own weight back when the Who invented them.

Boring strummed singer-songwritering with not terribly interesting electronica.

Inferior to not just Nirvana but Oasis.

His voice devoid of Newman-Waits grit, his eclecticism even and controlled where theirs bristles with jokes, oddity, and gusto, how does he expect to connect with anyone but other likable progressives, and rather detached and inscrutable ones at that?

The musical parsimony, cultural insularity, moral certitude, and histrionic affectations of these lo-fi artier-than-thous promise indie ideologues whole lifetimes of egoistic irrelevance.

[A] sentimental cutesification of surf and country.

Norah Jones is herself, give her that. I hate to think what this phenom will have to go through to get that far.

He claims his Dave Matthews-sponsored major- label debut was his chance to make a true band record, and I guess his boys are trickier than Crazy Horse, just not in any way you haven't heard before.

These Danes aren't tuned-in enough for stereotype play.

The sole outright attraction of her pathologically modest follow-up is "Then Ya Gone."

Face it, folks--when it comes to putting good old rock 'n' roll on record, a bass player really helps.

When she goes ragga on the way out I wish she hadn't been groomed for something bigger and blander. But she made her choice.

For her fans, the news is that she's invested her profits in studio musicians. Takes talent to make that more boring than solo acoustic, no?

Bad laptop Blondie.

While the songwriting ain't bad, it also ain't that good.

Deeply anonymous.

No dolt, she figures it's in her best interest to sound like one--as well as an insider outsider like Gush and Bore, whose horrible lessons in playing it safe she takes to heart.

Mediocre pop songs with pretensions.

[Crosses] PG-13 thug and subpar Luther Vandross.

These ill jockeys are just a two-inch ruler for Marshall Mathers to measure his dick against.

There are better beats on the damn Jadakiss CD.