The album is merely another entry into an increasingly anonymous realm where the formulas are starting to run as thin as the bass lines on any of the A*Teens' songs.

From the start, Because We Hate You presents itself as a rawer, more blustery affair.

While Run-D.M.C.'s chest-thumping reclamations of its prominence grow tiresome through the course of the disc -- they need to do more showing than telling -- the good news is that the tracks helmed by the group ("Crown Royal," "Aye Papi," "Ash," and "Simmons Incorporated") show that its own creative touch is still intact.

Like so many of Master P's own productions, the music here stems almost completely from synthesizers, a fact that diminishes the potency of the grooves on My World, My Way. With so many of the right elements in place on tracks like "Beef" and "Uh Ha," it's a shame to hear cheesy synth lines where a shattering bass should have been.

Production is a dance record, but Mirwais is no mere slave to the rhythm. While other artists keep the BPM pumped up, the songs here drift and simmer. "V.I. (The Last Words She Said Before Leaving," for example, creeps along at a funereal pace for more than six minutes and doesn't catch much of a beat until four minutes in.

Without the thundering drums and over-amped testosterone of the originals, the songs are revealed as the beautiful blues-based writings they in fact are.

In a genre that is often as repetitive as it is flighty, the witty and musically well-informed Essential Mix, though unrevelatory, works beyond the club floor, too.

The new disc has a feeling of renewal, a sense of freedom, and perhaps even fun.

Occasionally, it all works, coalescing into something with passion and imagination... In other spots, however, Frusciante's amateur (and sometimes listless) singing proves to be a major letdown, even with souped-up reverbs and megaphonic EQ-ing.

Unlike fellow retro-futurists Chicks on Speed and Sylvester Boy, Ladytron doesn't completely upend new wave conventions to make a jarring artistic statement, nor are its songs as transcendent as those penned by Stephin Merritt (the Magnetic Fields) for his Future Bible Heroes project. Regardless, "604" is a smart, frisky, and invigorating listen...

Osmond could teach today's teen idols a thing or two about singing. His pure, clear tenor voice still shines as bright as his trademark smile. But This Is the Moment is mostly meant for adult easy listening pleasure, and it's not a stretch to say that it mostly succeeds on that level.

For each misstep (like the relentless snare drum on the opening track "Sunflower") there are moments of sublime beauty like "Laser Beam," which feels more like a prayer than a song.

Even when the band rocks, the music is tethered to a hazy, psychedelic vibe. Occupying each end of the CD's narrow stylistic spectrum are "Pup Tent," which sounds like the Cowboy Junkies covering The Doors, and "Sideshow by the Seashore," which conjures up the image of Crazy Horse being fronted by acclaimed Athens singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt.

You Had It Coming stands as his best work since 1989's Guitar Shop.

Stewart is surely a fine singer, but not quite at that level of being able to make the phone book sound like a masterpiece. He needs the songs, and on Human, he's only as good as the material that others provide.

With its grove of synthesizers, sequencers, and sonically treated vocals, it's music without pulp -- or a great deal of heart.

Strangely enough, it seems the further Black distances himself from his heroic work in The Pixies, the better he gets.

Joined by a bevy of bluegrass talent, including Jerry Douglas, Chris Thile, and Alison Krauss, Little Sparrow is a richly wrought, beautifully performed labor of love for Parton.

She's giving us déjà vu all over and over and over again by basically sticking to the same set of sonic templates throughout the 15-track album, never making much effort to shift up the tempos, melodies, and structures.

The Donnas do what they do just fine, but, four albums into their career, you can't help but want to see a little bit of growth in place of arrested development.

The sort of disc that inevitably prompts skeptics to ask, "You call that music?"

Problem is, Alabama's pop panache, which made it at least a guilty pleasure for much of the '80s, seems to have been replaced by an impulse toward pure schmaltz.

The members of the group craft melodic grooves that mesh with unpolished but tuneful guitars and mellow vocals into a lo-fi ambient sound that grows on the listener.

But other selections feel more like skeletal sketches than finished songs, composed of interesting components but short on fully developed ideas and momentum. Great stuff for background noise at a party, or in a TV commercia, but not necessarily compelling headphone fare.

It gets tiresome, sure, but should this Dogg be put to sleep? Not yet. He's still coming up with funky beats and rhymes (like every single day).

A grab-bag set of videos and live and unreleased recordings that are more of an enhancement for devotees' collections than an introduction for neophytes.

For all his flexibility, Xzibit's Restless is more skewed to the cars and clubs than the basement, due in no small part to Dr. Dre's influence as the album's executive producer. Restless rolls in the same kind of fluid funk that Dre's brought to both his and Eminem's recent albums -- fat electric bass lines and synthesized symphonics.

Pitching in on Road Rock are such longstanding Young cohorts as Spooner Oldham (keyboards), Jim Keltner (drums), and Ben Keith (guitars), but such is the CD's murky sound that the contributions of all are rendered a bit flat. Moreover, although the collection clocks in at 65 minutes, the performance feels truncated and lacks thematic unity.