The fact that the end results sound similar to Go's machine-made rivals proves to be a double-edged sword, however, both attracting fans for its genuine approach and repelling others for its similarity to manufactured pop.

Their charm wears thin with each passing track, and Stride's hit-making approach becomes increasingly plain in the process. In the end, it's something of a blessing that Everybody Wants to Be on TV is over and done with in a mere 34 minutes' time.

A solid collection of the kind of classic speed metal that Anvil have been trying to make a name for themselves with for 35 years now.

Fanatics only; everyone else can grab the singles.

The problem is not with Katy's gender-bending, it's that her heart isn't in it; she's just using it to get her places, so she sinks to crass, craven depths that turn One of the Boys into a grotesque emblem of all the wretched excesses of this decade.

While a few songs put the "meh" back in melodramatic ('Walking Away,' 'This Is the End'), This Is Forever is full of catchy songs that improve on the band's first album.

Big Bad World is a tidy, enjoyable release, and the Plain White T's deserve points for remaining grounded after a meteoric year.

It's no better or worse than her 2002 debut or 2003's Chapter II, with the standout singles, decent album cuts, and filler fluff provided in equal doses.

Life Love & Hope doesn't, and hearing it might lead a devoted Boston follower to believe that, despite the few moments when things come together nicely, maybe Scholz has finally lost his touch. Check back in another decade for further developments.

All this radio-ready variety suggested that Wallen wanted to appeal to every audience everywhere, but in the wake of his scandal, this multi-purpose crowd-pleasing suggests an artist who wants to provide the perpetual jukebox within a walled garden.

These clean, open arrangements tend to make the songs seem catchier than they actually are--the hooks don't grab, they repeat like softened incantations that never quite catch hold--but that does give No Baggage an nice, gentle shimmer that's appealing.

Even with this change of tone, the album is still classic Shinedown, and though this kind of triumphant mood will probably disappoint fans looking for something to cut loose and pump their fists to.

More often than not, they connect with the material in unexpected ways.... Problems occur when they can't find a convincing way to graft their highly identifiable sound onto the song.

Apart from the lovely ambient instrumentals that open and close it, the album is all valley and no peaks.

Metamorphosis has a dire determination to its purported good times, its riffs grinding instead of greasy, its rhythms clenched where they should be loose.

Just about all of it is enjoyable, but not much of it sticks.

He's certainly less distinctive as a rapper than he is as a singer--both lyrically and vocally--original only for the level of his combativeness and the number of times he references his luxury coupe and wrist wear.

Unfortunately, too much of Tourist seems like an amalgam of other things, whether it's the Coldplay-ness of their ballads or the distinct Super Furry Animals influence that's been with Athlete all along.

Ultimately, this is likely to satisfy only the most devout sects of Brown's and Tyga's fan bases.

Given her promotion to the Paula Abdul seat on American Idol, there's a distinct irony in having the first sounds on Jennifer Lopez's Love? all twisted through a vocoder: she may be judging the pop purity of legions of hopeful singers, but even she can't resist the siren call of the computer.

Ultimately Mudvayne gets lost between thrash and diluted Slipknot devotion.

It finds Morgenstern honing her popcraft and scaling back her artier impulses to yield her most concise, song-oriented and--relatively speaking--immediate work to date.

Cattle Core may well have a future as a metal subgenre, but Hank3 may want to shoot for an EP or a single next time rather than filling up a whole CD as he does on Cattle Callin.

For the most part, however, The Death of Slim Shady is a bewildering slog to get through. The general concept gets old almost immediately, and from there we're left with a painful lack of new ideas

LL sounds rusty and a bit under-rehearsed as he belts out his iffy punch lines and motivational anthems, but he pours his heart into the pop numbers and sounds at home during the nostalgic throwbacks.

This Is My Dinner isn't a radical departure from the albums Kozelek has been pumping out since Benji, but it's clear evidence of how tedious and self-indulgent his style has become.

If Famous Monsters was a step back for the Misfits legacy, this is a bigger step in the wrong direction.

The best moments of ...Earth to the Dandy Warhols... rival the Dandys' finest work, and despite some weak spots, it's a giant leap in the right direction.

Neither country nor Americana, Peck is a hip outsider who is now rubbing shoulders with the anodyne likes of Thomas Rhett, Morgan Wallen, Blanco Brown, and the Jonas Brothers, a group that makes for a passable enough half hour of entertainment but collectively don't add up to a cohesive or surprising country-pop aesthetic from Diplo.

The issue isn't that it's a pop effort; indeed, they get points for a brave attempt so outside of their wheelhouse. The problem is that much of One More Light is devoid of that visceral charge that previously defined much of their catalog. It's a provocative challenge that ultimately fails to satisfy.

Though it's only a lean 40-minutes long, Harverd Dropout feels like it lasts forever, losing its shine quickly as Pump runs in place, futilely reaching for the personality that made him a star.

More about creating a low-wattage soundtrack for chemical and sexual mischief than foundations for songs.

Ultimately, Lulu is a brave experiment for both Reed and Metallica, but it's one that falters as often as it succeeds.

Sure, they make all the right moves, hiring superstar producer Rodney Jerkins to helm most of the tracks and attempting to seem mature, but this all results in a record that is curiously self-conscious and flat. Neither the production, the songs, or the performances have much life to them, with the exception of the closer "Goodbye," which significantly was released as a Christmas single in 1999, long before the rest of the record was finished.

When they stretch farthest away from their origins, as they do on the plodding power ballad 'Sudden Movements,' their sound takes a turn for the best.

There are no reinterpretations--not even the Nas-fronted "Back in Black" changes the song much--just restatements of riffs and replicated effects, each familiar element offering a reminder that Santana, Davis, and company chose to take the easy road by settling for gauche pop instead of guitar rock, winding up with a truly terrible album.

Its lack of more compelling compositional ideas and some of its ham-fisted production problems are balanced by the fact that Santana is not coasting on his rep any longer; he's trying, and he's playing the hell out of the guitar again.

Some Kind of Trouble is a step in the right direction for Blunt, a move toward love songs free of pretension.

When the scale tips too heavily toward rhythm--as it does on "Booty" and "I Luh Ya Papi"--the productions don't do Lopez many favors, burying her in their thrum.

There are only two quality songs, a lot of redundant trash-talking, and an overall sense of ridiculousness that pervades.

Even with its wobbly mix of yesterday, today, a better tomorrow, T.O.S. is much closer to classic than failure and should reassure fans this slow-moving tank is pointed in the exactly right direction.

A bland, friendly affair that disappears into the ether the moment it's finishing playing.

Later cuts like "Love in the Time of Surveillance" and the nervy, angsty closer reveal some decidedly complex layers of sonic architecture. Toss in the requisite instrumental, the all-atmosphere "Make No Sound in the Digital Forest," and you've got a pretty solid Incubus record in your hands, albeit one that won't win over any of the group's detractors.

When things are light and simple on Live It Up, DeWyze seems like himself: a threadbare talent who floated in on the vapors of Idol's empty tank.

There aren't really any new rules on this album, just old-school honky tonk dressed up in shiny new boots.

Whatever snotty humor they once had has calcified into smug sanctimony, rendering this a slick, stylized, stiff affair whose brief signs of life... only put the shortcomings of the rest of this turgid mess in stultifying relief.

If the songs don't quite deliver upon their promise, at least Crook's production and Meat Loaf's performance keep things interesting.

Hannicap Circus is solid, filthy, fun, and everything else that you'd want from a less nimble Kool Keith.

Skins takes that unrealized potential and cobbles together these tracks--basically b-sides and outtakes--strictly for fans who needed just ten more reasons to hear his voice.

Discardable as it may be, Mission Accomplished shows that Tricky's still got plenty up his sleeve.

Skynyrd are making sturdy, old-time rock & roll for an audience that's likely peppered with Tea Partiers, the kind of Middle American worried that the world they knew is slipping away, and Last of a Dyin' Breed provides a bit of a rallying point for them: it's true to their roots but living in the moment.

A major disappointment that puts a real chink in this great band's legacy.

Front-loaded with mostly forgettable trifles, the album is saved by this bountiful back-end, which plays like an early prediction of a potential greatest-hits collection.

Generation's toughness rings hollow like a rerun.

Her voice is damaged, and there's not a moment where it sounds strong or inviting. That alone would be disturbing, but since the songs are formless and the production bland -- another reason why the hip-hop announces itself, even though it's nowhere near as pronounced as it has been since Butterfly -- her tired voice becomes the only thing to concentrate on, and it's a sad, ugly thing, making an album that would merely have been her worst into something tragic.

"Juice WRLD Did" doesn't have the same ring to it, but the wobbling/chiming track is among the album's few other memorable moments despite being dusted off and slapped into the sequence after Khaled added his vocal stamp.

Lackluster as music and downright puzzling as a cultural artifact, Unleash the Love confirms that whatever you think of Mike Love's 21st century edition of the Beach Boys, he's better off doing that than trying to make music by himself.

There's always a sense that she and Noonan believe they're lowering themselves to sing pop music, that they are better, smarter, funnier than the music they're making...and that alienating smug entitlement is impossible to shake even when the productions are appealing, as they are through half of Hello.

It's a holiday album for people who have never wanted to hear a holiday album, let alone own one.

Even if Lee's songs of solidarity are basically sweet in nature, his puppy-dog earnestness winds up being off-putting in the long run on The Rebirth of Venus.

Lacking any of the imagination of previous albums, The World We Left Behind feels brilliantly disappointing, almost to the point of undoing the good work that came before rather than just standing on its own as a weak album.

This certainly is not one of the worst albums ever recorded; indeed, it has its moments of merit that hit the proper spots and deliver the intended dose of dopamine. However, as a cohesive statement worthy of an album's length of the listener's attention, Memories is lacking.

No matter how hard Simpson tries, no matter how foreboding the surface, beneath it all she's still light and frivolous. But that doesn't mean, by any stretch, that this is bubblegum music, since that term implies that this music is frothy, fun, and, most important, hooky, and I Am Me is none of those things.

It's a shame and embarrassment, and hopefully it will be a temporary slump like Circus.

It never seems like a collaboration, it seems like it was assembled by committee, discussed in boardrooms, farmed out to contract players and stitched together on computer.

Even within the framework of a musical these songs are a murky, turgid mess, too concerned with atmosphere and narrative to reel in a listener and ironically not offering ambience or story enough to suggest that the musical would entertain.

Between the airless production, the clunky arrangements, and the songs that are bereft of hooks, the album is their worst to date by far and hopefully signals either the end of the road, or rock bottom.

The whole thing sounds good on paper, but in practice, it's a bit of a mixed bag.

Short on new ideas and lacking in cohesion, Soulja Boy Tell Em's second official full-length finds the young upstart trying way too hard to re-create the bazillion selling 'Crank That' and repeatedly coming up short.

Certainly, it's not the embarrassment of the live album, but it has its own internal logic that keeps it humming along, and that's good enough for a listen and to get the band out on tour again, even it's not good enough for a second spin.

She's best when playing it kinetic and in complete violation of good taste, so whittle this one down by half for the ultimate in bird-flipping, rave-rapping, and repercussion-free living.

This music seems clumsy and half-hearted, and Ginn's interplay with new drummer Gregory Amoore feels sluggish and leaden at every turn.

Hoodstar only makes it all the more apparent that the St. Louis MC's overnight popularity was like lightning in a bottle.

Super Collider is so mired in midtempo drudgery and familiar hard rock (not thrash) tropes that it never really connects.

Despite all their newly developed relative nuances, Nickelback remain unchanged: they're still unspeakably awful.

Those who connect with Staind will likely find this more consistently satisfying than Break the Cycle.

The band certainly throw their arms wide open in welcome, crafting the laboratory-perfect, good-time emo-country-pop hybrid experience that'll sound very good blasting out of rag tops and 4X4's, if not a moody teenager's bedroom.

This is music that works almost entirely as a surface pleasure; strip it of its pretensions, and it's just contemporary easy listening music.

If you look beyond everything that's downright embarrassing about this album -- the reliance on interpolations rather than original songwriting, the amateur-at-best rapping, the generic beats -- you'll notice a few minor improvements.

Never Gone [is] a solid adult contemporary album, which will please both BSB diehards and the dwindling ranks who wish that the glory days of Jon Secada never ended, but its relative strength does highlight one problem with the album: this kind of music doesn't sound quite as convincing when delivered by a group of guys as it does by one singer.

Some serene, wide-angle numbers toward the end help a lot, making this safe album easier to recommend to the longtime trance addict.

There's nothing wrong with a change of pace, but there's a startling lack of depth in either the words, which are entirely too literal, or the music, whose hooks are at once too obvious and not ingratiating enough.

It's a pleasant enough listen, but it's hard to see the point of the album.

Brown clumsily emphasizes womanizing and hedonism and balances it out with a couple clean and empty ballads. Out of this portion of the album, only a couple songs leave a lasting impression, and when they do, the silly things that come out of Brown’s mouth tend to be the reason.

A loud and obnoxious ruckus.

There may be no recognition of L.A. Style, but in their blissfully ignorant, lazily monotonous sunshine grooves, Shwayze does manage to be all about the style of L.A. in 2008, creating the quintessential record for L.A. sleazeballs.

After a half-decade of life lessons, Azalea could have gone in a certain cathartic and mature direction. However, on In My Defense, she opted for a less gracious and, ultimately, exhausted route.

It's a bit of a surprise that this album sounds like a watered-down diluted Urban Hymns, with all the romantic darkness turned into something cheerfully dippy.

Flat and unbelievable, Vultures 2 makes so little impact it's forgotten almost the moment it's over.

For those listeners who pine for a world when Seven Mary Three received heavy rotation, this will satisfy, but anybody expecting the spark of Jane's Addiction or even a dose of Navarro's campy on-camera charm will be sorely disappointed.

Dummy Boy is unlikely to disappoint 6ix9ine fans, but for everyone else, there's little to back up the hype and controversy associated with the self-professed "King of New York."

Some of the productions, courtesy of the Runners, Adonis, and Kevin McCall, save it from being a disaster.

It's highly doubtful that anyone other than a true-blue fan would be able to get past the asinine boasts, the overwhelming misogyny, and the pure outlandishness of it all.

143 rings the death knell for Perry for no other reason than it commits pop music’s ultimate sin: it’s boring.

As songs, these are not outright disasters -- they're not bad evocations of post-Riot funk -- but they're saddled with the same awful production that hobbles the re-creations, the same sticky, tacky, desperate replication of the past that only underscores just how long ago Sly's golden years were.

They skated by the first time through, due to a couple of fluke catchy songs, but they have no hooks or full-fledged songs this time around, and suffer dramatically because of it.

The moments of rocked-out swagger are fleeting and ultimately drowned out by a musical and lyrical heaviness that turns the album into a real downer.