Far from consigning her to one-hit wonder territory, the blend of strength of personality and music-biz savvy on Title shows that Meghan Trainor is clever enough to parlay a big hit into a real career.

BE feels familiar--the group is stuck in the back-half of the '60s, naturally loving the post-Pepper pomp of the Beatles but happy to crib from the Zombies ("Second Bite of the Apple" opens with a riff adapted from "Time of the Season") or any other number of half-remembered, half-forgotten psychedelic oldies--but isn't musty, thanks in part to Sitek's colorful, layered production.

Matt Costa's sophomore effort, Unfamiliar Faces, finds the singer/songwriter delving into similar territory to his 2006 debut, "Songs We Sing," crafting hummable, somewhat intricate AM pop-influenced tracks.

Remind Me Where the Light Is ultimately concludes as the luminous successor to "Trading Twilight for Daylight"--bright where that album was nocturnal, open-armed where "Twilight" was introspective, and altogether illustrative of Great Northern's growth as songwriters and performers.

Too intelligent and well-crafted to dismiss but too disjointed and self-indulgent to really embrace, Love the Future is equally frustrating and promising.

If it weren't for the album's studio polish, it'd feel like an extremely well-recorded concert -- it has the ebb and flow of a good live set, and its expansive warmth ends up making its length work in its favor.

The crew is still intentionally misogynistic and profane, sounding like caricatures of Eminem or Kid Rock as they rap and sing about gangsta cliches like puffing blunts, drinking Patron, getting booty, and "flossing."

With Getting Away With Murder, Papa Roach offer fans of this sound an appropriately hard punch in the face. But there's a hollow sound as the bones collapse, because all that's supporting it is expensive art direction and a big scaffold of clichés.

On Again and Again, Brilliant Colors aren't doing anything radically different than their contemporaries with similar influences and a similar sound, but they do what they do with conviction and just enough weirdness to give them a leg up on the competition.

These are late-night, club-ready tracks with a goth disco vibe.

Ultimately, Anna is something of a return to form after Falcon, but still lacks the spark of the Courteeners' early days.

The band's debut for the Innovative Leisure label, forces noisy indie rock, stoner metal, trippy psychedelic pop, and freak folk to sit at the same lunch table, resulting in a spirited yet oh so slightly hesitant food fight that goes just far enough to earn a couple of detentions.

In spite of the extremely high expectations, he has managed a pretty neat debut that will please fans who have been waiting since his early singles.

Ultimately, with Chaidez in spotlight, Kitten is an album of swaggering dance club passion that aims to move your soul as much as it does your feet.

This is an intriguing, promising debut that suggests lots of possible directions for Ivar's next move.

While the occasional foray into the shallower end of the mainstream may divide some listeners, there's enough here to keep longtime followers satiated (and probably a little curious/nervous as to what the future holds) until the next ride.

Its wider emotional range and stylistic switch-ups, none of which is outside Newman's grasp, give it a slight edge.

With On Desire, the Drowners sound more confident and more in tune with each other as a band, but they still remain captives of their influences. They're evolving, but at a pace that may never yield any new fruit.

Bon Jovi and Shanks may not have done much to freshen up the band's sound--they don't take any mid-2010s musical trends into consideration--but that simmering defiance does mean this is the band's liveliest album in years.

What's It Like Over There? sounds like Circa Waves are testing their longevity and aiming for a wider audience, and that's not a bad thing.

At a compact 12 tracks, Music Is the Weapon provides just enough inspiration to get the party started, but it is so good that -- if left on repeat -- it would be enough to fuel an entire night of hedonism.

Game tends to overreach with his mix of the referential and the personal. When there's less obvious effort, the results are favorable, as on the Kanye West collaboration "Eazy," containing some of Game's best lyrics, illustrating the contrast between his upbringing and his ascendancy.

The Dark Side of the Moon Redux doesn't offer uninterrupted talk but the stress is placed firmly on the words, to the point that "The Great Gig in the Sky" now doesn't float weightlessly: it's now about a letter Waters wrote to the assistant to Donald Hall when the poet was in his last days. It's a subtle change but it's a substantial one, turning Dark Side of the Moon into a voyage inward, not outward.

From Flowers' five-dollar words to the operatic bombast, every little moment of Flamingo carries weight, which means every moment cancels out the one that came before: it's all sequined stage costumes shimmering under blaring lights.

A chronological ordering gives a sense to the band's progress, a definite perk, but the big payoff with Tape Club is that it offers a chance to see through to the heart of SSLYBY's songs and realize how charming they can be without the big-league production.

Harris doesn't need to sing--his electronic noises from the keyboard are quite sufficient.

What makes Soul an overall success isn't just Seal's caressing vocals and obvious knowledge of how to interpret these songs faithfully without drifting away; it's the subtle yet effective production work of 15-time Grammy-winning producer David Foster.

The drumming that helps ground it all is elastic and malleable, making this follow-up a more successful and well-rounded album that seems to be just the beginning of something really good.