As enjoyable as the album may be, this band needs an audience of excited, cheering fans to transform these songs from 1s and 0s into transcendent experiences.

The Chili Peppers try to strike that same balance on their latest, I'm With You, which may turn out to be a minor installment in their canon but still accomplishes the impossible.

American Goldwing is an all-around great listen - one perfectly suited for late fall nights on the porch or holiday road trips - and it may even be the band's best record to date.

Songs with poetic yet plainspoken lyrics about found love and lost souls twist in unusual directions and often take a while to absorb. But repeated spins are rewarded with sharply realized words atop melodies that, like most of the gems in his catalog of eight solo albums (along with work in the previously mentioned bands), entice you back for more.

The production is clean and not overly slick but the memorable hooks with sweet harmonies come fast and often, resulting in a relatively subtle set that at just 30 minutes leaves you wanting more.

Strange Mercy is more mysterious than its predecessors, the references more obscure, but it also feels more personal.

For every well-placed mandolin run or B-3 organ riff, there's something equally tacky to balance things out.

Nick Lowe continues to age gracefully and for those still yearning for the Basher of yesteryear, there's always the Labour of Lust reissue that came out earlier this year.

There's no fuss to his performance. He leans into the most desperate lines and nearly lets his voice crack, all in the service of the thing he's always been best at--making a heavyweight song hit home.

As an album for those who have followed Skaggs through the years and think he can do no wrong, Country Hits Bluegrass Style definitely hits the mark.

Stretching out with a few more solos would have given listeners a better bang for the buck, and made it more of a true bluegrass record. But if they make a few more albums, Lauderdale and Hunter may well end up attaining the almost mythical status of some of America's great writing teams. That's how good they are together.

Buckingham knows his true strengths. Seeds We Sow waves goodbye, just as it began: with quiet meditation.

Most telling is how glad he is to be free of concept-Obscurities contains songs from five(!) different projects, all of them rescued from any context but musical, which is all the overwhelmed guy who made five projects in the first place wants to focus on in his old age.

Marling has always sounded like an adult, even when she wasn't one. Now that she's got the actual years to back up her world-weary tone, she's all the more thrilling. Maybe it's the beast within.

Still, assuming the point of any tribute album is to show the full breadth of the artist's influence, Rave On is a breezy success.

Because of the lack of strong material and perhaps lack of preparation, The Blackbird Diaries ends up coming off like just one more project for Stewart, a gifted guy who needed something to do while visiting Nashville and making some talented new friends.

Black and White America is a laudable musical statement, and a much needed reminder of how prodigious Kravitz is at melding together rock and funk.

With the right material, this man as an artist has few flaws. Ghost on the Canvas allows Campbell one more chance to prove that again.

The retro inferences of this one male/two female trio's name appear prominently in their spunky, punky, fuzzed out, garage rock.

A handful of high profile ringers (Beck, Beth Orton, the Cure's Robert Smith, Phil Collins, Snow Patrol) join less recognizable names interpreting Martyn songs in versions that will hopefully encourage listeners unfamiliar with his work to seek out his bulging catalog of inspired originals.

The Green Album ends not with that bang, but with the whimper of Matt Nathanson's "I Hope That Something Better Comes Along" and Rachel Yamagata's "I'm Going to Go Back There Someday."

Outside Society is necessarily uneven, but it's persuasive nevertheless, if only because it tells a clear story of an artist who fought to define and redefine herself constantly.

It's all pleasant and inoffensive but with production that sounds phoned in based on market research, little is memorable.

Bridges' rough baritone talk/sung voice just doesn't connect with songs and production that seem lazy, if somewhat less self-indulgent than other successful actors who try to make their mark as singers.

His latest, Songs and Stories, is simply Clark doing what he does best: relating life's joys and sorrows, from "Homegrown Tomatoes" to "The Randall Knife," in song.

The new Jicks album benefits from Beck's imaginative treatment, which foregrounds headphone moments while not stinting on pure, spontaneous rock goodness, and Malkmus's songwriting, which sounds inspired and confident.

The album is a winning mix of traditional and contemporary: her arrangements are often performed with pedal steel and electric guitar, and the age-old problems of infidelity and heavy drinking are represented with modern twists.

Watch the Throne is one of the more interesting, envelope-pushing mainstream rap albums in recent memory.