Though its novelty diminishes more with each listen (with the first being the freshest, most energetic romp of them all), "Bang Bang Rock & Roll" still stubbornly continues to amuse.

As she evolves, Spears is wisely sticking with age-appropriate material that her teen constituency can bond with.

For the most part, "Mr. Beast" finds Mogwai quite comfortable in a genre they've helped define.

A lovely set of pop-flavored neo-folk. [11 Feb 2006]

Succeeds in cutting John loose so that he sounds like he's doing it because it still matters.

While 'Troublemaker' and 'Holla Holla' each sound a lot like prior Akon songs (the former like Kardinal Offishall's 'Dangerous,' the latter like '07's Akon/T-Pain pairing 'Bartender'), ultimately they're highlights for that very reason.

So, yeah, the New Year sounds an awful lot like Bedhead, but who can really complain?

Despite a few lyrical missteps ("Future Pt. 1"), "Voxtrot" is generally insightful and emerges as a promising debut. [26 May 2007]

A curious amalgamation of styles that is ultimately quirky and compelling.

Since barreling into parts unknown, the further advances made by Sean Booth and Rob Brown have been subtle at best, and the most intriguing sounding bits of their eighth album, "Untilted," usually arrive in the midst of something more familiar.

Not that the band's blend of metal; world music; jagged, breakneck rhythms; and non sequitur lyrics don't still connect, but it is nowhere near as dazzling as it was on its first two go-arounds. [26 Nov 2005]

Full of breezy vocals and sunny instrumentation, this album redefines beach music for the new millennium.

Offers a more diverse song mix than one might expect. [18 Nov 2006]

Like last time, the singles are better than the whole. [31 Mar 2007]

As he did on last year's "Mail on Sunday," Flo Rida spends most of these 13 pop-rap confections pondering the finer points of his growing bank account and his incomparable way with women. The best cuts are those that mirror the MC's usual themes with even more familiar sounds.

Predictable, perhaps, but such aural connections rarely fail as a crowd pleaser.

Musically, the album is more languid than earlier efforts without sacrificing the urgency of her patented guitar pluck-strum.

"Wonder" isn't as immediately accessible as any New Pornographers album, which may turn off some fans looking for another set of sugar-coated rock. Nevertheless, these compositions also demonstrate Newman's immense talent, which ensures any monotonous patches on the album are quickly redeemed by far more interesting sonic departures.

A non-stop industrialized assault that combines grinding guitars, shrill synths, with pulsating bass and drum lines and vein-popping vocals. The 13-track set drives without relent from song to song, leaving listeners spent like a good workout.

His hooks can be rock-solid ('Ack Like You Know') and his interest in gleaming synthesizerism (opener 'American Superstar' comes into 'Tubular Bells' territory, really) helps set him off from the legions of rappers clawing over each other to break out of the South.

The beauty of the record is that even though listeners expect Ween to be peculiar, the band's versatility and strength of songwriting keeps "White Pepper" intriguing through dozens of spins.

A mostly mainstream pop album with Latin inflections.

What they lack in ingenuity, they make up for by turning each song into a full-out event. [4 Mar 2006]

The slick, hyperproduced "It Won't Be Soon Before Long" is a set of 12 potential hits, all mashes of groove and guitar firepower. [26 May 2007]

Street Dreams is a little too padded for its own good, and a handful of tracks suffer from all-too-familiar samples that have been used in recent hits by other artists.

It all goes down smooth until Gordon introduces funk ("Radar Blip," "Jaded") and calypso ("Morphing Again") to the mix, with the results sounding stiff or dated. But make no mistake: He's got plenty to be proud of here.

Tenacious D insists it is the greatest band in the world, and on a couple occasions during this soundtrack to the duo's upcoming film of the same name, you kinda believe it. [18 Nov 2006]

At times it feels like a lot is going on, others not so much. The pieces are all there, but it just doesn't add up to more than the sum of its parts.