Mostly, he's outmuscled by the production. [Oct 2004, p.122]

Never Gone's rock ballads are painfully and sometimes powerfully earnest demands for meaning and redemption. [Aug 2005, p.108]

Consists almost entirely of antagonistic digs at 50, Eminem and Dr Dre, none of which are terribly sharp. [Jan 2004, p.105]

As likely to put you to sleep as influence your choice in cars. [#8, p.116]

Skips from one song to the next without leaving any great impression or displaying a single sentiment Jessica Simpson would find distressing. [#4, p.118]

Isn't so much minimalist as just plain minimal. [Aug 2003, p.120]

McCabe is bearable, even fun. But he oversings like a guy who's mistaken a North Dakota rock club for Madison Square Garden. [Oct 2006, p.142]

Staggers under the unbearable preciousness of donkey-voiced singer Colin Meloy. [Sep 2003, p.122]

While perfectly accomplished, this is big-budget background noise, purpose-built for any one of the plush cocktail bars it's soon to be endlessly played in, but lacking anything as distinct as, say, a personality of its own. [#10, p.130]

The results are disappointingly uneven. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.103]

The album's fine pedigree might have worked in a more conservative era. [#9, p.144]

Without much international color or guest flourish. [Nov 2003, p.122]

Green's cutesy Bacharach-ish chamber pop loses all novelty after a few spins. [Apr 2005, p.118]

Creeper retain their melodic ingenuity and slowly ascending anthems, but their vision is scattered -- the band can't decide on a single melody per song, so they ramble from one promising yet half-formed tune to the next. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.107]

Similar inventiveness [to that on debut album 'Vertigo'] has been markedly absent from the London duo's subsequent work, and sadly, Lovebox continues the trend. [#14, p.136]

A turgid modern, progressive rock with superficial hip-hop sheen. [August 2007, p.119]

Less of the recent Jesus-jazz, more funk minimalism--so far so good.... But the once-and-future Prince doesn't seem to be rooting around in the rich melodies of "Raspberry Beret" or the frenetic nu-wave soul of "Uptown." [#27, p.144]

Save all this stuff for when you're in front of the mirror, kids. [Aug 2004, p.131]

An utterly competent album that's devoid of politics, not to mention any genuinely exciting studio ideas. [#11, p.136]

Here the pleas and tirades strive heavy-handedly, little aided by the Blokes' equally unsubtle barroom marches. [Apr/May 2002, p.112]

Their sixth album is shambling and empty, spiked infrequently with a good bassline or an almost-good chorus, and even the jokes founder on the band’s contempt.

His second proper album tempers the jollity with some beef, or at least a couple of traditional rock-guitar solos, and the result is an uncharacteristic stiffness. [#11, p.125]

The songs get lost in waves of wah-wah long before a long, slow fade into random-noise oblivion. [Dec 2005, p.149]

Longwave sound more British than Strokes-ish, with a mild talent for writing melodies that demand your attention. [Apr 2003, p.125]

This wouldn't be a Squarepusher record if it didn't flip the bird to listeners at some point. [#10, p.126]

You've heard it all before--at least twice. [#10, p.128]

Like Morcheeba at their worst. [#10, p.124]

Problem is, 23-year-old frontman James Walsh remains the same sap. [Jan 2004, p.109]

He's done it before, and better. [Oct 2006, p.135]

The wan, wimpy Weird Revolution relies on tired drum loops and flat rap vocals. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.121]

Alien Ant Farm's songs may be catchy, but their wishy-washy personality makes it hard to care. [Sep 2003, p.118]

X is hindered by a glut of ballads and plodders. [#9, p.144]

Nowadays, his voice has mellowed into a fearless croon that seems to suggest a down-home Boy George. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.108]

The ponderous lyrics sound cribbed straight from A Mighty Wind, and LeMaster's nasal whine is hard to take. [Apr 2004, p.134]

It trades the epic scope of their more established countrymen for a stab at pop accessibility. [Nov 2003, p.116]

Unrushed, spacious, and duller than a four-hour hayride. [Mar 2004, p.130]

Though there’s slick, occasionally dynamite production from the likes of the Runners and Scott Storch, the lyrics rarely rise above defensive boasting (“One Hit Wonder”), frigid sex raps (“What It Is [Strike a Pose]”) and rote autobiography (“College”).

Their nostalgia is occasionally endearing but usually curdles into crotchetiness. [Aug 2006, p.110]

The search for the perfect stand-alone song leaves a ragbag of unrelated ideas. [May 2008, p.77]

Good living has tilted his writing from surefooted and universal to numbing and platitudinous, while his stormy passions are becalmed by an overwhelming production job. [#14, p.130]

A 38-minute meditation on how not to build on a hook. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.114]

Bare might impress someone who thinks there should be more Cutting Crew records. Others should beware. [#17, p.136]

Album three aims for maturity, but the results are stunted.

Often translates into little more than spliced Dubya soundbites and “spooky” found sounds (helicopter blades, police sirens) played over dour, noncommittal loops.

Congrats, boys, you’ve made Warped’s one millionth girls-suck album.

This is all folded into a weirdly ambitious disco-rock record (Madonna collaborator Stuart Price produced) that occasionally takes on fun topics like desert-motel nooky, but more often gets bogged down in ruminations on Why We’re Here, not to mention What It All Means.

Kracker's Southernisms feel a little rote and undigested. [Aug 2004, p.142]

This time around, both Air's jokes and their grooves have lost their grace... [Jun/Jul 2001, p.104]

It’s hard to listen to Already Free without thinking: Visine. Need Visine. That’s how redolent of pot-smoke-and-jam-band mud fields this music is.

Korn are ultra-confident, forgoing the blandishments of heavy-rock virtuoso conceptualist Michael Beinhorn, who produced their last album. [Mar 2004, p.121]

Feels curiously behind-the-curve. [Oct 2005, p.142]

What was once joyful, now sounds careworn and overly precious.

Too much of Strays settles for the pedestrian. [Aug 2003, p.126]

Reveals little beyond the surface, and generally rehashes past formulas. [#13, p.96]

The group's lite grooves, awful raps and wide-screen choruses are beginning to sound desperate. [#17, p.144]

No More suffers from a relentless sense of goth gloom that's as claustrophobic as a church confessional. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.107]

J. Lo's music has been upgraded from quite bad to merely bad. [Dec 2007, p.148]

Full of standard-issue street rhymes and treacly R&B hooks, Back Again makes you want to shout "Cut!" halfway through. [#15, p.125]

They still can't overcome their addiction to sugar. [#9, p.152]

Etheridge backs up her verbal cliches with musical ones. [Mar 2004, p.117]

There's nothing here that you couldn't hear blaring out of a thousand suburban garages on any Saturday night. [#4, p.118]

Marjorie Fair's plinky strums, orchestral swells and hummable lyrics are hard to dislike and impossible to love. [Aug 2005, p.111]

More of the same, except less. [#17, p.145]

The parade of midtempo soul-pop snoozers and funk-lite fluff is no more memorable than Soul Asylum's last record. Which is to say, not very. [#9, p.153]

Even Monsoon’s best moments are marred by barely audible vocals and dull lyrical abstractions.

A long-winded, soulless soul album of the kind Levert might have once turned in. [#4, p.117]

Barely breaks a sweat as it revisits the lukewarm metal riffs, barely passable rapping and sunny Caribbean choruses of [their] previous seven studio albums. [Oct 2005, p.145]

Begging can be sexy, too, but for SWR it’s just another joyless act by a hateful species.

There’s only so much even a metal fan can swallow.

The hipster thrills are fading. [Oct 2004, p.116]

Despite their surface similarities, Knapp's wide-eyed songs lack the unnerving distinction and eccentricity that are [Conor] Oberst's stock-in-trade. [Nov 2004, p.142]

The disconnect between their always gnarly syntax and the suede-buffed production drains the album's energy. [#4, p.116]

There’s nothing like a concept album for faking musical maturity.

The best songs here are the least ambitious: love laments that coleader Glenn Frey and bassist Timothy B. Schmit both sing the hell out of.

Sadly, while some will still be humming the hypnotic "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" come judgment day, the rest of Fever is more forgettable. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.114]

Ultimately, the anthems are as generic as they are hooky. [May 2003, p.123]

EBTG still have some way to go before they can mix such disparate elements together successfully. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.108]

The new songs are excessively polished and precisely drawn, and relentlessly deliver an uplifting message. [Jun 2006, p.145]

Their sixth album enlists Michael Bay levels of volume and grandeur in the service of alarmingly generic, hookless power ballads and plodding prog etudes.

Sets records for twee-ness. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.111]

And just as 1992's Connected served as an antidote to grunge in its day, Dirty hopes to deliver more nuanced dance music to its fans. Too little, too late, though. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.116]

Almost a novelty record--a musical version of a press release or a spin-control interview with Diane Sawyer. [#14, p.128]

The line between this credible Faces-cum-Skynyrd jam band's best and worst material remains slimmer than even their most ardent fanatic might hope. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.105]

It's highly clinical, and Allison is as remote as ever. [#11, p.124]

There's little to indicate an intrinsic personality unusual enough to demand your attention. [#10, p.118]

The format is so rambling and fragmented that is serves neither Poe the storyteller noor Reed the songwriter. [#13, p.97]

Slower into its stride, with tune-free twittering and dull homages to FX-pedal rock making up the first half. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.123]

The big '80s-style production highlights her breathy-sexy vulnerability, but Presley's better when she rocks. [May 2005, p.123]

Unfortunately, the songs on Title TK are mostly half-written train wrecks. [Jun/Jul 2002, p.103]

Their tedious bravado is more entertaining than their music. [Apr 2005, p.122]

It sounds as bitter and cynical as most of Chilton's solo stuff since Big Star originally imploded. [Oct 2005, p.134]

Shock gets dull, though, and Bizarre's bloated debut is profoundly unfunny. [Jul 2005, p.115]

The only standout is "Down On The Corner," built around the ear-pricking chords and lithe grace that stamp Marr's best work. [#14, p.139]

A weak echo of those gloriously clean and spacious LPs [of the 70s]. [Dec 2003, p.136]

It's rather straight where [his 1970 debut] was eccentric and charming. [Oct 2005, p.139]

Bitter, cold and insular, None Shall Pass is also profoundly (if proudly) out of step. [Sep 2007, p.124]

The rich studio gloss and unmistakable vocal mannerisms she's cultivated over 30 years cover nicely for the weakness of her new material. [Jun/Jul 2001, p.114]

The resulting batch of songs... just pad out the duller bits of blink, then add walls of mid-'80s-era U2 guitar chimes. [Jun 2006, p.136]