His campiest, and skimpiest, since his debut. [#17, p.138]

There's clearly imagination here, with strange little sonic tweaks and tics at every turn, but only once does it gel into something satisfying. [Dec 2003, p.141]

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.

It's at once a distillation of all that drew tweeners to Dashboard... and a messy, multidimensional celebration of romance and regret. [Jul 2006, p.99]

Only on "Prison Song," a jokey fake-oldie, does the Offspring's weakness for novelty tunes lead them astray. [Dec 2003, p.145]

blink-182 without the humor.

When they slow the tempos and introduce "soulful" singers and the dreaded jazzy flute, their music stinks like old fromage. [Apr/May 2002, p.118]

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

A prince's share of his royal talent survives. [Aug 2004, p.136]

30STM manage a high-minded space opera of epic scope befitting prog-rock prototypes Rush. [#9, p.142]

The Prodigy’s renewed commitment to first principles portends a future as the techno Ramones. There are worse things to be.

An instrument-juggling, one-man-band approach that recalls the romantic, psychedelic pop of the Zombies and the textured electronics of Radiohead.

[He] falls back on stagnant street tropes and the tinny synth-and-sneer antics of old standby Swizz Beatz. [Sep 2006, p.139]

Linkin gain from their hip-hop daring, and the dance domos get to wedge a foot in the crossover door. [#9, p.151]

They're intensely twee indie rockers, prone to brisk, even jittery, grooves, and with his pinched voice, Reyes sounds as though he's grasping at something just out of his reach. [Nov 2008, p.75]

His desire for gravitas, though, is dragged down by his lack of imagination. [Nov 2006, p.153]

Pondering his parents divorce or describing intricate and delicate sex acts, Mraz's tasty tenor remains a modestly classy pleasure. But he's lost crucial cool. [June 2008, p.75]

Immediately transforms VHS or Beta from disco revivalists into one of rock's best new bands. [Oct 2004, p.130]

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

Almost a total wreck -- even decent melodies are hard to come by. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.130]

Kelly sounds exhilaratingly unhinged by passion. It drives him into territory no one else is able--or willing--to navigate. [Aug 2005]

A poorly-recorded collection of lazily-written songs recorded by an artist whose muse deserted him long ago. [Oct 2004, p.131]

On album two, his focus switches from coke to cash as he booms about his fleet of Maybachs (on the soaring T-Pain synthfest 'The Boss') and prepaying his baby daughter’s college tuition.

It doesn't help that Live operate at two speeds: overamped anthems and over-the-top ballads, which render [Kowalczyk's] doubtless heartfelt homilies rather empty. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.125]

Mostly, Ten is The LL Cool J Show -- a reliable sitcom, now in its tenth season, detailing the bachelorhood of a brawny loverman. [#12, p.146]

This album sends her style to rehab, cleaning up messy edges and emotional extremes. [May 2005, p.124]

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]

Beneath the heavy petting, he displays a pleasant touch for soft '70s soul.

In place of the band's distinctive head-banging limberness, there's a strange hybrid: a new sort of hard-rock soul, slightly lumbering in spite of its virtuosity. [Sep 2006, p.136]

Meanders aimlessly, stumbling into bits of tune but never taking them anywhere. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.123]

That's both the best and the worst thing about this album: The music is much more eloquent than the lyrics. [May 2003, p.112]

Negativland's chugging cacophony seems a fitting and grisly tribute to human road kill. [#11, p.138]

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

This is very much another case of: nice lyrics, but a shame about the tunes. [#4, p.118]

The lack of pretense on his second album makes him an approachable Everypimp, and he gets nothing but love from [his] guests. [Dec 2004, p.138]

This is the hip-hop equivalent of an all-stops pulled, Oscar-ready performance: mushily sentimental, self-righteously indignant and constantly in your face. [Nov 2004, p.138]

After years of trading her signature flourishes for a radio-ready purr, she's left with almost no presence at all. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.118]

Much of the material features clamorous, heavy-handed production, and though Xzibit's subject matter ranges from orgies to the benevolence of his mama, his dexterous rhyming style is a little too undifferentiated. [#10, p.132]

The production sparkles.... But the songs are dull. [#14, p.131]

The musical treatment is Depeche Mode-lite, setting generally passionate songs in an antiseptic electronic context, and Gore's over-earnest voice lacks the presence to reinvigorate them. [May 2003, p.120]

While Love's voice is as scratchy and corrosive as ever, unfaraid to veer off-pitch for a good sneer, the album is big-time Hollywood rock. [Mar 2004, p.112]

A band that traffics in momentum can't afford to take their foot off the gas as often as Yellowcard does. [Mar 2006, p.112]

Too often... their ideas are dead ends. [Aug 2004, p.140]

[The songs'] unrelenting wallop, growling guitars and mock-operatic choruses tend to blur together even as they're kicking your ass. [Oct 2005, p.137]

Mood enhancers like 'Blind Confusion' and 'Blister on My Soul' set tart melodies to a guitar punch that compensates for a shortage of coherent content. But from there, things slow down and bloat up.

Successful imitation requires a kind of talent, too. [#9, p.156]

On Cry, Hill ripens, showing a boldness few artists ever manage. [#12, p.145]

No distinct personality emerges. [Oct 2006, p.132]

We're left with the immutable Corgan sans ambition: his narrow whine, melodies not quite predictable but dull anyway and a misty worldview with collegiate airs. [Jul 2005, p.116]

Their full-length debut--anchored by sunny ’60s-style pop festooned with strings and heavy-handed synths--also includes a Portugese track, a classical-music interlude and (enough already!) a tap-dance routine.

His band remains unsubtly one-dimensional... but Shaddix funnels a newfound sensitivity into gashing, coarsely melodic emo-metal that aches as much as it breaks. [Oct 2004, p.126]

This is an indie rocker introducing great disco to a bunch of beer drinkers. [Nov 2007, p.150]

So while there's no lack of diversity over Shaman's 70-plus minutes, that's also its undoing: it doesn't hang together. [#12, p.152]

The band covers this cerebral terrain with renewed vigor, thanks to a sudden fondness for antique synthesizers and battery-powered drum machines. [Feb/Mar 2002, p.112]

It’s obvious, obnoxious and effective.

Zeitgeist’s orgy of avalanche rhythms, cascading riffs and sky-licking guitar is as grandiose as ever (the solo on "Tarantula" sounds like a nuke hitting a Guitar Center), but the bombast is softened as Corgan reaches out for shame-sharing community.

The problem is not the lumbering, mid-tempo beats or the terrible lyrics (“Synthesizer, crystallizer, realizer”), although neither help. It’s the sense that you’ve heard every synthesized squelch and ambient breakdown before.

Their youthful gusto is admirable. The results, alas, are not. [#14, p.141]

The Used remain best when dripping with sweat, not sentiment. [Jun 2007, p.108]

Sonically, it's a tour de force.... But the success of this record depends on Johansson and she's not up yo the task. [June 2008, p.73]

Fist delivers a gut punch of awesomely distorted synths and raw, kicks-and-snares percussion....But maintaining a fist-pumping pace can be exhausting.

It's hard to listen to the rest of Britney without imagining what the album would have sounded like had [the Neptunes] produced the whole thing. [#4, p.121]

A whiz-bang jukebox of state-of-the-art West Coast scruff-rock. [May 2003, p.126]

Lurches from dewy-eyed sentimentality to vicious funk. [Oct/Nov 2001, p.105]

His most relentlessly aggressive album yet. [Oct 2003, p.119]

An assured yet curiously unsatisfying shamble. [Apr 2005, p.119]

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

Often, it's too much of a good thing. [Sep 2005, p.137]

There isn't a song on her debut that doesn't paint in huge strokes. [Sep 2004, p.143]

Bunkka proves he can't write songs to save his slipmats. [#8, p.120]

The samey, smothering beats make it inaccessible to anyone without a pacifier in their mouth. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.111]

Stefani gets her groove back when she sticks to two essentials: sex and the Neptunes. [Jan/Feb 2007, p.88]

As self-indulgent side projects go, this could be a whole lot worse. [Apr 2004, p.139]

Glumly generic. [Aug 2003, p.124]

With On and On, Johnson pushes past those folk- and root-distressed interiors and glides into cool new musical areas. [#16, p.122]

The male affinity is so intense, it approaches homoeroticism. [#27, p.138]

Submit to these tongue-in-cheek disco-rock readymades and it's as if you're hearing irony and an ass-kicking backbeat for the very first time. [Mar 2006, p.112]

Impressive at times... The problem isn't style--it's substance. Mraz's songwriting chops leave plenty to be desired. [Aug 2005, p.114]

On album three, he tests out heartbreak, and his emotional wiring doesn’t cooperate.

The mellow rethink helps Cook get over his sweaty ’90s heyday, and his buddies sound equally liberated.

On their debut, this trio of fashionably dour West London lads crafts wildly overwrought goth-pop weepers with choruses that would make excellent Robert Smith High School yearbook inscriptions.

She keeps the tone light and playful, but her shopaholic-hottie raps seem written for someone with less emotional baggage. [Nov 2006, p.145]

The electronic dance-rock gets the pop job done. [Mar 2003, p.119]

Mostly, though, this is vintage mid-'90s Everclear. [#15, p.122]

Unfortunately, it translates into kohl-eyed pantomime, rather than cathartic music, with lyrics so hopelessly trite they sound like a feel-good tract for preschoolers.

The melodies are strikingly generic for a star act. [Dec 2005, p.144]

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

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

As hipsters, the Yorkshire quartet are still total non-starters, but [North] sees producer Brendan O'Brien honing their gonzo essence to more sizeable effect. [Nov 2004, p.138]

Too often... Branch expresses loneliness or betrayal or yearning without the precision or detail that would make her sentiments memorable. [#17, p.132]

Odditorium buries its subtle hooks deep with endless, shape-shifting jams. [Oct 2005, p.136]

The album is livelier for its contradictions. [Oct 2004, p.124]

Feels desultory and numb, verging on autistic. [Apr 2005, p.116]

Midway through, this becomes the record it should have been all along: a gentle, autumnal meditation on the problems of becoming a badly drawn grown-up. [Nov 2006, p.136]

The momentum collapses with ballads that would suit not only his band but even the Backstreet Boys. [May 2005, 124]

The band turns [Kris Roe's] melodic remembrances into energized, youthful pop anthems, like a less-frivolous Blink-182. [#15, p.120]

Only one song exhibits any nuance or creativity--a cover of Supertramp's 1977 lark "Give a Little Bit." [May 2006, p.106]

He's got some solid grooves... but a lot of them are borrowed. [Sep 2004, p.136]