B'Day never cools down, and swaety up-tempo numbers prove the best platform for Beyonce's rapperly phrasing and pipe-flaunting fireballs. [Sep 2006, p.138]

It's Costello at his most emotionally direct. [Oct 2004, p.118]

Even if the high-minded concepts prove elusive, no worries. [Nov 2006, p.138]

Most of the time he makes the profound sadness seem like the best party in either Nashville or Dublin. [Apr 2006, p.116]

Though their restraint can be alienating, Steely Dan sound hungry, relevant and full of ideas. [#17, p.147]

Prog was rarely as songful as the brutal beauty here.

An acoustic jazz trio for the future: funny, imaginative and completely unbeholden to the traditions of the music. [#14, p.130]

The songs change, but the sensibility remains the same, more or less: plaintive to mopey, clever to smartass, and back again. [Jul 2005, p.118]

Folding in lean funk, tender arias and as many catchy tunes as West Side Story, Ze makes his cryptic polemic perfectly enticing. [Jul 2006, p.105]

Rather than homogenizing his sources, Parton rubs them against each other. [Oct 2007, p.108]

It's one big, horny wink--halfway between charming and totally sleazy. [Apr 2008, p.78]

Swift has the personality and poise to make these songs hit as hard as gems like 'Tim McGraw' and 'Our Song' from her smash debut, and, once again, she wrote or cowrote them all.

Parish brings out Harvey’s crazy, arty side, pushing to extremes as she works her long-established territory of sex and death.

He's a full-fledged alternative auteur, skipping effortlessly from hypnotic electronics to refracted torch songs to balls-out alt-rock. [Aug 2003, p.134]

Not since his debut has the Doggfather been any higher. [#12, p.155]

Easily Kim's strongest work since her pheromone-thick 1996 debut. [Nov 2005, p.136]

Slug pushes against the beat like he's afraid it'll pass by before he's done, returning to the challenges of coupledom. [Oct 2003, p.114]

It nearly always feels fresh, the way a new flame does. [Dec 2004, p.132]

Sheff straddles the line between precious and brilliant, warbling twisty, appositive-packed tales about life on the road and crumbled relationships over cranked-up, vaguely folkish rock riffs.

Girls isn't as pop-friendly as 1998's From The Choirgirl Hotel, but Amos's take on Depeche Mode's starkly beautiful "Enjoy The Silence" is irresistible. [Aug/Sep 2001, p.120]

THe result is like a cross between R.E.M. and Coldplay, but Idlewild show their true smarts by continuing to attack every track with youthful energy and passion. [Apr 2003, p.124]

If the White Stripes gave up blues-rock for steroids, acid and death metal, they might sound something like this. [Apr 2003, p.124]

His second solo album (which he dedicates to Pimp C, his partner in the pioneering Houston rap duo UGK who died of a codeine overdose last December) features blunts, ho's and Caddy-shaking beats galore--but also elegantly constructed takedowns of corrupt politicians, covetous ministers and crooked police.

They go for punk rock at the most physical level, until their rhythms feel almost like a rave, as in the seven-minute 'Celebrate the Body Electric (It Came From an Angel).'

The Mekons can do anything, because no one told them they couldn't, and they do it better than almost anyone else. [#9, p.152]

Here, their frustration with scheming girlfriends and negligent boyfriends boils over into a cathartic froth. [Nov 2004, p.132]

Even the loudest moments reverberate with warmth. Bridwell sounds determined to build a new world for himself, one gorgeous ballad at a time.

Sets the gold standard for diva records in 2005. [May 2005, p.118]