On this clamorous, relentless album, a violent death lurks in every bar (“Rider Pt. 2”), licentious catcalls have replaced slinky come-ons (“I Like the Way She Do It”) and guns seem to fire of their own accord (every other song here). In doses, it’s rousing. Over the course of a whole album, it’s exhausting.

The novelty of the all-star show has worn off, especially as the caliber of the all-stars has declined dramatically. [Nov 2005, p.140]

13 tracks of Disney-channel-ready pop, buffed and Pro-Tooled almost beyond recognition--and it's not half bad. [Apr 2007, p.111]

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

Fans of the Stooges' early-'70s masterpieces wondered what they would have sounded like with a big-league budget. Here's the answer: loud, surly and still barely civilized. [Apr 2007, p.120]

A low-rent version of the Streets without Mike Skinner's wit, they're just a couple of palookas mouthing off in the pub. [Nov 2005, p.131]

For most of Charmbracelet, she sticks to a gauzy, breathy, phone-sex coo, muzzling her inner diva until the final verse or a few ultrasonic high notes in the fade-out. [#13, p.92]

The songs are soggier, the sentiments more banal. [Dec 2005, p.154]

Kravitz has evolved merely from one set of retro-’70s surfaces to another, with uncharacteristically uninspired hooks.

Their collaboration suggests a nice philosophical dissonance, but only in theory. In practice, Scream is nearly awful.

Though The Great American Songbook is bad, it's not shamefully bad--if only because it's too tasteful to risk sinking that low. [#11, p.143]

This mismatched combo brings out the best in each other only on the refreshingly lightweight 'Call Me.' [Nov 2008, p.76]

Mostly he just sounds bored, a pretty boy tired of being denied his inner turmoil.

14 Shades is nominally heavier than the group's two previous albums, though the band tempers its harsher instincts to let Lewis ruminate unmolested. [Aug 2003, p.132]

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

Beneath the highlights, she's still a messy troublemaker whose brain is as spicy as the rest of her body. [#17, p.146]

Despite scattered flashes of uncharacteristic lightness, she rarely tempers the fury that drove the originals with the more accepting perspective that's guided her subsequent efforts. [Jul 2005, p.119]

Isaacs’s indistinct, flannel-waving wail doesn’t add anything to these titanic anthems of soul and struggle, which don’t say much beyond: Dave Navarro, still breathing, still taking meetings.

Without the blue-eyed soul conviction of the original, it's enough to make even second-tier grunge has-beens like Seven Mary Three seem like innovators. [Dec 2003, p.145]

Exhaustingly awful. [Dec 2004, p.140]

There is little... to compare with either the work of his Genesis heyday or his still heartbreaking 1981 solo debut. [#12, p.139]

The nu-metal and new wave sendups are too conventional to work as either comedy or music--and the nonstop woman-bashing becomes repugnant fast. [Nov 2005, p.131]