The first thirty minutes are a chaotic mess of style over substance, and while Joi's weirdness immediately sets her apart, "It's Your Life" and "Techno Pimp" are cloying and difficult to listen to.

Maas has done what not many others in his class have managed to successfully pull off: making a truly decent, engaging record that is more than just 72 minutes of electronica generica trading on name recognition.

For the most part, Amy Ray and Emily Saliers have abandoned the experimental plugged-in nonsense that bogged down their last two releases, concentrating on pure songwriting this time out.

The group studiously avoids the hackneyed synth-slabs that propelled their ascent up the hip-hop production ranks. In doing so they reveal an unforeseen musical sophistication, healthily cleansing themselves of all familiar bling-bling excesses, and reinventing themselves by delving into the realm of live instrumentation.

Staying true to an Underworld-influenced formula of riff-punctuated house music will inspire new converts to the menagerie, as this record's grooves are simultaneously original and accessible.

An eclectic, enjoyable array of quirky tunes.

A throbbing pop record of schizophrenic highs and lows as hyper-kinetic as its beats.

While the band's sound is unique, too many of the remaining ten songs play like slight variations of each other, and few of them stick.

Injecting the best aspects of Americana to Bragg's inherently British approach makes this one of the early contenders for folk-rock album of the year.

Most of these re-workings preserve the essential nature of the songs; the producers know enough to stay out of the way.

Undoubtedly one of the most infectious records you'll hear this year.

The Guest, for all its flaws, is wise beyond the years of the musicians who made it.

As the disc progresses, her caustic diatribes against men get harder to take.

From Here On In may grab you with a slide-guitar hook here, a tiny melody or vocal quirk there, after repeated listening. But it's hard to justify the five or six hours necessary to achieve such meager nirvana.

While most of the mixing is clean and effortless, it is also often unspectacular. Furthermore, the decided lack of turntable wizardry certainly won't earn him a "DJ Dan" moniker among vinyl mavens. But in terms of selection and overall execution, Monkey is a very nice listen.

May well be Donelly's definitive post-Belly work.

For the most part Bloodsport is carried by a snaking seductive beat and slow-burning, almost sinister melodies that would make Dave Gahan proud.

It's the breath-taking songwriting that clinches the deal here.

His eighth album again plays out his lonesome blues as the sincere struggle of a lovesick man -- and, as only Isaak can, he gets away with it.

On Scratch, they masterfully explore breakbeat fusion, flowing smoothly from scratch to hip-hop to rock and everything in between.

By going back to that almost naive passion for spacious, drawn-out, instrumental dance tracks, the Chemical Brothers have discovered songs again, not just "tracks."

Co-produced by Sparklehorse's Mark Linkous, much of Forever captures that group's penchant for dense atmospherics.

Might already have an inside shot to be the best record of 2002 here in the states.

One listen to Asleep in the Back's "Newborn" invokes a feeling of unmistakable contemplation and a sense of beauty entirely absent from the repertoires of the Oasis and Verves of Brit rock's last generation.

There's little here that rises above the prosaic.

Similar to the Radiohead-lite maneuvers of fellow Brits Coldplay, the bright spots (of which there are a fair share) are dulled by the facsimile presentation.

What holds the whole thing together is still the wicked combination of Mystikal's shotgun bark and the Neptunes' bumpin' production.

RZA and company get back to basics with the kind of stripped-down ghetto menace that made the Wu Tang great in the first place.

There are moments on Stillmatic where the old fire is rekindled, the power of his emceeing reborn.

The scattershot recording technique seems erratic for a quartet of chums who've spent upwards of fifteen years gelling together, and most of the rock tracks like "Hella Good" and "Platinum Blonde Life" suffer from a mix of overproduction and lack of urgency; missing is the California garage band vibe that was the trademark of their earlier, more energetic material.

As savvy and sophisticated as the movie itself.

An album that's as complex and mature as De La Soul has ever done, but also smooth, polished, and downright soulful enough to capture a whole new audience for these enduring hip-hop legends.

More eclectic than its predecessors, this self-titled CD finds the group spiking its feel-good melodies and crunchy guitar pop with interesting stylistic detours, and even smatterings of emotional depth.

There's still lots of the nasty, freaky humor and grimy lyrics that make Ludacris so much fun.

All the star power in the world can't save sub-par material.

Pink continues to work her groove thang on much of Missundaztood, but equal time is given over to some genuine stylistic risk-taking.

Cocky's surprises remain few and far between.

Her sharpest offering yet, and one of the better live albums in recent memory.

Like her two previous solo records, Merchant's stately gloom is the stuff of pretension and precision, and her serviceably beautiful voice comes off as either darkly charming or annoyingly lilting (sometimes both at the same time).

A dozen WB-ready theme songs that slay in that charmingly plastic way.

Scarecrow is a fine album, one that can be placed favorably next to Brooks' career milestones No Fences and Ropin' the Wind.

As one would expect, it's the ballads on Driving Rain that wield the greatest power.

Things sometimes tip too far into conventional rock cliché -- "I Can't Wait" is too obvious a power ballad -- but for the most part, this is another display of Lynne's surprisingly agile range.

May be the Coup's tightest album yet.

Only time will tell whether it's a cheeky classic or a momentary novelty.

Too much of Britney is dictated by Max Martin's teen-pop formula.

Lenny benefits from being Kravitz's most consistent album in years, if ever.

Formula or not, with Invincible, Jackson reclaims his pop crown and wears it well.

A more polished sonic effort than Dilated's 2000 debut, The Platform.

The group has begun to grow up a bit.

Beyond the music, X's sincere subject matters keep the album enticing.

Whatever its negligible shortcomings, Golden State at least serves to inject a depth of vision to what formerly was a rather one-dimensional musical entity.

On Atomic, the band unveils a sharper pop-rock sound, one that's so infectiously catchy that you'll feel like an inoculation is in order.

Cuttin' Heads whizzes by in just under 40 minutes, with ridiculously charming acoustic pop, Latin-flavored sizzlers, and menacing love songs.

Gandhi Khan is full of the dark, dirty production Van Helden has championed recently.

This is the stuff of pure comic genius.

His most ambitious collection of songs to date.

Let It Come Down, might well contain the most potent feel-good music he's yet crafted.

An angular art-punk record that twitches as if in the throes of electroshock treatment.

A truly superb and definitive record...

Love and Theft is a strange trip through Dylan's personal relationship with the blues, whether it's the silly story-song "Tweedle Dee & Tweedle Dum," the mandolin lament "Mississippi," or the solid blues-rock of "Lonesome Days Blues" and "Summer Days."

Built around mellotrons, bowed saws, and other odd sonic devices, All Is Dream's arrangements often recall the prog-rock heyday of bands such as Can and Yes, albeit with more somber hues.

On such ballads as "Corner of the Earth" and "Black Crow," Odyssey seems to come up short.... But when the intention is to make you move, Odyssey shines brightly.

Like the best of BF5, it's both plaintive and punky.

13 tracks of the kind of confident, effortless wordplay that made him a household name in the first place.

Sounds like a tighter, more focused version of past glories.

Listener-friendly, surprisingly short songs that walk a thinner line than usual between tired and inspired.

A reaffirming celebration of small details.

An optimistic-feeling, playful record that recalls the jazzy-edged sunshine and beat pop of the '60s.

With Vespertine, Bjork has constructed a whispering wall of wonders, and instead of forcing everyone out, has invited the world to look through the cracks.

Iowa boldly follows up, notching maximum body blows in its unyielding production, while maintaining an odd grandeur in its professed pain and anguish, its struggle for individualism.

Quasi's only mistake might be that it made this album too long; it clocks in at over 50 minutes. Such tracks as "Seal the Deal" and "Little Lord Fontleroy" show the limitations of a duo, and, at times, Quasi's basic keyboard and drums approach lacks a sense of wholeness and tends to meander.

Whatever the source, each song is given a finely detailed treatment that gets to its emotional core, and the exquisite engineering allows each nuance to add to the total effect.

When Maxwell sings songs cultivated to melt a girl's heart ("Silently"), it sounds more like grand, fervent gospel than a cheap, fevered move.

There are a few winners here among the brick-and-mortar alt-flak -- which the band is wholeheartedly capable of as well...

The only caveat toward Two? The Saints still rock, but they don't rave quite as hard.

Tweekend certainly isn't mind-blowing or revolutionary, but it's abundantly clear that the Crystal Method has found its sound: the hard rock and hip-hop influences that inflected Vegas move to the forefront, and the tempo comes down a few notches, thus emphasizing thunderous bass and hardcore head-bobbing.

Framed in delicate, candlelit arrangements that beckon like distant ghosts, Phillips addresses matters of faith, love, and spiritual connection in such a way that questions are as important as answers.

Sometimes beautiful, sometimes disquieting, Time (The Revelator) is something short of revelatory, but it's entrancing nonetheless.

Cake often veers close to the land of Dr. Demento -- but its catchy, quirky music always manages to pull back from the brink of madness by being a bit more substantial than your typical novelty tune.

Sharing with Marvin Gaye and D'Angelo the ability to sing in forceful anger while seducing you with sweet talk, this 22-year-old Philadelphia singer positions himself to become the next great soul man.

At times, Aaliyah's somewhat frail, underpowered vocals seem insufficient to meet the emotional heights she seeks to attain (particularly on the epic ballad "I Refuse"), but simultaneously that's a large part of her appeal.

The Beta Band evokes the lushness of '60s AM popsters the Association in its soft vocal ensembles while demonstrating an instrumental prowess ("Eclipse") that recollects the lo-fi sonic buzz of Flying Saucer Attack.

As someone previously known to wallow in her torment on occasion, Etheridge has found with her seventh studio release a newfound maturity that bodes well for both her emotional and musical future.

An early study of California hip-hop, Überzone mixes twisted, bubbling Roland bass, big beats, and vocoder effects to make futuristic electro-anthems that manage to pop and lock like robots, but recall the organic '80s breaker heyday and never sound sterile and stiff.

Though nothing new -- instrument-wise -- is added to the mix of drums, guitar, and piano, the White Stripes' recipe cooks up heavier overall on White Blood Cells, while still retaining some of the cheeky, barroom brashness that has become their stock in trade.

In anybody else's hands, a blending of techy aesthetics and near-tender melodies would be a musical oxymoron, but in Squarepusher's, it is delicious.

Shangri-La Dee Da sounds like two completely different bands -- DeLeo's hard rock and Weiland's soft balladry. Happily (for Atlantic Records), the album has something for both slumming Papa Roach fans and growing Jessica Simpson fans. STP has enough talent to hold both together.

All the glitter does not make gold: being Nelly Furtado ("Yo Yo") doesn't work, and a couple of Natalie Imbruglia-esque power ballads ("Saturate Me," "Crush") capture Moore in all her adolescent awkwardness, while the uptempo tracks rely on oddly placed Middle Eastern arrangements that don't fit the dance floor.

Keeping things light is both the band's strongest asset and its greatest weakness.

Blink-182 sticks to the winning formula of past efforts Dude Ranch and Enema of the State on Jacket, an extremely well-produced, hard-hitting exercise in pre-pubescent punk rock that will no doubt sell millions to throngs of misguided juveniles who relate to the band's piss takes on life's everyday miseries.

Travis' knack for making saccharine songs is both a blessing and a curse; one doesn't know whether to feel the love or scream bloody murder.

Dirty might not have been worth the nine-year wait, but it's one of the finest and most colorful dance-oriented discs of the year.

Indulging in various vices, imagining exotic locales, and pining after the bad boy, he is now more worldly and wise; it makes for a more textured -- if not as immediately winning -- album.

Sexsmith's most underrated asset is his most obvious: that voice. The way he slides into a line, pauses, and then delivers for maximum effect… No histrionics, just truth.

Double Figure further fuses the themes fans have come to expect, but feels even more warm and organic than past efforts.

Bizarre, surreal, and captivating, this record does nothing expected...

Underneath it all, they're not much different than the fans who buy their records, and it's that adoration of sound that makes Back to Mine shine.