Subtítulo... is not without its charms, but it borders on easy listening at times.

At least they sound like they're still having a good time.

Eve-Olution dolls up her gritty hip-hop roots with propulsive pop melodies, high-gloss production and cameos from famous friends like Alicia Keys and Snoop Dogg.

After too many calls for the end of humanity and playing the Satan card a few times, all the yelling becomes little more than a humorless joke.

The rich pop melodies and soft psychedelic touches of songs like "Empty Room" and "Waves" remind us of Coldplay and Grandaddy.

Thanks to soulful orchestral swells, the songs have lush contours, which soften the singer's macho stance.

With Love and Squalor certainly won't change pop music as we know it, but it packs surprisingly huge melodies and shamelessly danceable beats.

Nearly missing are the charming sax and violin song augmentations. Gone are the tunes that are too long but always find their way back. And gone is some of Matthew's long-faced songwriting personality--now all gussied up in a swirl of quick hits, easy ballads and electric guitar.

It's killer stuff for any frame of mind.

He doesn't deliver much you haven't heard before.

On "Waiting on the World to Change," Mayer breathily imagines a world where frat boys get off their couches and have people sign petitions. Sigh. A little more of that and less of noodley songs like "Vultures" and "Gravity" would have been a good step toward reminding us who Mayer really is.

With so much soundtrack and jingle work to be done, who can really blame these marketing all-stars for playing to their past successes?

This body of work will be a wonderland of hits in time.

While some of the posturing about his bling--as well as the repetitive dirty South beats--might get a little tired, this one is guaranteed to keep it hot in herre all night.

But even a busload of heavyweight producers and guests (P. Diddy, Jermaine Dupri, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, the Neptunes and more) can't help this Babyface prodigy from playing it too same-y here.

In the end, Island makes Dave sound like he's just not enthusiastic about making music anymore.

Feels like it was designed by committee.

All the spiky edges have been worn away.

Costa backs away from hip-hop beats and glossy pop melodies and instead digs into meatier classic-rock and soul influences like Sly Stone and Janis Joplin.

The foursome has still not found a common sound to call its own.

This disc is filled with the kind of generic club grooves, terrible singing and general sense of aimlessness they once would have laughed off.

The pretty ballads meditating on the vast wilderness and lonely highways of the great white north provide the perfect showcase for Krall's sultry voice and Costello's classic melodies.

It's not exactly the most sophisticated rap album of the year... but with production by Swizz Beatz on "Cry Babies (Oh No)," the head-bobbing chorus for "Rollout (My Business)" and the smooth joint effort with Nate Dogg ("Area Codes"), the crass clown can be entertaining.

Fun and fascinating.

The band's naked ambition would be offputting if it didn't come wrapped in such resounding choruses.

Retro rawk doesn't come much ballsier than this--or get much better.

It's just so staccato and nonlinear, a sort of free-jazz version of rock with just too much going on and little worth hearing.

The Killers sound like a delicious puree of Blur, Pulp and the Cure, loading Hot Fuss with stylish synth-pop effects and big blazing choruses.