While occasionally generic, nothing on Shine On is as annoying as their breakthrough single, Are You Gonna Be My Girl.

At its best, Untitled sounds like a compilation of his previous work--a smooth-voiced crooner reading a sex thesaurus over R&B beats.

The production is just off-kilter enough to set them apart from the folk-rock pack, and they wisely resist the temptation to use their sprawling lineup as an excuse to imitate Arcade Fire.

This much-anticipated follow-up essentially repeats the foot-stomping, banjo-picking formula, but scrubs away the subtlety.

The odd bit of distortion on I'm Ready and Watch Me Go disrupts the otherwise pristine party, while a heavy flirtation with piano house on Old Love/New Love returns us to life-affirming territory.

Its formulaic songwriting and middling, lite-pop arrangements seem more concerned with top 40 appeal than with maximizing the richness and openness of his voice.

Replacement guitarist Luke Paquin is serviceable but stays in the shadows, while vocalist Steve Bays sheds more of HHH's former skin on a sonically big record that offers only rare doses of the pulsating new wave punk energy they once emitted.

With the exception of the exuberant 'Pop Champagne,' which was a Ron Brownz single before Jones hopped on it, Reign is a washout.

While the dancehall-inflected 'Dirty Disco Dub' suffers from cheesy vocal samples, the second half of the record settles down into better but still well-trod territory reminiscent of better Aphex Twin and Brian Eno.

Deep, wobbly bass, twinkling synths, crisp programmed drums and esoteric guest spots by Holly Miranda and Tegan and Sara's Sara Quin seem crafted with blogs in mind, ensuring the album's freshness in the moment but leaving it vulnerable once the hype dies down.

Sometimes it feels like he's competing too hard with the intensity of the big, expensive-sounding production--especially on the mid-tempo numbers.

A sprawled-out, futuristic tribute to Diddy's own celebrity.

Lindsey Buckingham appears on the quiet Soldier's Angel, and he and Nicks interlock in a unique way that tells us these two, at least musically, are bound together for life.

By no means a terrifically unique or fantastic sophomore album, it still manages to avoid mediocrity, and not just because our expectations were so low to begin with.

No doubt Kingston can write a tune that sticks in the ear like a small insect. But just like having an insect in your ear, once the novelty wears off, it starts to get irritating.

Most of the album is kinda ho-hum and overly mild in tone, as is Pitts's voice.

The result is exactly what you'd expect: loud and hard garage rock devoid of personality or originality.

While Do Things is "easy" music, music that sounds great on a boat in the sun or accompanying front-porch Coronas, it's not likely to stick with you after a listen or two.

This is just silly fun and quite heartwarming in a goofy way – well, as long as you’re not horrified by the idea of your little miracle joyfully singing along to songs about farts.

Someday World is an fully realized blend of electronic and acoustic sounds that elevates the mundane, austere details in the lyrics into a state of ecstasy.

They’re perfectly produced but less captivating than the moments of emotional specificity.

Fans will be thrilled to know that, despite the replacement of main guitarist and co-songwriter Ben Moody, Evanescence's sophomore album is at least as unsubtle as its predecessor.

While the concept is inspired and resoundingly current, the jangly blues-bar rock seems an afterthought.

After an album's worth of tiring, spastic jazzy post-punk that smacks of musical masturbation, chances are you'll really miss At the Drive-In.

This record finds Winwood on a clichéd existential journey into jazzy world music territory, which should play well with the over-50 soft cock rock set, who for some inexplicable reason don’t seem to mind six-minute sax solos.

The features wouldn't be so bad if Game didn't yield to the wattage and personalities of his co-stars. (Again, he can rap when he tries.) Used as a constant crutch, however, they quell his ferocity.

Lacking the jangly, well-crafted gems that made Morning Comes strong, the album sounds B-side-ish at times.

The band's adventurous use of sampling and beats pays off when supporting Andy Maize's vocal on The Herd, but the alt-folk arrangements tend to get melodramatic on quieter songs like I'll Be There and the tremolo-piano-treated title track.

Quicken The Heart, however, goes nowhere new and hardly bests its predecessor.

The album repeatedly teases you with glimpses of the unhinged, earnest urgency that made the Violent Femmes semi-famous, and then flips into an annoying faux naive whimsy just as you’re starting to enjoy it.

This album belongs chained up in the vaults.

We all love to revel in a real tearjerker (Someone Like You, anyone?), but these whiney odes are heartbreak songs minus the heart.

Sonically, the first half of Unapologetic picks up on the syrupy Southern hip-hop minimalism popular last summer, while much of the latter half is a grab bag of unwieldy balladry.

Despite flashes of melodic and lyrical inventiveness, production-wise Kelly sounds like he’s chasing innovators The-Dream and Mike WiLL Made It, especially on the strip club tracks.

He’s crafted yet another replica batch of breezy, walk-along-the-beach jams [which] won’t matter to his fans, who keep coming back to their sandal-footed prophet regardless.

The Beasties have neither the musical chops nor the compositional skill... to hold listeners' interest for the length of an album.

Unlikely to win over any feminists, or win any literary prizes, Here We Stand’s main problem is being overlong and under-chorused.

Cutesy lyrics with insipid rhymes like "You can count on me like one, two, three" abound on songs that play out less like a cohesive album and more like no-brainer radio references to Coldplay, U2, Michael Jackson, Sade, Feist and so on.

Jackson wouldn’t want us to call it a comeback, but it sure sounds like one.

Despite repetitive structures and an average song length of over seven minutes, the duo hold interest with their sterling musicianship and artfully detailed performances.

The capital-P pop star backs up her I-just-don’t-give-a persona with killer singing and decent songwriting, but keeps us waiting for a banger that never comes.

Fact is, the Enemy are better than that, and their debut full-length is also certainly better than some kind of classic Britpop rehash.

Their third full-length is an 11-song collection of sincere, shimmering pop songs with golden hooks and unexpected hits of razor-sharp effects.

The album's overall bad rip-off of early Britney/current Chantal Chamandy sound is a huge step backward.

The production is glossy and futuristic to a nearly avant-garde point, yet every song is a hit.

As on Employment, some songs spark with energy and others die in the first verse. Is a complete album asking too much?

The Miami radio DJ and Terror Squad member takes few stylistic chances, making We The Best Forever a mostly tedious listen despite its flashes of lyrical invention.

The occasional bright spot (Ghostface's blistering verse on Meteor Hammer) is always counterbalanced by a low point (Trife Diesel's middling turn on Laced Cheeba).

Still charismatic, quirky and iconic into her 40s, the singer grounds whatever style the band takes on with a trademark confident and longing delivery.

Fans of the Editors will certainly dig the dour pop 'Expectations,' while the album’s optimistic anthemic opener, 'Happy As Can Be,' offers the record’s most memorable moments.

It’s sure not a knockout, but it’s his hardest-hitting album yet. Just don’t call it a comeback.

So, Danja hooked up Duran Duran with some seriously dope beats and nasty Neu-ish grooves for Red Carpet Massacre, way hipper stuff than they even know. The downside is that Simon LeBon is still singing and writing all the lame lyrics.

By rights, this should feel cloyingly sentimental, but Vandervelde’s musical virtuosity means it’s beguilingly exotic, particularly album opener 'I Will Be Fine'--an insomniac’s echoey hymn to the pre-dawn hours.

The patient, thoughtful strokes here are sometimes interesting but rarely exciting.

My Guilty Pleasure is a very listenable album, with plenty of high points, but overall it tends to fade into the background a little too easily.

Searching for depth in an emcee so obviously beholden to gimmicks is a fool’s errand, and if you give that up, you’re rewarded with low-stakes perfectly inoffensive jams.

Eschewing the indie rock tag, Born Ruffians are embracing a new diversified sound that reaches beyond the guitar-bass-drums trifecta, and for the most part, it hits the mark.

He’s stepped outside of his comfort zone of Long Beach City-inspired beats, and the result is his best offering in years.

There are a handful of feel-good moments. ... But it’s not enough to carry the bloated 18-song track list to a satisfying end. Instead it feels like getting caught in an endless kaleidoscope of solipsistic nostalgia. The effect is suffocating in its repetitiveness.

For all of Lady Gaga’s talking points, the fusion of art and pop has resulted in a lot of familiar dance-pop--more artful for its campiness than its musical innovation.

Bizarre lyrics, wooze-inducing dissonance and overly elaborate embellishments maintain Friedberger's genius-of-pretension title.

What made the band so charming--their indiscernible vocals, the prickly, overbearing guitars, the lo-fi grittiness of it all--has been lost in the makeover.

For an undisguised, heavy-handed topical Neil Young record, The Monsanto Years is actually engaging and mostly effective.

More a lyricist than a singer, he gruffly talk-sings through much of it, making it hard to grab hold of melodies.

T.I. vs T.I.P. suffers from its star's inability to commit to character.

Perry’s ballads are so unadventurous and heavy-handed (chiming U2 guitars and slow-building, reverbed drums), they start to feel like caricature anyway. Her approach works better on the feel-good half of the album made up of top-notch roller-disco anthems.

Cabaret with Drake has a catchy hook and gorgeously cheesy lyrics only Timberlake can pull off. The countrified Drink You Away almost works. The rest is forgettable.

Bad Religion’s Christmas album is one of the most unusual in recent memory.

This album is well-crafted and smart.

His bored delivery and ridiculous lyrics about peanut butter sandwiches and rich kids make his two-minute tunes on this 20-song binge stretch out painfully into what feels like forever.

Unfortunately, unlike Deerhoof's complex sonic and logical experiments, the Curtains' material feels too spare, too underdeveloped, less like well-honed songs than fledgling ideas that'd benefit from the input of additional bandmates.

Unfortunately, her adventurous side is rarely heard in the more radio-friendly jams, which are heartfelt and catchy but less inspired.

If you're not paying close attention, it's the kind of music that seems pretty but a little too straightforward. But delve into it and the layers open up, making you realize how rich it actually is.

The result is an album with chart-worthy songs that are uncomfortably familiar at times and a touch low on risk.

It's not a tasteful formula, but that doesn't mean it's not valid.

The songs are pretty much middle-of-the-road, generic radio alt-rock devoid of any real personality.

At times, these preoccupations feel clumsy in their topicality, and it's hard to tell whether GOF's unthinkably long history as a Band That Has Things To Say makes this more or less forgivable.

Some Nights could be the breakthrough album that propels Fun. to the arenas where their lack of self-restraint will finally make sense.

The results turn out to be lifeless instead of uplifting and accessible as they'd hoped.

Too bad the most inspired songs are all stacked together on the first half; the record loses steam halfway through.

Nothing here is going to become a live-show staple, but after an underwhelming covers album earlier this year, fans will be pretty happy with this solid collection of original works.

Her domestic bliss songs are predictably the most boring, the exception being L8 CMMR, the dancehall-esque, Auto-Tuned track in which she sings of her husband’s virility.

Flint and Maxim toss off innocuous, vague lyrics in the hope that something sticks. Nothing really does, and the joyless end result is flat-out exhausting.

Max Martin wrote the opening track on each of those early records, as he does here on their eighth. But even the anthemic title tune can’t hoist the group out of elevator-music territory.

After a year of Kanye and Pharrell's Lacoste-sweater-vest raps, this gutter shit should find DMX welcomed back with a vengeance.

It's all soaring, boring hooks, ringing guitars cribbed from the last two decades of sad bastard Britpop and wussy vocals polished to a sleek finish that makes them ideal fodder for Hollywood soundtrack supervisors.

It's clear Sparta have finally come into their own.

Not sure what's more embarrassing: the Good Charlotte/Atreyu sleaze rock take on Dr. Teeth's Night Life or the idea that this tribute's hope is to make adults want to feel like kids again. Either way, the whole thing deserves a Miss Piggy karate chop.

Not for the first time, Ciara is suffering from a case of mixed-bag syndrome, a situation that seems even direr on the 16-track deluxe version, which has two unnecessary alternate versions of I Bet.

There's no cohesion... That said, Luda can still turn out solid tracks based on three qualities: clever lyrics, commitment to concepts and taste in beats.

Still their strongest effort since The W, but Wu-Tang Clan exhaust their fans' good will and nostalgia without a classic to show for it.

There are some great moments, to be sure, but there are too many spots where the lyrics induce cringing and the electronic interventions sound more like gimmicks than real song elements.

Fans of AnCo’s more upbeat and animated works probably won’t love this album, but it is successful in its experimentation and as an affirmation that they have and always will have something unique to bring to the table.

The pros outweigh the cons on Fantasy Ride, but the overall experience might fall a little short for seasoned fans.

Occasionally beautiful, often irritating.

Producer Alan Moulder (Depeche Mode, Interpol) helps them cautiously move into industrial territory, as on Turn The Bells. But if McVeigh's methods irked you before, they only get worse on Ritual.

More of that raw Jay and less of the glitz could have salvaged the album.

It all adds up to an energizing, smile-inducing debut.