His newest album, on the other hand, is all technique and no emotion.

There's the occasional clever turn of phrase, but MellowHype's brand of vulgarity is subtler and less arresting than Tyler's.

The eclectic approach was often messy but also fresh, which can't be said for their middling sixth LP.

Here And Now reinforces all the reasons so many people hate Nickelback, but those are exactly the same things that make fans pump their fists in the air.

Those two qualities [Perry's sex appeal and goofy, self-effacing charm] are out of balance for most of the album, resulting in awkward jams like E.T. (Futuristic Lover) and Peacock.

G. Love sounds at home pouring his heart out about his grandmother and making bong-smoker anthems, but a few numbers sound clichéd.

Taylor isn't pushing the limits of pop so much as flattening and stretching them out until they evaporate into nothingness. He creates a dreamy mood, but you may not be awake by the end.

A resounding disappointment.

Galactic’s Ya-Ka-May works as a concept album, but its execution ranges from grating to tolerable.

Sadly, Jane's Addiction lost the fire ages ago and are now sleepwalking through the ashes.

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.

Much of her music aims to capture elusive emotions, yet she ends up spelling them out with literal refrains, banal narratives and sexed-up histrionics that leave little to the imagination.

if her music, which sounds like it was created using a supercomputer analyzing months of market-research-driven algorithms determined by the texting and internet search habits of suburban females aged 12 to 18, sets out to be catchy, slick, radio junk food--mission accompli$hed.

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

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

It's all about throwback synth melodies, programmed beats and melodramatic bellowing about non-specific relationship trauma, sorta like Human League, Spandau Ballet or maybe the Associates.

That free-form fury is a critique of the tendency to look for precise meaning in music, thereby devaluing the visceral and the emotional. But the most menacing part is the words uttered at the beginning.

Haze is positioning herself as a top 40 infiltrator, which is fine, but she’s also diluted her uniqueness.

There’s more softness and vulnerability than one usually associates with the Weeknd, but also his signature numbness. ... Opener Call Out My Name’s title is typical of the EP’s uninteresting lyrical approach, but he sings with a grandness that is further amplified by sturdy production choices: a buzzing bass line and waltzing drum beat that sounds recycled from hit single Earned It.

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.

His subpar wordplay is easily out-rapped and out-sung by guests like Future and 2 Chainz.

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.

If the English art-school psychedelic trio had been able to keep up that momentum, their third album would be a solid one. Instead, they stumble and disappoint.

Meh. Patti Smith does it better.

Unfortunately Summers’s voice and persona just don’t suit this material.

It suffers from its uniformly dark tone and funereal tempos, and Ahearn’s attempts to sweeten things with an overly polished mix only makes a sad situation worse.

The band tries out big, fuzzy, folksy blues riffs on tracks like 'The Wanting Comes In Waves/Repaid and The Queen's Rebuke/The Crossing,' but the proggy result is unmemorable and middling.

Nas isn't as passionate or well-informed about Africa's issues as he is about his own, a problem on an album that's supposed to be all about... Africa....Meanwhile, Marley dutifully toasts over the record's limp, rootsy production but really only wakes up for the harder beats, which are few and far between.