Ostensibly their pop record, this brisk, 29-minute album album runs out of ideas in the first ten.

The problem with The Ride is just that it’s a lot duller than it should be, and it feels even more disappointing given that her most successful work is also her most eccentric.

Atmospherically, Barragán falls to a part of the spectrum Blonde Redhead have never found themselves on before, but half of the songs here feel like placeholders for ideas that haven’t been fully excavated.

Despite its shortcomings, My Everything succeeds in its primary objective. This is a pop record, clear and simple.

The generalized lyrics shrouded in reverb protect Richie by rendering anything he sings as essentially useless.

The most optimistic light to view Only Run in is also the most condemning; it’s not so much a fully realized album as it is a promising blueprint for songs that haven’t yet been written.

Three is perhaps Phantogram’s most incisive record yet, sustaining a very solid and concrete idea of what kind of pop it wants to promote.

Ultimately, since it took them 7 years to follow-up their last album, both of the Let’s Try the After EPs function, at the very least, as a stop-gap until their next one.

At the end of it, this record is a mixed bag. Fans of Weezer’s poppier side will find plenty to like. Whereas fans of Weezer’s more well regarded records will wish they chose another producer.

Vroom Vroom might have worked had Charli written some better hooks, or actually put some effort into her raps, or just not rapped at all. Or if even Charli had coasted, just as she does here, and Sophie taken the reins.

There’s a lack of personal narrative or identity on Rodeo, and Scott will often overcompensate for the hollowness of his music.

All told, Ye is thin gruel when placed next to Kanye’s intellectual transgressions, not to mention an impeccable oeuvre. As an aural experience, it offers a mix of triumph and nostalgia. Results will vary, depending on your willingness to embark on this very short, often thrilling, ride. But for an artist defined by grandiosity, Ye is frustratingly slight.

This record is diet U2. Its pop-rock disguised as Important Rock and the disguise is transparent. “Blackout” and “You’re The Best Thing About Me” are the chief offenders.

The moments when his music really comes alive with joy are the best on Teenage Emotions, and they’re often the less rap-oriented moments.

Ultimately, Ping Pong, is a disappointing step for a once promising garage rock act. I guess we can still go back and listen to our old Smith Western’s records.

Grab a latte and strap on your headphones, lovebirds--it’s about to get soft rock up in here.

It’s characterised by the same confused nature that marred much of their last LP--hurtling from one style to the other but mostly falling short of what they’ve previously achieved.

Nobody’s asking Kings of Leon to reinvent the wheel here, but they could at least make their hubcaps a bit flashier.

An impenetrable, overwrought, hit-and-miss product marred by ego.

A misstep, to be sure, but even more troubling is that Foxygen have distended from tight, trim retro-pop to unkempt, unfocused conceptual goo in less than two years.

There’s nothing even remotely inventive here.

Maximo’s strength has always been in scorching post-punk anthems (“Our Velocity”, “Graffiti”) and hyper-literate melancholic balladry (“Acrobat”, “This Is What Becomes of the Broken Hearted”), which work so well when bolstered by Paul Smith’s erudite lyrics and uniquely accented delivery. They pull off the former on “My Bloody Mind” and the latter on the excellent “Leave This Island”, but elsewhere the hooks and melodies rarely match the frontman’s grasping literary pretensions.

Haiku From Zero has none of its strength in songs or clarity of goal. The electro-funk mixed with the alternative dance and light tropicalia percussion ends up tasting like pizza and pie and popsicles all at the same time. It isn’t that this record is bad, its just meh.

Frustratingly, a few of the songs on Eclipse really do hit that arena-pop bullseye, but stacked alongside so many other songs mining the same territory, they become irritating by association.

Smith plays it safe, joining the growing crop of British talent with big voices and little personalities. At least he sounds pleasant though.

Secondhand Rapture was inconsistent and uneven at points, but it also drew some power from its unpredictability. Its successor is twelve straight tracks of mostly the same thing: worn pop clichés. This dullness plagues the album from start to finish despite Plapinger’s best attempts at shouting through the monotony.

Though at times a little errant and borderline-satirical, A New Testament succeeds because it showcases backward-facing storytelling and incontrovertibly catchy vintage American music.

As much as you care and as much as you want to feel sad, you can’t be blamed if after a listen or two, all you feel is manipulated.

The only thing that comes through is that it’s competent. That’s enough to be pretty, but it still has the unremarkable safety of a band that hasn’t broken through to find a distinct voice.

The freedom of expression and thematic irregularity that we hear while listening to Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros is a fabulous release from the traditionally despised contract that constrained Ebert’s first and former band, Ima Robot.

The record’s occasionally bright moments are swallowed up by scattered thoughts and stale beats.

Largely embarrassing, Bangerz is the most fun when it’s so ridiculous that criticism seems futile.

This album gets a C+ because I really enjoyed the time I spent hating it.

It can be taken as a full listen, and it rolls along easily enough, but most likely listeners will just queue the songs they like and ignore the rest of the filler.

Lady Gaga’s utter lack of self-restraint sets ARTPOP apart from her earlier work (ruminate on that for a moment).

Prism does have two bright moments of success when everything comes together and we get a glimpse of the better-written album that could have been. First is opener “Roar.”... Meanwhile, on the mostly lackluster Side B, there’s another empowerment anthem, “Love Me,” that’s the polar opposite of “Roar” in nearly every other way.

Sure, there may be a shorter classic buried somewhere within the project’s 145+ minutes. Alas, this mythical album merely exists in my mind. 2 of 2, however, comes tantalizingly close to that ideal on its own.

[A] strange, frequently beautiful, and unabashedly indulgent album.

Simply put, it’s just another Kid Cudi album--a scattered collection of songs developed as a concept album, but never fitting together to form something great.

It does not always work, but in short, orchestral bursts, MS MR demonstrate that they can transcend the confines of goth synth-pop, and produce one of the most memorable debuts of the year.

Beyond some excellent beats and a few flashes of lyrical prowess, Magna Carta... Holy Grail doesn’t invite the kind of intrigue that Jay-Z is capable of. He spends the whole album reminding us that he is the center of attention but by about halfway through most people will be doing something else.

The album doesn’t always work, but more often than not it sounds enough like vintage Coldplay to satisfy both diehards and casual listeners.

A hodgepodge of bland, rehashed, vanilla indie-rock, scarred by woefully inept lyrics, and completely lacking any of the infectious melodies and choruses that bolstered their debut.

Education only teaches us that the band was at it’s best when they were merely predicting a riot instead of trying to lead one.

“Kevin” and “White Privilege II”, obvious attempts to spark political discourse, see an artist not afraid to speak his mind. It makes meme-chasing moments like “Brad Pitt’s Cousin” and “Dance-Off” all the more forgettable.

Ultimately, the highlights here are still middling fare, and mostly, I just couldn’t wait for Recess to be over.

For an album that embraces the theme of technology, Beta Love sounds stuck in the past, belonging to an era in which the novelty of overusing the synthesizer has not yet worn off.

Trainor recycles the themes from every forgettable Billboard alumnus from the past decade, with a bit more color here and there, but not enough to distinguish herself from the pack.

Songs like this [“Adam and Eve”]--and “Stay” from Life is Good--suggest that Nas might’ve done better had he picked slower, more melancholic beats and rapped like the elder statesman he is, rather than whatever we actually got on the record.

The one redeeming quality behind this whole project is Cyrus’ twangy voice, which saves this project from being entirely pointless. In her lower registers, Cyrus draws you into her husk and warmth. It is in these moments she reveals the traces of an artist who otherwise remains absent from this album.

A couple of pseudo-anthems will likely nurse them through a handful of unearned headline gigs--but in all honesty, the world has no need for pop music this faceless, listless or sterile.

For an album with both a Eurythmics cover AND a Black Sabbath cover it’s a surprisingly listenable, albeit pointless entry in their discography, Weezer has spent a decade becoming more interesting to read about than listen to.

The New Classic, though stacked from top to bottom with an impressive collection of production efforts, is nothing more than derivative delivery soaked in stylistic heresy.

The highlights aren’t as colorful as we’ve come to expect from Timbaland or the Neptunes, or as tuneful as we’ve come to expect from Justin Timberlake.

Wilder Mind, airless to the extreme, plods on, song after saccharine song. Melodies do abound. But they’re wearying, like the mundane hell of children’s tunes, blasted on repeat, throughout a long car trip.

It finds Prince embracing EDM and his band 3rd Eye Girl lays down some sturdy, derivative grooves that ought to signal bathroom breaks and beer runs at shows to come.

This is the most disjointed record in Weezer’s discography. Its probably not the worst but its right there with Raditude and Make Believe.

A lack of feeling behind much of Witness’ material does a listener no favors, and much of it gets forgotten once you leave it in your rear-view. However, if you take Witness less seriously, it reveals itself a bit of camp that is in many ways more compelling than the music project it’s supposed to be.

Although the overall album lacks cohesion, Double Dutchess’ sonic diversity does remind you of Fergie’s versatility as a performer, one who spits, warbles, and belts all across the project. The only thing is, she brings little innovation or excitement to the many genres she channels.