Shunning those bawdy, mike-tossing rock'n'roll tendencies of yore and aiming at the modish pop/R&B middle ground inhabited by the likes of R. Kelly, he's made what is easily his most cheering, soulful collection in years.

The likes of Up The Junction and Cool For Cats still sound fabulous, but it's a mystery why they didn't just remaster one of their collections. [Dec 2010, p.114]

The main impression left by Nobody's Daughter represents no great surprise: that for all her raging intelligence, Courtney Love is only as good as her collaborators. [Jun 2010, p.121]

Mostly, the sound of The Dandy Warhols spreading their wings suits them. [Oct 2005, p.115]

An inventive album whose impact is lessened by Guthrie's illustrious past. [Jun 2004, p.107]

A Fool For Everyone is serviceble moan-rock that only splutters to life when he slips into angular, Tom Verlaine guitar-playing mode. [May 2009, p.119]

Giddy with excitement at times, his enthusiasm for life at 58 comes as a relief after 2001's Sex Age & Death. [Apr 2011, p.102]

Each and every track is subservient to a formula which demands a whistling filter sweep, a rattling, super-hyped snare roll and the inevitable canyon-deep drop before it all goes nuts. [Dec 2012, p.113]

For the most part, though, there are too many soggy love songs such as the interminable Give It Back To You and too many moments where they cross the line between smart and smart-arse. [Aug 2013, p.94]

Likely to frustrate fans of folk music as much as fans of 10,000 Maniacs, Twice Told tales is a double disappointment. [Jun 2015, p.99]

While odd duds such as Cryin' In Your Beer occasionally stall proceedings, this trip down memory lane otherwise yields compelling results. [Dec 2017, p.113]

The robots were more fun. [Apr 2005, p.118]

The result is a marriage of indie pop and dance music, containing a number of tracks that are just a remix away from clubland glory. [Apr 2009, p.111]

In a half-hearted effort to dilute the homogeneity, Harris grouts 18 Months with flimsy instrumentals, as if to create the illusion of a proper album. He's not fooling anyone--maybe not even himself. [Dec 2012, p.108]

A hugely moving affirmation of life. [Nov 2006, p.136]

As good as it should be. [Jul 2005, p.120]

Time for another rethink. [Nov 2012, p.96]

There's plenty of schmaltzy cobblers on Another Country, too, but the good bits are just about worth hanging in there for. [Dec 2015, p.114]

The Ataris transcend the four-square melodic thud of their contemporaries with a gentle melancholy and poetic ambition. [May 2003, p.98]

The follow-up is an equally passionate, turbulent affair, sounding, oddly, like a cross between Foreigner and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

This is music precision-built for vast stadiums. [Aug 2006, p.112]

The hushed mandolins of "Still Love You" nudge it toward Sufjan Stevens territory and "Wont's Lie" is a witty gothic waltz, but neither does enough to atone for the mawkish excesses eleswhere. [Apr 2010, p115]

Pleasingly, it's much better, not to mention poppier. [May 2009, p.115]

His falsetto voice, cutesy pitched-up female backing vocals and playground chant hooks are the stuff of kiddy pop. [Oct 2004, p.123]

She's convinced an army of writers and producers... to furnish her with above-average R&B to pant suggestively over. [Sep 2006, p.108]

Gone are most of the Beck-ish hip hop stylings, back is the bespoke indiecraft of spidery guitars, loose drums and oblique lyricism. [Mar 2003, p.108]

Initially arresting, after a while it gets claustrophobic, leaving the listener punch-drunk and weary. [Jan 2003, p.111]

Their sound speaks more of artifice than inspiration. [July 2002, p.112]

Not good. [Oct 2012, p.106]

There's nothing transformative enough to make this more than a placeholder and plenty that is kitsch. [Summer 2019, p.112]

It's less primal scream, more yawn. [Nov 2012, p.112]

Loaded sounds like a Last Shadow Puppets album filler, right down to the Turner-ish vocal delivery while others such as Wrong Side Of Life are hopelessly overwrought. [Sep 2018, p.114]

The tunes come think and fast, but their geeky adolescent routine is wearing thin. [Jan 2010, p. 126]

Big riffs and bigger choruses here will ensure continued American radio support, but Draiman's penchant for singing like a woodland animal startled mid-coitus won't stop the sniggers. [May 2008, p.130]

Magnetic sounds like a TV talent show judge's idea of rock music from a band capable of much better. [Jun 2013, p.98]

The narrow emotional and musical range suggests Kygo doesn't have unexplored depths, but he doesn't need them. [#361, p.111]

This seems just to mean lots of beeps and bloops and using a theremin, rather than any structural inventiveness or lyrical avant-gardisms. Still, he's conjured a neat package of 10 perfectly listenable songs. [Sep 2017, p.106]

The relentlessly summery mega anthems sound identical. And exhausting. [Sep 2013, p.109]

Electra Heart sounds high on concept, low on songs. [Jun 2012, p.108]

Give this album a very wide berth. [Feb 2011, p.120]

It's not all bad, but Global suggest the hardest-working man in experimental pop needs a lie down. [Jun 2015, p.111]

While he boasts none of the verbal dexterity of Eminem, he takes America's Dumb & Dumber obsession and has mighty fun with it. [Jan 2002, p.102]

The over-punctuation is the least unnecessary thing about the lame pop of Shark Attack!!!!!!!!!!, meanwhile, the second half is noticeably more restrained, and aL the better for it. [Feb 2016, p.111]

Wonder of the Younger shows they're still expanding their songwriting palette with out sacrificing the hooks or pop smarts. [Dec 2010, p.114]

Their second album is high on brio, if short on innovation. [July 2008, p.102]

Solid rather than inspired. [Oct 2011, p.117]

Drizzles of acoustic guitar dilute any sense of experimentation, while the drab stadium indie of Vultures and Friend Of The Madness underlines the feeling that, underneath all the grand gestures, a very ordinary band is struggling to get out. [Sep 2014, p.113]

The title track and Come Out To LA hit home with the impact of a piece of GCSE Social Studies course work. [Apr 2018, p.108]

Unpolished and unhurried, Peace Trail is another charming stop on Young's long and winding road. [Feb 2017, p.108]

They spend half their time griping that they haven't got girlfriends and the other half whining that they've just been dumped. [Apr 2006, p.114]

It's too wordy by half, but underneath the psychobabble lies the most solid collection of AOR you're likely to encounter this year. [Jun 2004, p.105]

[Placebo is now] sounding modern and sneakingly world-beating. [Oct 2013, p.109]

While there are a few pops and crackles of magic--it's often dead air. [Jan 2016, p.114]

For all her Stakhanovite efforts and the title track's Hole-esque venom, the fact is she's yet to prove that it is music and not acting that is her true calling. [Oct 2009, p.112]

There's a late sunburst of sweet vocal harmonies and folk rock riffs on closing track Night And Day, but it's not enough to save this dreary album. [Oct 2010, p.104]

The problem is that when they do attempt something different [as on some parts of this album] things go horribly wrong. [May 2012, p.100]

Where David sometimes fall short is on lyrical content. ... Such disposable fluff aside, David's triumphant return is otherwise still going strong here. [Mar 2018, p.107]

For all her searing honesty and her undisputed craft, her voice is too frigid too often and she seems strangely melody-phobic. [Apr 2010, p.119]

The lyrics on British Lion are at best workmanlike, tackling vague concepts with a deadening succession of cliches. [Nov 2012, p.98]

Sadly, it plonks them squarely in the polished but unremarkable heartland of inoffensive US shopping mall metal. [Jun 2013, p.99]

It sounds like a bunch of stoned musicians listening back to half-finished tracks, believing them to be mind-blowingly revolutionary. [Mar 2019, p.115]

Their anthem-filled fourth album's brazen swagger may prove irresistible. [Nov 2007, p.137]

It's an album that's trying very hard--and succeeding. [May 2017, p.108]

There is something dispiriting about trawling through so many songs which show glimpses of lucidity, even brilliance, but always seem to either nod off or descend into chaos by the end. [Jan 2006, p.120]

Shontelle's diva vocal is pitch-perfect, but given Rihanna's bust-up with Chris Brown the domestic abuse subtext seems ill-judged at best. [Dec 2010, p.113]

On ONIFC he tilts the balance back--slightly. [Mar 2013, p.111]

Mostly, syrupy arrangements and obscure song choices spoil the flow. [Apr 2010, p.119]

The poolside psychedelia of Space Static Lover is a sparkling highlight; how much of the rest appeals hinges on your tolerance for ruthless pop efficiency. [Aug 2017, p.103]

They're fine when doing the burbling, instrumental stuff, only to lose marks for a couple duff guest vocals and over-reliance on vocoders. [Jun 2010, p.132]

Relentlessly, frustratingly slow. [Nov 2004, p.108]

May not be their most ambitious album, but it's one of their finest. [July 2011, p. 113]

While Azalea drops the occasional zinger, The New Classic is the sound of an ersatz rebel playing to script, having a shot at the rap career Paris Hilton never quite got round to. [Jun 2014, p.123]

The lyrics tend towards the banal and, at times, there is a palpable sense of awkwardness. [Dec 2004, p.134]

Most of it already sounds a decade old. [Dec 2003, p.137]

The results, although respectable, were never going to ignite anything like their former glories.

Such one-dimensional plodders as Mouthful Of Poison and Pain are as uninspired as their titles. [#184, p.139]

While lacking the high-concept drama of the similarly-minded Rammstein, KMFDM are more sonically adventurous: drum'n'bass and digital dancehall spice up the usual murderously heavy riffing. [May 2002, p.115]

There's nothing essential here, but there's nothing to dislike either. [Apr 2008, p.115]

Silent Cry replaces genuine poise with serviceable pose. [July 2008, p.104]

Inevitably, the revolution zeal dissipates, but their crowd-pleasing instincts remian intact. [May 2010, p.117]

Like most grime, the words come thick and fast, as do the beats, a feeling of punch drunkenness settling in long before the end. Job done, then. [Mar 2011, p.116]

[Soulfly has been] churning out "world metal" for 13 years - with, it should be said, diminishing returns. [Apr 2012, P.101]

They're brilliant as such but, with a couple of exceptions, not quite so fun in the cold light of day. [Apr 2013, p.104]

"Listen to the silence" goes the repeated refrain from first single Always. Sometimes that wouldn't be a bad idea. [Aug 2016, p.112]

The intro to the title track points more toward Foreigner, an impression that continues on the album as dull keyboards fill the spaces once plugged by more interesting acoustic arrangements. [Aug 2016, p.108]

An album made for judicious online cherry-picking. [Jul 2011, p.126]

The result is disjointed but fun--and way more entertaining than Chinese Democracy. [Jun 2010, p.131]

Understated and slightly surreal, this could be dance music's answer to Pink Floyd. [Aug 2002, p.122]

Nothing really stands out like the best thing here, Make The World Move, featuring fellow Voice Judge, Cee-Lo Green. [Jan 2013, p.101]

When Mendel cranks things up, he's on shakier ground. [May 2015, p.107]

It's undeniably infectious, maddeningly so at times. [Oct 2011, p.120]

While elegantly arranged and rendered with passion, this is unlikely to convert those deaf to formulaic Americana. [Apr 2007, p.117]

The mood is a celebratory, the vibe relaxed and one-time socially conscious hip hopper Franti makes like he's the happiest guy on the planet. [Jun 2011, p.124]

Emergency is a confident second dose, not a lazy repeat. [June 2008, p.139]

The Temper Trap are touched by the brilliance of Dougy Mandagi, a vocalist with a set of pipes so extraordinary he could emote a Twitter feed. [Jun 2012, p.112]

As bland as paint. [May 2005, p.110]

It's not for everyone. It's certainly not for Blur fans of Country House vintage. Nor is it the best dinner party album in the world ever. But it's no knottier than 13 and in its own noisy way, great fun.

The pleasure rapidly dissipates over 17 formulaic numbers, some of which come with an accordion. [May 2004, p.98]