Hotel California fails to deliver on any of the hype it had leading up to its release.

Ed Sheeran is an impressive talent, but his juvenile lyrics and lightweight sensibility make him a tough sell to any one old enough to drink.

Most people will want Wiz to succeed, as he does successfully come across as likeable personality, and even Rick Ross has displayed a genuine hunger to improve, so anything is possible. But this album is, put simply, one that won't make much of an impression, good or bad. And that's the worst kind.

It's nothing we've not heard before.

His album is incredibly well polished, but the gleam of his ice is an illusion, as these diamonds are nothing more than cubic zirconias.

RZA is certainly experimenting on a bunch of tracks, but results are unconvincing.

At the end of the day Mac Miller is without a doubt capable of bringing more to the table than shallow, boring rap. Unfortunately, he doesn't do much to prove that on GO:OD AM.

It certainly doesn't reach the catchy levels of Ross' biggest hits on most songs, but sounds good enough to have been decent album tracks.

All of these guests can be distracting, but Ghostface’s performances are as you’d expect. It’s not quite as precise with the abstract vocabulary, a bit diet-Ghost if you will, but his flow remains sharp and his energy levels are high for a 54-year-old. .... The frustrating thing about “Set the Tone” is I have no idea who it is even aimed at.

The production of South and Lex carry the majority of the hour long album, and I do mean carry, because I doubt I could get through this otherwise. If you can stand a strong absence of talent on the basis of the beats alone then you're probably going to enjoy Ferrari Boyz a hell of a lot.

Jay-Z is trying to come across as brand new, but he only succeeds in looking like an old brand in need of a revamp.

As with every Kanye album, there’s some magnificent production on a majority of “Jesus Is King” courtesy of Pi’erre Bourne, Timbaland and Boogz, among others. ... Kanye just seems like he’s in his own world; disregarding what’s going on around him. Other times, Ye’s writing delves into eyerolling contradictions and ego-driven intentions.

Most poeple probably have those two tracks ["Love Sosa" and "I Don't Like"], and there isn't anything else on here that warrants buying this or taking the time to find a torrent of it.

She's going for Nicki Minaj meets Eminem meets Rihanna on the Tyra show. It feels like a major missed opportunity.

“Hot Pink” doesn’t show an evolution of Doja Cat artistically or musically. The production from the likes of Tyson Trax, Yeti Beats and even the famed Saleem Remi is as slick as her debut, but also just as saccharine as her debut.

It’s difficult to gauge its direction, and it often seems aimless and forgettable, despite some interesting experiments here and there. Overall though, it’s a continuation of their gradual decline since their stellar debut, resembling more a mixtape of half-formed ideas than a cohesive, fully realised project.

This is one to spin a couple of times, then never again.

Not so much a victim of his own success, but an unwillingness to take risks in the name of music.

The hard truth is that “Dope Don’t Sell Itself” takes a tumble down into the same hole of forgettable 2 Chainz albums that has become home to the likes of “Trapavelli Tre’”, “Pretty Girls Like Trap Music”, “Collegrove” and the like. 2 Chainz seems burnt out.

“Don’t Be Dumb” certainly doesn’t feel like something that has been multi-drafted, painstakingly thought out or perfected with time. Instead, it plays like a subpar effort from an artist we have all seen deliver notably stronger work in the past.

There's at least one cringeworthy line in nearly every song.

As fun as R.O.O.T.S. may be for a short while, artistically, this album is almost without merit, with pointless lyrics and over-sampling.

If you can get past the ignorance, this is enjoyable for what it is - an album to be played loudly in your car, with the windows down and a middle finger up to anybody who looks at you disapprovingly.

Of the nineteen tracks on offer here, there are just too many skippables for a Busta Rhymes album. It may not be a proper Busta album, and it may be Busta’s way of sharing the flame, rather than passing the torch (as he so eloquently describes it), but in the context of Busta’s catalog, and the rest of 2023’s hip-hop releases, it frequently disappoints.

From the dance beats to the cross-pollination of guest artists to the old pop samples, Global Warming is a big dumb album that feels so calculated and market-tested that it is not much fun to listen to.

Death Grips have always been a challenging group to listen to, but Government Plates is more migraine-inducing than head-nodding.

Amalgamating these with pop choruses makes the listening experience too scattered and ultimately leads A Moving Picture to stutter from frame to frame, and it doesn't help that the experience bows down to every chart formula around.

Utterly forgettable and insubstantial, No Mercy is a contrived, sputtering guest-filled affair certain to alienate his longtime fans and disappoint those who jumped aboard for "Paper Trail."