Take away the album's lone misfire -- the cliché-filled "Rock the Boat," produced by Rapture and E. Seats -- and this work is nearly perfect.

Colvin has a small but honeyed voice, never too sad or too happy, and multi-instrumentalist [producer John] Leventhal has encased it in caressing arrangements, complete with the occasional string quartet. The ensuing pleasures are generally low-key, and while one can appreciate the attentive craftsmanship applied to each song, the cumulative mood is a little snoozy.

I readily admit I was confused by its unusual instrumental combinations, by the turn-on-a-dime melodies and rhythms, and the "still searching after all these years" lyrics -- by its relentless eclecticism. Still, I kept listening, and at the end of the day found myself having trouble escaping these meandering, insinuating songs.

Fans of new British bands like Gomez or Minibar should find plenty to like.

Gerald ups the ante again, incorporating astounding vocalists, intricate bass and drum patterns, and mood-altering melodies and tones to take the electronic dance community by storm.

The funk-by-numbers grooves of Everybody's Got Their Something borrow heavily from the likes of Sly Stone, Chaka Khan and early Prince, but do so with such affection and spirit that it's hard to take offense.

This is Duncan Sheik at his most orchestrally, acoustically indulgent, and it's a lovely, haunting effort.

One of the most exciting pop-music experiments to along in a long while.... Selmasongs works as an album, not just as a souvenir of a daring cinematic and musical venture.

It's not inappropriate to think of Ten New Songs as an audio book of poetry with musical accompaniment.

Live in New York City is that imperfect creation in which the whole equals something less than the sum of its parts. Taken one song at a time, though, it can be as compelling as live music gets.

Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2) finds Partridge and Moulding at the top of their game, making the collection a fitting match for past XTC triumphs...

Radiohead have remembered how to feel, and do so without relying on the arena rock bluster of The Bends, the Orwellian remoteness of OK Computer or Kid A's pretense as a sort of MC Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. That's why Amnesiac sounds like their best album.

Judging by the funked-up grooves and the hardcore-with-heart rhymes, he's got the goods to satisfy both the faithful and the fickle.

Twangy guitars, melancholy pedal steel and mournful, high country fiddles abound on this collection... Tomorrow's Sounds Today forgoes the livelier and more genre-bending studio tricks that pushed mid-'90s albums such as Gone and This Time into brave new sonic realms. This time around, as it was in the beginning, the mood is modest, the sound is sparse and sans embellishments.

Alison Krauss & Union Station are one of the best instrumental bands in acoustic music today.

Throughout the album, Cole & co. offer up one pop nugget after another, all carefully honed through warts-and-all shows held in New York over the last few years. The result is that The Negatives isn't just Cole's most consistent disc in 11 years; it's also quite possibly his best ever.

These 14 live offerings are a satisfying sampling from each of the band's five albums, though happily the selection leans more heavily toward Penthouse...

This time around, the group eschews player-hating specificity but hits equally hard (albeit with subtler blows) against the commercially dominated empire of gangsta and hoochie rap.

While the San Francisco-based songwriter is still crafting unmistakably Eitzel-esque gloom tunes, his latest, The Invisible Man, is his most eclectic outing to date, veering from the low-key electronica of the opening track to the understated atmospherics of "Sleep."

The band continues to rock in the Rush/Metallica eight-minute flexathon tradition: it may impress you with individual lines, but in the end, it excels mainly at musical gymnastics.

The new Ben Folds is a lot like the old one: as unpredictable as he is talented.

While the result is hit-or-miss, the Charlatans manage to hit much more than they miss.

Listeners might tire of its mechanical edge, but luckily Daft Punk folds in a few more layers. Whether the listener believes it or not, Discovery postulates that club music can possess depth of sound and be more than a never-ending beat that simply marshals your body along with it. Thus, the songs are shorter, more eclectic and rife with hills and valleys of beat that urge you to stop and listen.

This album shows a band eager to expand its creative range. One wonders, sadly, what might have come next.

There's the sense that, in trying to be a Tribe-meets-Portishead hybrid, the Manchester, England, production duo of Mark Rae and Steve Christian have missed the target, as if true brilliance lies just around the corners they didn't turn.

With Sailing to Philadelphia, however, Knopfler fully reclaims his near-unique position as an instrumentalist of purpose -- one whose every note seems to have a reason for being. That reason, of course, is in service of his beautifully written and masterfully arranged songs.

On Let It Come Down, Jason Pierce successfully peels away layers of pretension and exposes the humanity at the heart of his music.

A 28-minute, 10-song romantic pop album that includes two gems that handily best their early geek anthems "Buddy Holly" and "Undone (The Sweater Song)."

On the surface, Callahan sounds like he's getting out more.

On G.O.A.T., LL Cool J has renewed his old-school style for a new generation of fans while still retaining old-school support.

When System's at their best, the Los Angeles four-piece evokes most vividly punk politicos the Dead Kennedys.... Yet the band sputters out when the lyrics are awash in vagueness.

Even at its slickest moments, Gung Ho is worthwhile, not only for Smith's lyrics but for her soulful vocals. At 53, she sounds much like the jazz vocalists who develop and train their voices as they age.

Red Dirt Girl is a model of tasteful genre blending: a little bit country and a little bit electro-ambient pop.

Most of the new disc sounds like noisy grooves in search of songs, and the mechanical accompaniment makes the accomplished jazz-rock fusion of such mid-1970s Beck classics as Blow by Blow and Wired sound downright earthy.

Overall, though, this is one of those odd little albums that the ever-prolific Young comes up with periodically -- dotted with a few flashes of inspiration, ultimately sunk by a lot of by-rote artistic adequacy.

All for You is every bit as impressive a collection as Control, her first collaboration with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis fifteen years ago.

Melissa Etheridge's Skin belongs in a tradition of breakup albums that includes Bruce Springsteen's Tunnel of Love and Marvin Gaye's Here, My Dear.

Such lightness of touch is missing from the between-song skits, which have Franti posing as a DJ on a community-radio show, conducting interviews and dispensing commentary on the death penalty. But the between-skit songs are terrific.

It's all remarkably effective. In capturing "the ghost in the machine," Mirwais has made a most warm and humane album.

With Movement in Still Life however, BT (born Brian Transeau) offers something many of his peers have failed to deliver: an album that accurately and convincingly reflects dance music's present state and, possibly, its future.

Producer Don Was allows the surprisingly girlish, persuasive part of Midler's style to shine, working in harmony with the production and the material.

When you can make out their lyrics... you realize that these guys are really the artier, more nuanced and textured cousins of Korn.

Ultimately, the four-on-the-floor rhythm and riffing quickly become repetitive, blunting Get Ready's impact.

On this latest offering there's hardly any indication that the band was ever the product of post-grunge Seattle.... But this refined sound is also where The Rising Tide starts to sink.

Call this music "experimental easy-listening" -- neither strident enough to warrant serious commercial attention, nor sufficiently free-form to attract all the independent obsessives.

Shangri-La Dee Da stands with the band's best work -- a furious tug of war between strychnine-laced grunge and acid-stoked psychedelic pop. In fact, it may be well be the brooding California group's pinnacle.

Spears' new album does sound exactly like her last one.

Another smart, danceable collection of cultural subversion.

Nonetheless, while more ambitious than almost all of today's metal-flaked rock competition, the 19-track Holy Wood is not without its problems. On numbers such as "President Dead" and "Cruci-Fiction in Space," the band seems to be just rehashing old terrain. And, while The Wall may be a worthy role model, Manson and company don't quite have Pink Floyd's lyrical or musical range, adding to the rote feeling that troubles some of this overlong (60+ minutes) disc.

Green Day's melodies are as delicious as ever, and the band continues to integrate acoustic guitar into its sound without getting all granola on us. But as a songwriter, Armstrong's neither here nor there, unable to fully abandon his goofball roots but not stretching far enough to score the breakaway great album he's always seemed capable of writing.

On their fourth album, Bedlam Ballroom, the Zippers have concocted another stew of lively dance music. Problem is, with so many people having jumped on the swing revival bandwagon, the group's new material sounds dated. And not in a good way, either -- it merely recalls a fad, rather than evoking the bevy of twentieth-century American music styles the Zippers have long been in love with.

Even though one can hear echoes of everything from "The Threepenny Opera" to Bitches Brew here, the funk is in her DNA.

Replete with tasty elements borrowed from jungle, drum & bass and contemporary Afro-pop, their fifth full-length album manages to blend and synthesize all their disparate source material better than any previous effort save their startling 1982 debut.

Incorporating free-jazz squonk into sultry bossa nova with tempo-defying breaks and ethereal atmospherics is no easy feat, but somehow, the London duo pull it off.

While they've evolved into a band that can actually, like, play more than a handful of chords, they wisely stick with what they know best -- trim, fast-paced, crunch-guitar-filled songs about sex and partying.

Sugar Ray actually sound like a band -- a quality missing from most of their earlier work.

Tipsy's second album, Uh-Oh!, doesn't just rehash the mid-'90s martini-music comeback, it recasts it, ushering the exotica percussion, soaring strings, tinny organs and surf guitars of Combustible Edison and Esquivel into a brave new world of looped breakbeats and laptop trickery.

Much of the album has the odd, rehashed sound of a Blur record produced by the Automator, but the diverse guests keep at least every other song fresh and new.

But if it verges on generic pop-rock, Take Back... also has more hooks than a bait and tackle shop.

TP-2.com isn't the masterpiece Kelly seems capable of, but it's as strong an R&B album as any since, well, since R., balancing the carnal and the spiritual as convincingly as anyone's done it since Prince in the 1980s.

The album would have benefited from a few less midtempo grooves; the closest drummer Neil Primrose and bassist Dougie Payne get to really rocking is on the peppier rhythms of "Follow the Light" and "Flowers in the Window" -- not surprisingly, two of the album's highlights.

Jakob Dylan and his team have fashioned an album that's longer on big guitars, crunchy grooves and cool changes than overt confessionals. All told, Breach is a subtle, seamless effort with nary a lull or misstep -- in contrast to its multiplatinum predecessor, the second half of which suffered from a series of pedestrian songs.

In sharing its predecessor's desire to cover every musical base, Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub) suggests a continued identity crisis.

Cake at times manage to counterbalance the smart-aleck cynicism with skilled musicianship, and when [John] McCrea drops the monotone bombast and actually sings, the songs really work.

None of these songs are as ear-catching as the first album's "Gotta Man." And to play up Swizz Beatz's contributions is to point out how frequently Eve gets lots in the beats when they're slamming, and how she never enhances them when they're not.

Looks and charm can only do so much, and without a distinctive sound or banging tracks, Tyrese tends to get lost in the shuffle...

With Flowers, Ian McCulloch finally finds the proper musical vehicle for the older-but-wiser (but not that much wiser) persona he's been trying on for the last few years.

The album is short on the wistful melodies and jazz overtones that have made Squarepusher stand out from his fellow post-everything experimentalists, making Go Plastic -- notwithstanding "My Red Hot Car" -- something of a disappointment.

Here, country twang knocks against rap, funk basslines and blues harmonicas, and liberal lashings of reggae, ska and dub are added -- all adding up to a groove jam congealed into a multi-faceted but consistent and accomplished sound.

All told, eight producers (including Nicks) were involved in the production of Trouble in Shangri-La, and not everybody is up to the challenge.

There's almost no drama to be found on Alone With Everybody... [t]he songs don't turn corners, and they fail to elicit any real emotional response.

Though many of the songs here are associated with male artists, James usually succeeds in injecting her own womanly strength and style into her renditions, making the tunes indisputably her own.

It's an uneven mix that frustrates by offering just samples of what Pearl Jam increasingly does best, namely, provide clear and, yes, quiet stories about the travails of everyday life.

This is classic Cure music, straight up (or should that be straight down?): lengthy songs (most more than five minutes) with plenty of cold, alternately chiming and grinding guitars, fluttering keyboards and, of course, Smith's mournful yowl, which hasn't sounded this intense since the The Top's "Shake Dog Shake" in 1984.

MCs Evidence and Rakaa's shortcomings are amendable because they do have a great scratchmaster in DJ Babu. The problem is that this inventive DJ is allowed to shift gears and twist and crawl only after the rappers have said their pieces.

One of the best things about Ms. C as an artist, especially considering her indie-ish background, is that she hasn't been afraid to embrace plastic pop as a vehicle for self-expression. More importantly, though, having found success within this genre , Vitamin C here takes chances instead of relying purely on formula.

He delivers all this with passion and booming authority: the teacher is back in front of the classroom, where he belongs.

But if "Chemistry" is a pure-pop sugar rush, much of what follows is equally sour, often falling into the thematic trap that snares so many post-hit albums: lots of songs about how success is really hard on rock stars and their girlfriends.

In toeing the fine line between clever and dumb, they've always worn their "I'm With Stupid" T-shirts with goofy pride. But don't cry for them, as this time they've polished their musical turd to a brilliant sheen.

There are more flashes of the old White Light/White Heat Reed than the old crank has provided even diehard loyalists in years.

Simultaneously more tossed-off and expressive than 1995's Elastica album, The Menace is a frustrating listen, oscillating between actively courting the listener and fashioning a more tangential state somewhere between punk momentum and wearisome breakdown

Garbage have finally discovered a hint of the blood-pumping human heart underneath their icy exterior.

Ivy specialize in nebulously oriented dream-pop: too ethereal for straight pop fans, too structured for the 4AD crowd. The result is rather like Swing Out Sister playing with all the rock and roll abandon of, say, the Sundays.

A fresh, if unfocused, work saturated with zany personality.

Deep Down & Dirty is the group's hardest, most animated and strongest-sounding album to date.

If it's energy that it is the single strongest selling point of God Bless the Go-Go's, well, that's kind of where they came in anyway, back in the day when lead singer Belinda Carlisle was a butch-haircutted pudge and "We Got the Beat" was, literally, just about all the Go-Gos had going for them musically.

Perhaps his most humane album and warmest work to date.

There's creepiness all over Fold Your Hands, from the deceptively sweet kiss-off "Don't Leave the Light on Baby" (RealAudio excerpt), and the raped narrator of "The Chalet Lines," to the self-conscious self-parody of "Nice Day for a Sulk"

Happily deviates from the Moon Safari mold of new wave kitsch and sugary pop, guiding the knob-twisting duo's retro-synth sensibilities into a darker, more brooding realm.

In small doses it's wonderful stuff, though in total it's a little sickly sweet.

In the five long years since that multiplatinum release, these SoCal rockers have nearly been torn apart by fame, and the accompanying mixed-up emotions are manifested not just in the lyrics but also in the album's musical genre jumps.

A mostly disappointing misfire that seems too eager for commercial pop success.

Make no mistake: This album represents a small step for a band, not a giant leap for mankind. But it is energetic, entertaining and several polymer configurations less plastic than the teenybopper product currently being manufactured in Orlando and elsewhere.

She lets [the songs] drift off into the kind of embalmed chamber music respectability often synonymous with the Nonesuch label.

Here's music tailor-made for cruising down the road with the wind blowing through your mullet.

A strong, expressive singer, Usher is particularly adroit at seductive, late-night ballads.

Actually, all through this, his second solo disc, Wyclef goes for skin-deep musical ideas.... Still, most of Wyclef's little ideas are terrific.