His songwriting is sharper than you might expect. [Dec 2002, p.141]

A supremely dainty-assed achievement that jerks real tears. [Oct 2002, p.111]

The closet thing to Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes hip-hop has ever produced: a collection of songs from, and largely about, the past that bode well for the future and sound damn good today. [Dec 2002, p.140]

On Voyage to India, Arie is just another girl on the neosoul train. [Jan 2003, p.98]

Kicky enough for late-night drives, sultry enough for backseat prospecting, and versatile enough to sell anything, it may be the most user-friendly record of Underworld's career and a better follow-up to Play than Moby's own. [Oct 2002, p.120]

Believe sounds so dry and crisp it could have been recorded on a Dell laptop. [Oct 2002, p.113]

A guitar record equally suitable for a lost weekend or a good cry. [Sep 2002, p.125]

[Producer] Michael Lockwood lets her coast along over bland accompaniment. [Oct 2002, p.114]

Preposterous and sensational, We Love Life grapples with nothing less than how best to prove you're alive. [Oct 2002, p.116]

She treats Americana like a wellspring of weirdness, not a retro refuge. [Sep 2002, p.134]

Storm is no Shaggy-style mall-reggae move; its beats and attitude are harder and more streetwise than Beenie's 2000 Art And Life. [Oct 2002, p.116]

The result is indie-rock as passive-aggressive blues implosion. [Sep 2002, p.128]

One Beat's hooks require a few passes to take hold. [Sep 2002, p.127]

By turning indie-folk into nonstop neurotic cabaret, Oberst may have made the best album of his prodigious, prolific career. [Sep 2002, p.133]

The production smudges the songs into fuzzy watercolors, and Orton's twangy burr can't always cut through. [Sep 2002, p.128]

The Best tracks sweep ringing, acoustic-guitar verses into anthemic power-chord choruses. [Sep 2002, p.134]

Ultimately, the set is a little schizo, but it channels enough rap-rock frisson to make it more than just a between-albums snack. [Sep 2002, p.128]

The most eloquent artistic response yet to the World Trade Center tragedy. [Sep 2002, p.130]

It's a solid formula--trouble is, anything resembling emotional complexity gets blasted away by the heavy-metal howitzer of Don Gilmore's production. [Oct 2002, p.117]

The best album of Dave Matthews' career--the most coherent and graceful, the least wanky and aw-shucks messianic. [Aug 2002, p.107]

As always, the Crows are too indebted to the sounds of the past to truly signify in the present. [Aug 2002, p.114]

The good news is that they haven't completely lost their nerve; they still play their bombastic brat-rock like it's the apotheosis of Western pop culture. Sadly, this is also the bad news. [Aug 2002, p.113]

This time around, the band square their artier tendencies with their sweet tooth for classic psych-rock. [Aug 2002, p.110]

Nelly's caught between a rock and a hardass place--he's too edgy to comfortably collaborate with 'N Sync's Justin Timberlake but too corny to dig into the Neptunes' sleazily sinister beats on lead single "Hot In Herre." [Aug 2002, p.109]

Of course it's nothing new, but Guided by Voices' precision messes are their own reward. [Aug 2002, p.110]

Clef sounds more invested in his music when he's appropriating other people's songs. [Jul 2002, p.109]

It's the perfect summer record--if your summer begins with your dad running off with his secretary and your girlfriend dumping you for that asshole lifeguard at the water-slide park. [Jul 2002, p.107]

Ndegeocello still swings for the same musical fences she did in '93. Here, though, she puts more shots into the seats. [Mar 2002, p.129]