A big confused mess.

No one listens to Gwen Stefani to hear her rap. Or sing a sentimental power ballad. In fact, if there’s a Gwen song that can’t be described by putting two (or more) genres together, I’d suggest skipping it altogether.

It’ll be interesting to see where he goes from here. But until then, Blue Eyed in the Red Room is one to skip.

The Looks is like the Witness Protection Program of electronic disco, where they put the folks for whom the normal anonymity of dance DJ's is simply not enough.

Genuine hooks are oddly scarce.

Fans of novelty pop and slapdash spunk will undoubtedly enjoy their debut record, Coming on Strong; for those who prefer their records a little less morning-breath, you’ll smell this one’s approach and smother the light with a pillow.

Ghost lacks the dynamic swing of much of their past material, content to move towards unnecessary cohesion, one that takes all the wide-pupil joy out of their songs.

The Lemonheads is full of, for better or worse, comfort music. It radiates a blunted nostalgic glow that seeps through the frequent musical languor.

Don’t Believe The Truth is simply Oasis being Oasis with maximum efficiency. Which is to say that if you’re a committed acolyte of the church of Oasis, you’ll love it.

Into the Blue Again is more stylistically cohesive than his previous works, but the songs are ossified and interchangeable; while the one-man band aesthetic of Album Leaf implies meticulous approach to craft, there's an assembly line feel that makes you feel like he cranks out a tune in ten minutes and spends the rest of the week tweaking EQ.

This album is an incredible disappointment- right when Wire was beginning to build up momentum; there’s not even enough new material here to fill a third EP, and the recontextualizing of the Read & Burn songs hardly makes it more worthwhile.

Some of the most listless, unaffecting music the band has ever penned.

One of the most deafening blasts of mediocrity to be heard this year.

Rather than show true sympathy by exploring the nuance of even the superficially simplest lives, Bazan makes drearily deterministic morons out of his supposed objects of pathos.

I’m making a mix CD for someone and it’s an incredibly difficult one because she’s into crap like Ben Harper and Lemon Jelly, and I can’t even impress her with a Travis promo CD because they’re ‘too boring’ even for her!

Not only is the product musically conservative, chocked full of soul ballads and tame funk workouts, there's nary a trace of the devilish sense of risk that has permeated even his worst material.

Paul and Dan, knowing that the Dating Game skits sandwiching the album were just a poor shadow of the 3 Feet High And Rising game show, had to up the Wacky Factor within the songs themselves. “More guests! More cray-zee guests!"

When (and I mean, when) he raps, he's barely conscious.

A particularly dour, unsatisfying way to end such an intriguing career.

She sounds like she’s adopting characters and singing their songs, rather than her own. And, for a record with the name Autobiography, it seems like no bigger criticism could be leveled.

Most of the tracks here fit into various categories of coffee table mood music; Lerche has a great knack for melodies, but seemingly not much of an idea what to do with them once he’s got them all lined up.

While Petty is to be commended for putting himself on the line in some manner for his beliefs, the spirit of music would fare better if people of his stature took a harder stance than he does here.

There are few of the stop-in-your-tracks lines or extended metaphors of previous works.

The parallels with The Prodigy’s similarly dreadful Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned abound, but the difference here is where The Prodigy’s album was just offensively bad at every corner, here Norman Cook seems to be striving to make the most mediocre album humanly possible.

The continual sense of aesthetic, structural and emotional conservatism constantly makes the listener feel short-changed, Singing Tom persistently pleading his own honesty and kindness and suitability and weakness.

The problem, of course, is that Shatner knows he’s Shatner now. And so does everyone else. It’s the joke that stops being funny after you hear the premise.

Accomplished and full of bluster but ontologically completely hollow; this is The Vines.

For completeists only.