Half God's gift to hip-hop, half man of the people, he never quite puts all his good tracks together or across.

Every once in a while a drone or pattern emerges, reminding me of what I treasure most in "world music"-- articulated rhythm. Then he gets some tech genie or steel player to throw on another synth substitute and it's back to the miasma.

He shows off discreetly, underplaying his vocal chops and musical command, even his familiarity with scientific arcana--nay, his intelligence itself.... But discretion exacts a price in identity, clarity, and meaning.

Imperfect, definitely. But only because perfection is on the table.

Like the empathy of so many young men, especially artists, his is more self-involved than saints like us prefer. But at least he expresses empathy--to memorable melodies that very nearly bear up under the repetitions his rarely witless or superfluous lyrics require.

The latest Old Person to forge Honest Music in the teeth of a Youth-Orientated Marketplace has lost his legendary voice, so what's the attraction?

The clarity, economy, and devastating detail of the man's rapping and rhyming are a benison, turning the spare beats he favors into an ascetic aesthetic.

Robert's songs more tuneful in their maturity, Grant's more atmospheric, they punch 'em all up to make a stronger impression than on their comeback album.

Sleater-Kinney... go for defiant uplift and seem energized by the challenge.

The collection doesn't cohere the way it should, and I still say seek out Talkin' Honky Blues. But wherever you start, he's a major rhymer, performer, storyteller, humanist visionary, and student of the DJ arts.

To care about this band you have to find Karen O's fuck-me persona provocative if not seductive, and since I've never been one for the sex-is-combat thing, I find it silly or obnoxious depending on who's taking it seriously.

But though the blues and gospel and more gospel testify not just for song but for body and spirit, they wouldn't shout anywhere near as loud and clear without the mastermind's ministrations--his grooves, his pacing, his textures, his harmonies, sometimes his tunes...

Their warmest album ever.

But though this may be pretension, it's also delight, strange and humorous verbally and aurally.

The Hives explode where a hundred other punk bands are proud to rock.

Though I can imagine putting this on at year's end and remembering every song with a kind of surprised admiration, I can't imagine doing it any sooner--or any later either.

Although Mike Elizondo adds momentum, Jon Brion's colors still predominate, and the melodic and structural contours are all Apple's.

Although Lidell's voice lacks muscle and butter, he knows how to launch a falsetto, and the beats on "A Little Bit More" and "The City" should not be played within earshot of anyone wearing a pacemaker.

What sticks out right off is a drive that can't be taught or approximated.

In short, they "rock." Finally.

The voice asserts itself as the record sinks in, however, and not only does each song stand out, but the production variegates a sonic grandeur grounded in the rock verities.

Gibbons's failure to leave the likes of "And I only hear/Only hear the rain" and "Time is but a memory" in her notebook suggests one limitation of her songcraft.

Sure they're clever, but they're also as shallow as Britney Spears.

Weathered now, their herky-jerk stands up smartly to interjections from the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

Though he's the kind of rhymer who scans "another good record with bad distribution" all too swimmingly, the hip-hop don't stop.

The main problem with this background tour de force is that you understand not just how good it is but how pretty it is only when you listen up.

Even more than, speak of the devil, Garth Brooks, she's a creature of the recording industry and the smorgasbord-of-the-air it's laid out everywhere. Are the emotions she displays so pithily as synthetic in the end as her harmonica-with-strings or steel/slide guitar? Does that make them less real?

This is the stuff of one-shot art-punk.