The band continues to mine both the rock and dance worlds with a jagged gruffness that is simultaneously abrasive and catchy.... The end result, though pleasing at times, is ultimately disjointed and erratic.

Miss E is a Top 40 radio breakthrough waiting to happen, while staying solid and true to its hip-hop roots.

Bachelor No. 2 makes good on the promise hinted at by Mann's work on the Magnolia soundtrack. In her mastery of sophisticated melodies and sly turns-of-phrase, Mann brings to mind a number of heralded composers.

As expressive as Hammond's guitar work is on signature songs like "Heartattack and Vine," it still has a sweet sound, and that, too, is mostly a new context for Waits' songs. The horror and the hardness is less immediate, slightly more mannered.

Stories From the City, Stories From the Sea has to rank as a work more musically accessible than her early material and more emotionally direct than her later stuff. It's an intriguing song cycle that stands up to -- and in fact, demands -- repeated listenings.

Musically, the group goes way beyond Britpop, a movement largely of its own invention, to survey Burt Bacharach-style suavity on "The Universal" and "To the End," hedonistic dance pop on "Girls and Boys," and Lennon-esque soul-baring on "Tender."

For each misstep (like the relentless snare drum on the opening track "Sunflower") there are moments of sublime beauty like "Laser Beam," which feels more like a prayer than a song.

It's not precisely rock and roll, more a summary of the stylistic fusion that has evolved over his last five albums: unequal parts rock, bluegrass, folk, Irish, and punk.

Joined by a bevy of bluegrass talent, including Jerry Douglas, Chris Thile, and Alison Krauss, Little Sparrow is a richly wrought, beautifully performed labor of love for Parton.

Bowie at the Beeb isn't just a historic document; it's a fascinating portrait of a man ascending to the height of his musical powers.

All Hands on the Bad One returns to concise song structure, making it more accessible and ultimately more satisfying.

As best-of joints go, The Evidence is solid, featuring a bevy of T's greatest cuts, as well as a few left-field inclusions.

It would have been a shame if this album went unheard, as it is the most fully realized Painters album to date and finds the band, as well as Kozelek's songwriting, in peak form.

Another surprisingly coherent and substantial power pop record with solid hooks and memorable songs, another dazzling combination of Anglo-pop melody, arena rock chord changes, and DIY aesthetic.

But fans of the band certainly won't miss the amplification, because they, like the band, have grown up. That's one reason why most of them will conclude that And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out is the band's very best album.

There is much temptation in all of this, but little satisfaction. It all sounds like someone named Shelby Lynne, for her voice is impeccable throughout. But despite its title, the album comes no closer to suggesting who she might be than her previous outings have. And too few of the songs -- despite their technical virtuosity -- beg to be played over and again.

This ambitious project explores roots music without the scholarly subtext of an Alan Lomax recording, offering instead a simple but powerful reinterpretation of the originals.

Because the songs jump so radically between styles, the ultimate reaction to Come to Where I'm From is confusion. Arthur seems to be looking for an identity but not feeling totally comfortable with any of the ones he adopts.

Displays a broader sonic reach than its predecessor.

The new disc has a feeling of renewal, a sense of freedom, and perhaps even fun.

Ray offers up a wonderfully realized survey of underground rock.... Stag is the strongest solo debut in recent memory.

As always, Alvin's guitar work is wonderfully supple and emotive, and stands out as the centerpiece of his arrangements. But, even more gratifying, a decade after leaving the Blasters, in which his brother Phil handled the vocal duties, Alvin has finally found his voice as a singer.

Haines' secret weapon lies in the hands of vocalist Sarah Nixey -- a cross between Olivia Newton-John and St. Etienne's Sarah Cracknell. Her singing style supports Haines' music with a deceptive beauty, as she wraps her voice around lyrics that belie that sweetness.

Their sound has congealed into a silvery core, rooted in moody dance music, and incorporating bits of acid jazz, lite funk, and minimalist classical stylings.

Plaintive, nakedly honest lyrics collide with keen observation... an hour of enrapturing atmosphere.

Smith has shifted his focus away from crafting the perfect pop epic; though this description fits several of the new tracks ("Son of Sam," "Junk Bond Trader"), there are just as many melodic fragments or simply structured ballads ("Everything Reminds Me of Her," "Somebody That I Used to Know").

The perfect soundtrack for workers clearing out their cubicles and trudging away after their short-lived high-tech careers abruptly ended. The 11 songs capture a bittersweet tone perfectly -- sadly witnessing cultural wreckage and detritus but finding glimmers of beauty.

As with all her solo work, Sunny Border Blue practically bleeds with catharsis and introspection, but foraging through its dark interiors yields moments of strange, exquisite beauty.

Unlike fellow retro-futurists Chicks on Speed and Sylvester Boy, Ladytron doesn't completely upend new wave conventions to make a jarring artistic statement, nor are its songs as transcendent as those penned by Stephin Merritt (the Magnetic Fields) for his Future Bible Heroes project. Regardless, "604" is a smart, frisky, and invigorating listen...

An ardent and successful attempt by the British quintet to divorce and distance itself from its past and to reinvent both itself and our notions of pop music, using soundscapes rather than songs, and instrumental choices that are a far cry from the group's previous forays into its own brand of guitar rock.... odd, perplexing, and utterly fascinating...

[Co-producer Mirwais Ahmadzai's] deft touch for crafting disarmingly warm songs out of synthetic tools gives Music a rich, human quality that nicely underscores Madonna's quietly personal -- if purposefully vague -- lyrics.... it's the music that ultimately sucks us into Music.

Edited and mixed with Sandman's oversight prior to his death, Bootleg: Detroit was taped by a Morphine fan at the band's March 3, 1994, show at Detroit's St. Andrew's Hall, capturing the band and its hyper-aware fans at the height of pleasure.

Somewhat surprisingly, for a band that hasn't toured much in its 12-year career, Live is full of edge-to-edge dynamite performances dating from 1990 to 1996.

That Sylvian has managed to fashion his extensive career into a fulfilling double disc is impressive enough. But the fact he manages to do so while still coming off as a vibrant, vital artist -- some 22 years after making his recorded debut -- is what makes Everything and Nothing especially exquisite.

Not only does every song here work beautifully on its own, but the recording listens cohesively front to back, from the frosty chime of "Unsound" to the enchanting blues of the closing "Healer."

If one wanted to quibble, one could say that the Cash-Rubin collaboration is starting to feel just a little formulaic.... yet Cash continually surprises with his ability to completely inhabit material by writers much younger than him.

Without a doubt one of the best pop records of the year.

Now, as the group starts its third decade, U2 has found what it's looking for is good music, songs that ring with melody and hooks -- and meaning -- while still weaving in some of the ambient and electronic textures it explored on releases such as Achtung Baby, Zooropa, and Pop. The result is a richly crafted and filler-free pop album on which each song sounds like an individual work, calling to mind mid-period Beatles titles such as Rubber Soul.

The biggest surprise here is Cave's singing. Forsaking the bluesy moans and wails of older works like The First Born Is Dead and Kicking Against the Pricks, he pushes his voice in new directions...

An album of stunning acoustic folk-blues... Hiatt is at his absolute sharpest in terms of songwriting, and the arrangements, most often just guitar, bass, and mandolin or a second guitar, are fully fleshed out and never feel spare or slight.

Though not much older than Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, Nelly Furtado is an artist whose music stands head and shoulders above the manufactured pop pap that rules the charts right now.

Peppy but relaxing chill-out tracks as sweet, shiny, and peculiar as its memorable moniker.

Without the thundering drums and over-amped testosterone of the originals, the songs are revealed as the beautiful blues-based writings they in fact are.

An outrageously accomplished and daring album-

But as the songs blow by like so much sonic shrapnel, Rancid runs the risk of trying to say too much too quickly and losing its voice amid the ranting, raging blur.

While Lovers Rock is not any sort of departure from the quiet ballads that marked the group's first three albums, there is an element of freshness that aligns Sade with the current electronic music insurgence while still maintaining a distinctly analog outlook on love's foibles.

It's smartly crafted black comedy from hip-hop's greatest white MC, a strong storyteller and a master of the metaphor, who produces staggeringly popular music that's mostly meant to be enjoyed with both a pained grimace and a smirk.

Supposedly split into two themes, it turns out that the music throughout is interchangeable; any track could have appeared on either CD.

As always, the acoustic pop tracks remain the Go-Between's most effective.... It's clear that the band's heyday, those heady times that supplied fans with a surfeit of astonishingly good pop songs... are over, but there's also no doubt that McLennan and Forster can still turn out quality goods.

Beenie Man's smooth adaptability works against him, as the 17 tracks almost inevitably contain a few less than stellar ones. For the most part, however, Art and Life has more good than bad.

Everything, Everything is a solid live album, and a great introduction to the music of Underworld, even if its most transcendent moments prove to be all too fleeting.

Moves with a quick tempo that whips through the album's 15 songs and assorted skits.... There's something innately joyous about many of the group's songs, whether it's how the J5 MCs play verbal double-dutch over the pulsating "Jurass Finish First" or the assembly of sampled snippets that drive the playground anthem "Monkey Bars."

A mesmerizing 13-track suite that ebbs and flows with a continuous hallucinatory lushness from start to finish.

Yet for all its adrenaline-rush thrills, the RFTC sound is also surprisingly complex. Like Phil Spector's '60s pop masterpieces for The Ronettes and Righteous Brothers, the sonic density of Group Sounds is actually composed of virtuoso performances and subtle nuances...

Some of the strangest lyrical fodder ever to inhabit radio-ready fare.

The lyricism is, as always, witty, wry, and full of cleverly deployed twists, along with literary and cultural allusions and smart metaphors...

Familiar-sounding as these songs may be, they function as well as any blend of jazz and rock...

The disc evokes both the heartbreak and the buoyancy of bands like Big Star and Teenage Fanclub.

On Reveal, the sounds vary, but the songs cohere well. For a band into its third decade, making a record with no apparent weak link is an accomplishment.

But while The Mirror Conspiracy is lush relaxation music, it can be too relaxed at times. Some of the tracks, such as "So Com Voce," feel bland and lack the rhythmic ideas driving standout cuts like "Lebanese Blonde" and "Le Monde."

It comes off softer than its predecessor, and not nearly as affecting.

The stripped-down arrangements and meditative flavor of the songs bring to mind such uncluttered efforts as 1983's Hearts and Bones or even Simon's 1972 solo debut.

Underlying The Optimist's base -- two complementary voices highlighted by beautifully executed acoustic guitar -- is Turin Brakes' bent existentialism, an expansive vision that adds a feeling of fatalism to many of these songs.

As a full album, Interlude falls just short of cohesion. But in the place of unity is a confectioner's pastiche of underground pop from a band that still has plenty of music to make.

Gerald's mastery of his own sound and style generally triumphs over his occasional lapses in focus.

The concept album is more than an afterthought, it's musically revelatory and one of the best records of the year.

For all the back story that precedes her, and even with an already overplayed first single, Everybody is a terrific debut.

When all the elements of Phantom Moon align -- as they do on a handful of songs ("Mr. Chess," "Requiescat") -- the results are mesmerizing.

Without the context of the film, the songs don't stand particularly well on their own for the purposes of casual listening.

Unlike the then-career-spanning three-CD set Live 1975-1985, which was notorious for its sanitizing overdubs, Live in New York City for the most part captures the feel of a live Springsteen show.

Wasp Star adheres to the bouncy melodicism and skewed humor that's been XTC's stock in trade for 25 years.

A sonic extravaganza for effects-loving headphone devotees, Amnesiac is another Radiohead effort that requires a bit of a leap to get into but is pretty unforgettable once you're there.

For all his flexibility, Xzibit's Restless is more skewed to the cars and clubs than the basement, due in no small part to Dr. Dre's influence as the album's executive producer. Restless rolls in the same kind of fluid funk that Dre's brought to both his and Eminem's recent albums -- fat electric bass lines and synthesized symphonics.

Tomorrow's Sounds Today belies its promising title by breaking no new ground, and, in fact, retracing some pretty well-known boot-scootin' steps.... If nothing else, it's still a pleasure to hear on Tomorrow's Sounds Today what producer and guitarist extraordinaire Pete Anderson can do with material that is only average.

NakedSelf feels more like a transition than a treatise, like a little bit less when more is actually called for.

Singing in an airily accented voice that brings to mind fellow Brit popsters Robyn Hitchcock and John Wesley Harding, Cole evokes aural images of indie radio circa 1985.

Even when the band rocks, the music is tethered to a hazy, psychedelic vibe. Occupying each end of the CD's narrow stylistic spectrum are "Pup Tent," which sounds like the Cowboy Junkies covering The Doors, and "Sideshow by the Seashore," which conjures up the image of Crazy Horse being fronted by acclaimed Athens singer-songwriter Vic Chesnutt.

By most standards, Mosaic Thump would be considered an excellent album, but this is De La Soul.

Eitzel's songs, at their best, could serve as fodder for the next Sinatra, should such a crooner emerge from a dingy bar on the far side of town. As performed by Eitzel himself, his compositions resonate with a mix of existential melodrama and black humor that cuts deep to the bone.

A 79-minute sonic sojourn of hard rock delivered with an arty, fusion-conscious sensibility rooted most obviously from the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Jane's Addiction.

Unlike his previous efforts, the guitar isn't the focal point here; instead, it's the ambience created by tape loops, scratching, and Burnside's singing and talking that makes the record both edgy and relevant.

Like a rainy day, the music is cinematic and pulses with understated energy. The prominent drums, like dance beats on codeine, tick by metronomically -- and their interplay with Moffat's mumbled, half-spoken, too-human voice is already remarkable.

Too much of Discovery is relatively run-of-the-mill, lacking the pinpoint punchiness of the pair's debut.

Sounds nothing like a swan song, but rather like what should have been a mid-career album from a band whose ideas and abilities were still in full effect.

Not only is this "collection of previously unreleased material, rarities, and B-sides" far better than most such discs, but, quite frankly, it's also superior to most regular albums.

Sailing to Philadelphia represents yet another high watermark in his impressive recording career.... If there's anything to quibble about here, it's that the CD's energy sags because it contains so many ballads and mood pieces.

The Black Eyed Peas are much better musicians and rappers, and play the majority of the instruments on Bridging the Gap. Their songwriting, however, is somewhat suspect...

Cuomo tones down his angst and replaces it with a sunny but dirty '70s rock core.

Taken individually, the tracks on G.O.A.T. often stand tall, and as a rapper, LL Cool J is unparalleled -- his delivery is unique and totally familiar. Brought together as a whole, however, the record falls short of the near perfection he's found in the past...

Gung Ho feels like it's operating slightly outside the constraints of time, as if it were simultaneously a product of the past four decades and a look back at them from a vantage point far in the future.

Harris is making music that stands with -- and perhaps eclipses -- her most well-regarded work.

You Had It Coming stands as his best work since 1989's Guitar Shop.

With hushed arrangements that feature little more than acoustic guitar and piano over bass and drums, plus the occasional steel guitar or pump organ, the album is Young at his simplest and most easygoing.

But for all its emotional directness and prodigious length, there's a point on All for You where it all starts wear thin and Jackson's moments of celebration and vindictiveness seem played out rather than genuine...

Strangely enough, it seems the further Black distances himself from his heroic work in The Pixies, the better he gets.

The irony, of course, is that More Light is a perfect fit within the Dinosaur Jr catalog and, in fact, would rank as one of its better entries, a spirited, 11-song outing on which Mascis' writing and performing sound fresher and more muscular than they have in years, certainly since the early end of the '90s.

There's a lot of great music here to enjoy. The political tone on the album is more problematic, though.

Production is a dance record, but Mirwais is no mere slave to the rhythm. While other artists keep the BPM pumped up, the songs here drift and simmer. "V.I. (The Last Words She Said Before Leaving," for example, creeps along at a funereal pace for more than six minutes and doesn't catch much of a beat until four minutes in.