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380 items by Jody Rosen

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  Fall Be Kind | ALBUM REVIEW

  At their best, Animal Collective combine shapely pop hooks with mind-broadening sonic freakery. At their worst, the sonic freakery is mind-numbing. Like most of their work, this five-song EP contains all of the above: The opening "Graze"...

  November 23, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  For Your Entertainment | ALBUM REVIEW

  "I was born with glitter on my face/My baby clothes made of leather and lace," crows Adam Lambert. The American Idol runner-up is on a mission to revive the camp theatricality of glam, one lip-liner stroke and...

  November 23, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  Rated R | ALBUM REVIEW

  The cover of the new Rihanna album features a severe black-and-white head shot of the star. She has her hand clapped over her right eye; her left eye, surrounded by a raccoon ring of mascara, glares back...

  November 23, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  She Wolf | ALBUM REVIEW

  Shakira is the strangest of all international pop titans: As soon as you dig beneath the surface of her sexed-up divatude, things get kooky. Featuring six Neptunes productions, She Wolf is her most blatant overture to American...

  November 23, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  Battle Studies | ALBUM REVIEW

  John Mayer — what a curious case. As a pop personality, the guy's abarrel of laughs. He's a tabloid fixture who wears his celebrity with a wink: modeling Borat's onesie swimsuit, starring in goofy YouTube videos, and...

  November 10, 2009 2:57 PM ET
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  Sonic Boom | ALBUM REVIEW

  The new Kiss record is a chamber-pop concept album about the plight ofmigrant workers. Just kidding. On their 19th studio effort, the glam-rockwar horses smear on the greasepaint and blast out odes to rocking all nightand partying...

  October 26, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel | ALBUM REVIEW

  Mariah Carey, comedian? Jokeshave never been Carey's forte, but on her 12th album, she gets in touch with her funny bone, adding a cheeky marching-band coda to the thumping club jam "Up Out My Face," threatening to...

  September 28, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  The Resistance | ALBUM REVIEW

  Many art rockers have symphonic pretensions, but ittakes gumption to compose a "symphony." Enter Muse: The British trio's fifth album closes with "Exogenesis: Symphony," a three-part suite full of grandiose orchestral swells and lyrical koans like "Why...

  September 15, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  The Blueprint 3 | ALBUM REVIEW

  "What more can I say?" asked Jay-Z in 2003, on his vaunted "retirement"record, The Black Album. The question has haunted the great —arguably, greatest — MC ever since, from his comeback dud KingdomCome (2006) and soundtrack curio...

  September 14, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  I Look to You | ALBUM REVIEW

  It takes a while — nearly 25 minutes — for the proverbial Big Whitney Houston Moment to arrive on I Look to You, the singer's sixth studio album. It's a doozy, though. "I Didn't Know My Own...

  August 31, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  American Classic | ALBUM REVIEW

  Willie Nelson may be America's greatest balladeer, capable of making any song sound like a standard. For all his genius, Nelson can be kind of lazy, and this disc — a sequel of sorts to his beloved...

  August 24, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  The E.N.D. (The Energy Never Dies) | ALBUM REVIEW

  "Tutti Frutti." "Da Doo Ron Ron." "Wannabe." "Macarena." "Who Let the Dogs Out." There is a hallowed place in music history for dumb songs — a shrine in the high church of pop, ringed with Roman candles,...

  June 8, 2009 2:07 PM ET
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  Secret, Profane & Sugarcane | ALBUM REVIEW

  What is is this time? Schubert lieder? Balkan fusion? Elvis Costello's genre-hopping can be exhilarating and, often, exhausting. But here he's in one of his comfort zones, rootsy Americana, reunited with T Bone Burnett, who produced the...

  June 8, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  The High End of Low | ALBUM REVIEW

  At a time when extreme sex and violence are available 24/7/365 at the click of a mouse, Devil Incarnate is a career choice that pays increasingly diminishing returns. But Marilyn Manson still wants the gig. In 1996,...

  May 26, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  White Lies for Dark Times | ALBUM REVIEW

  These 13 songs by Ben Harper and his new backing band surround Harper's voice with a revved-up racket — rippling blues-guitar leads, rumbling bass and busy, inventive beats from drummer Jordan Richardson. The noise is welcome, but...

  May 26, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  Amanda Leigh | ALBUM REVIEW

  The title is taken from the singer's real first and middle names, the acoustic instrumentation emits a cozy campfire glow, and the album was recorded in a modest basement home studio. Message: This is real music, not...

  May 26, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  It's Blitz! | ALBUM REVIEW

  "Dance till you're dead!" commands Karen O over the opening notes of "Heads Will Roll," the second song on Yeah Yeah Yeahs' third album. Anyone who has been to one of the Manhattan—born trio's live shows knows...

  March 17, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  "Better Not Together" | SONG REVIEW

  "All the time, I was loving you faithfully/And you took my love/And you turned it around on me" sings Justin Timberlake. The cuckold's revenge ballad is a Timberlake specialty, but this newly leaked track is a...

  March 5, 2009 2:50 PM ET
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  All I Ever Wanted | ALBUM REVIEW

  Seven years ago, when Kelly Clarkson triumphed in the first American Idol competition by blasting out the high-schlocky inspirational ballad "A Moment Like This," who could have guessed that she would become the early 21st century's...

  March 3, 2009 12:00 AM ET
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  Middle Cyclone | ALBUM REVIEW

  "I'm an animal," cries Neko Case on her fifth studio album, and there is something feral about her voice in full flight: It's a wild, woolly sound, part Patsy Cline, part coyote baying at the high desert...

  March 3, 2009 12:00 AM ET