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378 items by Jody Rosen
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Coexist | ALBUM REVIEW
It's not what the xx put into their music. It's what they leave out. On their second LP, as on their 2009 debut, the Londoners are masters of restraint, building songs from simple chord progressions, delicate guitar...
September 11, 2012 12:30 AM ET -
Dedication 4 | ALBUM REVIEW
This summer, Lil Wayne told a radio station that rap had become "boring," and that he prefers to spend time on his skateboard. Yet on much of this mixtape, he sounds less bored than he has in...
September 10, 2012 3:15 PM ET -
Chapter V | ALBUM REVIEW
Trey Songz's fifth album is his first to top the charts, and it makes sense: Chapter V is full of big ballads and bigger club beats that take dead aim at the pop mainstream. But Songz is...
September 10, 2012 3:05 PM ET -
I Know What Love Isn't | ALBUM REVIEW
"You don't get over a broken heart/You just learn to carry it gracefully," sings Jens Lekman. Which is just what Lekman does on this quietly epic breakup album. On I Know What Love Isn't, the Swedish pop...
September 4, 2012 10:45 AM ET -
Welcome to: Our House | ALBUM REVIEW
Slaughterhouse – Joe Budden, Joell Ortiz, Royce da 5'9" and Crooked I – are less a supergroup than a collection of oddballs. Eminem turns up on two tracks and produces two more. But the group's second LP...
August 28, 2012 12:10 AM ET -
"We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together" | SONG REVIEW
Taylor Swift teamed with Swedish hit whisperers Max Martin and Shellback on her new single, and its hooks, plural, have a zing that's more Stockholm than Nashville. But it's unmistakably Taylor: a witty relationship postmortem, delivered in...
August 23, 2012 2:23 PM ET -
The Midsummer Station | ALBUM REVIEW
Adam Young, a.k.a. Owl City, seems to be a nice guy, and he knows how to put together a pop song. But he's also a menace. On Young's fourth LP, he delivers universally annoying synth-pop pep...
August 21, 2012 10:10 AM ET -
Based on a T.R.U. Story | ALBUM REVIEW
Tauheed Epps has been around since the Nineties, when he was one half of the Southern duo Playaz Circle. But he recently took up the moniker 2 Chainz, and turned into hip-hop's most promiscuous, and hilarious,...
August 14, 2012 9:25 AM ET -
Is Your Love Big Enough? | ALBUM REVIEW
"I found myself in a secondhand guitar," sings London chanteuse Lianne La Havas on the title track of her debut album. That's not idle talk. La Havas, just 22, is a natural who uses her six-string...
August 14, 2012 9:10 AM ET -
Wild Ones | ALBUM REVIEW
Flo Rida is less an MC than a delivery system for dance beats – some ingenious, many insipid, all supersize. Here he largely defers to producers (including Dr. Luke) and guest stars (Sia, J. Lo), and watches...
August 14, 2012 9:00 AM ET -
"Enough Said" | SONG REVIEW
Aaliyah fans reacted violently to the release of "Enough Said," in which a new beat, and some Drake rapping, are grafted to a vocal by the late singer. Drake's rap feels like a desecration: desultory boasting, pointless...
August 10, 2012 4:20 PM ET -
"Triumphant (Get 'Em)" | SONG REVIEW
After an eventful hiatus – one marriage, two babies, an $18 million American Idol contract – Carey has returned to her true calling: shattering stemware with falsetto trills. For most of this song she's bewilderingly AWOL,...
August 10, 2012 4:10 PM ET -
"Settle Down" | SONG REVIEW
The beat is Caribbean, with hints of Seventies funk and Eighties electro percolating up through the mix. There are burly rock power chords. The chorus is a big, delicious bubblegum flavor burst. In other words: The...
July 31, 2012 11:55 AM ET -
Sparkle: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack | ALBUM REVIEW
The headline-grabbers here are two Whitney Houston songs, her last-ever recordings. They're also this soundtrack's low points. "Celebrate" is forgettable disco pop, and on the gospel standard "His Eye Is on the Sparrow," Houston sings –...
July 31, 2012 10:25 AM ET -
The Soul Sessions Vol. 2 | ALBUM REVIEW
If Joss Stone couldn’t sing, she’d make a wicked DJ. Here, she flaunts her crate-digging skills, and her gale-force belting, on a collection of Seventies (and Seventies- esque) soul. She unearths two Chi-Lites chestnuts and gives Broken...
July 31, 2012 10:20 AM ET -
MTMTMK | ALBUM REVIEW
This duo – Malawian singer Esau Mwamwaya and Swedish-born producer Johan Hugo – are so well-suited to produce hipster accolades, they invite suspicion before you’ve heard a note. But MTMTMK dispels doubts, improving on the debut with...
July 31, 2012 10:10 AM ET -
Wild Ones | ALBUM REVIEW
Like his fellow Sunshine Stater Pitbull, Flo Rida is less a rapper than a delivery system for dance beats – some of them ingenious, many of them insipid, all of them inhumanly supersized. But where Pitbull fancies...
July 30, 2012 12:00 PM ET -
Handwritten | ALBUM REVIEW
"Have you seen my heart?" asks Brian Fallon on the Gaslight Anthem's fourth album. "Have you seen how it bleeds?" Have we ever. There is no shortage of earnest anthemic rock in the 21st century, but no...
July 19, 2012 1:35 PM ET -
Channel Orange | ALBUM REVIEW
The question isn't who Frank Ocean loves. It's how he loves: ardently, recklessly, yet knowingly, with a young man's headlong passion and a mordant wisdom beyond his years. Ocean made headlines when he revealed on...
July 13, 2012 11:40 AM ET -
The Complete Beat | ALBUM REVIEW
The English Beat snuck in under the banner of the 2-Tone ska revival, and on albums like their 1980 debut, I Just Can't Stop It, they showed off a rhythmic attack as buoyant as any north of...
July 10, 2012 10:00 AM ET
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