The first album in four years from the Buffalo, New York, trio sounds like the darkest moments of previous Goo discs stuck together in a 48-minute marathon of middling angst. For many groups, digging deeper and hitting harder would be a good thing. But when your specialty is multiplatinum pop rock measured in terms of radio friendliness, you end up just sounding lost. Even at their most bombastic, as on the disconsolate initial single 'Home,' these Dolls never bellow; frontman John Rzeznik remains an assured singer. But amid his vocal polish is a new sense of strain, and for a band this lightweight, the additional anxiety doesn't flatter.

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."