The artist: Vampire Weekend

The album: Contra (XL)

The spin: The bolt-from-the-blue brilliance of Vampire Weekend’s first album rested largely on how successfully it fused everything stereotypical upper-class white people like — with four dapper Ivy League-educated gentlemen crooning about images of Cape Cod summers and infatuations with Louis Vuitton-adorned girls — with the habit-forming beats of African popular music. That mixture gave the band the catchiest and most resonant multicultural white guy pop this side of Paul Simon’s Graceland.

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The artist: Timbaland

The album: Shock Value II (Blackground)

The spin: Before the “Shock Value” series, Timbaland never had a signature CD as a solo artist, unlike fellow superstar producers Dr. Dre and Kanye West. Producers can showcase their talent in that setting, free to unleash their creative id without compromise and look for inspiration in unlikely places. “Shock Value II” is the CD Timbaland has been building his entire career toward, the work of a great musician at the top of his game.

After more than a decade of consistent success, he doesn’t need to justify his musical decisions. “Shock Value II” reflects that – featuring everyone from Daughtry and Chad Kroeger to Miley Cyrus, the Fray, Drake and Justin Timberlake. Timbaland tweaks the music for each artist but keeps a consistent sound – a futuristic mash-up of R&B, rock, pop and rap destined to be copied endlessly.
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The Artist: Adam Lambert
The Album: For Your Entertainment

Amid all the controversy and rapt media attention showered on Adam Lambert — from initial questions surrounding his sexuality to his instantly game-changing air-sex antics during the American Music Awards — the “American Idol” runner-up has received surprisingly little attention for his ostensible selling point: his pipes.
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The Artist: R.Kelly
The Album: Untitled

To paraphrase the great Texas philosopher Hank Hill, somewhere along the line we forgot to teach R. Kelly shame.

This is, of course, painfully obvious to anyone who has followed his unsavory legal problems. Artistically, on the other hand, it’s been helpful. Kelly’s go-to topic has always been sex — it’s what he writes about when he can’t be bothered to write about anything else — and a lack of shame is a pretty good thing to have if you spend your days thinking up new ways to talk about the world’s oldest activity.
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The Artist: The Bravery
The Album: Stir the Blood

You could call “Stir the Blood” a study of contrasts.

On the one hand, frontman-songwriter Sam Endicott is angry. You can hear it in every jagged riff, every angsty yowl, even in the gore-evoking album title. And there are only so many ways to interpret a song called “Hate(expletive).” There’s a pretty good chance he wants to shower some physical violence on someone. Possibly you.
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The artist: Susan Boyle

The album: I Dreamed a Dream (Sony)

The spin: The half-year since Susan Boyle’s Britain’s Got Talent debut has been a painful one for the fans who turned that Internet video into a worldwide phenomenon. Would Boyle fall apart under the pressure of instant fame? Would Simon Cowell and company give the Everywoman such a polish she’d no longer be recognizable?

It’s hard to imagine many of that group will be disappointed with I Dreamed a Dream, which comes close to delivering what’s expected and was clearly made by people who knew better than to try to change the singer’s style. But the record isn’t nearly as good as it might have been, and its sometimes monotonous vibe won’t persuade many listeners who aren’t already in the fan club.
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The artist: Rihanna

The album: Rated R (Def Jam)

The spin: There is no way to review Rihanna’s new album Rated R without mentioning Chris Brown. After what happened earlier this year, their relationship is the proverbial elephant in the room.

The lead single “Russian Roulette” (“Know that I must pass this test / So just pull the trigger”) and its dark metaphor for love? The anthemic songs about how great she is on her own and the reflective ballads about lost love that every R&B album has? While she rarely explicitly mentions their relationship, almost everything about Rated R could be plausibly interpreted to be about Brown in some way.

It’s unfortunate, because Rated R should be judged on its own merits. Rihanna has become one of the most consistent hit-makers in pop music, and this album continues that trend. Five or six songs easily could be top 10 singles – from the Jeezy- and Slash-assisted club smashes (“Hard,” “Rockstar 101”) to the slower ballads (“Fire Bomb” and “Te Amo”) and songs that ably mix both styles (“Photographs” and “Wait Your Turn”).
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The artist: 50 Cent

The album: Before I Self Destruct (Aftermath)

The spin: 50 Cent tries to reconnect with his gangster rap roots on his new album, “Before I Self Destruct.” Besides a few Dre tracks and the lead single “Baby By Me,” the album has a consistent and monotonous sound — harshly melodic beats with hard pianos and drums behind them.

With no other guest rappers besides Eminem and Lloyd Banks, the album rests entirely on 50’s shoulders.

Such a bright spotlight does him no favors. He rarely switches up his flow, mostly sticking with the same gravelly sing-song rhyme scheme that sounds like he’s talking out of one side of his mouth.

And he’s certainly not the cleverest lyricist, using lazy metaphors like “I’ve got more guns than a gun store” and “I’m like Will Smith in Pursuit of Happyness; in my hood we hustle in pursuit of the same (expletive).” Eminem out-raps him on “Psycho” so badly it’s embarrassing.
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The artist: John Mayer

The album: Battle Studies (Columbia)

The spin: Listeners who put on a pop record and are greeted with the sound of an orchestra tuning up may fear they’re in for an hour of self-importance. But the latest from soft-pop superstar John Mayer doesn’t want to shake the earth, it just wants someone to love.

Fair enough. But instead of wooing the listener, the singer is intent on first convincing her of the wreck old loves have made of him. “I’m in the war of my life,” he croons on one track; “if fear hasn’t killed me yet,” he claims, “then nothing will.” But there’s not a drop of passion in his voice, and Mayer doesn’t appear to know there should be.

He nearly pulls off the sad-sack act on “Perfectly Lonely,” but even there isn’t fit to hold the Kleenex of another smooth-sounding pretty boy, Chris Isaak, who understands how to make languor sound truly heartbroken.
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The artist: Them Crooked Vultures

The album: Them Crooked Vultures (Sony BMG, DGC/Interscope, Columbia)

The spin: A well-meant ode to goofing off with pals and heroes, Them Crooked Vultures can’t be accused of having a thought in its heavy head outside of “Let’s rock!” Since so few bands aspire to that simple notion these days (what’s up, Monsters of Folk), these guys sound downright outside the box.

It helps that they are a trio of weights so heavy they filmed an “Austin City Limits” episode months before their album was released. John Paul Jones (Led Zeppelin, bass, elder statesman), Dave Grohl (Foo Fighters, drums, alt-rock vet) and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age, hard rock’s tallest, most suave man) make quite a crew. And hey, the songs are almost there.
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