Top 10 CDs

Madonna - Celebration

Celebration, Madonna’s fourth major hits collection, has the herculean task of summing up 30 years of charttopping pop music by one of the true visionary artists of the era. The 18 songs are tilted toward her goodtime dancefloor classics, both from her early days ("Holiday," "Into the Groove") and her later technoinfluenced songs ("Hung Up," "Ray of Ligh...

Mariah Carey - Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel

2 ratings

Any Mariah Carey album carries a lot of weight fan dreams, commercial expectations, the prospect of genuine pop thrill, the star’s outsized persona and 2009’s Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel is no different. Trailing a pair of hits, "Obsessed" and her anthemic cover of Foreigner’s "I Want to Know What Love Is," it’s a lock for commercial success, and it...

David Gray - Draw The Line

After taking a fouryear break from the studio, David Gray announced his return with a new backing band, new label representation, and a new album. 2009’s Draw the Line is consistent with the rest of Gray’s catalog, proof that the songwriter’s appeal rests not in those around him but in his nuanced piano ballads and warm, calloused voice.

Harry Connick, Jr. - Your Songs

1 ratings|1 reviews

Much like 2001’s Songs I Heard and 2004’s Only You, 2009’s Your Songs finds vocalist/pianist Harry Connick, Jr. coming up with an urbane and passionate set of American popular songs and contemporary pop classics that he both performs and orchestrates.

Barbra Streisand - Love Is The Answer

Even before their first session together, Barbra Streisand and collaborator Diana Krall designed Love Is the Answer as a deeply emotional record: "each song an exploration concerning matters of the heart." And with the arrangements of maestro Johnny Mandel simply drawing occasional shading around Streisand’s expressive voice and often leaving her voice as the only instrument the...

Whitney Houston - I Look To You

It’s only been seven years between Just Whitney and 2009’s I Look to You, not even Houston’s longest time between albums, but it feels much, much longer, her glory days obscured in hazy memories of lost luster chiefly deriving from a bad marriage with Bobby Brown, chronicled in an embarrassing reality show for Bravo in 2004.

Toby Keith - American Ride

With most contemporary country artists, you could guarantee that a song called "American Ride" would be a slice of jingoism, but Toby Keith isn’t like most country singers. His "American Ride" casts a cynical eye at desperate housewives and wannabe pop stars, not celebrating downhome values but wondering where we’re all headed on this American Ride at the end of ...

Michael Bublé - Crazy Love

1 ratings|1 reviews

Buoyed by the popularity of the hit contemporary pop ballad "Home," singer Michael Bublé’s 2005 album, It’s Time, clearly positioned the vocalist as the preeminent neocrooner of his generation. Bublé’s 2007 followup, Call Me Irresponsible, only further reinforced this notion. Not only had he come into his own as a lithe, swaggering stage performer with a knack for ...

Jay-Z - Blueprint 3

When JayZ first made a series out of his best album, 2001’s The Blueprint, it became a game of high expectations. The Blueprint of the first volume was JayZ as vital as he’d ever been, storming back to the hardcore after a few years of commercial success. The Blueprint: The Gift the Curse was a complete turn, a set of halfcocked crossovers, bloated to bursting with guest features th...