This much is clear from the rise of 16-year-old pop-R&B phenom Justin Bieber: We have the technology, the means to chisel a bona-fide American singing star from a Canadian sprite with a gorgeous swoop of hair, an emphatic grin and only the rudiments of vocal control and power. Read more

She & Him, Monica and Mindy McCready Read more

What a sad commentary about modern music that a "virtual band" can create a record of more depth and feeling than most actual bands. Read more

Capsule reviews of CDs by Broken Bells, DeVaughn, Jason Derulo. Read more

Contemplating the title of the second full-length album by the Watson Twins can be a hall-of-mirrors experience. Who's talking to whom? Which one is doing the talking? Are they talking to each other? You talkin' to me? Read more

Surfer Blood, Findlay Brown and Josh Thompson Read more

Johnny Cash, Rocket Summer & Daniel Merriweather Read more

Massive Attack is less a band than a cloud of free-floating anxiety. Its members, Robert Del Naja (or 3D) and Grant Marshall (Daddy G), are pioneers of the trip-hop that emerged from clubs in Bristol, England, in the late 1980s. (A third founder, Andy Vowles, aka Mushroom, left in 1999.) Read more

Sade, Hot Chip and Nneka CD reviews. Read more

No one expected Nick Jonas to take a break from his lucrative day job and completely re-invent himself. Read more

Radio isn't hurting for easy-on-the-eyes, even-easier-on-the-ears ingenues these days. I'm not talking about pop brats like Katy Perry (who fill another niche entirely) but the Sara Bareilles, Colbie Caillat and Ingrid Michaelson types that slip, unassumingly, into heavy rotation and slowly win o... Read more

A tip of the cyber cap to my ex-Oklahoma Gazette colleague George Lang for turning me onto this one. Toronto wunderkind Colin Munroe has been buzzed about since the end of 2... Read more

The Internet has been losing its collective mind over this record — already being breathlessly touted as one of 2009’s best, an early high-water mark — since late December, when it first leaked. The indie cognoscenti always need a buzzworthy, mostly obscure act to kick things off and this year, a... Read more

Alanis Morissette Flavors of Entanglement ** (Two out of five stars) Read more