MUSIC | Ratings for selected releases

'CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR'
Madonna
Maverick/Warner Bros. ssss
"Confessions on a Dance Floor" is Madonna's least ambitious release in ages, and, perhaps as a result, also her most rewarding.
A stark departure from 2003's neo-folk "American Life," "Confessions" is a full-throttle club album, free of ballads and swarming with influences that check in and out with supersonic speed.
At the beginning of opening cut/first single "Hung Up," a sample of ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)" emerges from electronic suppression and explodes into a muscular rhythm enhanced by Price's injections of adrenaline. Subsequent references-on-steroids follow on the next few songs -- The S.O.S. Band's "Take Your Time (Do It Right)" on "Get Together," The Jacksons' "Can You Feel It" on "Sorry," Donna Summer's "I Feel Love" on "Future Lovers" -- but the producers reconfigure the familiar riffs into denser concoctions, layering Kraftwerk, Giorgio Moroder and Daft Punk into a decidedly contemporary work.
Even though she's sometimes upstaged by her producers, Madonna appears to be liberated by the single-minded mix, singing what seems like spur-of-the-moment lyrics based on clich & eacute;s and dime-store philosophy. Yet she always nails the hook, whether she's churning through the electronic gurgles of the throbbing "Push" or cruising over the dusky techno of "I Love New York."
Madonna's clearly having fun here, and the feeling is contagious.
--Chuck Campbell, Knoxville News-Sentinel
'SOME HEARTS'
Carrie Underwood
Arista ss
During "American Idol's" run this spring I wasn't fond of Carrie Underwood, the banal Barbie doll from Oklahoma who wound up winning the title.
Underwood's debut album is also predictable: mainstream country-pop designed for maximum impact on country radio. Sure enough, the slickly bland first single, "Jesus, Take the Wheel," is already a fast-rising Top 20 hit in that format and "Some Hearts" will debut at No. 1 on Billboard's Country Albums chart this week with sales of 314,529 copies, according to SoundScan. Fans of Martina McBride's similar sound will love this stuff.
Underwood, like her or not, has a clear image, seems to know who she is, and it comes through in the songs she performs.
That's not to say her CD is a budding classic. It's overlong by at least 15 minutes, and too many overproduced ballads such as "Starts With Goodbye" and "I Just Can't Live a Lie" bog it down.
Yet Underwood's singing shows more depth than displayed on TV. I would never have expected her to pull off the vengeful girlfriend role on "Before He Cheats" with such aplomb. The opening "Wasted" is another catchy up-tempo country-pop tune sung with flair.
--Howard Cohen, Miami Herald
'RIGHT ABOUT NOW: THE OFFICIAL SUCKA FREE CD'
Talib Kweli
Koch Records ss
Brooklyn-born MC Talib Kweli is a hip-hop rarity: a conscious rapper who enjoys commercial success and significant, unquestioned underground credibility. That's one of the reasons hip-hop fans from the 'hood to the 'burbs and everywhere in between have been eagerly anticipating his latest release.
Kweli has made a name for himself by rapping in compelling, realistic and human terms about topics all but played out by mainstream rappers: poverty, violence, individual struggle. "Right About Now" follows in that tradition, if less compellingly than Kweli's earlier efforts.
What makes a great Kweli song is that it pushes the envelope both lyrically and musically. Is it really OK to rap double-speed and just off beat? Can you really rap about violence and despair without glamorizing them? Some of us still ask those questions, and Kweli has been one of the few to consistently answer in the affirmative.
Still, whether you'll buy this CD won't depend just on your post-modern stance on rap, but whether you're a big fan of Kweli. "Where Ya Gonna Run " is soulful; "Fly That Knot" is jumping. Other than that, the album, though consistent, has little that stands out.
--Alex Kellogg, Detroit Free Press
'HYPNOTIZE'
System of a Down
American sss 1/2
System of a Down are the world leaders in maniacal, metal-edged progressive rock for the attention-deficit-disorder generation. On "Hypnotize," the Armenian-American quartet of singer Serj Tankian, bassist Shavo Odadjian, drummer John Dolmayan, and guitarist-songwriter and mastermind Daron Malakian pull off the unlikely feat of besting their previous 2005 release, "Mesmerize."
SOAD songs, as always, are crammed with ideas -- delicately delivered acoustic passages, searing bursts of thrash metal, lyrics that fixate on the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century and decry the bloodshed in Iraq with a rage no one could dare call soft.
"All pathetic flag-waving ignorant geeks/We'll eat 'em, eat 'em eat 'em!" Malakian gleefully sings on the typically intricate, invigorating and nearly unhinged "U-Fig." The secret to "Hypnotize's" success is that it's so compact. Twelve songs that build to a mournful emotional and political climax with "Lonely Day" and "Soldier Side" rip by in 42 minutes, stating their case, and moving on before anyone has the time to get bored.
--Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer