3 1/2 stars = Very good
Ratings explained

The world may or may not be a better place with the B-52's in it, but it's certainly a lot more fun.

The seminal New Wave band that gave us "Rock Lobster" and "Love Shack" is back with a new record that gets the party started and keeps it cranking for most of the 11 tracks.

It has been 16 years since "Good Stuff," but not much has changed on the B-52's planet. They look as if they've been to the gym, their voices are still brash and youthful and the vibe is pure madcap fun.

The opener, "Pump," with a guitar grind and New Wave-y synths, is a throbbing club track that ranks with the best of their dance hits. Download it for your party mix and do what they say: "Turn up the track!"

But that's not enough. You have to grab the joyous guitar-rockers "Hot Corner" and "Ultraviolet," which has Fred Schneider chiming, "There's a rest stop/Let's hit the G-spot." And you need the closing dance track "Keep This Party Going," too.

In fact, there are enough gems here to recall the 1980 classic "Wild Planet," even if there's nothing quite as bizarro as "Private Idaho." They change the pace a little with the more ethereal "Juliet of the Spirits" and the muddier, techno track "Eyes Wide Open."

If all goes well, "Funplex" will be rock out of the radio and keep people smiling all summer long.

-- Scott Mervis, Post-Gazette pop music critic

3 1/2 stars = Very good
Ratings explained

Gnarls Barkley has such a well-founded reputation for eccentricity -- dressing up as tennis players, airplane pilots, and "Wizard of Oz" characters, or just acting "Crazy" -- that it's easy to forget how serious the genre-bending duo of Cee-Lo Green and Danger Mouse is. It's hard to miss it though, if you listen closely to "The Odd Couple," the soul-rap-rock-experimental-pop duo's follow-up to their celebrated 2006 debut, "St. Elsewhere."

On the surface, the long-awaited and now rush-released album comes off as effusive, idiosyncratic, and downright kooky enough to satisfy fans. And Danger Mouse's production is simultaneously subversive and pop-savvy. But as a soul man whose crackly, bottom-heavy voice is an underrated instrument, Green unburdens himself of many a verse suggesting that being the popular class clown isn't always such a laugh riot.

"I don't have any friends at all/'cause I got nothing in common with y'all," he sings in "Whatever." "So who's going to catch me if I fall?" Similar desperation is voiced in the ghostly "Who's Gonna Save My Soul?" "Surprise" uses a Hawaii Five-O style surf-rock wave to inform us that "everything that's alive eventually dies." This follow-up doesn't include anything as outrageously undeniable as "Crazy," but it's consistently stronger than its predecessor.

-- Dan DeLuca, Philadelphia Inquirer

3 1/2 stars = Very good
Ratings explained

Wild nights and early mornings. You hurt, you heal. You fall down, you pick yourself up again.

While these ideas are cliche, they're ample inspiration for Counting Crows on their first disc of new material in nearly five years, "Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings."

A heartfelt effort drenched with themes of regret and redemption, the disc celebrates the band's alternating identities -- energetic folk-rockers (Saturday Nights) or emotive balladeers (Sunday Mornings).

Singer Adam Duritz continues to play the bohemian troubadour poet, offering emotional confessions on relationships and identity struggles.

Their "Saturday Nights" hit hard (not TOO hard) and fast and offer some of their most straightforward rock ever: wrestling with America's melting pot on "1492" ("I'm a Russian Jew American, impersonating Africans"), and life's overwhelming moments on the radio-friendly "Hanging Tree." Duritz searches for love's recognition on "Insignificant" and "Come Around" runs the gamut from disappointment to determination.

The hard charge and outward expression melts into the soul-searching introspection of their "Sunday Mornings" -- confessing your flaws ("You Can't Count on Me"), longing for a sense of place ("Washington Square" and the lush "When I Dream About Michelangelo") and the heart-wrenching piano ballad "On a Tuesday in Amsterdam Long Ago."

Counting Crows' down-to-earth charm has always been key, and here the band has pulled off its most complete work since its seminal 1993 debut, "August and Everything After."

"Saturday Nights & Sunday Mornings" is a most welcome return for Counting Crows.

-- John Kosik, The Associated Press