MAROON 5 'CALL AND RESPONSE: THE REMIX ALBUM' (A&M)

3 1/2 stars = Very good
Ratings explained

Far too many pop acts taste success and shy away from ever altering the formula.

Fortunately, Maroon 5 is not among them.

The quintet's mixture of funk, soul, pop and rock is finely calibrated and fantastically popular, but the group has allowed a host of buzzy DJs, indie rockers, rappers and producers to re-invent many of its signature hits on "Call and Response: The Remix Album," a stopgap release that's not quite a masterpiece but not quite shameless holiday retail bait, either.

The personnel enlisted to overhaul Maroon 5's high-gloss pop will make bloggers' heads explode: the Cool Kids, Cut Copy, Beach House, Mark Ronson and Of Montreal, to name a few. If frontman Adam Levine and company were looking for a way to boost their street cred, I'd say mission accomplished. The curiosity factor will probably drive many who would otherwise scorn anything bearing Maroon 5's name to check out a few songs.

One of the pitfalls of remix albums, in any genre, can be a slavish dedication to the source material, but thankfully, "Call and Response" doesn't have too many tracks that feel like barely tweaked originals. Most of these rejiggered tracks feature little more than Levine's vocals and a hint of familiar melody: the Roots' drummer, Questlove, recasts "Sunday Morning" as an amber-hued lament; Mary J. Blige helps Ronson spike "Wake Up Call" with a dose of vocal firepower; Pharrell spins "She Will Be Loved" into a stylish club anthem; and Deerhoof takes "Goodnight Goodnight," a surging, arena-slaying ballad, and turns it into a blippy, angular and eerily naked plea for a second chance.

Some overhauls fare better than others: Tiesto's stab at "Not Falling Apart" doesn't go anywhere, while Paul Oakenfold's bloated, dated take on the Rihanna-augmented "If I Never See Your Face Again" spins out endlessly. But what's most fascinating about "Call and Response" is the willingness of these unknown-to-all-but-the-bloggiest acts to take a hammer to one of pop music's more visible bands, shattering and scattering the pieces of multi-platinum singles and re-assembling them in fascinating fashion, often unearthing obscured emotions.

For fans of Maroon 5, it's a chance to appreciate the band's durable songcraft, while those who troll Stereogum for the latest have a fresh batch of remixes to dissect. At 75 minutes and 18 tracks, there's a bit of repetition ("Wake Up Call," "This Love" and "Little of Your Time" are given extreme makeovers multiple times), but this arty, surprising collection pleases far more often than it disappoints.

-- Preston Jones, McClatchy Newspapers

JAMIE FOXX 'INTUITION' (J-RECORDS)

2 1/2 stars = Average
Ratings explained

Unfair as it may seem that Jamie Foxx gets to be a movie star AND a pop star, the guy can sing, with a buttery voice that can slide into a sweet falsetto. Not that you get to hear it too often on "Intuition," Foxx's follow-up to his hit 2005 debut "Unpredictable." Except for the vocals, this is pure electronic music, a dense swirl of beeps and beats and effects. And even the voices (whether Foxx or a who's-hot list of guests that includes Kanye West, Lil' Wayne and T-Pain) are so often altered by that auto-tune chipmunk drone they're practically interchangeable. (How do we know there's not some poor anonymous sucker doing the actual vocals for all these guys?)

The production can be inventively deelish. The first single, "Just Like Me," featuring rapper T.I. and produced by C. 'Tricky" Stewart and Terius "The-Dream" Nash, is a catchy, comic song about a woman who one-ups Foxx at every turn. "I Don't Need," a bouncy electro funk with a New Jack Swing feel featuring and produced by Timbaland, is an irresistible dancefloor burner. There's some luscious electro swirl sounds on "Digital Girl," with West and The-Dream, about a captivating online lover.

But there's a lot of almost identical syrupy slow jams, and one voice can't make all the squealing computer sounds in the world sound romantic.

When some actual instruments show up on the final track, "Love Brings Change," a slow R&B ballad produced by Foxx, it's startling -- could that be a real piano? You can hear some emotion. It's the most old-fashioned, radical and intuitive thing on the whole album.

-- Jordan Levin, McClatchy Newspapers

STEPHEN MARLEY 'MIND CONTROL ACOUSTIC' (ITUNES)

3 stars = Good
Ratings explained

It says a lot about musician and Bob Marley scion Stephen Marley's love of music that, after he debuted with a Grammy-winning hit album, 2007's "Mind Control," his next recording is a subtle acoustic version of the original. During a promotional tour Marley performed solo on acoustic guitar, and fell in love with the simplicity and direct contact it gave him -- and listeners -- to the songs.

The result is soulful and captivating. The sparse instrumentation -- just guitar, percussion and bass with surprises like flute, harmonica and pedal steel, with no thundering dub or dense production -- lets the bones and emotion of the songs come through. Reggae tracks like "The Mission Acoustic" or "Traffic Jam Acoustic," both featuring brother Julian "Jr. Gong" Marley, have a gutsy, straightforward swing that gives powerful, understated punch to their rebellious message.

Reggae has so many dancehall and production overtones, so much history as a genre, it's easy to lose sight of the fact that it's Caribbean music. Marley lets island lilt and sweetness emerge here. And sometimes something more. The emotion of love or love-lost songs like "You're Gonna Leave" feels like soul, like a singer-songwriter ballad, and like something else you can't quite put your finger on. The twang of a pedal steel gives country poignancy to a reggaefied cover of the Ray Charles' song "Lonely Avenue," while harmonica lends bluesy pain to the anger of protest song "Iron Bars."

--Jordan Levin