His target was now more micro; romantic relationships, personal entanglements, warring domesticity; all are met head on. He rallies against the promises that we make and then break, the demons that pursue us, driving us from our lofty ideals of love and commitment. And Springsteen ain't wagging fingers, he places himself at the very epicentre of the record, strikingly his own marriage was to break up in the wake of the album.

The fastidious duo of emcee Naledge and producer Double-O proved with their refreshing debut outing, School Was My Hustle, that they could make the grade. Now two years on, following a label jump from the revamped Rawkus to indie stalwart Duck Down, Kidz In The Hall are out to further assert themselves into Hip Hop's elite and prove that they can hang with The In Crowd.

The Black Keys have changed course but they're headed in the same direction. The place where good music hangs. After their dalliance with Danger Mouse on their last studio release Attack & Release, it looks like the band has settled on producing a fuller, richer sound at the expense of the super raw snarl they possessed earlier in their career. Here's the review of their latest album, Brothers.

Andwele 'Dwele' Gardner is back with a new album and a new label deal. Due to this exodus from the almighty Virgin, you can clearly see differences between this and his two previous albums. For one, Sketches of a Man has a total of 20 tracks (a record for him) and contains a variety of additional musical interludes and experimental tunes. And two, there are no clear singles which illustrates the notion that Dwele wanted to create a more free flowing release as opposed to a sprinkling of hits amongst a collection of sub par tracks.

When you are putting together a pregnancy scrapbook album, take some pictures of yourself and your family. This can be a great way to introduce your child to everyone who cared about them when they were too little to remember. Life is short and none of those people will be around forever, so let your child know how well loved they are and how many people were around and looking out for them. You can even treat it a little bit like an autograph book; ask your friends and family to write some messages to your unborn child in it.

For those who are starting to grow tired of Akon's constant appearances on singles, which is probably most of you, his new album Freedom will well and truly push you over the edge into eye-rolling irritation. The first five tracks on the album are not even really urban; they are dance-pop numbers. They all have the same sound and are lyrically repetitive and mostly insignificant.

Whitney Houston is known for three things: her amazingly potent vocals, her rollercoaster marriage and eventual divorce with Bobby Brown, and finally, the widely-publicised drug allegations against her. Combine all these factors and add a seven year break between studio albums and it is only natural that you would be a little skeptical about the quality of a new release compared to her classics. Still, she had an eight year gap before My Love Is Your Love which is some of the best music she has ever produced.

I don't know about you, but when I do my layouts, a lot of the time I used mini booklets or flaps in order to fit all my photo's from a particular occasion onto a page. The problem is that when you place the completed layout into your album, you have to do one of two things. The first is to pull the layout out from the plastic sleeve each time you want to view its contents, and the other is to cut your plastic sleeve appropriately, but this in turn makes the album untidy and vulnerable to damage. A lot of my layouts fall out in this way or get broken.

I have been waiting to hear this release from The Lazys, it has had some real industry hype. I have been told The Lazys are the new Grinspoon (that I found quite remarkable as Grinspoon are still going strong as ever and seem to get better with age and every Album). Prison Earth is the title of the Album for this Central Coast band, and although I was expecting a little more than what I got due to the hype The Lazys have been receiving, it is still a pretty good listen.

Independently spirited, colourful and musically individual, Sweden's top Hip Hop export Looptroop take on the guise of the Looptroop Rockers on their fourth studio album, Good Things, drawing more heavily from their dancehall/reggae roots, with an emphasis on live instrumentation. The upbeat single The Building characterizes the album perfectly. Amongst the careful construction of frenetic drums, funky guitar, synth and accordion, dreadlocked front-man Promoe utilizes not only his intelligent working man rap but also his sing-songy cadence, along with fellow 'Troop mic wrangler Supreme.

Most people who have pets at home actually get so much attached to them that they are considered more of a family member than just a mere pet. For once, most dog owners actually treat their dogs very well from the time that it is still a puppy until they grow with them. For others, they go beyond the basic care of their pets and they even take pictures of their pets and compile them in an album so they could do something to preserve the memories of their pets and share their joys even to the next generation.

In the previous articles in this series I mentioned the first three prerequisites to successfully choosing tracks for an album: firstly having a central theme for the album, secondly providing variety and thirdly, choosing tracks of the same or compatible genres. I cautioned that in providing variety you should be careful not to go too far, as too much variety can break the unity established by the central theme.

Pros and amateurs in the hip hop/rap industry all need hip hop beats to accompany their compositions. It is the key ingredient that makes rap more fun and appealing to the listeners. But with the high cost and tedious production process, hip hop beats are difficult to achieve especially to newbie artists and producers. New technology such as the internet and modern instruments have brought about the birth of cost-effective and unlimited possibilities of creating rap compositions and albums that even amateurs can achieve

Now that you have imported your music into iTunes, the final step is to add relevant information to each song, such as brand name, year recorded, composer, genre and any other information you wish. This information is saved as part of each song file, so if you ever wish to import your music into a music player program other than iTunes, the information will still be there.