Fresh
Artist: Gina G.

Gina G. may want to be Madonna, but her admiration for the queen of dance-pop is so unabashed and affectionate, it's hard not to be suckered into her debut, Fresh. From its self-consciously controversial cover art, featuring Gina smeared in chocolate, to its relentless barrage of bouncy, up-tempo dance-pop, Fresh is an homage to early Madonna,... Read More

R.
Artist: R. Kelly
Community Score: 7.84

At the beginning of the '90s, R. Kelly was seen as a lewd, lascivious soulman. By the end of the decade, he had stripped those adjectives away and was seen as a contemporary equivalent of Marvin Gaye, thanks to the enormous success of "I Believe I Can Fly." Appropriately, R., the double-disc album that followed "I Believe I Can Fly"'s parent... Read More

One Wish
Artist: Deborah Cox
Community Score: 9.00

Arista set out to make a huge star of Deborah Cox. Her first album scored a couple of moderate hits, but with her second they were poised to turn the burgeoning belter into a new Whitney Houston. That didn't quite happen, but the set did make her into a considerable star, thanks in part to her monster cross-format smash "Nobody's Supposed to Be... Read More

The Boy Is Mine
Artist: Monica
Community Score: 9.10

On her second album, The Boy Is Mine, Monica is given a little more room to strut her own stuff. Previously, she was an inexperienced vocalist whose raw talent was sculpted by a bevy of producers. Here, she sticks with Dallas Austin; not only does he give her songs immaculately crafted musical backdrops -- both ballads and uptempo dance numbers... Read More

Greatest Hits - WARLOCK
Artist: The Cover Girls
Community Score: 10.00
Never Say Never
Artist: Brandy
Community Score: 7.95

Shortly after the release of her eponymous debut in 1995, Brandy became a star. Not only did the album sell well, but she starred on UPN's Moesha and Disney's made-for-TV Cinderella, all before she released her second album, Never Say Never, in 1998. Needless to say, there was much more riding on the second record than the debut and,... Read More

I Wanna Be the Only One
Artist: Eternal
One Night With You: The Best of Love, Vol. 2
Artist: Luther Vandross

One Night with You picked up where Luther Vandross' first hits collection left off, including the R&B/pop Top Ten hits "Power of Love/Love Power," "Don't Want to Be a Fool," "The Best Things in Life Are Free," and "Endless Love," as well as the R&B Top Ten hits "Little Miracles" and "Your Secret Love." Also included was the Grammy-winning "Love... Read More

Greatest Hits
Artist: Party
The Collection
Artist: Martha Wash

While a collection of Martha Wash's assorted hits is a great idea, The Collection is likely to leave most listeners wanting more. While most of Wash's hits -- which she typically performed anonymously for studio projects including C&C Music Factory and Black Box -- are included, many are in newly recorded renditions which pale next to the... Read More

Robyn Is Here
Artist: Robyn
Community Score: 6.48

Robyn's debut album, Robyn Is Here, isn't particularly deep, but it is well-executed Eurotrash dance-pop. The Swedish teenager has an appealingly thin voice, and her producers and songwriters have a knack for crafting hooky dance-pop that sounds as if it was made in 1990, not 1997. Half of the album rides by on mediocre songs and first-rate... Read More

Lisa Stansfield
Artist: Lisa Stansfield

Lisa Stansfield's long-awaited eponymous fourth album finds the blue-eyed soul singer at the top of her game, turning in a stylish set of smooth, disco-inflected dance-pop. The songs, from a cover of Barry White's "Never, Never Gonna Give You Up" and "Never Gonna Fall" to the ballad "I Cried My Last Tear," are uniformly strong and Stansfield's... Read More

Te Sigo Esperando
Artist: Brenda K. Starr
#1's
Artist: Mariah Carey
Community Score: 9.50

Protest as she may -- and she does, claiming in the liner notes that #1's is "not a greatest hits album! It's too soon, I haven't been recording long enough for that!" -- it's hard to view #1's, Mariah Carey's first compilation, as anything other than a greatest-hits album. Carey was fortunate enough to have nearly every single she released top... Read More