Is Will Smith an important rapper? The kind that deserves the awards, the honors, the accolades that the music industry foists upon him? Well, no. The words corny and safe might be applicable when describing the artist formerly known as the Fresh Prince. But dig this: corny and safe as he may be, why can't you stop singing "Getting Jiggy Wit It" or why does your child love "Just the Two of Us", Smith's shameless ode to dads and their kids? Probably because Smith is nothing if not sincere. Yes, the tracks are obvious and leaden, and, no, Method Man won't have any sleepless nights when Smith lets loose with a rhyme. But give him this: Smith comes from the culture, even if he long ago left the streets. -Amy Linden.

The second wave of Can reissues, freshly remastered by bassist/studio wizard Holger Czukay, keyboardist Irmin Schmidt, and engineer Jono Podmore repeats the trick pulled on the first batch, stripping away background hiss and muddiness and leaving these epochal recordings sounding impossibly fresh. The pick is undeniably Future Days, considered by many to be the group's finest hour: the last album to feature deranged Japanese vocalist Damo Suzuki, it sees the band working as one, crafting long vistas of blissful ambient sound powered by Jaki Liebzeit's steady, machine-like drumming. 1974's Soon Over Babaluma is an underrated Can moment, however: guitarist Michael Karoli switches to violin on "Dizzy Dizzy", even adding a hushed, mantric vocal, while the eleven-minute "Chain Reaction" offers the first taste of Can's disco-influenced future. Something of a mixed bag, Unlimited Edition is most interesting as an example of Can's musical breadth: a compilation spanning five years, it features everything from the cranked Velvets garage of "Mother Upduff" - featuring original vocalist Malcolm Mooney - to "Cutaway", seventeen minutes of dizzying tape-splice experiments. Finally, 1975's Landed: it's far from a highlight of Can's back catalogue, but "Hunters And Collectors" and the raging "Vernal Equinox", featuring some furious Karoli soloing, are not without their charms. -Louis Pattison.

It's thrilling-in any language-to hear new music from Colombian superstar Shakira. And it's been a long time coming. Shakira's English crossover opus, Laundry Service, was released in 2001. The Spanish Donde Estan Los Ladrones came three years before that. Fijacion Oral, Volumen 1 is the first of two new discs; an English counterpart is due in November. Shakira's bleating, biting voice is in fine form, and it gives the material an electric urgency. She's girlish and innocent during the glittering "Dia de Enero" and sensual and seductive amid the thundering beats of "Lo Imprescindible. " A talented stable of producers, including former Soda Stereo vocalist Gustavo Cerati, has swathed Shakira in rhythm-based arrangements. But the album's best moments come when she channels her inner-and innate-rock goddess. "La Tortura" is a hurts-so-good break-up duet with Alejandro Sanz, and "Escondite Ingles" rides a beach-party guitar groove. [+]

Purists on both sides scoffed, but EBTG's transition from bedsit folkies to club favourites was one of the artistic coups of its year. Ben Watt had admitted that their previous album in 1994, Amplified Heart, seemed lacklustre, the work of a band trapped by its format, and he sought an outlet for his burgeoning love of dance music. Encouraged by the chart success of Todd Terry's remix of that album's "Missing", and by partner Tracey Thorn's collaboration with Massive Attack, the pair took the plunge setting their melancholy vignettes of love-gone-wrong to discreet electronics, and recruiting an impressive roster of drum & bass producers (Omni Trio, Howie B, Spring Heel Jack) to assist with the update. The result was their most cohesive and satisfying collection since Idlewild, an extraordinary return to form that sounded nothing like their earlier work. Tracks like "Single" and "Big Deal" covered familiar lyrical terrain (loneliness, nostalgia, unrequited passion), but allied the material to a radically more contemporary sound. Yet, as ever, the real coup was not any piece of studio trickery, but Thorn's languid, sensuous vocals. Rarely has heartbreak seemed so enticing. -Andrew McGuire.

Hot Shots II is like a step back in time to when the wilful eclecticism of Super Furry Animals and creepy child-like melodies of Talk Talk held sway, a time when everything psychedelic seemed to come infused with Gregorian melancholia. The Beta Band's second album proper, Hot Shots II shows exactly why bedsit boys like Radiohead love 'em. It has soul, imagination and a most welcome inclination to gently experiment in found sound, while retaining a completeness lacking from their self-titled 1999 release. "Gone" swirls and eddies with wistful abandon, "All Sharp" utilises a tingly toy piano, while "Alleged" could be mistaken in a dim light for an acoustic track from Beck, a damn fine one at that. Then these four recalcitrant Scots boys throw in some raw temperate beats on "Broke" and some delirious three-part Beatles-esque harmonies on the closing, confusing "Eclipse", two tracks that straddle the middle ground between Kraftwerk and Jools Holland's "Later With. " and show with disconcerting ease that they're still lakes ahead of the opposition. -Everett True.

A CD is always more compelling when you know it's lifted from the artist's autobiography, and that's certainly the case with Confessions, Usher's first record since 2001's 8701. The Atlanta singer's string of hits over the past decade have been decidedly under-18s rated, almost veering towards teen pop, but he's changed all that on this coproduced offering, which he claims is "the real him". It would be too simplistic to just brand this record a break-up record, chronicling his public split with TLC's Rozonda "Chili" Thomas; it is that, but so much more. It would be more accurate to call this Usher's coming-of-age record, bridging the gap from boy to man, as he navigates the emotional fallout from the disintegration of his relationship and the events that led up to it-real or imagined. But other than a guilty conscience, it seems unclear why Usher feels compelled to disgorge his secret life, as he documents his infidelities, transgressions and emotional perfidy in the album's prodigious 17 songs that range from insinuating sultry R&B grooves to the decidedly crunky "Yeah", which pairs an insistent keyboard romp with Lil' Jon's assertive beats and Ludacris' rather humid rhymes. This tracks shines all the more since it's the only club track, but you find yourself pining for more, since most of the other songs tend to get bogged down in his lush, feverish balladry. That's not a bad thing, but the disc would have been better served by a few more muscular tracks. -Jaan Uhelszki, Amazon. com.

In 1990, London rappers Bionic and Rodney P released arguably the first true UK hip-hop album. A potent blend of the reggae, dub and cockneyfied rhymes, their debut album Gangster Chronicle was also to be their last. Successful though it was, when their label went bust, it ceased to be commercially available. Rodney P later became a leading light in UK hip-hop, Bionic got into drum 'n' bass, and Gangster Chronicle was all but forgotten about. Over a decade on and the original ten tacks, plus four ill-fated follow-up singles, have finally been resurrected and re-issued. And while a lot of water has passed under hip-hop's bridge since its first airing, it's fair to say nothing's ever sounded quite as London as this. Produced by radio DJ Tim Westwood, it wasn't just Rodney P's Lundunn accent, Bionic's ragga toasting and slang only Ali G could appreciate that set the pair apart. Their use of dancehall reggae ("Money Mad", "Livin' Pancoot"), Soul II Soul grooves ("How's Life in London") and speaker throbbing dub ("Oversized Idiot") ensured they were nothing like their US counterparts or anything else since. In retrospect, some of the boasting & bragging sounds naff, and the strength of Rodney's cockney accent on "Live Like the Other Half" verges on ridiculous, but essentially it's still as alive and unique as UK hip-hop gets. -Dan Gennoe.

Neu! '75 is the third and most essential record from Krautrock wunderkinds Neu!-a two-man experimental force that pioneered the rapid, repetitive drum-beat known as motorik, and mapped out the future of music for groups such as Sonic Youth, Stereolab, and Spacemen 3. Recorded after a two-year moratorium on the Neu! design, 75 is the sound of a band in a state of disintegration-but it's the simmering tension between the ambient-minded Michael Rother and the fiery Klaus Dinger that makes this an artistic triumph rather than a shambolic dissolution of ideas. Neu! handle this fracture by effectively splitting 75 in two very different parts. The first half, featuring the drifting catatonic majesty of "Seeland" and the tidal ambient lull of "Leb' Wohl" is very recognisably led by Rother's sense of affecting minimalism. The second half, however, is Dinger's blank canvas, over which he bitterly vents his spleen: "Hero" surges forward on an aggressive pedal-to-the-metal wave of guitar, Dinger bellowing "The only crime is money" like an anarchist sloganeer. Suddenly, claims that this record was a influence on the young John Lydon make perfect sense; 'Neu! '75' is a masterpiece of cosmic punk rock, beamed in from a time before punk rock even existed. -Louis Pattison.

Now we have Greatest Hits, a 22-song collection of Cooke's pop hits in addition to the 13-song Best Of collection and the 28-song The Man and His Music. Only The Man comes close to presenting a complete portrait of the legendary soul singer: At least there are examples of Cooke's gospel and R&B material. (Any collection without "A Change is Gonna Come" is an automatic failure. ) Cooke's melodious voice and deft songwriting touch are worthy of more than a single-disc compilation. If you want just the pop smashes, the sublime ballads, and infectious mellow grooves, this set will suffice. Otherwise, The Man offers a more comprehensive and well-rounded look at Cooke's legacy. -Marc Greilsamer.