Damien Rice: 9

Which can be a problem. A song like 9's "Accidental Babies" builds from a piano part that sounds like a first-year student plunking around, and the words, while hardly ham-fisted, are in the same passive-aggressive heartsick mode that Rice can't seem to shake. (Outside of "you," the most-heard word on 9 has to be "me.") The sad-sack cabaret performances tend to start slow, moving ahead step by step until the stillness is shattered by Rice shouting "fuck you" over and over, as he does on "Rootless Tree," or by an orchestral swirl straight out of Disney's Fantasia, as on "The Animals Were Gone."

Whatever the climax, and whatever vocal acrobatics Rice adds to the mix, this approach to music-making doesn't conform to simple pop-folk songs, and when Rice tries one—like the gently rhythmic, melodic "Dogs" or "Grey Room"—he flounders. He needs the moments of exquisite tension, which means his music needs listeners who want to hear it. It isn't like Rice is going to let them concentrate on anything else.