Terrence Howard
Shine Through It
Columbia

Best known for his Oscar-nominated performance in the hip-hop drama Hustle & Flow, actor Terrence Howard launches his musical career this week with Shine Through It. Anybody expecting the gangsta rapper of Hustle & Flow will be taken aback by this blend of Stevie Wonder, Sade, Cab Calloway and James Taylor. It's an ambitious record reminiscent of Terence Trent D'Arby, not only in how it sounds but how it overreaches.

New Kids on the Block
Block
Interscope

Almost 15 years after their roundly panned final album Face the Music, the New Kids on the Block reunite for The Block. Far from trying to recreate the cheery, sunny bubblegum of their heyday, NKOTB decide to go all modern here, which means that The Block bubbles over with auto-tuned vocals, chilly synths, heavy club rhythms and lots and lots of songs about sex -- a move that plays as pretty desperate for a group whose members are now pushing 40.

Brian Wilson
That Lucky Old Sun
Capitol

That Lucky Old Sun, Brian Wilson's second major thematic work, isn't quite the third coming of SMiLE. Although it's polished with the peak-era production style that Wilson made famous, most of the songs are wrapped around the awkward songwriting and overwrought pop/rock he's revisited again and again since his first major return to form, back in 1976.

Young Jeezy
The Recession
Def Jam

On his third official album The Recession, superstar rapper and former trapstar Young Jeezy flirts with the idea of a politically motivated full-length. There’s the title cut, the Barack Obama tribute titled “My President”, plus “Circulate” and its great line about oil prices, but social issues take a backseat when Jeezy plays it safe with some everyday club tracks. Kanye West, Nas, and producer Drumma Boy all guest on this scattershot effort.