Theater of the Mind

Ludacris' 2006 album "Release Therapy" was supposed to illustrate some degree of personal growth, but "Theater" has no time for troublesome goal-setting. This one's stuffed with massive, flamboyant beats; overloud dirty-comic vocals; and all the usual lyrical stops: the streets ("Call Up the Homies"), women-slash-liquor ("One More Drink") and money, which is apparently important to him ("Wish You Would"). Throughout, Ludacris brings the funny ("The inconvenient truth is that the ozone is bad 'cause I've been smoking all the trees"), gets off two or three killer lines per song (check out "Everybody Hates Chris," featuring Chris Rock, happily), seems to enjoy his cars and sex, takes shots at Bill O'Reilly and obtains cameos by every rapper you've ever heard of (and, of course, Ving Rhames).—Jeff Vrabel