Ethical incontinence notwithstanding, Xzibit is an undeniably charismatic vocalist, with a gift for pure, jolting, testosterone-packed aggression that leads to some rather magnificent moments.

Neither wholly satisfying nor wholly great.

While it's certainly refreshing to hear Oberst refrain from swaddling his emotionally-driven conceits in rock statesman's clothing, much of Conor Oberst seems too comfortably by-the-book to really leap off the page.

Perhaps with a bit more effort converting the jams into actual songs this would have been a worthy jump off as opposed to the album's incandescent highlight. Your forecast then, occasional flashes of brilliance but largely dreary.

This is bound to be praised to the hilt as the Next Big Thing, but rock outfit At The Drive In have only one thing going in their favour - the absence of competition. It's so close to being something beautiful, something to cling on to in these aurally barren times, but it's just so not quite.

It's a mixed bag certainly and while nothing else here scales the heights of the single that's made his name thus far, there are plenty of moments of pop confection steered with a degree of sophistication to suggest he's more than a one trick pony.

Appallingly tasteful.

Large parts of this album sound as if designed specifically to be played to fields full of semi-comatose revellers.

It's blatant commercial product, something for everyone.

They've got one song, basically. It's a fairly good song, comprising driving, rama-lama rhythms and pitch-dark lyrical content; but repeated 10 times in fairly mild variations, it inevitably loses its appeal.

“Anniemal” is a textbook pop album – with all the passion that entails (i.e. none).

Sometimes it's almost too much "classic Springsteen"; too many songs seem like retreads.

Probably makes more sense in a theatre than on your CD player.

A fractional disappointment after 'Emergency Rations', perhaps. But still, Def Jux's reputation as the most consistent hip-hop label in the world circa now remains unsullied.

Perhaps it's no surprise that eighth album Let England Shake is the first for which Harvey does not appear on the sleeve.

Sadly for such weighty themes of trust, betrayal, loneliness, living out of a suitcase and long distance relationships, the lack of true darkness amongst the sweetness and light is a little frustrating.

Attempting such an ambitious concept in an age of diminished attention spans should no doubt be applauded, but overstretching itself in a stab at immortality, "Stadium Arcadium" marks a step backwards from 2002's "By The Way".

There are moments where the mini-pops Joy Division approach hits paydirt, notably on the relentless, single-minded surge of the single, 'Bigger Than Us'. But mostly the trio are at their best when they wriggle free from the colossal shadows they're hiding under.

Their dedication to refined, pretty songs means there's a very narrow scope here that didn't afflict Grizzly Bear's "Veckatimest" and which makes proceedings here sound a little wan and wishy-washy after a while.

It's good clean fun, entertaining and inoffensive.

There could be a better band in there than the production lets them be.

Daft Punk have done their homework, and there's enough here to suggest that, with a bit of debugging, they'll have no problem hitting all the right buttons next time.

Mostly, Donkey is undone by a dearth of really memorable, infectious tunes.

Too many tracks sound like tired Wu cast offs saved from the studio floor to prove that he's capable of doing this in his sleep.

The psychic bruising Okereke has sustained playing the East London fame game during the past 12 months has produced self-pitying lyrics that frequently state the bleeding obvious.

An effective, but ultimately generic, pop album.

Calvin Harris does nothing out of the ordinary, but still, he does it well.

What we are given this time round is a rather boring queue of unmemorable songs.

Rowland's big problem is that she has the lungs but not the voice, at least not if we take that to mean something distinctively her own.

Emergency isn't quite the great leap that was expected but does at least carry a few optimistic signs for the future.

It would be unfair to dismiss the record completely, however, as there are definite highlights.

For fans, a job well done, and surely appreciated. For the rest, digestion of any of Luna's five studio albums may be advisable first.

The full band approach seems to weigh things down so heavily you can almost see the red welts on the shoulders of its two leaders.

Could 'Blood Pressure' restore The Kills fortunes to their early glory days? It would seem that Hince's luck might be running out.

Given their youth, it does indeed promise much, but please, hold off on that honours listing for a while yet.

While Relapse is a slightly more energised record than the listless "Encore" (despite a Dr Dre production that is, for the most part, tired and dated), it's hardly the comeback many hoped for.

Where once Macca seduced us with great melodies, simple songs and great musicians, here the musical sledgehammer is on show too often.

While one could be forgiven for dismissing American VI as the scrapings of a barrel, the truth is that five of its ten tracks are worthy additions to the Cash canon; no more, no less.

A long 14 tracks, it's fairly unfocused and though the pair have done enough to prove that they're not just out to annoy, there is still something fundamentally unsatisfying going on here.

To be fair, "The Loon" stops short of pastiche, but it is too transparently a paean to Tape 'n Tapes' heroes.

Girls And Weather is so cloyingly cheerful and eager to please that it might as well be "Big Brother" audition tape.

While she's been guilty of gluing sure-fire singles together with rotten fillers on her previous two albums, Britney uses this opportunity to take the odd risk and adds a welcome edge to her sound.

Imagine "Hello Nasty" if it had entirely consisted of "Three MCs And One DJ" and you're close to understanding exactly how "To The 5 Boroughs" sounds.

The change is clear from the outset with 'In The Mode' sounding like an album made by an act that no longer feels the need to pamper its audience. Gone are the gently loping double bass grooves and feathery vocals, replaced by a feverishly paced percussive assault that challenges both vocalists and live instruments alike to keep up.

Lazily accomplished without ever truly igniting, a classy update on a slightly dated hip-hop sound.

This is the first Muse album to sound - brace yourself, outrageous melodrama fans - ordinary.

He's spitting distance from a brilliant concept album about love and suburbia, but he keeps pulling back.

It's New Order-lite.

Much more of this and Shakira will surely take over the whole world with her mix of unthreatening pop / rock, lovingly naïve lyrics and cute tummy.

It's an album for well-mannered emotional crises in front of log fires, a soundtrack for quivering bottom lips.

At its best “The Silent Hours” is a robust, reasonably straight ahead rock record and at its worst, a lumpen, forgettable distraction.

This may be the point at which even those well-disposed to the nice and the quirky start to note diminishing returns.

One crucial difference is The Pierces' music has changed from something that sounded like awkward whimsy a few years ago into something middle-aged people will like; and that's basically the key to selling loads of records these days.

It makes for a cool sound that might be too inoffensive at times but which grabs all the right places most of the time.

Intense, grown-up and pretty it may be, but this record does nothing to move the whole cathartic/cinematic genre a millimetre further than where it was a decade ago.

It's a horribly overlong, confused creation and Aguilera's brash personality and lioness voice are often sacrificed in pursuit of its many different styles. But when its experiments work, she's never sounded so interesting.

Sliced in half, Kelis' fourth album would be twice as good. As an EP it would be perfect. But in it's current incarnation, it's one to cherry pick from your favourite download store.

What potentially made Album exciting was that it seemed to understand that pop itself doesn't make sense, and that it can still work just as well with all the wrong notes in all the wrong order.

The problem is not that The Rakes haven't sought to evolve; it's that they've done so too self-consciously and slipped out of their depth.

There are some fiendishly catchy hooks and very occasionally a real quality to some of the songwriting, enough to suggest that there are better things to come from the young trio once simply aping the already done-to-death genre du jour has finally lost its appeal.

If you didnt get 'U.F.Orb' or 'Orblivion', this ain't going to change your mind. If youve never heard The Orb before, though, this is as good an introduction as any.

Sometimes it works - notably with Gorecki's and Ravel's work - but it frequently misses the mark, with his reinterpretation of Handel's 'Xerxes' sounding something like incidental muzak from a low-budget US soap.

The best songs on this cunning, efficient, frequently daft and fractionally disappointing album are the ones which sound most like the misty reveries of [their] debut.

And fortunately, Rickie also goes beyond the cliched songbook, choosing songs which the soaring yet contemplative voice lends itself perfectly to, and makes her own...

"Afrodisiac" is Brandy’s most personally revealing album to date and her least lyrically fluffy, but its intimacy is hamstrung by the MTV-flavoured, formulaic gloop with which most contemporary, American R&B now seems to be contaminated.

Night Work, the Sisters third studio album, is both their filthiest and most musically downbeat effort to date.

His flow remains arguably one of the greatest out there; it would just be nice for him to have a bit more faith in his own mind, rather than those of our uber-producers.

It's an inferior re-run of the Marilyn Manson hammer horror panto that's been showing since '96.

Great fun to record, no doubt, and probably great live, but an annoying conceit on record.

Frankly it makes our blood run cold with images of Sunday supplement purgatory, Spektor trading soft-focus licks with Katie Meluah from out of suburban glove compartments for decades to come. Thankfully the reality is nowhere near as bad as that.

Aside from the odd pervy foray however, Doo-Wops & Hooligans is a fairly impressive pop record; packed full of guaranteed arena fillers, it's an album that's literally born to be big.

An often mediocre record, with a few peaks and an awful lot of troughs.

There's something about the determinedly primal recording techniques and clunky, 'we-just-learnt-this-today!' instrumentation that doesn't ring true.

Strip away the fug of patchouli oil and incense and you're left with little more than a shoegazing album played by Kula Shaker.

In a number of 'mature' developments to their sound they've laid down impeccably produced horns (see bombastic opener 'World War III'), come within millimetres of salacious classic rock in the excellent "Poison Ivy" (watch out for the implied "bitch" in the chorus!) and, on lead single 'Paranoid,' dispensed a chilled-out post-baggy number.

Musically it is by far and away his most complete offering but some cracks do show.

Adams can undoubtedly pen this classic rawk stuff with his ears closed and, as a result, the 15 tracks here lack heart.

All in all, 'Flowers' is simply too nice to be up there with the Bunnymen's finest work, but a worthy record, if only for the few great tracks you will find within.

Despite the almost universal hyperbole that has greeted 'All That You Can't Leave Behind', this is no masterpiece. Certainly not by U2's stratospheric standards.

Not tonally consistent enough to work as an ambient record, not sufficiently solidly written to really grab your attention as a suite of songs, Leila's comeback nonetheless numbers some arresting moments worthy of your attention.

Resurrect[s] the 1970s white ska world of The Specials, The Jam et al with varying degrees of success.

It is not a terrible album by any means; just an unfocussed and sprawling one.

Given the fact there are 25 tracks and a platoon of songwriters spread over Doll Domination's various bonus discs, it's not surprising that it occasionally succeeds, and there are hit singles to be found here.

It's a case of too many beats failing to earn their keep.

The interesting theme doesn't last.

Throughout, Southampton's own R Kelly, as silky-voiced as ever, seems determined to seize hold of his iffy image and re-establish his old school soul credentials.

For all that she's miraculously clawed back here, the one thing that eludes her is the one thing that made her exceptional: her voice. Without it she's just another R&B singer, and, good as it is in places, I Look To You is just another R&B album.

The Bachelor has more than a whiff of a histrionic West End musical confined to a primary school assembly hall which means it's 10 out of 10 for effort, but for execution...

What niggles is that many of the songs aren’t whole enough or, if we’re honest (and it’s hard because he’s just so darn loveable and charming), good enough for an album. Even superior compositions like “Art Teacher” suffer under this record’s careless construction.

Thematically, "Born Again In The USA" is a bold album that tries hard - perhaps too hard - to bind together the inter-related twines of culture, politics, history and entertainment.

So, we have a maturing Ms Lavigne, distancing herself from the teen antics of her "Let Go" debut, but struggling to find any stories worth telling save for boyfriend trouble and dead grandparents.

An average effort with hints of greatness.

They seem keen to hold a mirror up to familiar pop tropes, but in doing so only reveal themselves for what they are - a gang of weirdoes carrying guitars. Perversely, their eagerness to engage the mainstream attention span often seems obnoxious in itself.

They’ve returned to the clamorous, powerchord-packed rock of their debut, with the inevitable result that it sounds fixed firmly by the formaldehyde of fashion in mid-90s post-grunge.

Disappointingly, there's little here to startle the natives.

On the whole Pivot seem hesitant to surrender anything of themselves--they've sacrificed the time taken to craft the whole dextrous thing, of course, but the temptation is to see that as slightly indulgent when there seems little attempt to ensnare the ears of others.

There are a couple of songs so overfamiliar that Boyle can do little to revitalise them, including a predictable trudge through 'Auld Lang Syne' and the saccharine overdose of 'Away In A Manger', but Boyle herself once again emerges from trashy circumstances with class intact.