Before I Self Destruct needs as many bells and whistles as it can muster, because the music isn't going to cut it on its own.

Ignore The Ignorant looks for escape into the US indie underground, "Last Year's Snow", "Cheat On Me" and "Nothing" sulkier than The Cribs we've come to know, reluctantly 'pop' dismissals rather than worried cures for a mainstream malaise The Cribs apparently regard as terminal.

There's little doubting Wale's potential but 'Attention Deficit' is so much like a lot of other rap fare out there that it will very likely suffer to be heard above the cynicism directed at hip hop in 2010.

If you're the sort of person who can see music--even if you can't, perhaps--this is so colourful.

If it were anyone else, this record would be fine. Solid. Entertaining. But it's not anyone else--Julian Casablancas, lead singer of The Strokes. As such, you look for more and expect to tune in to find Julian doing the same.

Driving yet jaunty guitars abound and backing chants fill the required spaces, yet it all comes across too much like a sub-par parody of their former selves.

Sexy, credible, committed, In Love And War works damn hard for the money, and stands as another thoroughly modern record from a lady embodying strangely old-skool virtues.

Over 11 tracks she fails to pull in a single noteworthy vocal, that's if you can even locate it beneath the waves of effects designed to disguise how very little is actually there.

You suspect Fits would fit better live, where the audience have no choice but to go with it, but here the trio sound slightly too pre-occupied with pleasing themselves rather than the listener, greedily ripping through riffs with a tenacity that, while impressive, is often ultimately self-defeating.

If Lungs fails to make as much impact as those other debuts, it may be because Welch puts a little too much emphasis on singer and not enough on songwriter.

As much U2, New Order and Jan Hammer as they are The Field, Harmonia and Black Dice, ultimately F*ck Buttons are in a league of their own--and with Tarot Sport, they just bettered themselves.

Cox is evidently a songwriter and sound sculptor of incredible skill and though the inclusion of the two collaborations--both a little too in thrall to their guests perhaps--means Logos lacks the wholly immersive quality of its predecessor, there is little else to contest; truly, this is pop music at its most weird and wonderful.

Despite the hilarious wordplay though, it's hard to imagine anyone returning over and over to the actual tunes, you're far better off with a DVD and its accompanying visual gags.

Overall, Machine Dreams is bristling with invention and teeming with variety, a fantasy world you won't wish to quickly wake from.

This is a record that proves, again, Joss Stone's considerable worth.

It's quite brilliant, the one thing we have come to expect from this band.

Our suggestion: embrace the bizarreness of it all. It's all good fun, and let's face it, even though Christmas In The Heart is unlikely to invoke a last minute panic in Best Of The Decade list makers, it's way better than Slade.

It wasn't disco-pop and it wasn't chart-fodder, and sadly for them--and their label--attempts to make them so with the help of Rick Rubin has resulted in a record that sounds similar to the last but with the heart ripped out.

As it is, with all their knobs set to downbeat, there's something restrained and knowing here that will trouble some newcomers. Still, there's very little on "xx" to suggest this band will end up on the compost heap.

It's also terrific fun, though so lightweight you might want to weigh your stereo down with bricks before pressing play.

However maudlin Noah & The Whale begin, then, there's a wonderful narrative here that sees them move from first-love blues, through resentment to healing and finally to acceptance.

This record can't claim such a free-spirited conception as its predecessor, but that's actually to its credit as not a moment rests idle or is flung in on a whim, every track connects like a pool cue to the back of the head in a bit of Friday night pub rough and tumble.

Perhaps the less successful tracks here might have been novel and fresh 15 years ago, but interest in library music and analogue synths was piqued long ago and some of Love 2 sounds like one example of many these days.

While A Place To Bury Strangers are obviously still in awe of the original shoegaze crowd, Exploding Head is a step towards sounding unique.

The problem is, Go Hard's constantly unsure if it wants to top the charts of its own accord, dominate Radio 1 with big-name collaborations or avoid getting friendly with the mainstream at all, and so flits between the three hoping no one will notice.

There is more than enough pop fuel here to maintain La Roux's unlikely momentum for a while.

A return to core principles, which has produced a handful of pretty love songs and a solid overall, Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel certainly isn't the disaster we were promised, but then nor is it a triumph.

Minor gripes aside, My Way is far better than anyone could have expected from a singer whose reputation is still judged by his musical contribution from 20 years ago.