If the hardcore fanbase feel a blanch coming on, this isn't all wilful eclecticism gone mad. King's work is The Fall's unifying factor that keeps it cohesive.

Corgan is slowly swamped by the style he's adopted.

Much of It's Not Me's bummed-out vibes seem rooted in sound artistic sense, but musically a sunken-eyed pallor has replaced the rosy-cheeked flush and, you know what, it all gets a bit...draggy.

Jennifer Hudson would do well in stepping outside her comfort zone.

We're all for experimentation, but please: Nashville?

It's almost like neither [Dave Fridmann] nor the band could decide whether they were making an electronic or rock record and in dithering between the two settled on the awkward, frustrating middle ground.

For now, it's way more than a stop-gap but sadly not the second coming you might have been hoping for.

It's all good sauce, one supposes, but as Mills wheels out of earshot, tongue and balls dangling in the warm night air, it's hard not to wonder where the thoughtful, sullen kid whose eyes cut like lasers through sink estate bull**it has got to these days.

Where once the bark was of Beck, we have - and this hurts - Wings.

Though their efforts to keep the flame of rock'n'roll burning bright are to be applauded, the feeling that the real standard bearers are tuning up elsewhere is impossible to shrug off.

Ultimately fails to capture or update the magickal mysticism of the music it seeks to draw from.

Your record collection still only really needs a couple of Chk Chk Chk 12"s and that Out Hud album, but don't pass on the chance to see them live.

Like on James Blake's album, every swoon is accentuated with the help of a computer and at times just sounds like someone crying and using Auto-Tune at the same time.

Only lunatics would rank 'Heathen' alongside Bowie's '70s masterpieces. But for a 55-year-old who's spent such a surreally long time floundering, desperately searching for a) the zeitgeist and b) a tune, it's actually rather respectable.

Not a bad record by a long stretch but a disappointment nonetheless.

Who You Are doesn't entirely deliver, but even when its songs fall short of the promised hype, their potential is obvious.

Ultimately there's something very 80s about Pink. Something very kitsch and plastic; something very 'Breakfast Club'.

It's well-built, yes, but almost too well built, many parts sounding like they've been lifted directly from SY's vast back catalogue and slotted into place, like a jigsaw that needed completing, rather than the sprawling documents of noise and confusion this band's name is built upon.

Mainstream, bleeding-heart balladry, tempered by slightly outre arrangements.

Often thought of as ahead of his time perhaps Byrne is now in the perfect position to articulate the angst of socially unskilled western white men who find themselves taking over the world via new technology. The album's glut of different rhythms speaks of a man trying to find his groove.

Feeder are in danger of being a schizophrenic band, unrecognisable from their once “trademark” sound and prone to style swings on a whim.

It's too much risk-free computation and not enough wild emotion.

There’s conceivably a great record still lurking inside this band but you’re going to have to wait just a bit longer to hear it.

He still fires the occasional lyrical blank and his guitar playing has less of the sparks of the past, instead settling into a role complementing the songs rather than dominating them.

There are some truly great moments on "Senor Smoke".

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.

Crucially, if you stick with a formula, the least you can do is improve it. Unfortunately "Chuck" doesn’t and there’s nothing that’s even remotely equal to "Fat Lip" or "All Messed Up".

It's certainly very cleverly composed and constructed but ultimately sounds aloof and impenetrable and, as a result, somewhat devoid of emotion.

This isn't a bad record, it's just a laboured and peculiarly joyless one, all those things that Supergrass were once the opposite of.

If there are moments when the feted snap and snarl of yore amounts to little more than ramming generic blues licks down the audience's throat, they're tempered with moments of discovery like the lysergic 'To Be Where There's Life' and 'Falling Down' which displays an uncharacteristic lightness of touch.

'Up!' is not without its little oddities and delights.

Unsurprisingly, "TP3.com" is overblown and overlong with appearances from the usual suspects - The Game, Twista and the ubiquitous Snoop - and production qualities as impressive as his libido.

Living up to expectations is tough, especially ones as high as those that have been hovering over Minaj throughout 2010. But it's hard to see who actually wanted to hear a record like this, stripped of curiosities and bombast, that leaves the biggest talent in hip hop with more to prove than ever.

The album's sole significant guest, Nick Cave, emerges on the stalking 'Just Like A King,' but elsewhere there's sadly no real sign of the poetic edge that he or the pick of the earlier troubadours can produce.

At times here, The Kooks are far too easily confused with their peers--the Fratellis' riff on 'Stormy Weather' and Arctic Monkeys' intro to 'Down To The Market'--the band struggle to stamp their own identity on proceedings.

Like a slightly under-serving best of, though, we get glimpses of what they've done before, but nothing substantial enough to set a new high-water mark.

Beginning with the juddering monstrosity that is the live version of 'Third Eye', there is no doubt that the band want to be judged as an epic attraction. It's unfortunate that they've chosen to lengthen some of the tracks to the point of monotony.

For a handful of decent Morrissey songs – and, it must be said, some of his best ever vocal performances – we should be grateful. Ultimately though, for all these tantalising reminders of greatness, "You Are The Quarry" still feels like a man unnecessarily trapped by the limitations of his band and the extent of his loathing.

Zeitgeist may not boast any platinum-plated singles of the kind that typified their peak, but it's mercifully far less flatulent than latter-day Pumpkins.

As a result of [Leithauser's] strangulated mewls and caterwauls, "A Hundred Miles Off" is at times very difficult to listen to indeed.

A short, sharp blast of snotty fun that suggests the party is not over yet.

Too often you can hear the self-satisfied smirk on these songs, the little finger held out affectedly at right angles, the raised eyebrow as he plays to his adoring audience.

Here, the band do what anyone suffering from a knock to their confidence does - they revert to the safety of what they know best.

Like the three Killers albums, Flamingo is patchy, the sound of a vivid talent not living up to its initial promise.

Troublingly short on tunes.

This is a pretty bog-standard Ash collection, nothing more, nothing less.

'Beat 'Em Up' is not shit but ain't exactly loveable either. However, it does confirm that Iggy Pop can still kick up a fuss with the best of them even if the end result isn't as legendary as the man who produced it.

Architecture In Helsinki are hyper self-aware and they seem unable to write or perform any kind of song without imbuing it with some sense of irony or post modernism.

The self-produced Beyond The Neighbourhood balances its meat and veg indie with enough electronic textures and hip hop beats to (sort of) catch the ear.

With lead single "Yeah!" being a genuine cyber funk masterpiece, and a lot of other perfectly respectable tunes backing it up, "Confessions" isn’t hard to like. But with the overall impression being of nice Usher making another nice album, it’s impossible to get excited about.

A sultry dance album crammed with excellent tunes.

It's by no means a bad album, just not his best by a long way, or the triumphant return it should have been.

Oblivion With Bells is a competent record and, it must be said, far stronger than the most recent releases by '90s contemporaries The Prodigy or The Chemical Brothers.

There exists a plodding, phoned-in emotional evenness here which, for a band trading on matters of the soul, is a big problem and one that will stop them entering the arenas those strings were employed for.

Unfortunately, none of it's even remotely memorable.

New frontiers for rock aren't exactly broached, but then that was hardly the point.

It's all a show with Kings Of Leon, and there's nothing they yearn for more than the chance to exercise their sexual prowess.

A curious and confusing follow-up.

All fine in principle, except we've heard it all a million times before.

For all the one-paced nature of its songwriting, wilfully lo-fi production values, inevitable Lily Allen comparisons and grating larynx, Panic Prevention is still an enthralling debut, and one that says infinitely more about the life of young Londoners than any amount of Bloc Party seriousness.

OK, so it’s not Norah Jones dinner party territory and there’s enough torturous mayhem to gratify their faithful ‘maggots’ but there’s equally a contrived nature underlying the habitual havoc.

Overall, 'Don't Be Afraid...' is a tad frustrating. Everything ticks along funkily and proficiently, but nothing really wants to stick out.

The Sun And The Moon", The Bravery's down-to-earth approach ought win them a second chance.

Instead of ending tensely and dramatically they are the final whimper and sigh of an album named after a band that have lost their way and aren't sure which direction they should be heading.

It's not, in the final reckoning, a terribly important and wildly impressive record.

'Old Ramon' is a slight affair cut from similar cloth to '...Blue Guitar', fuzzy with distortion, hampered by less than inspirational songwriting.

Built on a repetitious platform of bass, drums and guitar, what starts off as a genuinely thrilling journey tends to conclude in a cul-de-sac.

Leaping from the speakers in a fury of jarring axe steel, clocking rhythmic beats and clinical vocal swagger, ultimately this LP gives itself - at some 60 minutes length - an awful lot of time to say very little.

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.

It just sounds like she cannot be roused to feel very passionate about anything.

Ultimately it makes you feel the loss of Pavement all the more.

The Welsh agit-poppers' tenth album isn't terrible--certainly not as listless or confused as Lifeblood--but it does sound lazy, lyrically and sonically.

Britney Spears, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Beyonce and Leanne Rimes are all artists Sparks' music evokes, but very little of it could be said to be distinctly hers.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with this album - just the airbrushed production of tracks like James Taylor's 'Don't Let Me Be Lonely' robs them of any true grit and soul they might have had. And that, in a nutshell, is the problem afflicting Clapton at the moment, making for yet another average album to add to the list.

A few club chants ("You jump around like you ADHD! ADHD! ADHD!") and heavy beats crop up throughout but, in the main, N*E*R*D ironically struggle to break out of their own defined anything-goes freedom on what's just a solid record.

Fans of Aerosmith, and fans of good old Rock Music will love it.

For the most part, however, this is an ultra-sugary album which leaves a strangely sour aftertaste - not a flavour the public seems too fond of.

'Bionix' has definitely been released at the wrong time of year: it's got chilled summer vibes written all over it.

But for all its stylish exuberance, 'Now' is an album full of wonderful sounds that's lamentably thin on songs.

Before descending without hope of return into the treacle swamp of R&B ballad hell that beckons at the halfway point, 'Dangerously In Love' offers a few passable moments.

It's hard to deny Papa Roach have a certain knack of crafting big, glossy, annoyingly catchy anthems for the Kerrang TV generation.

It makes for some pleasingly approachable music but that's not what he'll be remembered for.

They ‘sound’ well-written without actually being so – the ultimate in pop sophistry.

Kanye's ...Dark Twisted Fantasy is also the densely-produced work of a clearly erratic soul.

It helps to pick the right tune and Dando has good taste, judging Gram Parsons ('I Just Can't Take It Anymore'), Wire ('Fragile') and Townes Van Zandt ('Waiting Around To Die') to be worthy of homage. But that's all this album is, really. Homage.

There's little in The Departure to justify the trip.

Next time, she needs to dump the tired wild-girl shtick, unleash her lung-power and the world will fall at her feet. For now, this is just another album of production-line US pop.

But all too often there's the feeling that, in trying so hard to match the melodrama Ronson and Pallet have draped around him, Waller loses sight of the smaller picture and sounds confused, out of place.

Ultimately, the list of collaborators on She Wolf may be an impressive roll call, but perhaps Shakira would do better in listening to her own instincts than that of others.

Collapse Into Now isn't a bad album but crucially it isn't a classic.

We Are The Night feels bloated and ornate amongst the elegant functionalism of post-millennial club music.

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.

They've turned into Morcheeba. A blunt appraisal, yes, but them's the facts.

Evil Urges isn't a bad album by any stretch of the imagination but it still manages to fall well short of expectations when applying the benchmark set by this fine band.

There's precious little of the extravagant muso twiddling and indulgent nonsense that has waylaid the band sometimes in the past.

Crucially, it seems their ability to write a magisterially moving song such as "NYC" or "Obstacle No 1", both from their debut, seems to have abandoned them. In fairness, sonically speaking, this is their best effort yet.

The Black And White Album feels less like a fresh start than the end of something.

By third song, "Faded Beauty Queens", the recipe is already stalling, and the harmonies begin to sound flimsy.