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.

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

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.

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

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

She's got an album which for all its sing-along moments is neither catchy nor extreme enough to be exceptional.

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.

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

There is, however, nothing that remotely touches the pop genius of 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' and, by the halfway mark, the album's sagging badly.

It's more a rescinded lesson in demographics, with disc one seemingly aimed at airbrushing out the last vestiges of Knowles' credibility in favour of a procession of lame pop ballads in a Shakira or even Shania Twain-ish mould.

When you don't have the fun of playing spot-the-steal, all you're left with are wishy washy pastiches and a sense of growing fatigue.

Throughout most of Untitled, Kelly seems to have taken the worst aspects of "Trapped In The Closet"--it's over-the-head relentless melodies and lyrics--and decided that they'll work in a song until the repetition instead relegates it to wallpaper.

Rarely lifting itself above mere mediocrity the album is no doubt destined to provide background music at thirty-something dinner parties and sedate wine bars.

Their third, Happiness Ltd, is a sulky teenager, and about as attractive and engaging as that suggests.

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.

R.O.O.T.S. is so crushingly flat that it should waft between the cracks unnoticed.

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

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

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.

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

Unfortunately, over a third of the songs on this album are ballads, and most of them are fillers at 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.

The follow-up to 'Play' is, essentially, 'Re-Play', a cynical rehash of the melancholic-yet-strangely-uplifting schtick which sold ten million albums and soundtracked every single advert of the last three years.

Blackout is business as usual. Courting publicity more shamelessly than that infamous kiss with Madonna, Britney writhes, moans and generally gives good pillow talk for the duration of an album where crunk, glitches, squeaks and clubbed-up beats dominate.

The melodies feel functional at best, surprisingly charmless affairs that push all the right buttons with little passion or joy, while the lyrics are that depressing rock cliche: woe-is-me deliberations on the pressures of fame.

It's a well-made, well-polished piece of material. But she ruins it by painting a wacky overcoat over something that was probably fine in the first place.

Overlong and oversexed, Futuristically Speaking... stumbles where you will it to stride; something surprisingly staid and mediocre from extraordinary circumstances.

Airplay or not, however, he's also sounding seriously dated.

Much of the album bathes radio-friendly funk-rock in a kind of Balearic after-glow--it conjures that feeling of bittersweet triumph many will have felt as last night becomes this morning, the conquering of a dark that is now needed if sleep and recovery from such an act is to be possible.

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

Red Carpet Massacre is largely just a ham-fisted example of what happens when fame, ego and squandered major label cash equate to a sad, missed opportunity.

These pop-centric cuts are, however, where Snoop seems most comfortable, if not most talented.

[Their] apathy really detracts from the heartfelt nature of the music, which, produced by the anthemic hand of Youth, is mostly of the passionate, chest-thumping variety.

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.

Very much Tricky business as usual, the sound of a staggering talent laid-up with the longest case of musical flu in history.

The production is lame, and the album as a whole is unconvincing in it's pretences as hi-energy, bouncy and above all youthful punk. And Dexter Holland's vocals simply grate after a while. Die-hard Offspring fans will find nothing which deviates from the original plot, so they won't lose any long-term believers from this offering.

Perhaps it's just that the rest of the songs aren't up to scratch, but this album is a simple case of diminishing returns--what appeared carefree and sparkly-eyed to begin with feels more and more calculated as you go on, what first seemed endearing ends up feeling a little irritating.

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

One meandering ballad follows another, each one overlong and labouring under the illusion that emotional profundity is more important than a decent tune.

They seem afraid to risk a good old-fashioned jungle break-out, the likes of which would be genuinely invigorating.

For a moment one can hear Mraz's real soul, rather than a factory-assembled version. Sadly, it's too little and too late to save this queasy record.

Time and time again, this patchy album is dragged down by obscenely flashy production, a surfeit of ideas that conspire only to sabotage the songs themselves and writ large across it all, Fyfe Dangerfield's interminable, platitudinous emoting.

It's not just that 'Love Sex Magic' is the highlight, it's Fantasy Ride's only saving grace.

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.

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.

There’s just nothing new here, merely a rehashing of old ideas both musically and lyrically.

Back On My B.S. is 50 minutes of largely no-nonsense Busta, fist firmly planted in the mid-'90s. Of course, with that we get the expected ups and downs, but what Busta lacks in album length longevity, he makes up for in force.

This shiny collection of pop, folk, blues, country and rock is mostly about as emotionally engaging as watching Mr Spock watch paint dry... in the dark.

Troublingly short on tunes.

Encapsulating just how far Sean has come (if you're a Cash Money CEO, that is) Lil' Jon pops up to do his incomprehensible shouty thing, so ruining, for no reason at all, the only remotely catchy thing here.

Ms Dynamite's irate sloganeering may look effective on paper, but until she relearns how to connect with the everyday world, this is little more than ranting in the mirror.

"Riot City Blues" starts fairly poorly and gets progressively worse.

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.

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

'Night Train' has been pitched as somewhere between an EP and a mini album, with the impending fifth to be the "proper" follow up to 'Perfect Symmetry'. For their sake, but mostly for our own, this gifted band need to try a lot harder when it comes to that one.

In This Light And On This Evening is a weak, ill conceived and uninspiring effort.

The rest is a lacklustre recast of her debut that displays about as much personality as Duffy's sweetly banal interviews, all of which suggests her production team are a weakened bunch. Like we said, a remarkable return.

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

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

While 'Shaman' is less than the sum of its parts and strays into AOR territory too much to ever truly be cutting edge, despite its R&B and Latin infusions, it will, at least in America, sell by the truckload.

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.

Live, there's little doubt, these tracks will find their own groove and grow, but here they're like show dogs, primped and primed and hard to love.

'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.

For now at least this is the sound of a band trying to do too much at once and sinking under the weight of their heroes.

MSTRKRFT make a racket that's impressive at first but eventually the echoes of it return to bite them.

Ultimately, D12 have made the fatal mistake of reducing themselves to the pitch that probably won them their deal: "think horrorcore rap, Gravediggaz-style, mixed up with middle-everything baiting lyrics even more extreme than Eminem." And that's not enough.

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.

The World Is Yours is one of the year's worst albums.

Perhaps the only interesting thing about Manson's latest record is the couple of anomalies hidden within.

An effective, but ultimately generic, pop album.

Curtis doesn't sound like it was much fun to make, and it isn't much fun to listen to.

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

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

The feeling remains though that their broad emotional strokes will have to concede something to intimacy and solitude to ever really win hearts.

At various times on …Love Revolution, Lenny just doesn't cut it as a songwriter, a lead guitarist (don't even go there), a string arranger and, above all, a drummer. But the man can sing and for that much we, and he, should be grateful.

It’s not that "Welcome To The North" is a bad listen, but when you get to track six and you still seem to be stuck on track one, you get the feeling there must be more to ‘the music’ than this.

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 are moments where Usher's old charm and vocal velvetiness briefly resurface and remind the listener of what a bright talent he once seemed....But these highlights are rare, and Raymond vs Raymond mostly sounds as shallow and unappealing as its singer.

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.

Collaborations with Helicopter Girl on 'Don't Come Around Here', with Macy Gray on 'Smitten' and the loving if overproduced take on of Curtis Mayfield's 'It Was Love That We Needed' stand out as highlights but only because the rest of this collection comes with the words 'will this do' burned deeply into its flabby, bovine arse.

Uncle Dysfunktional won't compel a new generation to discover the back catalogue or question the popular depiction of the Mondays as cartoonish buffoons.

A dismal and insipid collection of retrogressive mid-tempo ballads and textbook alt.rock moves.

An aptly-named collection that will have even foul-weather fans scratching their heads as to where the pop has gone.

With “Human After All” the pair are running both on the spot and out of ideas. In making an album comprised of nothing but their stylistic tics – the over-used Vocoder/pitch bender, the monstrously compressed acid squelches, the crunchy, rock guitar motifs – Daft Punk are like a celebrity chef who serves up nothing but his signature dish. Soon, you’ll stop eating in his restaurant.

Hooks hit their fleshy mark here and there--'Dead End' is a compulsive, '80s-flavoured high and 'High On The Heels'' clipped acid house proves endearingly gauche--but it's cold comfort on a record that fleshes out a promising template to only diminishing returns.

There are no surprises or unexpected turns and the overall dearth of spontaneity ensures an empty and shallow experience.

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

This may be a much welcomed return for Lady Sovereign from the wilderness, but in the case of Jigsaw, it would seem that she's missing a few pieces to make this comeback a complete success.

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.

Though he falls short of wholly convincing, the heart is almost always in the right place: a refreshing change from 99 per cent of those more interested in the image, not the message.

Many of The Libertines' finer qualities are made all too apparent in their absence on "Down In Albion", none quite so painfully as Carl Barat's Django Reinhardt via Johnny Marr charm with a guitar.

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.

These half-arsed stabs at nu-AOR end up pleasing no one, least of all the band itself.

His records are not without merit and the better songs here more than deserve to find sizable audiences. But there's no sign that music is going to ever be anything more than an enjoyable sideline for a man whose greatest art continues to be created in other mediums.

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.

Derulo's desperation to cover all commercial bases is only matched by an inability to stamp his own personality on them.

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

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.