Sounds Of The Universe also happens to throb with sonic originality and dark, complex humanity, and is a fine addition to one of the richest, most intriguing back catalogues in pop.

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.

But while "3121" might suggest that, at 47, Prince isn't looking to change the face of music anymore, he's clearly still more than capable of delivering classic Prince albums.

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.

Gomez continue to make powerfully relevant music.

In the main they have done away with their more stodgy, pretentious material and distilled their sound into a stripped down rawness, and they sound all the better for it.

Bloodflowers' stands as a glorious, if contradcitory, body of work. It won't win new converts but lapsed Cure fans will find it a thrilling and rewarding hour.

A magnificent return to the band's brutal, almost hardcore punkish, roots.

The Charlatans have cottoned on to the electro-is-back wave, but not in a cool, Spank Rock or New Young Pony Club sense, but a magpie parody, a homage.

Rushed it may have been, but here Bloc Party seem to accurately reflect post-relationship blues: confused, introspective and stung.

It's that sense of humbling, childlike wonder that defines what they do with their weathered hands. And they do it as brilliantly here as they always have done, which is high praise enough.

Scars is the strongest Basement Jaxx album since 2001's "Rooty".

"Puzzles Like You" may not stay the distance but there's certainly enough here to gain Mojave 3 the wider audience they deserve.

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.

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

As a celebration of the b-side, this is such a charming set, despite its inconsistency.

And if the production is not as sumptuous as a Furry’s album – although it’s by no means lo-fi – thematically it’s business as usual.

If all that this still-decent album does is pique interest in what Dananananaykroyd are like live, then it will have done its job because that is where the magic lies.

Sprawled over 13 tracks, The Cure have attempted a microcosm of their oeuvre in one volume and despite their lofty ambitions, the results are a decidedly mixed bag at best.

Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon is a feel good record for what's left of this 'summer' and even though it's packed with second hand magic and joy, such charms probably won't wear past the depths of winter, unless you truly are a hippy at heart.

"Send Away The Tigers" is not only the most enjoyable Manics record in years, it's the most consistent.

There is as much to be embraced in this as in any of the Gorillaz material. If not more.

With the exception of the Joy Division influenced 'City', the final third of the album drops the ante somewhat. The idea, though, that this sophomore effort may be laying the foundations for something even mightier cannot be ignored.

Palatable but bland easy-listening.

On the surface it's an undeniably appealing package, and craftwise, there's much to admire.

'Stillmatic', as ever, is far from flawless but, at its best, it addresses the hip-hop landscape of 2002 as lucidly as 'Illmatic' did that of '94.

Thee More Shallows' pop fans might yearn for more mellifluous melodies - their hip hop heads for more doctored beats - but in this "Book Of Bad Breaks", they're clearly on the same page.

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.

No doubt the album of her career.

As the title suggests, this album is - deliberately, you feel - a thwarted pleasure, any sweetness and warmth being spiked with discordance and bitterness.

Black Ice is far better than anyone could have hoped, played by people who by their age should know better.

So all-in-all, with every track practically a text book example of what great pop should sound like, even the ballads, Hanson’s return is a welcome one.

But for all its feel-good factor and predominantly strong songwriting, 'Sha Sha' does have its forgettable filler tracks and near-misses and generally needs a stronger, more individual voice to help it stand out from an already heaving crowd of young American singer/songwriters.

In fact, on the musical front blink-182 are more reminiscent of the Beach Boys than the Sex Pistols: a very, very fast and tasteless Beach Boys, admittedly, but those massed harmonies and that glossy production are the pop perfectionist's fantasy taken to its logical conclusion.

A dignified and enjoyable end to a frequently astonishing career.

With "Life In Slow Motion" he's delivered an album so rich and deft that it pushes beyond the realm of the humble singer-songwriter, to earn him a place alongside the likes of Springsteen and Van Morrison as one of music's revered elite. Without question, this is a classic album.

For the most part Fields are lazily picking their own way between the disparate pastures of folk, pop, post rock and shoegaze on a deliciously sun-dappled day.

2001 has been a tremendous year for hip-hop. At the last moment, the Wu-Tang Clan just made it even better.

So there it is, bizarre, world-weary, beautiful, touching, self-indulgent but never, never dull ? at least not until at least nine minutes into 'Like A Possum'.

With a distinct lack of pretension, some wholly infectious hooks and an insouciant sense of humour, this is the kind of project that will ultimately serve to keep Beenie’s rep as a professional entertainer and maestro of the dance deeply intact.

As a collection of songs it tentatively experiments with genres and musical devices so as to appear less of the poor man's B-sides of its predecessor; but at the same time daren't stray too far from the blueprint that made the quartet such a loveable bunch of rogues in the first place.

Perhaps Funhouse is a victim of its own excess: it may be inevitable that an album of 14 songs with more than a dozen credited writers will end up as hit and miss, as messy as this.

On paper it can seem a dark, depressing combination. But what Hope Of The States bring and what, in theory, they offer up for the lost and desperate to cling onto is... well, hope.

Marks a return to warm homespun acoustica.

There's very little on 'Lenny' that isn't a re-hash of former hits.

It is hard to tell where No Doubt starts and the producers end.

Despite Brown's unquestionably limited vocal range, the minute pitch shifts of his voice are well suited to the stoned-wonder of tracks like 'Set My Baby Free', 'Neptune' and 'Dolphins Were Monkeys'. It's on these blissed out, chilled moments that the album really shines.

At last Ryan Adams has made a record every bit as good as his heroes.

It feels like a definite upgrade for her, Kate Nash deluxe, courtesy of producer Bernard Butler's expectedly lavish touches. But her standard style of outloud diary readings are not privy to the same overhaul. They prevent it from feeling like much of a progression.

Her bland-o-meter appears to be well and truly busted.

Gone are the likes of 'Queer' or 'Subhuman', there's no ummph or intelligence. In straining to achieve a smarter, more mature album the band have created the most tawdry epitaph possible.

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.

"So Divided" sees …Trail Of Dead leaving their footprints in some intriguingly unlikely places. Whether the faithful choose to follow them or not, they deserve respect for that alone.

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

Much of 'Amazing Grace' is the tired evidence of a man rehashing the same ideas - rather than sounds and movements - like a robotic, assembly line Andy Warhol.

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.

With filth, loose morals, anger, frustration, big guitars and even bigger choruses at every turn, it's got all the DNA of a pure-bred rock classic.

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.

Their dark yet energetic, garage pop - all needling, pivot-on-a-penny riffs, eruptive noise and high tensile dynamics - borrows from Buzzcocks, Pixies and Nirvana/Foo Fighters but, for all its tautness and intensity, there's little on Nine Black Alps' debut LP likely to change the world.

There's a gleefully fluid rock'n'roll dynamic driving this whole record, more evocative of modern-day US psychedelic reprobates The Dandy Warhols or The Brain Jonestown Massacre, rather than students trying to be clever.

Naïve, twee, lacking imagination and pointlessly derivative on one hand but - with summer on the horizon and given a forgiving mood – this is also sunny, carefree and great background music to waft over your BBQ.

Worst of all, it turns out that commercially-minded dubstep is--perhaps inevitably--a much weaker prospect than its club counterpart.

Stripped of novelty and goodwill, The Darkness are just a resolutely ordinary band after all.

Flawlessly interesting is what we’ve come to expect from Williams and Hugo, but "Fly Or Die" is rather interestingly flawed.

It’s all rather marvellous.

Weird enough but familiar enough to spook the status quo without blowing it out of the water, they will, hopefully, continue to make music for a very long time.

Lyrically, Shotter's Nation brims with the insight and eloquence with which Doherty continually surprises you.

With his languid, prolific philosophising, twisting humour and consistent melodic achievements, its tempting to see Benji Hughes as a kind of cartoon successor to Stephen Merrit and The Magnetic Fields (though it's more "25 Songs About Women 'N' Stuff" than "69 Love Songs"), but either way he's just snuck in from the back of the field with one of the most endearing albums of 2008.

And though the influences/peers - Stooges, Velvet Underground, Krautrock, Spiritualized, Primal Scream - remain the same, this exceptional collection of visionary psychedelia is more ethereal and somewhat bereft of the cloaked fug of death threats, serial killers or "eggs bearing insects hatching in my mind" that made 'Contino' such a brain-damaged future Goth classic.

'Deep Down & Dirty' just reminds you how influential and important the Stereos were, and continue to be.

Yet cartoon and divorced from reality as it is, his vision is so vivid that it never fails to seduce and fill you with the uneasy sense that maybe, just maybe, somewhere his disturbing dimension of bums and misfits really does exist.

She might be mouthy, trendy, shallow and opinionated without having all of the facts, but MIA creates terrific pop moments.

As is to be expected given Adele's tender years, thematically things are a bit monochrome.... All this, however, is forgiven with a listen to the highlights, such as the sweet acoustic guitar-led 'Daydreamer.'

What pulls this album back from being anything but revelatory, however, is not only the typical lazy rock the band are purveyors of, especially 'Fire' and 'Fast Fuse,' but also the diabolical lyrical content that's employed throughout West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum.

Let's be clear about this: Head First is by no means a bad record, with its lush pop gloss and flickers of melodic loveliness. But it is a bad Goldfrapp record, their flimsiest and least adventurous yet.

In a nutshell this is The Beatles most average album with some of the fluff removed.

Norah's most personal collection of songs to date.

There's little not to love.

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.

It's almost all too familiar, so much so that it's hard to hear the tender songs and mesmerising instrumentals in their own right.

All told, it's a rag-tag collection, and one that comes short of the band's high standards even allowing for the commercial backlash.

This is a relentlessly exciting album--it's just that sometimes you feel it would be more rewarding to turn off the boosters, slow to a float, and take in the view with awe.

Eliza Doolittle is an album of potential but, for the moment, that's all it is.

In many ways, 'Evil Heat' comes across as something of an amalgam of the Scream's many phases and, because of that, it doesn't necessarily take them forward as their work in the past has done.

By far Kylie's best album to date.

As a debut album, 'Highly Evolved', for all its faults, can be an energising proposition.

A collection of rootsy yet sophisticated, summery soul grooves, with the usual nods to past masters like Aretha Franklin, Roberta Flack and Glady Knight, "Stone Love" is equally at home alongside the sultry, sassy R&B of contemporaries like Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys and Erykah Badu.

There's so little substance here, it's difficult to engage with the record or its creator.

Hands is both exciting and inconsistent, an uncertain step in very much the right direction.

Though there are still moments of eyeball rolling twee, the darker undertones are enough to more than keep us interested.

The feeling persists that The Century Of Self marks an important moment for ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead--one in which they began to weave together their diverging paths and one that, after all, should be hailed as a victory.

Hurley's feet are firmly rooted in the present but this collection is, without doubt, the closest the band have come to recapturing their glory days.

Marina & The Diamonds convincingly fight off the encroaching talons of expectation by embarking on a rampant, stomping adventure, letting no idea lie when it can be crashed into another loudly and a microphone placed nearby to collect the resulting sparks.

An underwhelming end to a sly, bitter, rocking album it maybe, but at least it makes plain the point that being polite does nothing for her and a bit of passion and rock'n'roll attitude goes a long way.

The fact she's delivered an album which is vivacious and entertaining despite its obvious flaws means this cat probably has at least one more showbiz life left.

A tremendously odd hour of music.

"Jacket Full Of Danger" thinks it's funny but isn't - it's often pathetic.

For the most part, "The Understanding" saunters along without a trace of urgency, which is unfortunate as Royksopp were always at their best when electronic ingenuity rather than pastel-shaded synth washes were holding things up.