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.

Songs that used to bounce and strut with foolhardy glee now amble, lamenting, the stench of booze and self-pity turning Romance At Short Notice into a wake.

There is barely a note here that did not require a degree of bravery and chutzpah.

Far from a behind-the-scenes veil-lifting, though, 'Doggumentary' largely ensures that the worst preconceptions of self-indulgent hip-hop remain in place.

To live in their world is like being trapped at an idiot's convention and almost – but only almost - as bad as Limp Bizkit.

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

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

Deceptively hard to resist.

Despite a preponderance of uptempo songs that puts Freedom in similar territory to Ne-Yo, the record is still very recognisably Akon.

If not a match for the brilliant yet underperforming 'Big', The Sellout certainly maintains high and admirably consistent standards.

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

Where the likes of [Gwen] Stefani and co manage to tie eclectic albums together with the strength of their personality, Fergie never actually comes close to showing what she really sounds like, leaving "The Dutchess" as an exceptionally random R&B mixtape.

Relentlessly bland and bourgeois, "Twelve Stops And Home" sounds like the product of focus-group analysis.

The big-beated momentum of yore is bogged down in McClure's new graceless Gallagher sneer and left to stagnate by a band more interested in re-heating anaemic Kasabian-esque psychedelia than building a plinth from which to preach.

Winner Stays On proves that crossing over needn't be a terrible business.

He preens, poses and struts like a self-proclaimed and extremely delusional love god.

A bit of judicious pruning to remove the filler tracks would have resulted in a cohesive, dynamic album that would have easily been their best release to date.

A darkly, slathering record of frustration and disillusionment, “Language. Sex. Violence. Other?" may, in time, even come to be seen as one of the true masterpieces of the noughties guitar revival.

Everything about this album smacks of contrivance and careful planning.

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 shows that respecting your roots needn't result in stagnant, bookishly reverent music, and that learning your history can be a fine way of looking forward.

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.

Carr has always wanted to create his very own sound, and for the first time we are starting to hear it here.

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.