Three-part 16-minute closer 'The Lightening Strike,' at the other end of the scale, also sees them finally growing into their stadium skin, evoking Oasis, REM, Muse and, indeed, Coldplay amongst other subtleties and convincing you for once that they genuinely harbour ambition.

Lopez' voice frequently sounds a trifle thin accompanied by the sort of sounds that we're better used to hearing behind a Creative Source or Gwen McRae vocal but the honeyed backing massages any real concerns from your mind.

Eventually you’re left longing for a dash of spontaneity or that the band would break into something adventurous.

Imagine an album programmed by a focus group of John Peel fanatics.

This time it's the cover of '(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction' that grabs the headlines. The surprisingly credible version limbers into life with Britney chatting away to her pals on the phone.

"Fundamental" is the sound of the Pet Shop Boys reborn, and mindful of the important role they fill in the pop family.

Lopping off about twenty minutes would have improved things no end, but mostly it needs focus - focus that would probably have come with time.

Is it possible to have too many ideas? Quite possibly. Deerhoof is the sound of imagination overdrive.

Its eclecticism does make for disjointed listening though, which almost distracts from their songwriting skills. But ultimately it's all so assuredly done that The Zutons make it almost impossible to not be swept along for the ride.

Establishes him not only as a master of the fast and fluid flow, but an insightful, frequently humorous - if somewhat socio- politically naïve - lyricist.

For some, the absence of human warmth may prove the album's ultimate flaw. Still, until there are humans out there making music like this robot, we'll settle for it.

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

For the most part, it sounds like the most joyous exploration of death and madness since, perhaps, "They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!"

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.

Finally, it seems the venerable Iggy has realised that his own brand of nasty, brutish, reductive rock'n'roll is superior to practically any nasty, brutish, reductive rock'n'roll that has tried to supersede it.

Any decent covers album should reveal its songs, not dress them up - but by Marshall's standards, Jukebox is an overly polite and frustratingly removed listening experience.

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.

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.

This is a lovingly crafted record which has the same misty fug and aura as The Soulsavers and Lanegan indulged in recently.

Hitting that formula and riding it has drained some of the passion out of this sound.

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

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 Fame Monster says nothing new lyrically, and has its troughs, but it's a bolder and more coherent record than GaGa's debut.

Although it is an immensely enjoyable experience featuring often breathtaking dexterity and turntable trickery, it rarely deviates from a strictly old school template.

At 68 minutes, "White People" outstays its welcome and the skits are lame at best... but there's still much to like here.

Brave is actually one of her strongest albums to date.

All told, it's pleasant to actually have a buzz album that lives up to expectations; long after people stop talking about them, this album will still be a surprising and compelling listen.

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

A dignified and enjoyable end to a frequently astonishing career.

Most people will deem this album a significant piece of work, and maybe if you haven't heard much Pavement then it is.

So while this isn't "The Desert Sessions" - sadly, Isobel Campbell is no Polly Harvey - "Ballad Of The Broken Seas" remains an engaging curio whilst we wait to see what both artists do next.

It is not the Foo's finest moment, but for all its flaws and flab, this meandering record may just become one we all learn to love.

Even as the band grow tighter, their insecurity deepens. That's not prevented them from making a fine record which is loaded with instantly memorable hooks.

Marks a return to warm homespun acoustica.

Wisely though, they've seen this as a time to consolidate, not experiment or wander off on the tangents which have undermined them in the past.

"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.

That's the thing about Asleep In The Bread Aisle, it's all about promising potential, rather than the delivery of it.

Raises the nu-metal bar by weaving maturity, passion and the craft of songwriting into its steaming pile of passive-aggressive chord chomping.

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

Eno and Byrne's twist, however, is the optimism and hope that breathes through every minute of what is not another boundary-demolishing collaboration, but a delicately crafted work that could only have been recorded after dispensing with the rules.

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.

Femme Fatale is also unevenly paced, overlong (16 tracks in its deluxe version) and burdened with filler like the generic 'I Wanna Go', which tries to find a shortcut to the dancefloor but gets lost en route. But the weaker material is outweighed by the fantastic, from the slamming, techno-tinged 'Trouble For Me' to the glorious bubblegum house of 'Up N' Down'.

Three albums in, their belief that success and integrity don’t have to be mutually exclusive, is finally starting to pay off.

Still, if not perfect, there's plenty to like on Discipline, and while none of it is exactly vintage Janet, there's enough here to keep the Jackson name on pop's A-list for a little while longer.

As challenging and glorious as rock can go when filtered to it's basic elements, but not without a whiff of indulgence.

Neither Callahan's trademark poetic gloom nor his even-keel misanthropy have been ditched in time for 'Supper', but it does see him breathing deeper than before and moving with a surprising spring in his step away from the claustrophobic intensity of his previous work.

There's nothing on this record that has any danger of keeping you from your beer. There are two gears: fast and slow, shoutalong and sobalong.

"The Pick Of Destiny" is likely to be among the finest cock rock albums about magical plectrums released this year.

Older rap fans will probably feel the album's subtler pulsings more, but anyone will be able to appreciate the raw talent required to keep such an epic and sprawling project buoyant, without resorting to boring braggadocio and bawdy bling.

The Heavy's biggest selling point is that they exist almost completely outside of what is currently fashionable, meaning they sound fresh despite having quite classic roots.

No doubt Helplessness Blues will win Pecknold further fame and success, whether he likes it or not.

By rights, Elbow should be pretty annoying, the same kind of lardy, overblown and overrated band as their compatriots Doves.... Yet there's something rather haunting and affecting about 'Cast Of Thousands', just as there was about 2001's 'Asleep At The Back', which raises Elbow far above most of their peers.

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.'

his new record is a fine one, Nights Out picking up where 2006 debut "Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe)" left off; styles reeled in and stripped for parts which are reassembled, re-wired, into something oddly-cohesive.

Fans of musical experimentation, and Eno / Byrne completists, will no doubt want to add this set to their list, but for the uninitiated, you might be better off spending an hour or two browsing the World Music department of your nearest record shop than grappling with this quaintly outmoded collection.

It's no pop masterpiece to rival The Beatles, Madonna or Michael Jackson's best. But then again, few things are. If however the bench marks are Aguilera and Pink, it's only fair to say that Ms Hilton or rather her album, holds its own.

This is not a 'commercial' release, at least not in the commonly construed meaning of the word. If you had to be picky, you could say that nothing has the impact of that cover of Nine Inch Nail's "Hurt" or Nick Lowe's "The Beast In Me". But that's beside the point.

Largely acoustic, the album showcases a beautifully brutal collection of warped love songs; pristine and jagged, abrasive and tender and always devastatingly honest.

Beautiful songs one and all, there’s much to recommend "Eye To The Telescope", and given enough time and patience, Tunstall’s subtle charm seeps through making it an album to love.

By far Kylie's best album to date.

The trouble is, the grandiose sounds he carves often sounds more polystyrene than pompous, no matter how many coats he applies.

Despite the overarching feel of having a bit of the early MGMT's about them (which, to be fair, is hardly a bad thing), there's enough variety within the New Zealanders' debut to prove they're more than just a one-trick, party-starting pony.

The overall impression is of an album that you’d never be ashamed to own but wouldn’t necessarily feel the need to play all that often, either.

While "Dressed Up For The Letdown" is a classy, clever record, it is not one you can imagine yourself revisiting that often.

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.

Certainly, "Plat De Jour" is one of the most ambitious records that will be released this year.

[A] slick, silly and thoroughly entertaining album.

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

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.

Essentially, Oasis have tentatively begun to master the art of becoming veterans: writing songs that reflect their circumstances and not a mythical image of what they once were; songs that suggest there's life in the old beast yet.

Whether they can co-exist with today's nu breed is another question entirely, but 'Beyond Good And Evil' just about overcomes its sameyness and provides enough flashes of what made them special in the first place to justify their continued existence.

True, there isn't necessarily the one big hitter that will guarantee the Scientists' vault back into the big time limelight. But Barbara is packed full of enough immediate favourites to claw back their fan base from the off.

As a whole, 'Total Life Forever' may feel too self-consciously clever to really convince but Foals evidently have a brilliant career ahead of them and this could be its crucial cornerstone.

Not extraordinary music, but music that hits the nail right on the head of what constitutes good R&B: flawless vocals, opulent harmonies, and easy, reliable melodies.

For some, this and the album's unabashed opulence may prove too much to stomach. For others though, Lindstrom has created a sophisticated and lovingly crafted album that despite its dance driven pulse will resonate with music lovers of all persuasions.

Svanangen reverts to a simpler, sadder approach. His initial cheer unexpectedly falls away into an introspective trance. Dear John is no worse for it. Sometimes you have to clear the air. It's liberating, if done right.

Jewellery then is not quite the set of glittering pop gems its title implies but boasts a handful of rough diamonds nonetheless, fidgety and uncompromising though all the more enjoyable for it.

Where the 'Farm break new ground is by exploring far more than the quiet-loud-rage-quiet formula with real singing and everything and a fair does of pop melody that place them more on a radio-friendly rock keel than no holds bared metal.

An energised and impassioned, justly confident debut.

Detractors will point to a failure to effectively up their game with 200 Million Thousand but the sly sense of craft remains.

Happily so, as well, as any adherence to the backstory would ruin what's simply the best dumbass party album of the summer.

Febrile, idiosyncratic, epic yet fun: "Open Season" may not raise eyebrows but it has – thank God - raised the hitherto pitifully low bar for British guitar rock.

With this eclectic, eccentric approach comes a lack of cohesion and quality control.

Focused, slick and likable as “Rebirth” undeniably is in places, the fact that the Limited Edition comes with a sample of Ms Lopez’s new “Miami Glow” fragrance, confirms, that it’s still just another shameless exercise in brand extension.

Steele's self-conscious attempts to create a legend for himself only distract from what is actually a very good album.

So carefully paced is this record, weighed and measured for the correct balance of what's put in and what's taken away, that it never offers emotional triggers which bypass cerebral process.

An album considerably richer than "Hot Fuss" and far more worthy of mainstream hugeness.

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.

It's just not quite as great as some of us dared to hope.

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.

Where she was once a gutsy folk-pop mature-student, tailor-made for the modern-day Radio 2, she now has the power and arrangements to begin approximating the diva she tried to sell us when collecting Brit Awards for her debut album mid-decade, punching the air for women in pop and attempting to align herself with Kate Bush.

While never as life-changing as these memories clearly were, Hurricane succeeds in its sheer force of conviction.

Indulgent though it may be, it's easily his best. And despite an unfeasibly craggy production job, the rambling arrangements and recurrent references to nature and the elemental give it the feel of a dusty, long lost prog-folk curio.

The monster-mash hokum can occasionally grate and Brown lacks El Wino's authoritative way with some of the more downtempo material, but there's plenty to suggest she will find a receptive audience for her passionate pop sound, overbearing quirks and all.

Favours The Song over ambient abstraction and real-time playing over rejigged samples.

This is a much more satisfying album than 'The Velvet Rope', even if most of the songs are overlong and a few juggle satin sheet-cliches with self-help ones to numbing effect.

Antidotes is frequently exhilarating, challenging but immediate, cryptic and catchy, calm then frantic, as intricate, itchy fret-webs are weaved around Afrobeat drums and far-out sonics.

While 'Make It Go Away (Radiation Song)' lacks the subtle lyrical twist (and a decent tune) of some of the other moments on Detours, it is a sober counterpoint to the image of Crow as all hair, tan and teeth. It also contrasts with the album's stand-out, 'Love Is All There Is,' which brings us back to more familiar Crow country on an album of big themes and surprising depth.