Shooting people, no-strings-attached sex and being a millionaire has never sounded so boring.

Seriously, Ms Jackson, I invite you around for high tea and you turn up leather clad, groaning, and hollering about touching yourself. Mrs Wilberforce didn’t know where to look and the vicar was most upset.

Sci-fi hi-jinks from ‘the nerdy Kraftwerk.’

There’s nowt nu about this nu metal.

Would be blockbuster from the Jack Johnson it’s really not okay to like.

Anastacia’s voice--once described by a critic as a ‘human air-raid siren’--is still hard to love: when she reaches for the trembling high notes your first instinct is to duck under the table and lock your head between your knees.

Underwhelming Third outing for nu-gaze duo.

Ego Trippin' is a subdued comeback from this once hot rapper.

Steady as she goes on AOR eighth outing.

Not as good as Beyonce.

Hard Candy sounds bloody expensive, but has precious little to declare except an infatuation with its own reflection in a nightclub mirror.

The album fifteen years in the making that sounds like a slick but robotic imitation of what it might have been long ago.

The clunkers come thick and fast.

We’re treated to less-interesting takes on the work of Bloc Party and The Libertines, low on hooks and utterly devoid of interesting production quirks.

Aging punks flog a rapidly expiring horse.

Houston, We’ve got problems

California dreaming, diminishing returns.

Woodly prog rock for weird beards.

The catchiest tune on The Block is ‘Summertime’, and in dignity terms it’s Cohen-meets-Waits compared to their hyperactive teen-pop of old.

Re-hashing a similar formula throughout 12 tracks makes for sour and rarely enjoyable listening.

It will probably go down as their 'sell-out' record, in that it's their first for a major label.

Shine remains a terribly average r'n'b album that occasionally flickers with possibility, but never burns brightly enough to matter.

Predictable return to stadium soft-rock from former Poodle-permers.

Sgt Emo’s Lonely Hearts Club Band delivers a less than thrilling album.