Identity is everything in pop, but the majority of this record serves only to bury what made Gwen Stefani unique in the first place.

He barely has to try and, to be honest, here it shows.

Big Talk is a record to be roared while stood atop the bar, and then deny all knowledge of the next day.

Macy effortlessly combines the classic pop of Chic and Bill Withers with the sort of flamboyant, contemporary chart-frippery Mika probably thinks he's up to.

Sound smart? It would be if he hadn’t served it up with such flaccid beats.

For all its glum pronouncements of murder, mortality and loss, it’s an ecstatic listen, ponderous party music.

Only a joyless weirdo could deny that these are fearsomely well-crafted songs, as clean-lined and immaculate as a well-cut suit.

[They] are so busy trying to be Supertramp they've forgotten to add anything of themselves. [3 Jun 2006, p.35]

To be fair, this is easily the best thing they’ve done since the mid-’80s and ‘Rockets’ and ‘Moscow Underground’ have some of that epic post-punk/new-wave disco spirit of yore, but it’s still not enough.

This album is a tribute to enduring a profoundly underwhelming pop star existence. The banality could be forgiven if it included even one decent hook but alas, no.

Much as there's no getting away from the fact that this is basically one long remix, it's much better than the car crash we all predicted it would be.

They've already featured on a multitude of soundtracks including Stealing Beauty, Shades and I Know What You Did Last Summer. Not to mention cinema ads for champagne and episodes of La Femme Nikita and er, Baywatch. That's pretty much all bases covered, then.

While The 1975 don’t own radio-rock just yet, Rituals feels a little too much like Deaf Havana have lost sight of their own signature, while hammering at the heels of Healy’s.

No surprises here, but it’s hard to fault Kannberg’s strongest solo album yet.

An excellent modern rock record. Dense, intelligent, user-unfriendly and challenging. [12 Mar 2005, p.57]

Though Gary Barber's half-spoken, oh-so-London urchin coo brings a little quirk to proceedings, for the most part Native To is a pleasant but not memorable listen.

[A] perplexing and risible album.

Ho-hum. [22 Jul 2006, p.39]

The sort of glossy folk-pop that makes you want to usher Alice down the rabbit hole, and roll out the cement mixer. [10 Jun 2006, p.41]

The overall effect is less like an album and more like a digitally created scrapbook--a dreamy, transportive audio roadtrip through fuzzy urban noise and peaceful rural serenity.

The highlights aren’t enough to make this album feel as vital as top-notch Sia efforts – namely, 2014’s ‘1000 Forms Of Fear’ or 2016’s ‘This Is Acting’. For the most part, these are reasonably catchy pop songs that become forgettable after their last chorus.

Uneven it may be, but when his goofy rhymes catch sparks against a noxious mix of grime, electro and funky house it’s dazzling.

Uncanny Valley is like listening to a latter-day Oasis album: too weakly reminiscent of past achievements to really satisfy.

Raymond V Raymond finds the singer in an emotional headspin, and when he channels it here he produces some of his darkest and most hypnotic soul-pop to date. But sadly there’s quite a bit of forgettable bravado babble too--hardly original.

Luckily, no amount of squelchy beats, dubstep bass, trip-hop crackles and gabba breakdowns can suppress their effervescent sense of melody.

This may not be a groundbreaking record, but it’s definitely one that delivers bops befitting of a woman who keeps on performing even when she’s served with court papers on stage.

With only three 'songs' to speak of here, 'All Watched Over...' smacks of another great British songwriter having their melodic nous chewed away by electro-moths. [7 Aug 2004, p.49]

Happy Mondays' first album since 1992's "...Yes Please!" is the sound of a damaged former addict being ushered into a studio for one last shot at the big time - before falling on his arse.

If only the other half of this album didn't spiral off into wretched reggae stylings, this would be alright.

If 'America's Sweetheart' was a breakdown record, 'Nobody's Daughter' is a recovery album. As that analogy would suggest, it's not always pretty to witness.

On their third album, the trio largely abandon the Latin influences of earlier outings for a medium-haul flight back to the more two-dimensional sounds of Canadian indie-rock.

They’re out of step, out of time, out of place, and have completely gone off on one in their own strange little world; as such, there’s much to admire about The Bravery. Just never go down to Endicott’s basement.

There's two ways for the devout Dandys fan to approach 'Odditorium...' . 1) it's their 'Kid A', a brave blunder into a new creed of experimentation into which they will hopefully one day re-work The Tunes. Or 2) what they really wanted to make was a week-long jazz opus played entirely on dying cats, but the record company made them put some proper songs on it.

Tides is ambient in the same way as a water feature in a garden: soothing at a glance, but ultimately boring.

There's a squelchy warmth at the heart of 'Human After All' that's been well masked since their arrival. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

So, his odd decision to make Jamiroquai-like pillow-pop adds yet another string to Oye’s heavily-laden bow, but this is one we’d happily take the wire-cutters to.

This album feels more like a deserved victory lap than a forward step or a new instalment, but apart from his sole vocal on 'Feel So Close', the victor seems oddly absent.

'The Boy With No Name' is everything you'd expect from a new Travis album and less.

Cleaned up but never pared-down, it's his most wholesome collection since 'The Hour Of Bewilderbeast'. [21 Oct 2006, p.35]

It’s less an album, more a collection of savvy and generally savvy collaborations which blurs traditional genre boundaries unselfconsciously and acknowledges that Latin-pop is the sound of the near-future. Most of the time, it’s a credit to Sheeran’s songwriting skills and well-honed persona.

Musically this is the sound of middle America at its most ugly and nauseating...

This is often quite brilliant genre-busting music from a girl who makes a mockery of Lily Allen’s status as the voice of ‘ordinary’ Britain.

Har Mar's best effort to date. [4 Sep 2004, p.72]

‘Changes’ is a knackering listen. Overly reliant on trendy production and profound(ish) romantic proclamations, it’s a disappointing comeback from an artist who has a track record in creating hits.

At least his grimmer outlook has inspired some equally raw music.

Some tracks are merely forgettable--‘Days Of Decision’, ‘Lenny’s Tune’ and ‘When You Close Your Eyes’--while others charge headfirst into oddball territory.

All we learn from these wispy solo offerings is that Lemonheads songs are not improved by persistent cassette hiss and background noise.

Kane’s ante is upped, but Coup de Grace still isn’t quite the killer blow.

Given what we know about Cuomo’s eccentric inner world, it’s hard not to find those dazzlingly perfect melodies kind of hollow.

From someone whose appeal relies so heavily on his openness and honesty, the album feels out of balance: like there's a hole where its heart should be.

Cloud Nine could certainly do with a few more musical ideas, but this shouldn’t trouble Kygo unduly--after all, the same problem never held back David Guetta and Calvin Harris.

The beats are from the worst Ice Cube album ever made and the rhymes are sub-Coolio. [18 Dec 2004, p.51]

Save for the brief reprieves of the barbed, anti-everything 'Words I Never Said' and the historical rewrite of 'All Black Everything', Lasers walks a fine line between conscious hip-hop and sleepwalking.

Not sure-footed enough in its subversion, its artificiality feels fake rather than carefully plotted.

What's curious here is how, for all the Kid's ludicrous victory laps, 'Cocky' is so soft in the middle.

There's something a little too ‘phone advert’ about it all to properly excite.

Placebo have been plumbing the same vein for so long, they've slipped into self-parody and come out the other side with their lipstick all smudged.

It’s those sudden, inexplicable breakthroughs, those little lightning strikes of inspiration, that this compilation is ultimately concerned with. And it’s in those moments when these crappily-recorded fumblings become a source of real fascination.

Like their forebears, these LA beardies get the plaudits for taking raw, honest emotions and richly infusing them into every moment of their music.

It's a shame Mr Pain needs these cameos as much as his instrument of choice--without them, the temptation for the listener would be to simply Auto-Tune out.

But as a big comeback for these Welsh titans, it's more lost than prophecy...

What The Time Is Now lacks in coherency, it makes up for in sheer enthusiasm.

Kittie are rubbish, with a permanent lyrical setting of "Feel A Bit Miserable, Parents Don't Understand Me" and no original ideas whatsoever. [21 Aug 2004, p.49]

Sadly, towards the close the balance is lost and the fine-but-inessential ‘Summer Moon’, ‘Weeds Through The Rind’ and ‘Schlager’ end things on a weak note.

There's a 10 out of 10 album that's been thrown away here; as it is, it's the best demo you'll hear all year. [12 Nov 2005, p.41]

Even a late appearance from The Weeknd can't save this omni-tonal snoozefest.

What follows is the sound of a band trying and failing to forge a new identity - boy-band balladry, U2-style stadium rock and Metallica-esque melodic crunch are all attempted with predictably patchy results.

The first REM album to really disappoint. [2 Oct 2004, p.60]

If they want to be treated like adults they’ll have to release something, y’know, gooder.

There’s nothing game-changing about The New Classic, just recycled hustlin’ tropes and an ugly, nasal double-time flow overcompensating for mediocre wordplay.

Exquisite, state-of-the-art beats, rhymes and vocal hooks. [25 Sep 2004, p.65]

Electronic, if not exactly rejuvenated, are rewired, recharged and, really quite good again.

Too often, the follow-up to their 600,000-selling debut 'Spit', is plain overbearing, a violent marriage of melody and brutality that makes for a highly uneasy listen.

Beyond the sonics, the lyrics are embarrassingly piss-poor as well.

Musically, it's nowhere near as life-changing as its subject matter, but MacNeil's mortality menagerie make cute enough companions in the void.

The debut album from half-Scottish, half-Swedish songwriter Nina Nesbitt is pop so sugary it’ll rot your teeth.

A muddled album that claims to love pop, but seems thoroughly averse to having any kind of fun.

Biggest irony? A trillion bucks' worth of vocal talent can't top 'Watch This', a crunching Dave Grohl-embellished instrumental jam. Sounds like a convenient juncture to give Axl a reconciliatory ring, fella.

The result is a record that fully embraces the theatricality of its genre but falls just on the right side of ridiculous.

The effortlessly cool beats, hooky choruses, and above all, his witty, super-fast flow indicate this skinny blond to be a genuinely talented star.

While the album is full of quality tunes that sound nice in isolation, as a complete package, it lacks the versatility to take it to another level.

While Monastic Living might say something profound about this awkward, enigmatic band, if you’re out to explore Parquet Courts for the first time, the facts are plain: you should pick any record rather than this.

Daring as some of the tracks are, they overwhelmingly loop her vocal around a generic house lick that has the effect of giving her very little to do vocally.

This love for dramatic highs and muted lows on this album makes the record a rollercoaster of emotions and sounds, and a polished and entertaining debut.

Individual tracks can feel forced rather than organically nurtured. It all means that by the time they hit ‘Making Up Numbers’ and ‘Everybody Wants Me’, there are no longer enough new tricks in their bag to hold our attention, and ‘Emergency’ bleeds away without a climax.

Instead of bashing critics away with brilliant tunes, they find themselves defining faceless bluster-rock.

it paints crudely and schematically a portrait of the artist as messed-up, disillusioned, self-indulgent twerp with an unhealthy appreciation of the mid-'80s US guitar underground, whose demo-quality doodlings (Graham plays, sings, produces and paints everything. And all to a rather average standard) should probably have never seen the light of day.

As if the macho posturing wasn't bad enough, 'Haunted Cities' is also a mess musically. [2 Jul 2005, p.64]

'Break The Cycle' is nu-metal as envisaged by Tipper Gore - 14 tracks of parent-friendly grunge-flavoured soft rock that make Creed sound like GG Allin.

It looks like a Mariah Carey album, it sounds like a Mariah Carey album.

Now they’re safely out of what passes for fashion, their retroisms sound more loving than offensive.

This retro sound is no surprise as Echo & The Bunnymen producer Hugh Jones is in control, and he infuses No Fighting In The War Room with a sneering urgency. It works, but only in spurts.

While ‘Music Of The Spheres’ feels like quintessential Coldplay, there are some more surprising moments buried in its tracklist.

Musically, ‘Mainstream Sellout’ doesn’t stray too far from [Tickets To My Downfall's] blueprint laid out, but lyrically sees Baker get more honest, more revealing and more comfortable in being uncomfortable.

There’s definitely a nod to new Nashville here--however, we’re talking more Mumford & Sons if they started songwriting for Justin Bieber than the grit and guts of Waylon Jennings or the current king of classic country, Sturgill Simpson.

Lavigne has never been pop’s most sophisticated lyricist, but her plain-speaking style makes for compelling listening here. ... The album’s second half is generally happier and blander.

An exercise in taking a joke way too far.

Not a bad album, but a divisive one for sure.