The reaction Double Up provokes makes you think of the scene from The Producers when the opening night performance of Springtime For Hitler ends and the camera pans on to the audience: open-mouthed, frozen, aghast.

Sadly, a piecemeal approach to production (Dr Dre has just one credit) leaves the album lacking an abiding mood and drowning in fashionable soft-rock samples.

The songs and Ziggy guitar solos are more accessible than usual. Manson can croak like an undead, but can't sing to save his life.

TLC are the second most successful girl group of all time (after the Spice Girls) and this record proves that their winning formula still works.

For all the beauty, there's a certain unsettling, transient aspect to the calm.

Listened to--as the band recommend--in one sitting, it is trudging and effortful.

Often, Donkey sounds like someone has tracked down the anonymous session musicians who spent the 1970s knocking out polite covers of chart hits for budget-priced Top of the Pops compilation albums and got them to have a stab at replicating CSS's sound.

An average addition to the catalogue.

It's robotically humourless; imagine C3PO discovering ecstasy and synths and you're there.

A Very She & Him Christmas could have done with a little more of the wide-eyed, kooky-face, make-your-bestie-a-yummy-pancake Deschanel: the results might or might not have been unbearable, but they certainly wouldn't have been dull.

Despite ear-catching touches such as the deadpan voiceover on 'Love Is the Key,' nothing hits the spot like the Phil Spector-like single 'The Promise,' one of this year's better chart-toppers.

The only risk Marley takes is on You're My Yoko, where he attempts to woo a lucky lady by likening her to the avant-garde artist, while casting himself as John Lennon. Julian Lennon would have been nearer the mark.

Despite the off-the-beaten-track ethos, this ends up sounding rather pedestrian--there are shades of Stevie Nicks’ mystical crooning, but there is also yodelling and the sort of cacophonous jamming that’s only ever the slightest bit enjoyable if you’re holding one of the instruments.

This EP is nothing but on-brand, however; euphoric emotion, an earnest, universal message and a coating of tacky charm.

The Constant is essentially a mildly promising debut by an artist who can write a tune but not yet with any great distinction.

Her Mariah-like ability to deliver songs with maximum melismatic drama shows itself less often this time around, but when she does let loose, it’s a reminder that her amiable, Texas-girl exterior encases one of pop’s most forceful voices.

Ultimately, The Silent Hours is muscular, conservative rock music.

Each listen reveals more light and shade, reaffirming Skinner's position as one of Britain's truly interesting stars.

Fun, but noisy enough to make your parents worry about your ears.

When they ease off the accelerator and the singer shifts from off-pat angst to revealing vulnerability, they can still produce spiky, stylish pop.

The album certainly has its flaws--some plodding AOR arrangements, and so-so songs--but he hasn't sounded this engaged with his music in a very long time.

Like all the band's recent output, Re-Mit isn't going to win over anyone who isn't already a Fall devotee.

The slow-motion misery of I Want Love is a little too drenched in its own fragile despair, but the lazy, wilted quality of Bad Mistake is better; a tired, grunge-lite lollop, more Stephen Malkmus than all-out macabre.

Pocket Symphony most recalls their influential 1998 Moon Safari - only it sounds older and wiser.

Although the occasional restrained bass works well, this transitional album works best with just voice and guitar.

As so often in this late period, Davis’s playing is beguiling in bursts.

Listen closely and you’ll find some impressive sonic detail, but Harlequin isn’t exactly a spectacle.

Rosenberg's strength is storytelling, and Whispers brims with striking vignettes.

Perhaps inevitably, the desperate urge to cover every musical base from dancefloor to soul-ballad means that there is barely a track here with any distinctive identity or even a tune.

This might be far from a perfect album, but it’s certainly nothing to be ashamed of.

Its best track is a five-minute paean to a city left ­behind, and ­Elbow have already done the love letters to Manchester – and much more ­beautifully.

The various covers range from smouldering, sensual blues (BB King’s Rock Me) to raw, roughhouse rockers (Big Joe Williams’ Baby Please Don’t Go).

It's not bad - which is just as well, as it will be inescapable.

Regrettably, though, Sparks sounds more comfortable with power ballads such as 'No Parade;' and there's an inner Pat Benatar struggling to get out on the title track. OK if you like this kind of thing.

Magic Moment nearly works, but not quite: further proof, should you need it, that making a Christmas record is tougher than you might think.

The vibe is more often trippy and transcendental than indulgent, whereas even the most far-out moments fail to disguise Rundgren’s pop nous, most evident in the synth rushes of Put Your Arms Around Me and the electrifying soloing that follows it.

As ever, she provokes both compassion and impatience.

Every song is designed to be played loud and sung along with even louder.

Like a lot of albums produced by Phil Ek (by the Shins, for instance, and Fleet Foxes), you're impressed, but don't necessarily warm to it.

It’s the heaviest the band has sounded in some time, and exuberant enough for you to ignore Bellamy’s clunky lyrics. But Drones veers badly off target in its final third.

An astonishing concept-album full of humour, tenderness and life-affirming spirit.

With no one expecting it but themselves Starsailor have delivered.

Its most upbeat moments are its weakest: Will.I.Am and Cheryl lumbering on to the disco floor on Heaven, and the tinny electropop of Taio Cruz's contribution, Stand Up. Elsewhere the main sound on 3 Words is R&B, with any rhythmic trickery stripped out.

Pretty good but never outstanding.

The results should have at least been interesting, but Get Hurt is nothing but the same old overblown rock sound with every dial turned up several digits past 11.

Trimble's contention that Beacon "takes us one step closer to the band we've dreamed of becoming" suggests a work in progress.

It's beautifully done, with palpable affection for the songs, airy whimsy and perhaps a hint of mischief.

It's just a shame Frank's default singing mode is an overheated falsetto--if anything is likely to deter people from investigating this nifty little record, it's that.

This is a slick, potent album--one that reeks of nostalgia and comfort, campfires, scented candles, spilt pints of Guinness and, for those not enthralled by his algorithmic songcraft, the sharp stench of a salesman’s cheap cologne.

While the hyphy tracks might scare some people off, they are the record's undoubted highlights.

The overriding impression of both modes is nostalgia, not least for the uplifting, utopian properties of dance music. Moby finds some traction on the first count – there is vitality here, if not novelty – but the forays into politics aren’t so convincing.

It's possible to enjoy this album without registering much about it, such is the muscular efficiency with which one song succeeds the next.

They include brassy belters of the style that Mark Ronson has brought back into fashion, ugly stabs at funk and a cover of Bruce Springsteen's boxing classic, The Hitter, that is more Joe the Plumber than Joe Calzaghe. The ballads, however, offer richer pickings.

It works when he doesn't get too clever.

By putting themselves through the wringer, Buckcherry have produced their best album yet.

Kamikaze is a variable, flawed album. The hooks are nothing special. ... When it’s on fire, however, it really crackles, blazing considerably brighter than any Eminem album for some time.

The songs sound forced and formulaic, with Ross's tales of alcoholic parents and identity confusion replaced by more straightforward lyrics about youngish love that have the difficult task of winning back fans who are now six years older.

Moments of delicate introspection such as Winter Song and Josh McBride (from their Chapel Sessions) aside, their straining for both authenticity and jollity can bring to mind people knocking on your door wielding pamphlets.

This album is the blandest of aural wallpaper.

No wheels are being reinvented here, but while much of Walls marks a return to the Kings sound of eight years ago, there is some experimentation.

You might need a strong cuppa to settle your nerves afterwards.

As IV Play demonstrates, the well of ideas has run dry and the magic is gone.

On closer inspection, much of Nightfreak and the Sons of Becker appears less like an exercise in deliberately alienating the Coral's audience than a counterpoint to their second album.

It might not make for the most essential listening of 2015, but Hold On It’s Easy is a playful distraction.

Robert Schwartzman, who writes, produces and performs almost all the songs here, bringing varying moods to a default mode of sunny powerpop.

She almost surgically removes the emotion from The Winner Takes It All and Love Letters, songs that demand real passion. Meanwhile, David Foster’s arrangements veer from the flawlessly sophisticated to the downright inappropriate. ... Thankfully, Bruni brings a hint of mischief to former beau Mick Jagger’s Miss You and her sultry, playful take on AC/DC’s Highway to Hell is so incongruous it works wonderfully.

Yet despite this genre-hopping, most songs eventually end up in the same realm: that of a bland, plodding vaguely sentimental ballad boasting at least one instantly memorable hook.

Portentous, monochrome synths, staccato beats and torpid tempos provide a backdrop of cheap grandeur; Keef doesn't so much ride the beat as pace suspiciously alongside it (sometimes, it's more like plodding).

What Born to Die isn't is the thing Lana Del Rey seems to think it is, which is a coruscating journey into the dark heart of a troubled soul... What it is, is beautifully turned pop music, which is more than enough.

Everyone already knows what to expect and, largely, they'd be right.

In making epic but intimate anthems, Milagres haven't reinvented the wheel, but these are beautiful, romantic songs to learn and sing.

It's all epic, if slightly textbook stuff, but the title track and By Design conjure up a brooding menace rarely heard since Jane's Addiction.

This album should really have been called Let's Battle Insomnia, in honour of its sedative properties.

It just about succeeds in sweaty five-minute blasts, but there's no excuse for a record as flatly anonymous as this.

The result is polished without being glib, and a sympathetic listener may find it addictive.

[There's] an earnestness that often comes across as maudlin.

Effortlessly shimmering, breezy guitar pop.

The sticking point is that, after a confident, rootsy start, the songs run out of steam halfway through, leaving Gray flailing through conventional soul stodge.

These are powerful and finely crafted songs, even if the lyrics suggest that, for Melissa, the meaning of life is chained up in some goths-and-dragons dungeon.

The songs are big on riffs, hooks, choruses, sex and swagger, although there's enough going on lyrically to suggest more depth than just sharp songwriting.

The prevailing impression is that she has grown up and lightened up, the earnest, angsty moods replaced by an exuberant fusion of crunchy 1980s rock and noughties pop.

A few tracks offer something fresh.

The title promises a hit of authenticity, but Speak Your Mind supplies only affectation.

For all the air of naffness that hangs over them, they never forget that their purpose is to entertain.

Surprisingly lean, vibrant and enjoyable.

It's a hit-and-miss affair.

As the disc wears onwards, MacIntyre's pallid voice and incontrovertible wimpishness can sometimes bring on mild sensations of nausea.

Body Language finds Kylie partying like it's 1987 all over again, only minus the dubious millinery and Jason Donovan, taking inspiration from the likes of Kool and the Gang and Prince to pleasing if not always memorable effect.

Only reggae-lite skank Where Would I Be hints at Stefani’s once playful personality. But the truth is that this feels like little more than careerist chart fodder.

This record is closer to business as usual: leader Paul Smith's lyrics portray him as the bookish romantic stymied by constantly overthinking--but, this time, the sound has been subtly enhanced by electronics and actual beats.

What’s conspicuously absent are the kind of nailed-on pop anthems that peppered Bieber’s best album, the post-breakdown, career-saving Purpose: nothing here approaches the earworm status of Love Yourself or What Do You Mean? And that – rather than its failure to live up to any putative advance billing – is Justice’s biggest problem.

It's a warm, inviting blend, with Asa's husky, lightly swinging vocals its focal point. It's undeniably cosy listening.

Killer Sounds is certainly flawed, but has an awkward yet indefatigable charm.

At its weaker moments the album feels frustratingly backward-facing, but is played with enough skill to compensate for its lack of ingenuity.

Throughout, his oft-criticised singing is tone-perfect and balm-like. Ripples isn’t a juggernaut comeback, but it’s a beguiling, often beautiful album that quietly but purposefully announces his return to the fray, as ever, on his own terms.

Doesn't break with the formula, but at least it stretches it.

It's not just that the music on I Am ... is boring--although, aside from the growling guitars and tumbling drums of That's Why You're Beautiful, it is. It's that there is something underwhelming about the whole project.

Chunky, hook-laden songs like Tryin' to Breathe and This Way show a newfound sonic confidence, but Dilated Peoples remain astoundingly dull MCs, delivering earnest and predictable rhymes.