An album which should win prizes (but won't), and hearts (and will).

An atmospheric yet danceable debut.

Winehouse's progression from fresh-faced ingénue to agonised diva is operatic stuff.

D&B&G is delicate and unaffected but clever and soulful--a balm and an inquisition.

Should you be struck by a nostalgic mood yourself, Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da is a Madness album like they used to make 'em.

This one's a beauty.

If the Mayans were right and the world really is going to end this December, you won't hear many better soundtracks than this.

The upbeat tracks are as catchy as conjunctivitis.

If the band can let go of their younger selves completely, that masterpiece will be theirs.

There are four CDs' worth but it's enormously rewarding, like mid-period Miles Davis playing Ligeti.

Halstead's songs and Euros Childs-like voice breathe the sort of honesty and goodness that's harder and harder to find in the iTunes age.

For all Bird's reverence for American rural music of the past, Hands is startlingly contemporary.

What's revealed is what's often been outshone by the originals: the sheer quality of the songwriting and vocals.

Even if [Psychedelic Pill is not essential], it's by some way the best non-essential album Neil Young has ever made.

Composer Joe Acheson seems more interested in texture than development and you can long for a discordant voice, but as head-nodding experiences go, this is pretty good.

Sweetly soaring stuff.

Tough, soulful, rockin' songs.

They don't significantly compromise the essential charm and glitchy poetry of the songcraft.

Krall's smoky contralto lacks the pungency of Wilson's, but compensates with greater mobility.

It's a skilled blend of the organic and the electronic.

Ten out of 14 tracks are outstanding, especially considering Bugg's only 18.

We get grooves as smooth and tight as Lycra, funky stabs of brass and arch lyrics delivered with cool detachment.

It's a less distinctive incarnation, but as evidenced by the stutteringly propulsive "Ye Ye", hardly less hypnotic.

More important on first contact, anyway, is the feel of the music, which grooves. Really good.

The none-more-Nietzschean, grandiose-apocalyptic mood continues through the utterly splendid Olympic theme "Survival", with its über-ELO arrangement, and "Animals", with its sound effects of an angry, riotous mob.

Their music which, as it happens, is a thrilling mix of raw vocal harmonies, rattling homemade guitars and handclaps.

It shows a musical maturity way beyond its creator's years.

A cool, edgy soundtrack for the summer, should it ever arrive.

There's not a duff track or dull moment in this 75 minutes of studio material.

These are tipsy juke-joint stompers with feeling in their heart as well as dust in their grooves.

It's a blast.

Another sweet viper's bite of post-Freudian dyspepsia from the singersongwriter who loves to mistrust.

The world adored the xx's Mercury Prize-winning debut album xx. Coexist is, if anything, an even finer piece of work.

In every sense, Theatre Is Evil sounds like a million dollars.

King Lear probably sounded like this after a couple of days on the heath.

Love This Giant is a skewed and funky instant classic.

If Elysium has a weakness, it is the absolute absence of thumping disco-pop monsters. Once you accept that, and surrender to the tranquil beauty of Chris Lowe's synth textures, you quickly realise that Neil Tennant is on top lyrical form.

14 songs of keening, romantic acoustic music of great seriousness and lightness of being.

Simultaneously the most and the least pop record of the autumn.

Contact is shamelessly allusive, never remotely challenging and characterised by a get-to-the-chorus immediacy.

When these three Liverpool lasses let their freak-folk flag fly their abandon is contagious. Their voices are great, which helps, but it's the unexpected instrumentation that really seals the deal.

Exquisitely poised solo pieces that subtly pay homage to the likes of fellow keyboard masters Abdullah Ibrahim and Erik Satie.

While there is nothing here which startles, the spirit of the music is vivid.

Hot Cakes is a rock-solid home win from the band who still do feelgood hard rock better than anyone alive.

Their 12th album covers all points from brutality to beauty in pursuit of epiphanies.

The overall theme is utopia defiled. Until, that is, Deacon – ever the optimist – brings it all together on "Manifest", the big rapturous finale.

Fragrant Word has killer synthpop tunes buried within it, but too often you wonder how much better a record this would have been if they quit dicking around and just gave you the song.

You might even argue that this and its predecessors, My Name Is Buddy (2007) and Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down (2011), represent the most cogent work of his long career.

Jamal sounds close to his 1950s Chess Records best.

Her talent and pain are equally raw and equally audible.

One day, maybe the Lips will play nice again. Until then, they and their Fwends have given us plenty to get our heads around.

The wisdom expressed is crusty but benign, poetic and sometimes witty.

While there's perhaps a surfeit of synth-washes, the beautiful "Winter Elegy" superbly fulfils the opening promise.

Gossamer is hard to fault, besides the fact that it's more of the same.

This is one of the most exhilarating albums of the year.

"I wanted", Ocean wrote, "to create worlds that were rosier than mine. I tried to channel overwhelming emotions." Mission accomplished, and then some.

Thankfully, the Knife have remained true to their essential principles.

On record, this is a joyous burst of blissed-out world pop.

[Life is Good] proves once again that Nas is one of the smartest and most skilled players in the game.

This is a belting return to form by the best vocal artist in jazz.

The slightly sterile neo-soul fump of the Roots may lack the feel of their progenitors but the songs make up for that.

The odds-and-ends nature of this compilation is spelt out by its title, but the quality barely suffers for that.

With treasurable details – the dubbed-up refrain of "Black Icy Stare", the Merseybeat-ish groove of "Karmatron" – feeding into an overall ambience of lotus-eating sensuality.

Not a perfect debut, but one that leaves you with the feeling that we're dealing with a living, thinking artist here, not just another Brit School waxwork.

A hitherto only-hinted-at humour (try "UK Blues") punctuates this hypnotic and haunting glimpse into an imperial isolation.

It may not be for everyone, but it's evidence that there are still some restless minds out there.

When it's good, it's a thrilling and ambtitious state-of-the-nation address.

Sounds like Kraftwerk's Autobahn driven by a tractor. Forget Krautrock, and say hello to Yokelrock.

Boy manage to tease something close to pop perfection.

Every once in a while, the results can be more enjoyable than the main event (see Stephen Stills' Manassas). And this may be true of CRB.

A passionate, heartfelt, serious, dogged effort, pregnant with reflection and as wise as you could hope for.

IOH is their most emotional release yet and also their most philosophical.

Few bands do that thing - spitting the venom of the dumped, but somehow staying romantic at the same time - better.

Nobody does this kind of thing quite like the Swedes, and NATD are a welcome addition to that nation's synthpop hall of fame.

You know exactly what to expect: high-energy, hugely entertaining garage rock. And, with the odd exception, that's what they deliver.

An unexpectedly enjoyable late addition to a formidable body of work.

ODIGTS is the soul album of the century. It might yet turn out to be the album of the year

Almost every track sounds like a potential single in an indie rock/Americana kind of way.

It's the drift, eddy and thrust of the whole ensemble that tells the main story.

The most compelling Spanish album I've heard in ages.

Stapleton's writing for this recording, satisfies on every level.

With a little luck, and the careful choice of singles, there might be life in this party yet.

Obscure or not, they're songs worth learning, especially when sung as gorgeously as this.

Words and Music, the first full studio album in an aeon from Sarah Cracknell, Bob Stanley and Pete Wiggs, is a masterclass of pop theory and practice in perfect harmony.

[On Bloom] Alex Scally and Victoria Legrand have finessed their vision to perfection.

Buckinghamshire band SBP return for their third album with a far more complex musical palette.

A classy, well-made record.

An undiscovered diamond.

The eighth Marilyn Manson album features some of his finest lyrics yet and, musically, it often approaches the heyday of Holy Wood and Mechanical Animals.

A mature, reflective, intelligent, Americana-inflected [album].

It sees Golightly staking her claim once again as the Brenda Lee of the Medway scene.

Fear Fun is the kind of album that can name-check Sartre, Heidegger and Neil Young in the same song.

This is jouncey, mostly R&B-derived pop with a keen ear for what supports a melody. It's good.

Bewitching.

Two non-trad covers (Anais Mitchell and Fleetwood Mac) remind you that he's earnt the right to do what the hell he wants.

Blunderbuss does, at times approach his finest work. But it doesn't do anything he hasn't already done.

There's enough on the highly politicised Macaroni to justify stepping outside to find him.

It's a rather beautiful thing.