You don’t have to strain too much, either, to hear a plausible feminist reworking of songs such as (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction, when Parton joins larynxes with Pink and Brandi Carlile. But overall, Rockstar is both a savvy commercial package and a fudged artistic opportunity.

AC plumb depths of paucity more than subtlety in this wilfully desolate expanse of dispassionate vocals and vague, awkward ambience.

The po-faced classicism of Proserpina drags, and little here packs the visceral punch of Wainwright's older songs.

The album is more interesting sonically in the tension between questing guitars and straightforward song structures than it is in terms of lyrics, which aim to be down to earth but end up middle of the road.

Simple Pleasures aside, Kasabian sound a little less desperate to prove themselves to Oasis fans this time around.

Doherty’s weak, watery quiver of a voice is over-exposed on Lo’s parodic pop fantasias, which veer from syrupy and insincere fluff to low-stakes Smiths tributes.

Where Expectations saw Kiyoko taking space to explore her own voice, Panorama feels like a leap backwards, trading personality for affectless tracks that fade into the background.

For the most part, these songs just sound as if they’re being bashed out at a slower tempo.

La Liberacion is better in its quieter moments.

Much here is busy, effective dance-pop that works, but it fails to rivet like Britney's 00s output.

The songwriting is cookie-cutter, resorting too often to hammering, basic riffs and crashing cymbals; the lyrics are banal, frequently descending into woah-ohh-ohh.

Their four quite different flows still work reasonably well together, from $hort’s lubricious bars to Cube’s truculent pugilism, over comfort-zone beats of electro, P-funk and other familiar 1980s grooves. Yet harmless nostalgia predictably succumbs to charmless bluster.

His fourth major label album is too comfortable in its introspection. Where Stormzy’s Gang Signs & Prayer carefully balanced bangers and ballads, this is sluggish and solemn.

There’s nothing here quite as aurally arresting as Moonlight, off XXX’s ? LP, but his recasting of Slim Shady as an eclectic depressive indelibly coloured this year.

They've retained the late-80s-Mancunian-indie-plus-surf-pop formula, and though that produced some sparkling tunes first time round, now things sound somewhat thin: each lovelorn and drear ditty seems to blend into the next.

Rich in interesting R&B-influenced textures, its songs too often fail to engage, particularly on a ponderous second half.

Many fans will enjoy this album’s radio-friendliness, and its warm hugs. But these Songs of Experience lack William Blake’s moral fervour or rage.

While Songs of Innocence is more succinct, glossy and nimble than recent U2 outings, there is very little of the rawness, directness or spontaneity of youth to it--and precious little innocence.

These standards have a lot still to say--if only they sang a little more potently here.

You Me at Six still seem to have little originality or depth to offer.

Although they mix styles enough to semi‑redeem themselves, they're still some way short of living up to their influences.

Her album has a preternaturally middle-aged, middle-of-the-road feel.

The best songs – Give a Little, Say It, On + Off, lean harder into the hip-hop grooves, Rogers’s strong and soulful voice gaining a bit of grit. Overnight and The Knife, however, fall into melodic predictability, Fallingwater drowns a more interesting structure in ersatz gospel and Past Life, the overportentous, dragged-out ballad at the album’s heart, reminds you that viral doesn’t always mean catchy.

All the elements of solid indie pop are here, but too often it amounts to a familiar and underwhelming sound.

Unchanged are his limitations as a rapper, both technically and in his choice of subjects.

The veteran indie musician cannot ditch his knock-kneed approach, honed over 15 solo albums and four in Hefner. Folk, like rural life, can be red in tooth and claw; Hayman’s pastel jingle-jangles ill serve his rich sources.

Their eighth studio album, and second on their own label, is another solid, if uninspiring, set.

"Chillwave", the genre with which Washed Out, or Ernest Greene, is synonymous, was always a tongue-in-cheek name but this remains non-ironic music about nothing more interesting than vague good vibes.