Unfortunately, too often We the Generation’s big pop moments fall back on tried-and-tested formulas.

While Later... lacks the intensity of the band's first set, the title track and Choices in particular suggest they shouldn't be dismissed.

While masterfully engineered as always, the album is too polite, lacking the monstrous, alien menace of the band’s bassier efforts. It’s an album that could do with a dub treatment.

With just one new song – the title track, a gutsy bawler with Reba McEntire and Carrie Underwood – the rest is a spirited if not subversive amble through her back catalogue and some old-time country classics.

Weller seems incapable of releasing a downright bad album at the moment, but this isn’t one of his best.

Too easy on the ear to be convincing – more getting deep round the campfire than genuine soul-baring – but highlights "Black Flies" and "Promise" are nice enough studies in soft-focus angst.

Admittedly, these are songs that didn’t make the cut for Smith’s next full-length album, due out in 2022. Still, Digging’s angsty 80s pop rock energy and Bussdown’s (featuring rapper Shaybo) subtle dancehall beat are nice enough to rewind, proving that this is more than just an ephemeral work.

It has a youthful glow, but over 13 tracks Anything lacks substance.

She's still a pop maverick worth cherishing, but you wish she'd tone down the quirkiness just a little.

Sure, catchy singles such as No Mediocre (featuring Azalea) and About the Money cleave close to the worship of money and compliant “ho”s rife in hip-hop. But intriguing things are afoot here too.

Just enough titbits of melody... to sustain interest.

The beats toughen up with the second half bangers Strobe Light and Push, on an album that lyrically does what it says on the tin.

His guitar and voice are at their best on the likes of opening Stax stomper Ain't Messin' 'Round and the heavy soul of When My Train Pulls In, Numb, and the funky Bright Lights--his guitar crunchy and full in a way you only get with good amps and pedals.

It’s when Larsson gets earnest that things start to falter. Nothing cribs too readily from Rihanna’s 2010-era balladry, while Larsson’s full-bodied delivery jars with Soundtrack’s soft strings. She’s better setting those emotions to big floor-fillers, as on End of Time, which peaks as a desperate Larsson belts “until the end of fucking time!” For that sense of pent-up release, Venus works perfectly.

There's nothing desperately original about the 12 songs on their debut album.... But they're delivered with such winning enthusiasm that they make an old formula seem fresh.

The best tracks can often be those that seem most unlikely, where pairings take flight and logic takes a breather.

Hug of Thunder is not hugely cogent--but equally benefit from the weight of numbers.

As these 12 tracks go by, the quirks that made Jessie J’s previous albums notable have been replaced by the hugeness of failsafe producers; and she has taken a step back from the songwriting.

Folila, packed with western friends, mixes the inspired and mundane.

The pleasures of Is Your Love Big Enough? lie in its subtleties, though: the way La Havas's vocals purr and pounce by turns, how Matt Hales's production refuses to be obvious. Showboating is kept to a minimum – as, indeed, is the threat of supermarket cheesiness.

Gone are the meandering, proggy excesses of 2008's Real Emotional Trash, and in their place are sharper, melody-driven tracks that foreground Malkmus's distinctive oblique wit.

Admittedly, at times it’s a little saccharine, but deep house-driven albums are rarely this much fun.

Despite all the biting character sketches and evergreen dancefloor nous in evidence (both at once on Will O’ the Wisp), Hotspot has its cooler passages.

Although always listenable, Austin soon gets tired and whiny.

The only fusion too far here is Paper Trails, a blues-funk digression from this otherwise elegant experiment: closing track Metatron marries blues and sci-fi much better.

Even as she fulfils the brief here--not disappointing, revealing how fame heals some things, but not others--you want to wrench the woman away from the ivories and order her a jug of margarita.

[7 Rings] is a hit, but isn’t actually all that great, using Rodgers and Hammerstein’s My Favourite Things as its sing-song musical base. The rest of the album remains of interest for its evolutions in sound, delivery and attitude.

There’s ample disgusted fury here, as tracks like the powerful Rain of Terror attest, but inner strength and enduring creativity are the takeaways from this unexpected record, as well as nods to Prince and Biggie Smalls.