Clever, sexy, angry, soulful, witty and fantastically bold, Beyoncé stirs up the western and puts the you know what into country. I think it’s a masterpiece, but don’t expect to hear it at the Grand Ole’ Opry any time soon.

The most accessible album from Mike Hadreas (aka Perfume Genius) to date, without sacrificing any of his otherworldly strangeness and rich emotionalism. ... It is an album of vast depths that will reward a lot of listening.

This anthology provides a marvellous opportunity to revisit Mitchell in her glorious prime. Indispensable.

It's expensive but for Martyn fans it will offer hours and hours of fresh enjoyment of one of British folk's true greats.

This is a vast superclub of an album. But for all its inventiveness, its flavours exist within fairly narrow parameters. Still, these songs will be blasted out of cars, at house parties, in hotel rooms and on dance floors for years to come.

Blue Weekend both refines that sound and takes it in dizzying new directions. Rowsell’s lyrics have never been more absorbing in their examination of friendship, heartache, anxiety, acceptance and self-confidence.

Unfortunately, most of Guts sounds like a simple continuation of Sour – there is little musical growth or thematic change, with Making the Bed and Pretty Isn’t Pretty seeming like mere overhangs from her debut

It’s an expansion of her wonderfully experimental R&B, with all the candour listeners expect from this masterful songwriter. ... SOS is well worth the wait.

At every turn he unfolds the fists of self-pity into upturned palms of generosity.

Bridgers’s modernity is actually a kind of timelessness, yet delivered in an emotional and lyrical lexicon that speaks directly to this moment.

This fabulous box-set finally unites the trilogy. Tragic, poignant, yet uplifting, Newbury's tough-guy singing will often inexorably reduce the listener to tears.

There are good things here, but nothing especially new.

Swift’s remake is astonishing in its exactitude, another reminder that she is a star of a different magnitude with a mastery of her own talents and a bold business acumen. .... All of the new songs are satisfyingly deft and clever, replete with sinuous melodies, burbling synths and agitated percussion that correspond with the updated eighties stylings of the original. .... The one new song that really punches its weight with Swift’s original 1989 singles is the razor sharp Is It Over Now?

There are plenty of artists who make music occupying the same space as Mitski – reflective, weepy, introspective – but she stands alone in her lyricism and heart; on this album, she also seems less frightened by the potential fruits of her own talent.

With This Could Be Texas, Leeds-based quartet English Teacher have crafted a record really quite striking in its lyrical and sonic ambition.

The album sounds like something knocked out almost live in a spirit of excitement, rather than with objective vision or commercial muscle. I’d be hard pressed to assert that this (unlike CS&N) amounts to more than the sum of its parts, rather than a celebration of great parts. But it is impossible to argue that as a group, Boygenius are pretty super.

These songs are the strongest she’s written to date, with terrific hooks and melodies throughout.

Real emotion never gets old. Honey is moving in more senses than one, a hypnotically groovy dance floor opus, set to the beat of Robyn’s tender heart.

Ultimately, this is an album in which a troubled spirit seeks the relief of music to mesmerising and charged effect. And that is timeless.

As a follow-up to What’s Your Pleasure?, it’s inevitably a little doomed, lacking that record’s magical conditions: the unexpectedly fresh energy amid the lethargy of lockdown. Still, after Pleasure’s anticipatory teasing, That! Feels Good! offers a perfectly competent climax.

It's an album undiminished by time, that can still make me want to throw myself around an imaginary mosh pit or curl up in a fetal ball.

Ellery and Skye have managed cohesion amid the cacophony. I Love You Jennifer B is a dramatic outing that combines the modern, the classical and everything else in between.

Just Mustard have said they wanted their second album, Heart Under, to make the listener feel like they are driving through a tunnel with the windows down. And on this noisy, wonderfully chaotic record, the band seems to have nailed it. ... The inventive beats make you want to dance.

While this album invigorates and intrigues, in future I would hope to hear her expand lyrically, while exploring the hauntingly melancholic sounds her violin can produce. For now, at least, the defiant joy her work evokes is a stimulating jolt to the senses.

This is a terrific album, full of dignity.

Adopting a very domestic lyrical setting whilst grappling bravely with big issues, Shortly After Takeoff offers ideal lockdown listening, a touching black comedy of emotional isolation.

For a flag-waving LGBTQ artist riding the transgender express, the secret of Letissier's crossover charm is that she never lets polemic get in the way of a slick hook. It may be pop with a purpose, but first and foremost it is pop with a damn catchy chorus.

Another beautiful slice of country-tinged magic that never descends into nostalgia.