Bobby is a jack of all trades when it comes to surmising his subject matter while balancing the line of fact, fun, and fierce emotion. It makes for one of the year’s most essential records yet.

This is intelligent dance music (with no capital letters)--clever and warm, sophisticated and joy

To call ‘Topical Dancer’ pure fun feels to diminish the real sentiment behind the lyrics; to pigeonhole it as wholly political does down the infectiousness that runs through its core.

There’s nothing about the album that’s easy or comfortable to listen to, but it’s so meticulously constructed and so raw across each fragment of existence yeule lays out that its most perplexing moments become its most moving.

It’s verbose and it aims high and it’s not a record you can stick on in the background while you play Candy Crush. But unplug from this modern game of life just for a little while and it’s a very, very special reward indeed.

A restrained pace imbues the album with a feeling of deep sedation. It’s a blissful listen from start to finish.

A post-break-up sexual revolution decorated with metaphor and sonic experimentation, that’s both dizzyingly unique and creatively assertive, this is a comeback that demands accolade.

A luscious album that sees the singer shrug off the pressures of present day virality in favour of creating something much more classic.

At every moment ‘Home Video’ presents a vivid snapshot into an upbringing that fundamentally defines Lucy Dacus’ adulthood. In each tale she finds both loss and hope, a musical representation of the intricate jigsaw of life.

Not an easy listen - as one might expect - but definitely a rich, rewarding one.

Boards of Canada have created a fascinating vision, one that will reveal more and more gifts over time.

‘This Is Why’ is a blistering melding pot of artistry.

He may know damn well how to deliver a banger, but also when to tone it back a bit too. Though it may not all hit hard and there are some sonic kinks that could’ve been ironed out, when it does hit, it’s impossible not to be swept up.

Despite the foreboding darkness within their offerings, there are still glimpses of light that shimmer within.

The War on Drugs are reliable - not in the sense that they’re workhorses, but more in that Adam’s years-long close study of guitar rock has now evidently become an incontestable mastery.

Spoken word moments peppered throughout hark back to the ‘80s on an album that pushes musical boundaries well past the present day. In sound, it’s as bold as the personality that runs through it.

It all sounds a little inconceivable on paper, but is tied together and brought to life by a singer-songwriter who evades pigeonholing--on purpose or accidentally, it doesn’t really matter--and provides a debut that’s all her own.

Goldfrapp's singles collection is a triumph of compellingly brilliant classy pop.

Radiant, joyous record.

Whether it matches up to its self-proclaimed sister record or not, 2020 has seen Taylor Swift deliver over two hours of the most relatable stories in contemporary pop. There are lyricists and there are storytellers, and in a year of uncertainty and inconsistency, Taylor Swift has emerged as the most assured songwriter of her generation.

Jenny Lewis has never sounded this confident in her own skin.

Unpacking messy feelings over delicate guitars, Crushing may have been born from a place of confusion, but Julia Jacklin’s voice sounds clearer than ever.

For the most part ‘Dance Fever’ is an expert revamp from one of alternative music’s torch-bearing misfits, a welcome shot of fairy-tale hedonism ripe for post-pandemic dancefloor indulgence.

Not so much Marika 3.0 as the Marika who was always there, but tougher, stronger and more triumphant than ever.

While ‘Yellow’ mixes it up nicely with freak-outs, group chants, P-funk and mellowing R&B, it is lyrically where the album wearies.

This is a second album that builds upon the foundations they’ve laid so far and opens up their world to all manner of possibilities. If ‘Dogrel’ promised that Fontaines DC were gonna be big, it’s with ‘A Hero’s Death’ that they prove they were worth the hype all along.

Their fifth album is anchored by thudding, motorik beats that create a dancier base on which James exorcises his deepest demons, and it’s an even more intense form of communication.

Much like what has come before, it’s in this melancholic in-between that ‘Little Oblivions’ finds its voice; a soundtrack for those searching for hope in difficult times, particularly when the wider world has removed easy distraction from the pain.