Sophie's chart positions may have dropped, but there's no dip in the quality pop on offer here.

Eliza Doolittle is an album of potential but, for the moment, that's all it is.

One crucial difference is The Pierces' music has changed from something that sounded like awkward whimsy a few years ago into something middle-aged people will like; and that's basically the key to selling loads of records these days.

It's big, it's shiny, it's unashamedly happy and we wouldn't want it any other way.

Few records will be made this year with such love and devotion, and you'll be able to tell it too. It's delicious.

She has already made pop interesting just as it was declining into irrelevance; now it's time for her to make it great again.

Certainly, it's by far the best album of his career to date--proof that going it alone was a decision that most certainly paid off.

Aficionados may balk at an actor trespassing on sacred ground, but even they'd have to admit, that for a white, middle-class Englishman, Hugh Laurie plays a surprisingly convincing bluesman.

Overall, Smother is brilliant, and a record by a band with a big brain, a generous heart, hungry ears and a permanent erection.

No doubt Helplessness Blues will win Pecknold further fame and success, whether he likes it or not.

An average album over produced, Love? has Lopez throwing everything she's got at relaunching her pop career and coming up shorter than anyone could ever have thought possible.

To anyone who's felt like they've been along to share even a little bit of that journey, it's an album-of-the-year contender that's bound to do nothing but delight.

If you can manage to put such quibbles aside--and it will be a struggle--Light After Dark has some redeeming features.

Jennifer Hudson would do well in stepping outside her comfort zone.

Worst of all, it turns out that commercially-minded dubstep is--perhaps inevitably--a much weaker prospect than its club counterpart.

It's certainly not Joy Division, but there's a bittersweet, melancholy and intelligent edge here that's worth investigating.

Though there are still moments of eyeball rolling twee, the darker undertones are enough to more than keep us interested.

If this is what we get - because this is what enough of us apparently want - the end of the music business cannot come soon enough.

Like on James Blake's album, every swoon is accentuated with the help of a computer and at times just sounds like someone crying and using Auto-Tune at the same time.

No, it isn't as good as that, but getting anywhere close is proof that Damon Albarn remains a musical alchemist, turning what could easily have been crude and leaden into something that often gleams like gold.

Nine Types Of Light is an album that manages to blend experimentation with a welcoming accessibility that proves pop music can still be bold this far down the line.

Recent devotees may be left wondering why there's nothing for them to sing-along to.

Could 'Blood Pressure' restore The Kills fortunes to their early glory days? It would seem that Hince's luck might be running out.

Far from a behind-the-scenes veil-lifting, though, 'Doggumentary' largely ensures that the worst preconceptions of self-indulgent hip-hop remain in place.

Neither a triumph nor a calamity, EUPHORIC HEARTBREAK delivers just enough to make you believe Glasvegas may still have that perfect album in them some day.

Who You Are doesn't entirely deliver, but even when its songs fall short of the promised hype, their potential is obvious.

More vintage sound than classic album, All You Need Is Now won't revive any careers, theirs or Ronson's.

Femme Fatale is also unevenly paced, overlong (16 tracks in its deluxe version) and burdened with filler like the generic 'I Wanna Go', which tries to find a shortcut to the dancefloor but gets lost en route. But the weaker material is outweighed by the fantastic, from the slamming, techno-tinged 'Trouble For Me' to the glorious bubblegum house of 'Up N' Down'.