As it turns out, Spears' seventh studio album is part-success and part astounding failure, mixing some of her very best songs with hideous black holes.

Hope is their third studio album and touted as their step up. In truth, it comes on in leaps and bounds as much as it trips and stumbles along the way.

They're too bland, too safe and too boring.

Mine Is Yours occupies an unremarkable middle ground somewhere between their bluesy, abrasive tendencies and the kind of staidly proficient indie-rock that surely wasn't part of the plan to begin with.

This should have been a fiery celebration of three decades of waving the ragged punk rock banner; instead, it's a laurel-resting plodder.

It opens the door to tantalising, exciting possibilities, but it's also fragmented, distracted and indulgent.

They're probably the only band in history whose latest album would sound better if they did not appear on it.

Perfectly serviceable, but this band missed their chance to make a third great album decades ago.

Robbins' first foray into music is a misstep compared to his successful acting career.

What it's not, though, is a collection that confirms the arrival of a significant solo talent. It's too patchy, too hurried, the powers behind it too eager to capitalise on the artist's current chart success.

The lyrics mingle optimism and deliberate naivety, with even the downer moments coming across as exultantly miserable rather than genuinely forlorn. Rhodes is undoubtedly sincere, but maybe at the expense of potential humour and irony.

Though its combative title suggests Khaled cares little for anybody's approval, Kiss the Ring ends up more of a formulaic slugging match than any collection of genuine rap prize-fighters really should.

While some of this album is beautiful and delicate, at other times its vocal and musical honey smothers the intimacy of the lyrics.

Whatever your take on the chillwave phenomenon--that brand of overexposed, Polaroid pop mining childhood memories kick-started (arguably) by Animal Collective's influential album Merriweather Post Pavilion--it's a conversation that's happened, and Equatorial Ultravox does little to further the debate.

Disappointing fare from Britpop revivalists on the receiving end of critical vitriol.

Like many a "supergroup" before them, this one doesn't quite meet the expectations that their combined reputations create.

Freedom of Speech shows that one of Britain's most intriguing hopes still has some serious thinking to do.

Reanimated glam-punk pioneers get dafter as they get older.

The fact that the climax comprises the closest thing to a substantial recording on the album is an indictment of a release that one suspects would not have made the stores had the Hendrix estate not wished to offer a bone to new label Sony following the end of their distribution deal with Universal.

In the end, it's a matter of taste. If you can handle a lot of wacky in your pop music, there's a lovely album here waiting for you. If not, Corinne Bailey Rae is over there.

The Devil's Rain, then, is a slightly mixed bag of tricks, treats and travesties.

Finally Famous is sporadically fun but adds nothing to the ongoing evolution of hip hop, in the mainstream down.

Familiar tropes surface in the lyrical content (sexy times being the core focus), and musically it's a smorgasbord of European dance trends and contemporary RnB production, showy but soulless.

Sadly though, the prevalence of mid-tempo, Des'ree-lite ballads and inconsistent quality make this is an exhausting listen over 90 minutes.

It's full of fascinating, stirring moments, but overall, Year of the Black Rainbow suffers just a little too much from its own grand, sprawling ambition.

Buoyantly produced, it finds the singer leaning a little too comfortably on the conversational Georgia drawl of his baritone, and the writer coming up a little shy on the sort of detail and wordplay that lifts a cliche.

Florence, Santigold and the usually brilliant Danny Brown do little more than tick boxes, and ultimately Long.Live.A$AP fails to match its hype with a coherent trend-setting statement.

Twin Atlantic no longer stand out enough from the host of similar power-pop and emo acts that have flooded the airwaves in recent years, and Free is depressingly characterised by unimaginative, one-paced hollers like The Ghost of Eddie and Time For You to Stand Up.

While it lacks focus and cohesive identity, the album Paul Banks named after himself does demonstrate that there's more to this artist than previous form suggests

The scattered approach showcased on this set needs polish and original thought to develop.

Linkin Park will always be a compelling and watchable entity. But Living Things doesn't deliver music as interesting or as arresting as what immediately preceded it. Which comes as both a surprise and, more importantly, a shame.

The lyrics aren't the only thing holding EFUNK back: Soul Clap's chugging pace drags on the heels of their most anthemic numbers.

+ will give Sheeran's rabid fanbase a lot to love, but it'll also make him an easy target for critics hungry for new directions in pop, as it fails to really gel the man's loves of folk and rap.

The lack of standout hits here is disappointing, but All of Me's Achilles heel is its conversational interludes.

Though not without its charms, Endlessly is too slight and uneven to impress unconditionally.

Though all are blessed with a wry and dusty charm that's hard to dislike, too many are rolled out in a way that seems more to do with autopilot than passion. Narrow Way and Duquesne Whistle mighty be jaunty toe-tappers but they're also examples of the lightweight fluff that blows around the album.

These sky-surfing legends may have another great album in 'em yet, but for all its intermittently irie moments, Into the Future isn't it.

By trying to interpret a whole new landscape and atmosphere, Howling Bells have compromised their strengths in an awkward attempt to force themselves into a new style.

California 37's peculiar teenage stance offers as many toe-curling moments as it does pleasant surprises.

Nick has a great pop voice--high and clear and strong. It isn’t a great rock voice though, and his desire to smash it into shape by spirited bellowing alone can curdle things, just as they should really start cooking.

The band's weakness is an unfortunate tendency to drift occasionally into MOR territory, and sometimes generic boy-meets-girl lyrics fail to keep the arrangements above water.

This swift follow-up, which portrays a band still with shoulder-shrugging faux-teenage inarticulacy high on their agenda, amidst a delivery of doped-out Ramones-y monomania which can make this album's 36 minutes feel like an hour.

Expectedly inconsistent, Almost Alice is a great idea some distance short of being properly realised.

There's no getting away from the fact that WTC 9/11 simply doesn't have the structural cohesion or magnitude of Different Trains--a comparison which Reich fans will inevitably draw.

Coconut’s acid-fried eclecticism occasionally strains for effect and lacks the brutish vigour of its predecessor. A commendably outré listen on any other terms, it’s still a sideways-shuffle that never fully convinces.

Big Troubles seem happy to drift along in a melancholic haze or a sun-drenched lackadaisical dream and let their well-produced but ultimately forgettable songs dissipate around them.

A serviceable but utterly derivative slice of twee electro-pop, the album quietly retreads the ground covered by Sufjan Stevens, The Postal Service and Frenchkiss labelmates Passion Pit, failing to form any identifiable shape of its own.

This is an imbalanced record, and one that leaves you frustrated rather than elated. But despite the blips, they have dished up at least two cerebral bangers here.

Sadly, the songs here are slight and flimsy. Most of them sound like blink-and-you’ll-miss-it backing tracks for under-performing American drama series, pleasant and wholesome as a high-street sandwich, but instantly forgettable.

It's neither particularly accessible nor a nostalgic feast for fans of 90s pop-punk. Instead, it seems like part of an as-yet-incomplete whole.

Danilova and Stewart are respecting the intended intimacy of the record, but this could have been so much more had they let themselves bring a dash of Zola Jesus and Xiu Xiu, rather than phoning in their parts.

Despite the contemporary co-writes, in an age where Take That work with Stuart Price and Nicola Roberts embraces Diplo's electro cool, this album comes across as a selection of competent B sides surrounding the fantastic Starlight.

While Court Yard Hounds is a well-packaged and produced collection, its songs seem rather ordinary compared to Chicks material

It's a super-confident debut breadth-wise, but a misfire in terms of depth--it stretches too far and ends up light on substance and personality.

One wonders if those responsible for this platter of past-perishable pop mimicry, these clichéd regurgitations of ubiquitous motifs, are indeed the same Danes who wowed admirers of sparkly melodies and insatiable hooks only a single springtime equinox ago.

The Awakening is lacking the grandstanding moment it needs to elevate it above reserved recommendation--it's a safe, steady affair, but about as revelatory as a Chris de Burgh best-of.

Those expecting a worthy if belated sequel to "Movements," however, will be disappointed: even at its best, More! rarely exceeds inoffensiveness.

While lyrical simplicity is welcomed when attached to music that dazzles, here it regularly sounds predictable.

It's a sometimes perplexing, often very pretty excursion into the recent past of a pair of gifted musicians, but Archive 2003-2006 expectedly holds little appeal beyond a limited audience.

There is truly nothing edgy about this collection.

The Beginning is a depressing listen, not because the music's that bad, but because it implies that even the most successful pop producer on the planet can't afford to indulge in anything that might be construed as intelligent or interesting, lest the masses run away screaming in terror.

If you can be persuaded to root around for long enough you might occasionally bump into the odd moment that made Thee Oh Sees' brilliant Help album of 2009, or 2010's lopsided Warm Slime, so enjoyable – slapdash songwriting, slovenly hooks and prurient flights of fancy.

"I Was Never Gonna Turn Out Too Good" the lone standout on an otherwise turgid record, but that's only by virtue of its sheer oddness.

Eventually, their self-indulgence completely loses the listener. No matter how hard one might try to love this album--and one can try very hard--there's only disappointment at what could have been.

Santana's talent is compromised by a complacency to play these tracks as truly as possible.

The production--by chart-grabbing Fraser T Smith (James Morrison, Taio Cruz, Cee-Lo)--can only bring so much depth or variety to unadventurous songs which are bellowed and wailed with all the subtlety of Florence Welch giving birth to a rhino.

It's just 11 tracks of mediocre and easily forgettable American rock, devoid of any bells or whistles.

This album unfortunately fails to showcase his strengths, and proves something of an obstacle course for the listener to negotiate.

Fortune is never terrible. It just feels cripplingly pointless.

It is full of catchy melodies and hooks. It is extraordinarily lame. Think of Keane, and remove the grit.

A largely redundant – and frequently downright woeful – endeavour.

Counting cash – and stacks of it – seemingly continues to prove this rapper's primary concern, rather than a desire to significantly stretch the artform.

A joyless listen in and of itself, sure--but moreover, this is a puzzling eyesore exemplifying quite how this process of constructing and immediately normalising eccentricity can still have an appeal.

By and large The Place We Ran From falls well short of the left-of-centre power and eerie intimacy of Lightbody's heroes' music.

Despite occasional flashes of brilliance it’s a patchy, derivative work.

Sweet 7 doesn’t sell the Sugababes as individuals or as a brand.

A depressingly compromised second LP from an artist yet to meet his early promise.

Ultimately it's so much less than it could have been, given the talent involved.

Like Simple Minds, it's not too late for OMD to stride all the way back to greatness. But this album isn't even a stumble in the right direction, and the clock, as always, is ticking.

The slushy sentiments will click with a tweenager in the throes of a first crush--but anyone with life and love experience beyond passing notes around at the back of class is advised to pass on this collection of monochrome musings in favour of something with a heartbeat. Perhaps, even, something that rocks.

Raucous boot-stompers kick up the dust around soppy slowies, with many a chorus dripping with the sort of gooey gobbledygook that typifies a thousand rom-coms.

It's exhausting, and somehow impatient. Swedish House Mafia don't earn their big moments, they throw them in whenever the ideas pot runs dry.

It comprises 11 tracks that sound like intros in search of songs. It is bland of lyric and tinny of sound. The rhythms plod alarmingly.

Ultimately, the witty lyricism of Wale's early material is too few and far between, as this set leans heavily on misogynistic themes and self-centred musings.

Unconvincing and overbearing, it's like being ambushed by the cast of a Broadway rock musical.

That Panic of Girls gives way from innovation to imitation is regrettable--but in an era in which bands are content to simply wheel out their back catalogue in return for a fat pay check, it's admirable that Blondie are still here and still looking forward, even if only fleetingly.

A Moving Picture proves a more nakedly ambitious--in the humdrum sense of the word--follow-up, which struggles to strike the right balance between street cred and pop appeal.

For a listener who's only been aware of Mraz by reputation, this is no instant-fix point of entry. It relies on past experiences, knowledge of what the artist is capable of rather than anything he delivers with consistency across these 12 songs.

Otherwise every passing second is a vocal battle against a declining attention span, like a clicked finger in the face, forever.

It's not groundbreaking, and it's not that interesting.

At least five of these songs [out of twelve] should've remained on the cutting room floor.

Maddeningly tame, neither replicates the whiskey-soaked sleaze and instantly classic riffs that have earned Slash his deservedly legendary status. Thank goodness, then, for three reliable road warriors, who ride in on a much-needed rescue mission.

It's the dampest campfire hoedown you ever did hear.

Right now, for all its impressive fireworks, it feels hollow as its title.

The band struggles to dredge up any sort of sparkle, no matter how finely-forged the hook.

Margins struggles to rise above the ordinary. Fans of Maxïmo Park will not be disappointed, but it's frankly hard to see anyone else caring very much.

Hollywood Undead are content to deliver cliches--more out of a lack of imagination than cynical opportunism, but it still smacks of both. That's why to seasoned ears or any genre fan requiring more than more of the same, they're very, very boring.

There may be arguments for Rusko's moves here; it's just that they're not very well executed.