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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'.

Despite the overarching feel of having a bit of the early MGMT's about them (which, to be fair, is hardly a bad thing), there's enough variety within the New Zealanders' debut to prove they're more than just a one-trick, party-starting pony.

While Lasers isn't the equal of its superb predecessors, there's still much here to admire; even though the fact that there isn't quite as much to love is no real surprise.

This is not the work of a band prepared to make a song and dance to keep everyone interested, but one happy to build something good from not a lot and hope you like it.

Far from Noah & The Whale lagging behind their popular folk peers, with Last Night On Earth the band are finally punching above their weight to create a sound that's altogether new and wholly theirs.

Broken hearts litter pop music of course, but the way this 24-year-old almost welcomes desolation into her life is nothing if not fascinating.

Reflecting their influences without becoming burdened under them, their self-titled debut is an impressively varied beast.

Amongst the glam rockers and the tender janglers, it seems that Beady Eye have simply written a Supergrass album. Let's see if Noel has an answer for that.

The album's predominant mood is not glumness, it is togetherness, and it invokes images of storytelling, late nights, campfires, whiskey and beards. The stuff of men with things on their minds.

The truth is, however much or little you enjoy them, Radiohead are one of the few mainstream bands who try not to retrace their steps.

This is an album that's far from complacent and what's most in evidence throughout is they're seeking to challenge themselves as much as their audience.

Computers & Blues doesn't match up to The Streets' visionary early promise, and there are a few songs which sound sketchy and half-hearted. But when it works, it's a reminder of what a tender, articulate and original voice Skinner has been in British pop, and how sorely he will be missed.

It would be interesting to see Chase & Status explore this extra dimension further, but--for now--this is a thrilling case of cum on feel the noize.

Written, arranged, performed and recorded by Blake in his bedroom, the album isn't just a good collection of touching songs, it's a complete world of his own; a mood, a moment, a sound that's uniquely his. Just as a future classic should be.

It's mixed-up, mashed-up and flagrantly, unapologetically odd. It's everything we want The Go! Team to be. But with added extras.

Crucially though, what Diddy lacks in eloquence he makes up for in pop sensibility, which here keeps edgier elements the right side of radio friendly.

If Adele's debut '19' marked her out as a young chanteuse with a booming voice, her follow-up '21' has shown a maturity in her songwriting that makes her the de facto authority when it comes to soundtracks to broken hearts.

Despite some great tunes, his high-pitched, duck-on-helium vocals start wearing thin, becoming the detraction, rather than the attraction, of this album. Had it been 15 minutes shorter, The Lady Killer could have been this year's top pop album.

Epic, exciting, strange and unexpected, it's exactly what pop needed, but surely not quite what Gary Barlow had in mind.

Winner Stays On proves that crossing over needn't be a terrible business.

If his family and creditors truly cared about Michael Jackson's legacy, they would now let it and him rest in peace. And chimps will fly...

So far so daft but what prevents Gerard Way and co from descending into the po-faced seriousness that blighted Green Day and their preposterous "21st Century Breakdown" album is a sense of fun that has eluded the SoCal punks in their latter years.

After coming out fighting last time round off the back of a messy, violent break-up with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, it's nice to hear Rihanna getting back to something approaching normality on Loud.

He may not possess the eloquence or understated flair of a (Neil) Hannon or a (Richard) Hawley, a fact highlighted as the cheesy horn arrangement of 'Run With The Boys' sends things all a bit too Phil Collins, but most songs here play host to a charming menagerie of ideas and perhaps prove that the band dynamic he's lusted after to this point was the one thing holding him back.

It's not just that these sentiments are timeless - these songs, in these hands, are only now receiving their definitive interpretations.

Playful yet touching at (almost) every turn, Write About Love may not shake any musical foundations but it certainly proves that Belle and Sebastian still can't be pigeon-holed.

While never as life-changing as these memories clearly were, Hurricane succeeds in its sheer force of conviction.

The Defamation Of Strickland Banks is an unlikely, remarkably successful stab at launching the first major new male star of the decade.

With such brilliantly explicit expositions of death, loneliness and faith in his words, there's more than enough here to soften the blow about that other thing he was supposed to do.

This is Gold Panda's own record, an album of proper emotional heft that'll be enjoyed with a box of tissues, during tingling comedowns and on more discerning dancefloors.

Where she was once a gutsy folk-pop mature-student, tailor-made for the modern-day Radio 2, she now has the power and arrangements to begin approximating the diva she tried to sell us when collecting Brit Awards for her debut album mid-decade, punching the air for women in pop and attempting to align herself with Kate Bush.

Hurley's feet are firmly rooted in the present but this collection is, without doubt, the closest the band have come to recapturing their glory days.

Almost everything here boils down to Cave's perennial concerns of sex and violence, rather than any Dark Lord of rock'n'roll stuff, coming loaded with lines to make even the most grave-faced goth chortle into their gruel.

The suspicion lingers that Band Of Joy will be remembered more fondly than its wonderful predecessor.

Lady Gaga apart, the most interesting stars in 2010 are women in their 30s and beyond, artists with phosphorescent personalities that might burn the fingers of anyone wishing to mould them. Singers like Alison Goldfrapp, Grace Jones and Robyn Miriam Carlsson.

This is a relentlessly exciting album--it's just that sometimes you feel it would be more rewarding to turn off the boosters, slow to a float, and take in the view with awe.

It's likely to be a defining point in their career even if it's not their definitive release.

This is a contemporary collection of eclectic modern folk songs by a bold woman who has more in common with an interesting raft of contemporaries than her mentor.

Take those hats off and launch them into the air for one of the most uplifting, career-topping albums anyone could have released, regardless of age.

There is a tendency, due to the slow, quiet nature of these songs and the occasionally syrupy harmonies, for them to blend together. But look beneath the surface, to the fragile emotions that inspired these songs, and The Runaway remains a moving exercise in good old fashioned catharsis, one that exposes the sad hearts of this band more than ever before.

She might be mouthy, trendy, shallow and opinionated without having all of the facts, but MIA creates terrific pop moments.

For the most part, it sounds like the most joyous exploration of death and madness since, perhaps, "They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!"

Perhaps the most fascinating aspects of Flesh Tone are the songs named 'Segue 1', 'Segue 2' and so on through to 'Segue 6' which are positioned to avoid gaps between songs. They're the album's most imaginative moments, and suggest that although Kelis is refining her sound to become queen of the disco, there's still dozens of ideas waiting to announce themselves.

It's eclectic, electrifying, eccentric and more than a little bit ludicrous, but Sir Lucious's ambition is as infectious as its madness is dazzling.

If not a match for the brilliant yet underperforming 'Big', The Sellout certainly maintains high and admirably consistent standards.

This is dance music for dance music's sake.

As a whole, 'Total Life Forever' may feel too self-consciously clever to really convince but Foals evidently have a brilliant career ahead of them and this could be its crucial cornerstone.

Although only eight songs long, Body Talk Pt. 1 is a fully formed, imagined futuristic world that uses technology to propel it into a future version of the present day.

There is nostalgia by the truckload, lamenting of times past, talk of lessons learnt. Frankly there's a lot of looking back, but it doesn't feel weighed down by it all.

A genre redefining album from the most innovative and exciting voice of a generation? Not exactly. Yet while predictably wide of the genius mark, at its best it does tag Drake a breath of fresh air.

True, there isn't necessarily the one big hitter that will guarantee the Scientists' vault back into the big time limelight. But Barbara is packed full of enough immediate favourites to claw back their fan base from the off.

Compact and succinctly direct, its 16 tracks rarely break the three-minute mark but are packed with a greater density of ideas than its predecessor.

He is unrepentantly romantic throughout the album, though never quite twee or overbearing, which is quite a balancing act.

Marina & The Diamonds convincingly fight off the encroaching talons of expectation by embarking on a rampant, stomping adventure, letting no idea lie when it can be crashed into another loudly and a microphone placed nearby to collect the resulting sparks.

He's perhaps not very hopeful that 'This Is Happening' will capture the same number of ears and hearts as 2007's terrific 'Sound Of Silver' did, but it's a fine and thrilling epitaph nonetheless.

It's that sense of humbling, childlike wonder that defines what they do with their weathered hands. And they do it as brilliantly here as they always have done, which is high praise enough.

The songs might be helmed by waves of guitar fuzz (their self-styled 'loose wool' sound) and dissonance, but the gentle orchestration provided by long-time collaborator Padma Newsome and the defiantly tough, robotic drumming of Bryan Devendorf give these songs a warm, phosphorescent glow.

The sheer scope of 'Latin', however, is what rescues it from feeling like a box-ticking completion of a mission--as 'P.I.G.S.' races off into the distance after its lull, there's the feeling that there might still be more to see, more work to be done.

While the wine-favouring moustache-sporting figure of Franz Nicolay is no longer a fixture, the remaining members are present and correct albeit in a somewhat more reflective mode than of yore. It suits them.

The Fall are the most predictable and unpredictable band in Britain.

It's their confident leaning on heritage-metal in particular that sets Bullet For My Valentine apart from local contemporaries Funeral For A Friend and Lost Prophets, but it's also that strength that holds them back.

Bobby Ray has a little way to go to match his mentor's lyrical ingenuity, but as the first post-Lupe rap star he's already absorbed the most important lessons about form and function, inspiration and integrity. It's a great start.

The monster-mash hokum can occasionally grate and Brown lacks El Wino's authoritative way with some of the more downtempo material, but there's plenty to suggest she will find a receptive audience for her passionate pop sound, overbearing quirks and all.

It's a wonderful, kaleidoscopic groove-fest that has nothing at all to do with a world in which Oasis still hold sway.

It feels like a definite upgrade for her, Kate Nash deluxe, courtesy of producer Bernard Butler's expectedly lavish touches. But her standard style of outloud diary readings are not privy to the same overhaul. They prevent it from feeling like much of a progression.

Where the album triumphs though is the crystalline clarity of the songs, their titanic emotional wallop and Marling's quite exquisite delivery.

There's a connection with the contemporary world, with the apparatus and detritus that layers 2010 up around us all, that hasn't really been seen in Sigur Ros's music before.

Does it offer us an exclusive window into Slash's soul? No. Is it a neat CV and a sneaky way of auditioning the next Velvet Revolver singer? Probably. Like any other mixtape from a friend, listen to it in the car, then stick it in the cupboard under the stairs with the others.

With each offering clocking in around the two minute mark, 'I Will Be' is over almost as soon as it's begun - leaving behind a smouldering trail of hazy mysticism and filthy bass lines. It's short and sweet, but there's a definite sting in the tail.

It's warm, analogue production bolstered by Madlib, ?uestlove and the inevitable J Dilla exhumation that makes it a summer smash in waiting, not least on 'Umm Hmm''s exhortation to let your feelings show.

Let's be clear about this: Head First is by no means a bad record, with its lush pop gloss and flickers of melodic loveliness. But it is a bad Goldfrapp record, their flimsiest and least adventurous yet.

As ever though, Liars emerge with their own sonic identity intact - you can 'hear' LA in the chaos, disquiet and vast, starving spaces of these songs, but they remain a band that don't surrender easily to their surroundings.

The album finishes almost as well as it started with 'The Mall & Misery' (a bit of country, a bit of disco, lightening bolts of new wave guitar, harmonies to intoxicate), proving the album's effective inevitability is not tedious and the quality is clear whichever direction you approach from.

Musically, too, there's a definite sense of progression. These tracks have a richer and warmer sound than anything the band have previously released, and rather than standalone expressions of emotional dysfunction, they feel very much connected, bound together by their complex arrangements and sumptuous yet subtle production.

Hands is both exciting and inconsistent, an uncertain step in very much the right direction.

Wisely though, they've seen this as a time to consolidate, not experiment or wander off on the tangents which have undermined them in the past.

Hidden backs up some audacious conceits with studious application and winds up a major achievement from these po-faced sentinels of the secret history.

Black Light is, as it implies, a dark record. It's also a brilliant, shinning beacon of electro-pop sophistication, but it's a dark, dark record all the same.

It may be epic, sprawling and too unwieldy a tool with which to prise open a place in the charts, but it's also nothing short of remarkable.

It may be a scrappier collection than the exquisite, Tindersticks-in-aspic perfection of "The Hungry Saw", but somehow it adds up to something greater, the album as a whole bristling with creativity and the joys of trying something new.

Flamboyant, excessive and more Mikado than Micachu, you get the feeling that 'Life Is Sweet...' is an album that'll polarise people. But hey - if you don't like this one, Dev will be onto the next project tomorrow anyway.

The brothers keep it tight though, allowing themselves room to manoeuvre and muck about with time signatures and effects, but within the confines of songs that rarely exceed four minutes.