Gomez continue to make powerfully relevant music.

It's an album that feels like a watershed somehow, a significant step onwards.

Just a little sensible pruning then and 'When I Was Cruel' would be a triumphant return to rocking form for Mr Costello.

Tweedy takes conventional songforms birthed on his acoustic guitar and scrambles them completely, reassembled into fractured, dissonant epics with the help of the reliably brilliant Jim O'Rourke.

While there's no doubting Tjinder's undeniably good taste, the sheer profusion of ideas on offer is probably Cornershop's biggest shortcoming.

A drab and depressingly familiar proposition.

It's by no means a bad album, just not his best by a long way, or the triumphant return it should have been.

Tweet has the kind of voice that doesn't overpower her music but lets it breathe.

Beyond the shiny surface of these songs lurks an unusual wealth of detail decorating the landscape through which the Furries power, scattering verse after chorus after verse at breathtaking speed.

Eclectic, electric and at times rather hectic, 'Souljacker' is without doubt the Eels finest release to date.

Marks a return to warm homespun acoustica.

If you're lucky enough to have the original version of 'In Search Of', you don't just own a sure-to-be-valuable collectors' classic, you also have the better album. [Review of U.S. version]

Overall, 'Don't Be Afraid...' is a tad frustrating. Everything ticks along funkily and proficiently, but nothing really wants to stick out.

'White Lilies Island' sees Imbruglia free herself from the Alanis Morissette-clone image that you sense was very much forced last time around and actually manage to carve out an identity, both in her vocals and as a personality.

But for all its feel-good factor and predominantly strong songwriting, 'Sha Sha' does have its forgettable filler tracks and near-misses and generally needs a stronger, more individual voice to help it stand out from an already heaving crowd of young American singer/songwriters.

Imagine an album programmed by a focus group of John Peel fanatics.

This is a genuinely dreadful album.

Whilst any fan will probably have all these tracks already, 'G Sides' acts as a nifty companion piece to the album and looks ace too.

By far Kylie's best album to date.

Alanis is back on course and heading in the right direction.

They don't make a better sound than your average bunch of Sonic Youth fanatics, but they make it feel better, make it seem more important, more romantic almost.

Inevitably, it all starts to grow a little samey.

At 70 minutes, it could've done with a pruning.

'Is A Woman' is a deep, rewarding, frustrating, baffling, engaging experience then, an album that drifts away from you just when you're getting hold of it.

Represents a considerable stride in ambition, reaching into dark unchartered territories and repaying close listening with the kind of organic insights that great music excels in unearthing.

Although it is an immensely enjoyable experience featuring often breathtaking dexterity and turntable trickery, it rarely deviates from a strictly old school template.

The aching sensitivity of many of these lonely acoustic compositions is balanced against an inventive backdrop of instrumentation.

You'll struggle to find any filler on a record that works magnificently as a whole.

Most of 'Dead Media' resembles a third rate Pulp, Denim or Babybird - steeped in tales of sexual disappointment in bedsit land but without the considerable charm, warmth and wit of the aforementioned bands.

'Love Is Here' - expansively, expensively produced, lavish yet aspiring to understatement (if such a contradiction can be accepted) and containing some affecting songs - is a pretty good record.

2001 has been a tremendous year for hip-hop. At the last moment, the Wu-Tang Clan just made it even better.

'Stillmatic', as ever, is far from flawless but, at its best, it addresses the hip-hop landscape of 2002 as lucidly as 'Illmatic' did that of '94.

It is hard to tell where No Doubt starts and the producers end.

Over fifty minutes of slick, loungey, cinematic music.

'Bionix' has definitely been released at the wrong time of year: it's got chilled summer vibes written all over it.

An energetic, intelligent and fairly modern rock album - not exactly cutting-edge, but not entirely anachronistic either.

Anyone looking for some spicy R'n'B to follow up Pink's fantastic breakthrough hit, 'Most Girls', will be sorely disappointed.

This is smart, thought-provoking material for the twisted.

A curious and confusing follow-up.

'Insignificance' is an album fraught with contradictions: tightly funky guitars sit alongside angelic piano and crunching 70s rock riffs shoulder belligerently up to honeyed pop harmonies. These are fascinating contradictions glued together with a binding harmonic honesty.

Goes on a bit, predictably (20 tracks!), but only Jay-Z can match its highlights for party soundtrack of the year.

'I Might Be Wrong' is Radiohead trashing the notion that 'Kid A' and 'Amnesiac' were difficult and sterile studio bound affairs.

This shiny collection of pop, folk, blues, country and rock is mostly about as emotionally engaging as watching Mr Spock watch paint dry... in the dark.

Sir Paul is largely on top form.

Nearly everything that was once infuriating and irritating about The Divine Comedy has now been eradicated in favour of a new honesty and depth to their sound complete with some genuinely touching moments.

While she's been guilty of gluing sure-fire singles together with rotten fillers on her previous two albums, Britney uses this opportunity to take the odd risk and adds a welcome edge to her sound.

'Since I Left You' is nothing short of stunning.... There's more imagination in this hour-long odyssey than most sample-based artists manage in their entire career. Not since DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing' has an album showed what you really can do with a bunch of old vinyl.

There's very little on 'Lenny' that isn't a re-hash of former hits.

'Invincible' is an album almost unbearably mired in schmaltz.

In a time when the music is either dominated by commercial personas or the proteges of the new breed of super producers, 'Expansion Team' is an essential shot in the arm for the increasingly stagnant underground.

In-between the chaos and peace, 'Drukqs' induces a whole host of emotions using acid squiggles, plucked piano strings and 80s electro-breaks.

'Golden State' is easily the band's most accomplished record and should stand as one of the best British rock albums of 2001.

'The Argument' is the sound of a band stretching out and thereby consolidating their position as a unique entity.

Well, it's not 'Low Life' or 'Technique' but there's at least seven welcome additions to the New Order canon and in the thrilling 'Crystal' and poignant 'Run Wild', a brace of bona fide classics.

Not since Oasis in their gloriously unstoppable and unapologetic heyday have we been given the opportunity to embrace such straight-ahead, ebullient, desire-fuelled guitar music.

A far more sonically ambitious statement than its predecessors, perfectly fusing organic sounds with production techniques that are usually the preserve of underground dance producers or R&B mavericks.

Gone are the likes of 'Queer' or 'Subhuman', there's no ummph or intelligence. In straining to achieve a smarter, more mature album the band have created the most tawdry epitaph possible.

Musically it is by far and away his most complete offering but some cracks do show.

You could get lost for days in the depths of these arrangements, and still find something moving and transcendental at every gilded turn. It's a towering achievement...

There is a feeling of carefully constructed, mellow folk simplicity running through all these songs.

A harsh, almost hollow collection of songs, that are as darkly unsettling and violently disaffected as anything our rather self-absorbed Chicago-based outcast has committed to tape thus far.

With this eclectic, eccentric approach comes a lack of cohesion and quality control.

Nine fantastically-detailed, delicately-constructed and warm-sounding pieces that are far too slippery to fall into neat genre parameters.

She is at the top of her game, and hits it out of the park both concept-wise and musically.

At 31 minutes, the record is a short and bitter mind-melter.

Stuffed full of collaborations, the duo has created a multi layered, analogue driven, polished yet powerful long player.

'Love And Theft' is a much tricksier, elusive and - important, this - entertaining beast, one that mingles reflections on ageing with a host of jokes, both good and bad, and some wickedly limber music.

Make no mistake, this album sounds incredible: cascading orchestrations, pulsating and instantly memorable tunes, an atmosphere that's both accessible and palpably psychedelic.

Not quite as effortlessly enormous as 1999's blistering 'Synkronised', 'A Funk Odyssey' nevertheless won't disappoint anyone taken with the band's direction on that record.

He still tinkles the ivories with dazzling skill and his scything comments on breaking-up and the emotionally inept are all too easy to identify with, yet the most enamouring thing is that he manages to do this all without being zany or patronising.

'Wonderland' is magnificent. An album full of cracking tunes, potential singles and a new found lust for life from one of the best bands of the last ten years.

It's not radically new - although the Timbaland and the Trackmasters contributions are genuinely exciting - but it's exactly what a lot of people want to hear from a hip-hop album right now.

'God Hates Us All' signals a return to the marked aggression of their earlier selves.... The only thing that inhibits this album is its one-dimensional pace, as one too many tracks features grinding verse leading into charging chorus, repeat to fade.

Orbital have once again managed to make an album that's precisely what you'd expect from them, while being neither dull nor predictable.

Too many tracks sound like tired Wu cast offs saved from the studio floor to prove that he's capable of doing this in his sleep.

Essentially, 'It's A Wonderful Life', is an equally brilliant and perhaps more cohesive album, mixing an arcane guitar, string and keyboard based atmospheric tilt, with more fast-action, barrelling moments.

Most of the tracks here could be Pavement, so those looking for a diversion will be disappointed. Those looking for another Pavement record for their collection will be less so, but ultimately this sounds like a hurried release and more of an extension of the past than an indication of the future.

Laetitia Sadier's vocal melodies soar, so that even when you get two hints of classical minimalist Steve Reich in the first two tracks, there are still tunes to hum.

It's unlikely you'll hear anything as near to perfect, magical and downright lovely all year.

Every genre needs its defining record, its high watermark, and this 66-minute tantrum is nu-metal's gift to history. A classic, terrifyingly.

This is the sound of a band returning to their roots, to the dramatic Celtic infused epics of their early records.

But for all its stylish exuberance, 'Now' is an album full of wonderful sounds that's lamentably thin on songs.

'In Search Of' throbs with an innovation hewn from the patchwork of the past yet anxious to transcend it and head for undiscovered planets. The real revolution is here: support future music, reject imitation - 'In Search Of' really is one of the best albums you'll hear this year. [Review of UK version]

There is as much to be embraced in this as in any of the Gorillaz material. If not more.

'Celebrity' does have it's moments. Sadly both of them are at the beginning.

'Beat 'Em Up' is not shit but ain't exactly loveable either. However, it does confirm that Iggy Pop can still kick up a fuss with the best of them even if the end result isn't as legendary as the man who produced it.

Despite the dominance of modern technology, this is still an album that adheres to the blueprint Farrell has laid down in his previous two outfits. More importantly, it moves into new musical territory and, coupled with his brilliantly versatile voice, makes 'Song Yet To Be Sung' a triumphant return for the latter-day chameleon of rock.

Overall, aside from the crummy rock-out of 'What If', 'Aaliyah' is accomplished fluid soul, with nothing too jagged or startling to spoil the polished veneer.

The result is largely the mature second album that we were hoping for with Steve Mason's magical way with a tune still proving capable of injecting an awe-inspiring and yet indefinable emotional resonance to everything he touches.

On a couple of tracks, on this their fifth and finest studio album, singer Stuart Staples doesn't actually sound like he's mumbling through the pain of all too recent root canal treatment.

Large parts of this album sound as if designed specifically to be played to fields full of semi-comatose revellers.

When he's left to his own devices, he appears to be on firing form, creating music that sits happily between the frenzied aggro mantras of his darkest days and the beautifully evocative wonder of his debut.

The album misses the addictive funk of 'Red Alert', the off beat quirks of 'Yo Yo' and the engulfing production depth of 'Same Old Show'. But it's a powerful package and a proof that the Basement Jaxx have the confidence and vision to pursue their own path.

Swell don't look set to make any grand leaps forward either in terms of success or creativity, but that doesn't devalue their potency a single jot.

The trouble is that while STP may have lived dangerously, they play safe musically. There's plenty here that's pleasant, but there's nothing startling, nothing challenging.

Ultimately, D12 have made the fatal mistake of reducing themselves to the pitch that probably won them their deal: "think horrorcore rap, Gravediggaz-style, mixed up with middle-everything baiting lyrics even more extreme than Eminem." And that's not enough.

In fact, on the musical front blink-182 are more reminiscent of the Beach Boys than the Sex Pistols: a very, very fast and tasteless Beach Boys, admittedly, but those massed harmonies and that glossy production are the pop perfectionist's fantasy taken to its logical conclusion.

Creatively however, it's not moved forward from 'The Man Who' enough to convince those of us who were already getting bored with the setlist at Glastonbury last year.