Taken as a whole, 'Discovery' is a compelling concoction of styles that continually surprises.

A rather more satisfying record than their second.

A serious album, with huge potential and no weak points, Disc-Overy is the coming of age UK hip hop has long needed but been too timid to reach for.

Unfashionable as they probably are, Pearl Jam have gone some way to regaining both their fire and their relevance with this, a record that takes equally from classic Neil Young stylings as it does raging, polemic punk.

A check-your-pants rollercoaster, Tentacles isn't a critique of the times by any stretch of the imagination but it captures the feeling, the mood and the sheer abject terror.

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.

An album so engaging it is impossible to pick one best track.

We live in a Madonna world. And as long as she keeps releasing albums as vivid, relevant, distinctive and modern as this, we will for a some time yet.

'Poses', his second terrific album, is a collection of 12 songs in search of a musical; arch tales that mingle snapshots of boho life with arch allusions to courtly love.

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.

There are moments when The Concretes ape Mazzy Star a little too closely for comfort on this album, but overplaying a talent for languorous, delicious fuzz pop is hardly the most horrific of crimes.

Still only 22 (!), Lykke Li has constructed one of 2008's most ambitiously grandiose statements. Madonna can shuffle off to her Live Nation millions, a new pop saviour has been found.

Old loves Liquid Liquid, ESG and A Certain Ratio haven’t been abandoned and their percussionist still works overtime, but the spirits of Prince, Kraftwerk (both on the wryly self-referential "Dear Can"), Chic and even ABC (on the politicised "Shit Scheisse Merde Pt 1") make cameo appearances.

Super Taranta! is an album of such sweaty vigour, spittle-flecked passion, wide-eyed curiosity and a keen sense of the ridiculous it deserves a big fat plug on primetime telly.

Live shows have shown that they have an even more cutting, vital album waiting to be recorded. If they can harness that live edge with this recorded willingness to experiment, their next album will be a monster.

A unique musical vision with a genuinely unique and beautifully skewed worldview to boot.

If you can’t find something here that has you smiling and quoting the old saw about rumours of indie’s death being greatly exaggerated, it’s time to take up opera.

The startling musical variety amplifies the fact that no matter how aloof, how diffident, how cartoon Beck might be, he's so extravagantly talented that he's already lapped everyone else on that strength alone.

"Black Gold" is a fine, fine record and undoubtedly the greatest thing he's ever done.

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

The most relevant reference points for "Loose" are Gwen Stefani's "Love Angel Music Baby" and Justin Timberlake's "Justified" - producer-defined albums that reinvented their performers as stand-alone solo artists with a wide, hip remit.

A quietly timeless triumph.

Yes, there are a lot of reasons to hate Scissor Sisters. But this brilliant debut is not one of them.

What is certain is "Astronomy For Dogs" is a magic-dusted delight and that Anderson is a wizard and a true star.

The viscous, darkly choppy, sexily fulsome and ferociously hard-driving blend of post-punk and country noir that distinguished their long-playing debut, "The Repulsion Box" is still evident, but it's matched with a bracing new breadth, dynamic diversity and myriad light/shade variations.

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.

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.

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

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

'One Day Like This' rolls out an exultant, almost fulsome, bright blue-sky assurance that really, no matter how gloomy you might feel, a lovely day can put an altogether better complexion on things. If anyone else voiced such sentiments, you'd rightly want to reach into the stereo and slap them hard, but that Elbow make the affirmation ring touchingly true is a testament to their sweet sincerity and principled candour.

Cox is evidently a songwriter and sound sculptor of incredible skill and though the inclusion of the two collaborations--both a little too in thrall to their guests perhaps--means Logos lacks the wholly immersive quality of its predecessor, there is little else to contest; truly, this is pop music at its most weird and wonderful.

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.

As ballsy as anything you'll hear all year.

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

It's a record that benefits from the homogenous, warm feeling such an intimate set-up can make for, the tracks setting up Stone's remarkable voice rather than intentionally distracting from the singer's limitations.

Like their three previous records, Mountain Battles is a record to return to again and again, like an old and dear friend who can still somehow surprise you.

Dog In The Sand' is unquestionably Frank Black's finest solo album.

Although "Hypermagic Mountain" is no less a terrifying, red-eyed and rampaging behemoth than its predecessors, the duo have unleashed a beast that assumes a more recognisable form.

In terms of wide-ranging savvy, fizzing enthusiasm and the sheer brilliance of its dance-pop tunes, "The Warning" is shaping-up to be the "Demon Days" of 2006.

Even at his laziest, Wolf sounds vastly more intelligent, committed and interesting than his supposed rivals, and "The Magic Position" is full of heart, warmth and beauty.

Not sure what you'd file it under, but while that may worry some, for The Bees it's yet another triumph.

It's heartening to see Smith mainly producing effortless gems in a genre that often sees men half his age struggling to do anything of interest in.

Frankly, this is it all over again.

This is a frequently great and occasionally bold statement from an - extraordinary - artist on top of her game.

It is surely intoxicating.

It's that time of year when critics are desperate to anoint the first "great" record of the year. Distortion is too tricksy and knowing to be that, but it's a thoroughly entertaining also-ran nonetheless.

"Once Again" remains Legend's best record. But Evolver, in all its modernity and timeliness, may well become his biggest.

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

And to anyone that contends they don't make them like they did anymore: listen to this. They still do.

A dreamy, sun-dappled delight, blending pastoral folk, psychedelia, free-wheeling, West Coast Americana and orchestral pop with such apparent effortlessness that its darker lyrical themes - the workings of sinister, invisible forces and the destruction wrought by war - are uncovered only by careful listening.

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

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.

It's not original or slyly crafted enough - a couple of songs could definitely have benefited from a quick edit from Damon - to feel truly classic, but it has a charm and a vibrancy that's impossible to resist.

It has fire in its belly and an admirable abandon and as a whirlwind tour of rock'n'roll decadence it makes, say, Jet look like the fey, foppish tourists they are.

An album of class, depth and seriously hard grinding, it's a major transformation from pretty girl with potential to star turn.

Three loud cheers for her scattershot creativity, please.

Aside from the incredible sonics though, Phoenix's real triumph here is successfully contorting the songs into ever more elaborate and unconventional arrangements without losing any of their classy pop impact.

Luke Haines, of nineties nobodies The Auteurs and Baader Meinhof, together with Sarah Nixey and John Moore, appear to have taken Saint Etienne's 'Like a Motorway' (from 'Tiger Bay') and driven away with it in a battered Ford Escort to a distant destination, a concept album about motorways and travelling.

The Dears stamp enough of their own personality to make this one of the best and most vital alternative US albums of 2006.

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

It's clear that this is Harvey and Parish unpredictably unhinged. If there's one thing that you can't do with PJ Harvey is pigeonhole her. And why the hell would you want to?

The problem is that 'Level II' is a pretty fabulous album caught in the wrong time.

"Make Believe" is classic Weezer, further refining the template of unthreatening heavy metal riffs... welded to smart lyrics, largely of satirical nature, and infectious melody.

There's barely a dull moment on this album.

This is a valuable record from a troubling and potentially vital new voice.

Furious techno stomps and mellow streamlined electronica clash head on with Karl Hyde's often nonsensical vocal style, pushing the group forward yet sticking close to their original blueprint.

New album No Way Down is one of the year's best so far; its title apt for vertiginous synths and strings that litter the mix like vapour trails on pure blue sky.

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.

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

'Youth and Young Manhood' is nothing more than a great rock'n'roll album.

A terrific gonzoid metal album.

Cold War Kids are perhaps the only band out there ambitious enough to tackle head-on the contradictions and heartaches of America, past and present, and to do so with this passion and intelligence.

Lyrically, Shotter's Nation brims with the insight and eloquence with which Doherty continually surprises you.

These 10 songs evolve unhurriedly and, as with all Mogwai's best moments, like time-lapse photography from the heart of a dark storm.

The dark malevolent genius of "Windowlicker" may be lacking, but Richard D. James still walks that line between the accessible and the downright filthy.

Arguably up there with his greatest achievements to date, "The Letting Go" is business as usual for Oldham, but also a brand new start.

What makes 'Paid Tha Cost...' such an unexpected joy is the way in which Snoop's comic persona offers all involved an opportunity to loosen up and have some fun.

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

'Baby I'm Bored' is the album Dando's fans hoped he would return with.

[It] firmly places her at the cutting edge of modern pop.

If you didn't like the casual misogyny, glorification of crack dealing and unapologetic thuggery of the debut then stop reading now, because "Hell Hath No Fury" makes it sound like "Meat Is Murder" by The Smiths.

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.

A... winning blend of seemingly spontaneous, humanised warmth and brooding, existential contemplation.

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.

As ever, Wagner's narratives, such as on 'National Talk Like A Pirate Day,' are impressionistic, shifting time and perspectives, like the Norman Raeburn-influenced Dylan of 'Blood On The Tracks.'

With such songs as 'Southern Point,' which builds from shuffling, folk-jazz grooves into a squelchy, winding fairytale, breathtaking piano-pop anthem 'Two Weeks' and the towering drama of 'I Live with You,' we join the consensus: this is a record to swoon over.

What truly counts here is persona and with E casting himself as dog in heat, eager to reach a scratch that he just can't itch, the end result is yet another facet to a continually engaging and truly unique artist.

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.

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.

After a first listen 'The Optimist LP' simply drifts over your head like yet another take on a well worn formula, but given a second chance reveals a glorious, often ornate sensibility that simply can't be ignored.

So all-in-all, with every track practically a text book example of what great pop should sound like, even the ballads, Hanson’s return is a welcome one.

That every track here reinforces that memory of him makes it an unexpectedly fitting tribute.

For the most part Fields are lazily picking their own way between the disparate pastures of folk, pop, post rock and shoegaze on a deliciously sun-dappled day.

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

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.

A magnificent return to the band's brutal, almost hardcore punkish, roots.

At 14 tracks long, The Dodos do push the point a little, but it's really a case of once you've lit the touch-paper you live with the explosions till the last spark.

Bellamy wriggles ever freer from the straitjacket of rock music, nearing the point where he can slide between genres as easily as his idols, Bowie, Queen and Prince.