Aside from the odd pervy foray however, Doo-Wops & Hooligans is a fairly impressive pop record; packed full of guaranteed arena fillers, it's an album that's literally born to be big.

Overall, 'Road Rock Vol 1' is a tad sloppy and definitely no match for 'Live Rust', still Young's finest live album. That said, it's crudely compelling and with the exception of disappointing newie 'Fool For Your Love', further affirmation that this grizzled vet remains at the pinnacle of his considerable powers.

Still, if not perfect, there's plenty to like on Discipline, and while none of it is exactly vintage Janet, there's enough here to keep the Jackson name on pop's A-list for a little while longer.

The follow-up to 'Play' is, essentially, 'Re-Play', a cynical rehash of the melancholic-yet-strangely-uplifting schtick which sold ten million albums and soundtracked every single advert of the last three years.

As exhilarating as it all may seem on the surface, there's little here that we haven't heard before.

Yet another endearingly eccentric document: one that will largely support his growing reputation as a talented, contrary, and mischievously erratic artiste.

Blackout is business as usual. Courting publicity more shamelessly than that infamous kiss with Madonna, Britney writhes, moans and generally gives good pillow talk for the duration of an album where crunk, glitches, squeaks and clubbed-up beats dominate.

The melodies feel functional at best, surprisingly charmless affairs that push all the right buttons with little passion or joy, while the lyrics are that depressing rock cliche: woe-is-me deliberations on the pressures of fame.

It's a well-made, well-polished piece of material. But she ruins it by painting a wacky overcoat over something that was probably fine in the first place.

Overlong and oversexed, Futuristically Speaking... stumbles where you will it to stride; something surprisingly staid and mediocre from extraordinary circumstances.

Airplay or not, however, he's also sounding seriously dated.

Much of the album bathes radio-friendly funk-rock in a kind of Balearic after-glow--it conjures that feeling of bittersweet triumph many will have felt as last night becomes this morning, the conquering of a dark that is now needed if sleep and recovery from such an act is to be possible.

There's little in The Departure to justify the trip.

Red Carpet Massacre is largely just a ham-fisted example of what happens when fame, ego and squandered major label cash equate to a sad, missed opportunity.

"Dynamite" may be his most consistent long player yet, which is not to say there aren't some lows.

These pop-centric cuts are, however, where Snoop seems most comfortable, if not most talented.

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.

[Their] apathy really detracts from the heartfelt nature of the music, which, produced by the anthemic hand of Youth, is mostly of the passionate, chest-thumping variety.

For the most part, however, this is an ultra-sugary album which leaves a strangely sour aftertaste - not a flavour the public seems too fond of.

You can forgive Cruz for wondering who he's meant to be for his second album, but we're less indulgent of such wishy-washy nonsense that "Rokstarr" puts across in the name of heartfelt R&B.

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

Possibly the band's best album yet, destined to be loved by fans and loathed by critics, 'Mechanical Wonder' will be the soundtrack of spliffed up barbecues and boozed up afternoons with your mates for this summer and beyond.

A product so meticulously calculated, so shamelessly designed for the widest possible demographic, so wholeheartedly shallow, you suspect Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell must be dumbstruck in admiration.

So, once again UNKLE have produced another good rather than great album that sounds ahead of the curve.

Very much Tricky business as usual, the sound of a staggering talent laid-up with the longest case of musical flu in history.

This is much more than a retrenchment, and it certainly isn't a retreat.

The production is lame, and the album as a whole is unconvincing in it's pretences as hi-energy, bouncy and above all youthful punk. And Dexter Holland's vocals simply grate after a while. Die-hard Offspring fans will find nothing which deviates from the original plot, so they won't lose any long-term believers from this offering.

A smart, exuberant and very real record, whose reach has nothing to do with "authenticity".