Matinee is quite good; but 50 years on from the birth of rock'n'roll, quite good just isn't really good enough anymore.

Some of the songs here are forgettable in the extreme.

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.

If you're a fan, there's enough of what you expect from the Mac here not to disappoint.

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

There’s just nothing new here, merely a rehashing of old ideas both musically and lyrically.

Palatable but bland easy-listening.

Unfortunately "Tourist" is derivative in only a one-dimensional sense: its imagination stopping where Wayne Coyne’s begins.

"The Beautiful Lie" isn't without its merits but their appearances are few and far between.

Ms Dynamite's irate sloganeering may look effective on paper, but until she relearns how to connect with the everyday world, this is little more than ranting in the mirror.

The thing is, charisma and human warmth – or at least a plausible facsimile of them – are vital to the success of a ballad. And the bald fact is that Beyoncé and her handmaidens are utterly incapable of faking sentimentality.

Underneath the goop, the recycled riffs wear thin and there is such lack of songwriting that, though they might get heavy, tracks also get dull quickly. But here's the rub: some of it's catchy and ridiculous enough to be enjoyable.

His 12th album is so girly it should be wearing pink tights and a tiara.

Eliza Doolittle is an album of potential but, for the moment, that's all it is.

Hooks hit their fleshy mark here and there--'Dead End' is a compulsive, '80s-flavoured high and 'High On The Heels'' clipped acid house proves endearingly gauche--but it's cold comfort on a record that fleshes out a promising template to only diminishing returns.

Much of this album fails to engage.... There are lengthy attempts at covering too many bases, when fewer distractions would have allowed Cook to create music with direction, not just location and motion.

So smooth nothing sticks, there's no guts, no depth and no matter how much he protests to the contrary, nothing to believe.

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.

For the most part, "The Understanding" saunters along without a trace of urgency, which is unfortunate as Royksopp were always at their best when electronic ingenuity rather than pastel-shaded synth washes were holding things up.

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

Mostly this is U2 trying too hard, caring too much, being too insufferably genuine without having anything to be particularly genuine about.

Occassionally, the songwriting does contain flashes of thoughtfulness.

Throughout most of Untitled, Kelly seems to have taken the worst aspects of "Trapped In The Closet"--it's over-the-head relentless melodies and lyrics--and decided that they'll work in a song until the repetition instead relegates it to wallpaper.

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

The paucity of innovative ideas, reliance on old recipes and directionless experimenting make for a fairly tasteless repaste.

Unfortunately, over a third of the songs on this album are ballads, and most of them are fillers at that.

So safe and sanitised it makes The Fugees sound like NWA.

A 93 minute-long nervous breakdown that offers few concessions to the needs of the listener to be entertained.