He has made the most anodyne and bland pop album possible.

Not only are these not the greatest songs in the world, they're not even a tribute to them.

The saddest thing is that all the emotionally flat crooning and awkward lyricism is set to the most blandly serviceable of arena-rock backing tracks complete with by-numbers horn and string parts (the orchestra being the last refuge of the uninspired rockstar), performed by session musicians who’ve honed their craft from stints backing the likes of Alanis Morissette and Billy Corgan. The net result makes The Killers look like Throbbing Gristle.

If this is peroxide, it’s a heavily diluted solution; there’s certainly nothing caustic here, and scant evidence to suggest, as she protests to be the case on the title track, that there’s anything burning in her heart.

Lyrically, the album only deteriorates into further embarrassment.

It's at the safest of removes; emote by rote, numbness by numbers.

Bland and instantly forgettable.

Sure this album may well sound awesome if you’ve just snorted a metre of charlie or recently breakfasted from a menu of ‘shrooms and LSD, but for sober ears it’s enough to drive anyone to drugs.

There’s just very so little of merit here--glazed pop-rock staggers into itself as the whole album washes past without you realising.

What Calvi's debut is a mixture of sprawling guitars that teeter somewhere between Tortoise's mathy noodlings, Deerhunter's brownish hue, Hendrix's fade outs and Howling Bells' shimmering grunge-gaze.

Black and White Rainbows seems to have been produced by the committee who did the backing tracks for the original Guitar Hero--every edge sanded smooth, compliant and utterly indistinct. There are no dynamics to be found on this LP, only ‘on’ or ‘off’.

Perhaps the worst aspect of ONe is how on autopilot the band sounds. Even the flat-out rockers – like the opener, 'Teahouse Of The Spirits' – contain no guitar pyrotechnics and come off sounding limp and perfunctory.

All in all, it’s a shambles. Incarnation No 4 lacks the interesting feminine insight of Rihanna’s latest, the flamboyance and ‘balls’ of Lady Gaga, the nous of Annie, anything approaching the vocal talents of Beyoncé or the nonsensical slapstick fun of Girls Aloud.

Lyrically, things grate from the off, with cringe-worthy and rudimentary rhyming couplets being Peñate’s irritating stock in trade. By the end, everything has blended into a graceless, jaunty melange of up-down guitar strokes, bellowed vocals and mid-tempo skanks.

Pursuing new directions and seeking out new sonic soundscapes is all very well, as is jamming and wailing for 30 minutes and holding 17 hour gigs. However to merely shove over two hours worth of randomly selected work onto two discs with no attempt at continuity or direction is lazy at best.

It screams often, confused, like the mess that it is.

Wrong Creatures is just disappointing.

This is a thumpingly disappointing and consistently milquetoast set of songs riddled with lyrical banality, done-to-death melodies and wispily thin production.

By track five Hardwired has already showed off all its tricks, and I find myself quite tempted to show my discontent by going to listen to Slayer instead.

This is an utterly pointless record with no artistic merit, creative spark or genuine ambition whatsoever.

Succinctly, it's a crap record.

Fade Away is the sound of a band clinging to the lost potential of their past for buoyancy, trying desperately not to drown in their own aimlessness.

An attempt to relive the RATM era that falls far, far short of the bar. Save your money and go and listen to the real deal instead.

Their debut is just minute after minute of hollow pandering.

'Rock N Roll' is the worst record Ryan Adams has ever put his name to; a mess of identikit garage buffoonery and amateurish production, filled with rushed lyrics and written-in-a-weekend tunes.

Sébastien Tellier has a tendency to tackle substantial topics, and it often smacks of dilettantism.

There isn't really an awful lot else to say. Famous First Words might not be the worst record you'll hear this year, but it's certainly one of the most pointless.

This is a largely irritating and fairly hollow unit shifter, that despite its upbeat nature feels like a cynical move to market.

As a creative artefact however, its merits are limited, and does little, if anything, to contribute to Tim Burton’s creative vision.

The head feels weighed down with unresolved torment, the smile forced and awkward, the colours garish and messily-applied.

To truly grasp the vigour of Do Whatever You Want All The Time, do it yourself. Grab four mates, pick up some instruments and go nuts. Just don't cut an album from the sessions.

The result is like a musical cab ride from hell, a forty-minute endurance test of half-baked cockney cod-philosophy.

There’s not one song on here worth releasing as a single. Only two or three are even remotely listenable.

Perhaps the worst crime is that Ashcroft never even gives that wonderfully expressive voice of his a proper workout; he hasn’t written anything here that demands he really go for it. Instead, These People is an album that’s so safe, it’s almost dangerous.

At his best Turner can be immensely charming and gloriously witty. Sadly, these facts only makes the dreary, alarmingly soulless retreads that populate most of Positive Songs for Negative People all the more depressing.

Sadly, the quality of song writing and accompanying musicianship--i.e., everyone except 'arry--is mediocre at best.

Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans really should have been released a couple of years ago when Uffie was at the height of her fame. She should have struck while the iron was hot. She’s missed the boat completely now.

It’s a fatal flaw that rears itself again and again as a bastardised version of blue-collar Americana is force-fed a mass-produced strain of bland modern rock throughout all eleven tracks.

There are moments which hint at Casablancas’ underlying skill as a writer on Phrazes, but there’s such a ruinous deployment of disparate ideas that they never form a cogent whole.

Stereophonics have in effect 'done a U2', packing in the arena-filling songs but with added AOR. Elements of rock dinosaurs such as ELO, Chicago and Fleetwood Mac all crop up over the course of 11 songs.

A big stinking pile of rubbish.

There’re dudes out there (Google them) who will try and tell you this album has some relevance, that it represents pop, that it’s important. That it’s good. They’re wrong.

Even a past-it Smashing Pumpkins ‘reunion’ with only Corgan remaining is more acceptable than this awful mimickery and that’s not a good place for a band to be.

M A N I A won’t suddenly ignite a revisionist outlook of Fall Out Boy’s career, but it does leave you pining for the earnest giddiness of their pre-hiatus material. This is a feeble gesture of benign, stadium-sized pop that’s been cynically constructed, artificially beefed-up and saturated beyond the point of listenability.

These Are The Good Times People is a mere shadow of its ‘90s counterpart that struggles to retain any of the President’s early charm.

Nobody expected Smith to reinvent the wheel on his second album, but anything is better than limping along on a flat tyre.

All in all, the album is unremarkable, showing only rare flashes of lyrical prowess, and melodically unadventurous. Bugg fails to push boundaries and flounders outside his recent comfort zone, resulting in a record that fails to impress, delivered without vigour.

The feeling [is] that nothing here belongs to Robbie Williams, that he’s officially completely interchangeable, that he’s become trapped in a maze of his own making, and all of the noise seems so very quiet now.

It’s a horribly calculated, horrible slice of anthemic horribleness. Throughout, dreadful lyrics are in abundance, pianos are thumped and drums are bashed.

In general, the choruses are forgettable, the guitars are woefully exaggerated, and the quirkiness that made Weezer a band to be cherished now seems forced and stale.

Come Around Sundown is musical wallpaper for those who purchase such amenities from the likes of Tesco or Asda. It represents little more than a giant turd amidst a sea of mediocrity, several million of which will shortly be appearing in homes near you.

Taragana Pyjarama is unstimulating, oddly soothing in an anesthetized way, hypnotic in the most guileful sense.

Nothing, not even their own past as a middling indie-pop crossover act, is sacred, and it’s sad to see The Kooks attempt to conjure past glories and fall flat.

2 of 2, then, is an incredibly frustrating experience.

The ten tracks here convey no pleasure, and lack any form of belief in their own urgency or desire to be adored.

This is not the sound of the London underground (although the album ends with that particular sound); it sounds nothing like London. Not the London I know. London Undersound was made by a Wandsworth-ite so rapt by his own fears and insecurities, that he has completely lost sight of the bigger picture.

Ashcroft's vocal, which once soared and demanded your attention, sounds languid and forced to the point where one is left wondering if he can muster up any will power himself to sing what are by and large, trite soundbites that could have been written on any number of post-it notes.

The descriptive we’re looking for here is ‘shallow pastiche.’

He's crafted a whole album so stagnantly repetitive that one listen gives the illusion of having already been subjected to the same song again and again and again and again.

The agony is there, but none of the nuance or substance that would make you empathise or relate with it.

The all-over-the-place sounds don’t remotely go together, and not even in a good way.

This is a piece of chewed-out gum; with no viable nutrition, no flavour and no joy. Do yourself a favour and spit it out.

Napalm is a long ass 18 track slog, and the pointless thug boasts scattered throughout the album.

Only ‘Carrion’ remotely rocks in any way, but only through a lukewarm shower wash.

The orchestra tries so desperately to stage this cool retro show, but there are so many glaring holes in the script.

By aiming to sound like U2 and Pink Floyd, AVA ends up sounding like an emo version of an even more plodding Coldplay.

Despite the so-called grandiose statements of intent such as strings, pianos and soul-trained female backing vocalists, this is simply a case of mutton dressed as lamb and those lambs eventually being slaughtered.

Don't you want to think? Don't you enjoy thinking? Or do you instead prefer listening to background whining? Are you happy to settle for this?

Every song is predictable, workman-like, lacking invention.

The intensity on Billy Talent III feels the same as the intensity of the band's live show, awkwardly forced and absolutely repellent.

There's nothing on 'Folklore' that comes anywhere near the catchiness of anything off her debut.

Where the was once teen angst, there is nowt but middle-aged resignation. And no, the lyrics to ‘Ironic’ still aren’t bloody ironic.

There's barely a narrative other than posturing. It's not really an album, more a relentless ad campaign.

Bahdeni Nami is nothing more than a dull and flat dance record, dressed in the trappings of the 'exotic' and 'worldly'.

A substandard, second-tier album with some strings thrown in for good measure.

This is a bad album. The power ballads have some good elements. You might sing one of these songs at karaoke one day. You should not listen to this album in its entirety.

What was promised to be Twain's 'very, very pure' album is anything but. ... A terrible album.

Form & Control's only real highlight is its title track... But when it's surrounded by so much dross, it's hardly redeeming, and getting loaded may well be the only way to endure the rest of this tripe.

Liam Howlett and the boys embrace their psycho circus schtick on The Day Is My Enemy to the point of suffocation.

This is not just the band’s worst record, it’s also the worst record with any profile to be released this year.

Nothing goes anywhere, and yet every song is so long. It’s painful.

Difficult second album? In a way. In that it's difficult to listen to it without smashing your CD player to make it stop.

These odd moments aside, it’s tempting to suggest that never before have a band--and a band who, let us remember, this writer awarded a generous 8/10 for their summery, tuneful debut--managed to nail mediocrity so definitely between its tired eyes.

This is dead-eyed pop with aspirations of being your comfort food but turns out to be a starchy soulless slop.

Many demons are slain at the altar of the Reverend in the course this album--wit, eloquence, incisiveness and originality to name but a few.

Leave this to collect dust in the bargain bin. Or, better still, the bins out the back of HMV.

Shame on the person who made this. Shame on the people who release, market and play this. And shame on anyone who buys it.

Yet none of this is enough to relieve the air that everything on Curse Our Love has been intentionally dumbed down to make it as easily digestible as possible. Above all this album's great many sins, this is what offends the most.

Quite simply, this record is the devil's spawn incarnate.

What’s not so easy however is appraising something so overwhelmingly awful and so lacking in merit as BE without sounding like one of the smug, condescending middle class intelligentsia.