She might not want a pedestal, but there aren’t many songwriters who’d make better use of it.

So, though it’ll be a while before they shake off the inevitable age fixation, TMOT have produced an album that’s a stroke of genius regardless of age.

[Producer Bob] Cooper adds gleaming sheen to Hairball’s 10 scrappy, infectious tracks.

Because rather than an exercise in hype, what Born This Way really is an exercise in the pushing of everything to its ultimate degree. And for all the black, white and silver, it passes that test with flying colours.

Backed by a supporting cast of R&B superstars and bright newcomers, it’s a record of long, lazy summers; sitting back and staring at the clouds.

‘Free’ is a liberating collection that unshackles the star from his past and his insecurities, and slowly cracks open a door to version of the future that will inevitably arrive when he’s ready. Wherever that journey takes him in this phase of his career, it’ll be an honour to witness.

Marauder takes the punchy, warm sound of 2014 predecessor ‘El Pintor’ and folds in some much darker, more menacing flourishes.

Who knows which Miley Cyrus will emerge after the rootsy and real Younger Now, but we recommend enjoying Country Miley for as long as she lasts.

Because there's an awkward squirm at Girls' core, a deviant devolution of classic mores, and that makes Holy Ghost something of a maladroit masterpiece.

By going back to the music that producer Don Was calls the “fountainhead of everything they do”, however, they sound younger than they have in decades. Blue & Lonesome is proof that old dogs don’t always have need of new tricks.

Soused manages to feel understated and ripe for listeners to engage with entirely on their own terms.

Sheffield's ever-progressive 65daysofstatic have outdone themselves here, loading their fifth album of megaton guitar instrumentals with electronic styles.

‘Born 2 Rap’ isn’t just a library of classic records blended together: it’s a lesson in storytelling, something The Game has never received enough credit for. ... There’s a flawless project somewhere among the album’s 25 tracks, which could certainly do with trimming.

The best moments of the album come when the band get candid about their hardest experiences, all the while leaning into the driving, raw rock sound they were known for.

The impressive ‘3.15.20’ [is] well worth the wait.

As introductions go, this record makes for a warm and welcoming one – even if it doesn’t stray too much from what you’d expect.

It all adds up to an emphatic showcase of Pond’s personality, and their ability to inflict their eccentric spirit on any genre they fancy.

The only criticism is that the lyrics fail to make the impact implied by titles like ‘Feed Me, Jack; Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love’. That aside, this is an unexpected delight.

There’s a fresh warmth to ‘Forever, Howlong’, but don’t mistake that for sonic pathetic fallacy. The pregnant protagonist of ‘Nancy Tries To Take The Night’ has one of the most devastating narrative arcs on the record; the combination of banjo and nylon guitar makes for such an unusually rich tone for the band, bolstered by Hyde’s sonorous alto that grounds the song.

Drummer/vocalist Brian Chippendale’s delirious sing-song brings notes of fancy to tracks like ‘Dream Genie’, but Lightning Bolt’s aim remains simple: to batter you into ecstatic submission.

This is an album that thrills in furious energy, but maintains a balance between light and shade via a deep understanding of dynamics.

Government Plates is a challenging listen, but as one of the most transgressive records of the year.

It’s an album that could have easily ventured too out-there for the masses to find it palpable, but thanks Tumour’s outsized talent and personality, ‘Praise…’ avoids decadence and proves richly satisfying.

Come Of Age breezes through their awkward teenage phase with ease.

All of this makes for a record that never sits still, an album of considerable polish and scope and by far the boldest thing the Danes have ever made, but also a album that still feels distinctly theirs.

It’s rare that an electronic album manages to tell such a strong story while eliciting so many different emotions. Impressively balancing meditative calmness (‘Time’) with rave euphoria (the guitar-led ‘Running’), ‘Capricorn Sun’ proves that TSHA really is in a league of her own.

It’s a sun-drenched record of summer tunes that will sound even better when heard at festivals with a tinnie in hand. Yet look behind glittering shells of these tunes and you’ll find hugely personal stories, told with new strength and resilience.

In the fury of these cool-crushing rushes Mi Ami are exhilarating, roaring forwards, chasing risk like Can tied to the back of a pick-up truck and dragged across the surface of the sun.

It’s not an exercise of rethinking and tweaking old songs, but to take back ownership of her own music. The production here is a little sharper, with the instrumentation being brought further into focus.

The album’s about accepting that joy often stands side by side with pain. No, it’s not a wild departure from its predecessors, though it’s no less powerful for that.

Funny, heartbreaking and at glorious odds with the world. [4 Sep 2004, p.73]

With shades of Julia Holter and Poliça, the 12 electro-R&B nocturnes here unfold in shimmers of keyboard, indistinct vocals (most disarmingly on piano jam ‘Broken Blue’) and torrents of existential anguish.

It's chaotic and confounding. It will frustrate as much as it delights. And no, not everything they throw at the wall manages to stick. But my, what a lovely mess they've made.

By adding a decent dose of 2017 into her classic sound, Price creates something truly great.

With ‘The Romantic’, pop’s economical king of ear candy has surely extended his reign.

An album both beautiful and challenging.

The Killers are still as flashy, unintentionally funny, and flagrantly affected as ever.

Temple’s unassuming sound can often hide how experimental he is. Not so on the lysergic electronics of ‘Sue’, which swirl like watercolour dreams.

Combining afrobeat, dub and more samba slickness than you can shake a headdress at, the frenzied carnival rhythms of Pop Negro will spark a fire in your newly tropical soul that will still be smoldering come next year's Mardi Gras.

Molina's retro-countrified songs of American redemption are not academic and studied, but human. [28 May 2005, p.64]

Shot through with warm hooks, it's a worthy retooling of old synth styles.

Largely, Styles taking a new approach to things really works – ‘Kiss All The Time…’ feels like an album that you’ll really want to spend a lot of time with, letting all its layers envelope you.

As ever, Wareham’s work sounds like the model of stateliness and simplicity, but look beneath the surface, and you’ll find a deep, rewarding roil of complex emotional currents.

‘It Won’t Always Be Like This’ is teeming with nervous energy over trying to find balance in a world turned inside out, while flashes of more mature reflections on saints, sinners, kings and dreams are also promising.

If it was all such axe-grinding, Disaster Piece might flag--but it has vision too.

Remember Remember are more about awe than aggression, and resolutely their own thing: this is music to lose yourself in, rather than to.

Trench is the sound of a band ratcheting up the ambition without ever being pulled down by an undertow of pretentiousness. It’s more low-key than ‘Blurryface’, but ultimately more rewarding.

Scruffy melodies informed debut album 'A Thousand Heys' and they return here ('Vapour Trails') but Jack Cooper's homegrown themes are interwoven expertly.

While Reputation packs heavy artillery that was almost entirely absent from ‘1989’, it’s actually a helluva ride.

Part of what makes Leave Me Alone such a blast is the impression it gives of Hinds as a tight-knit girl gang, on and off record.

‘WEEDKILLER’ expertly weaves public and personal politics into an impressively captivating narrative for a debut.

As debut albums go, it's unnerving that The Enemy are already this good and yet barely old enough to buy their own champagne when the ridiculously high chart placings inevitably come in.

You never know quite what’s about to happen, but no matter which sonic mask the band slip on, they sound terrifyingly comfortable wearing it. This unpredictability is what makes Code Orange and ‘Underneath’ such a thrilling listen.

There’s plenty more evidence here that Frank remains one of our most consistently punchy, stirring and chaff-free songwriters.

Big, bounteous of hook and packed with more senseless beauty than an acre of rainforest, Pala offers the sort of agreeable nonsense every good summer needs as its soundtrack.

It’s a lot to take in, but the compact and well-executed transitions make sense of the chaos.

This is a very well-crafted album that succeeds on its own terms.

The band dub these 2022 sets as works-in-progress, and say that none of its members are precious about the songs, a problem that thankfully doesn’t bely this release. You sense even better is to come. ‘Live At Bush Hall’, then, offers a remarkable snapshot of a band in transition, one willing to push on and not let circumstances stand in the way of what they love doing most.

Is ‘Masquerade’ a classic? Time will tell, and Cardinals have demonstrated the potential to grow into something more special. At the very least, they’ve made a record that’s sadly but beautifully in tune with these times and the scars of where they’re from.

The result is an album that pulses with energy, one that’s not a dancefloor record in the traditional sense – we can’t see Diplo dropping any of these tracks into his inevitable socially distanced Las Vegas comeback set at some point in late 2021 – but one with an insistent groove woven into its 10 delicately emotive songs, which deal with love in all its messy permutations.

Yet as her sounds grow bolder, her lyrics become more intimate. Mesirow is in confident control of an inviting world that’s all her own.

There’s confidence, and then there’s this.

They're having their own sonic keg party here: coasting through the fuck-ups on the basic likeability-- the sheer shaggy melodic charm--of the hosts.

Throughout, singer Bid's smooth baritone paints intriguing vignettes ("He was the best thing that you've ever seen in Swansea", goes 'When I Get To Hollywood'), adding colour to an already rich album.

Assured and unapologetic, it’s charged with a dark, smirking wit that’s impossible to turn away from, and achieves an incredibly impressive feat: not only does Self Esteem detail the fear, uneasiness and anger of being a woman – keys clutched between our fists – but also manages to make us laugh at the sheer absurdity of being forced to navigate a world that has, quite unbelievably, normalised misogyny.

These sparsely arranged folk songs are hauntingly pretty. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]

‘Smitten’ is a loved-up record that’ll have you falling for Pale Waves all over again.

The album suitably builds on everything that ‘Going…Going…Gone!’ teased, re-confirming Udu as one of the most flamboyant and honest artists in the pop space right now.

Always intelligent but never too clever for their own good, Here We Go Magic finally break into a huge, dumb guitar solo on 'News'. That's where they are, making the challenging accessible, a band forging their own path at last. Never mind, Be Small, this thinks big.

Audio, Video, Disco's success is in its album-wide consistency, and a contemplative depth of sound that outshines the expectations of their disco-biscuit crowd.

The result is a fulsome, heroic thing.

The crepuscular glow of this quartet should be embraced.

This record heralds her as one of the most enticing acts in R&B’s contemporary canon, near-guaranteed to become a bonafide star in her own right.

Whether or not you'd want to listen to it more than once depends on your pain threshold, but those 45 minutes will be among the most terrifying of your life, guaranteed. [13 Nov 2004, p.56]

Less teenage kicks, more teenage contemplation.

It’s a beautiful, unnerving experience that rattles on long after its final notes fade.

In making this (undoubtedly scary) leap away from what’s expected of them they’ve pulled off the second album reinvention of 2010.

Easily as good as the last Chemicals album and often snapping at the heels of Daft Punk's 'Discovery', 'Machine Says Yes' is as broad in its retro reference as it is happy to revel in the futuristic.

Ultimately, despite all its self-defeating limitations and annoying, fey affectations, this remains a superb record.

I Made A Place is a soft, sumptuous delight. It’s a cult classic, not a bestseller, but we’re pretty sure that Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy wouldn’t have it any other way.

This album is a huge leap forward for Baoi. The record teams with hope, which couldn’t be more apt for a moment in which a new political era dawns and light, albeit slowly, finds its way through the darkness.

They have a way of transporting you to a precise moment or emotion. It’s why ‘The Ballad of Darren’ is so memorable and touching: you can feel it, everything, in every line sung or note played.

Mura Masa has again pooled disparate guests and sounds to make a record that is somehow both steeped in a sense of curation and individual to his artistic identity.

Where that debut album focused on Slater finally becoming the songwriter he had the potential to be, its follow-up reworks and refines his strong storytelling. Here, the frontman enriches his lyrics and pairs them with a dash of chaotic energy brought in by his bandmates and the unity between them.

‘Laughing Gas’ is a lush paean to ‘80s precision pop, all snaking funk basslines, synth claps and reverb-addled drums.

His trademark woozy laments and waltzing rhythms are present, but buried beneath layers of tumbling horns they seem much richer, with the charming languor of his voice twisting the mariachi saunter into something dark. Strangely, it’s the synth-pop gems of second EP Holland that seem the most foreign.

Cohen’s obvious enthusiasm for his music humanises the man behind the headlines.

An astoundingly honest, and at times brutal, listen, ‘PREY//IV’ still ends on a note of hope.

Its tales of fleeting love begin with a swagger... [and] the next seven tracks represent a complete emotional collapse. [8 Oct 2005, p.43]

A record of rare and strange beauty. [4 Nov 2006, p.33]

If their previous albums sounded like hardcore on steroids and deranged, this is the same for their brand of rock-and-roll. The album’s best moments are when The Armed get brazen with their genre experimentation.

Fans will be thrilled to hear her sounding so playful.

Houghton’s control is masterful, not just in translating her thoughts and confusion so pristinely into cracking tunes, but this record is testament to just how undersung she is as a musician.

Overall Mercer’s songwriting creds are well in tact.

It finds the band more playful, melodic, cinematic and cohesive than they have since ‘Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots’.

It would have been easy for Courting to play it safe on ‘Guitar Music’, but by challenging both themselves and their scene, they’ve guaranteed longevity and arrived with one of the year’s greatest debuts.

Moondagger is a tune-rich excursion into lo-fi romanticism, with 'Parallelogram’s' multitracked vocals harmonizing over a groundswell of glockenspiels sharing DNA with Animal Collective.

Their most intriguing, beautiful and dazzling record to date.