Some of it is awful. Some, notably 'Hide Away' and 'Lucky Day' are as good as anything on prime-time Stones album 'Black And Blue', which is saying something.

It works for the red-raw confessional 'Family Portrait', but everything else is so bad Natalie Imbruglia would be proud.

What's curious here is how, for all the Kid's ludicrous victory laps, 'Cocky' is so soft in the middle.

Look beyond the spasm-inducing bass solos to Scott herself: a frequently magnetic performer, with a certain brave, defiant spirit that her peers lack.

'Insignificance' lays down an awesome challenge to other guitar records - it contains more great ideas than most bands have in their entire career. It's the first unequivocal classic album of the new year.

'I Might Be Wrong' sounds significantly better than both of the studio albums that spawned it.

Uniformly excellent.... Few, if any, British bands are making music quite like this right now.

'Driving Rain' is supposed to be raw, spontaneous and unpolished, when in fact it's perfectly pleasant, unable to resist the McCartney default modes of jauntiness and sentimentality.

A rather mousey, introspective record, awash with the wishy-washy sounds of shoegazing, and yet not without its precise, audacious moments.

The Divine Comedy are much more appealing in their vulnerability than they ever were in full cry.

Britney and 'Britney' still works best when making a good pop cheese and dance sandwich.

'Since I Left You' is proof that while being a vinyl junkie might not make you a teen idol, crafting a joyous, kaleidoscopic masterpiece of sun-kissed disco-pop definitely will.... Cool? Sure, whatever. Brilliant? Undoubtedly.

'Invincible' is a relevant and rejuvenated comeback album make overlong and embarassing by the unavoidable fact that Michael Jackson is a) exceedingly rich and b) a bit of a wanker.

Too often, the follow-up to their 600,000-selling debut 'Spit', is plain overbearing, a violent marriage of melody and brutality that makes for a highly uneasy listen.

Morning View's insurmountable flaw is that Incubus sell themselves as an Intelligent and Sensitive rock band, without actually appearing especially intelligent or sensitive.

This is easily the weakest DMX release to date.

'Bavarian Fruit Bread' represents a towering piece of morphine-induced self-indulgence.

What 'Drukqs' never is, of course, is boring. It's also beautifully paced. No track sounds like the one before, even though Aphex rarely strays far from the musical palate that's served him so well in the past.

Whilst 'The Argument' still sounds unmistakably Like Fugazi, it's the sound of an inspirational band, renewed, at play.

They may have been apart for eight years, but less than a minute into opening track, 'Crystal', they've slotted back into their own idiosyncratic groove and the years are pouring off them.... Being in New Order never sounded like half as much fun as it does here.

Beneath the plasticky politeness is the same old wry fatalism that the likes of Smog continue to strive for.

As intelligent, bittersweet, angular stuff, whether it’s alt.rock, guitar-pop, or even emo is immaterial. Labels be damned - just call it great music.

It is its author Kieran Hebden's best work to date and confirms the prolific young soundmeister as a major talent.

It's good in flashes but frighteningly unstable.

No song is quite right: a lyric about angels or elephants here, a trip-hop beat there, and even the Milky Way would blush.

'Let It Come Down' is another towering achievement - both musically and emotionally.... This is music as it's meant to be: raw, colossal and awe-inspiring. No wonder everything else just pales in comparison.

It is a collection of whimsical neo-psychedelic folk songs of no little charm, but, crucially, little drama either.

There have been dark records by Chicagoan Bill Callahan. There have been wilfully obscure ones too, but there has never been one as single-mindedly dour as this.