The truth is finally out. People are talking about the music. People are dancing. People know Fat White Family are better than maybe Fat White Family themselves think they are.

Like the skull ring and handcuffs on the sleeve, some things never change and, with its seductive bite and defiant energy, Talk Is Cheap is still a compelling centrifugal presence amid the bells and whistles. It remains the best Stones-related solo album.

Badbea fair glows with uncomplicated affirmations, literally buzzing with Collins’ unique wasp-tone guitar interjections--a sound that no one else has come close to approximating.

While you couldn’t place it--or anything else on You’re The Man--up there with his finest work, as an exploration of Gaye’s creative process, it more than earns its position on your shelf.

Lead single Feel So Great doses up on the psych medicine and, with many a song culminating in a wig-out, Natural Facts boasts a grubby sheen that Cosmic Cash was missing.

While you couldn’t say Inside The Rose goes beyond the furthest reaches of moments such as V (Island Song), from its predecessor, neither does it play things safe. Newcomers may feel that elements of Kate Bush circa Hounds Of Love or Hansa Studios-era Depeche Mode provide reference points, yet nevertheless, a track such as Beyond Black Suns is nothing but pure TNP: overlapping motifs, doom-laden beats, interweaving vocal lines and a song that resolves nothing, but does so with the utmost confidence.

The Long Ryders should be proud--they’ve made a fine album that’s a worthy follow-up to their 80s oeuvre.

The lyrics continue to take a few listens to fully digest (beyond the regular laugh-out-loud moments), as do Fearn’s often misleadingly direct grooves. His basslines sound particularly mighty here, and Williamson’s vitriol (which fills most of the record) continues to be very much needed in contemporary Britain.

The Route To The Harmonium feels like a return to the warmth of some of his earlier outings--not that he’s exactly satisfied--with a more mature Yorkston having crafted perhaps the album of his career.

Inferno, then, may not afford Robert Forster the mainstream acceptance that’s eluded him for so long, but it gets him back in the game and proves he’s recaptured the magic he once needed to keep ahead of his best buddy in his metaphorical rear-view mirror.

The comp is thoughtfully subdivided by mood/demeanour, with each disc respectively entitled Rock Off!, Tubthumpers & Hellraisers and Elegance & Decadence. The successfully realised intention is to demonstrate that there was more to glam than just implacable, sequin-shedding, mindless stomping--though some of us would be perfectly content with three discs’ worth of just that.

The Specials remain adept at appropriating the songs of others to further fuel their message.

Such is the unrelenting flood of language and emotion from this remarkable performance that it’s difficult to take everything in on first viewing and repeated listens become essential to experiencing the fullness of it all. ... We can just be glad that this particular spell of lightning was bottled so beautifully.

To overly analyse the motives or intentions behind any of these revelatory tracks (87 in all) is to risk missing out on their more implicit, primal joys. This is Dylan at one with his domain; explorative, inventive, persuasive and, as is almost always the case, enigmatic.

Unprecedented in 1968 and unparalleled still, Electric Ladyland has bequeathed us no end of spoils. A fine celebration of Hendrix’s most kaleidoscopically-realised endeavour, this 50th anniversary set even restores his originally intended cover photo. Dig.

It’s a fuller, more contemporary-sounding mix that is fascinating on first listen, but unlikely to replace the original mixes in fans’ affections. ... Still, the extras are why we’re really here and that’s where this reissue really delivers. By becoming a fly on the wall at their sessions we have the chance to feel closer to The Beatles; to better figure out how they did it and become privy to their casual chats. Close your eyes, suspend your disbelief and you’re there as they make history.

While this collection spans three decades, the focus is skewed towards the later years.

While few would suggest that there’s material here rivalling Bowie’s 70s peak, there are more than enough elegant, standout moments. You may not exactly fall in love with it, but you’ll certainly strongly admire the work here.

This is very grown-up pop music; awash with the memorable hooks and lyrical dexterity we’d expect from Costello, with layer after layer of fascinating melodic conceits and themes.

Love Is Magic feels like three shredded albums spliced back together. But it’s nutritious, colourful and occasionally funeral-level mournful, an emotional pick’n’mix that, by its very nature, increasingly repays revisits.

Imagine: The Ultimate Collection is a fascinating snapshot of an artist if not quite in his imperial phase, then certainly at his most searching. From the new stereo remix down to the outtakes and an audio documentary pieced together from candid interviews with friend and DJ Elliot Mintz, we’re offered an exhaustive look at Imagine from all angles.

A mischievous balladeer with a spicier bag of ingredients than most folk heroes, Joe Strummer was a one-off. There’s little doubt he left his mark, but his more personal work is perhaps still overlooked in favour of his iconic punk fare. This intriguing set will go some way towards correcting that.

If the thrill of the fight is one answer, The Blue Hour is up to it. Re-energised on all fronts, Suede are in the shape of their lives.

True Meanings is, on the surface, a traditionally introspective singer-songwriter record, but such a reductive description runs the risk of underselling a package that contains some of the most accessible, thought-provoking and downright enjoyable music of his lengthy career. The vibes are resolutely bucolic, embellished just the right amount by a chamber orchestra.

Simon’s song choices weave together to form a narrative on intolerance, the dangers of divisive thinking, impending mortality, the ebb and flow of love, ecological troubles and faith. Where less nimble-minded songwriters might flounder, his literary eye for the minutiae of life stands him in good stead.

Not since Bon Iver’s aforementioned reinvention or even Radiohead’s Kid A have a relatively mainstream band made such an assured volte-face, wilfully pushing their audience away while they revisit, remake and remodel the tension that made them so very precious in the first place. Fierce and beautiful. Low are back.

So, yes, good album, with some obligatory pratfalls, very few longeurs and several quality flashes of the innate melodic gift that, after all, put him precisely where he is. During those best bits, the “he’s 76, after all” qualifier becomes utterly redundant.

They’ve created an album that manages to combine grief, self-loathing and a realisation that life’s better played honest, with a fine-tuned, brutal sound: something like bent sheet metal being hammered straight. Yet it remains listenable, so very listenable.