With Daltrey suffering from a serious illness himself mid-way through this recording (the singer had a meningitis infection), this is an affecting album of reflection, survival and celebration both after this, and his work with Johnson in 2014.

Tracey Thorn takes a wider brief than usual for her Christmas Album Tinsel & Lights, mostly avoiding the routine carols and standards in favour of left-field choices.

Wareham’s languid, imperturbable voice and steady-paced music have a familiarly narcotic effect.

Watch the Throne is more notable for its general lack of impact. Neither as compulsively neurotic as Eminem, as languidly characterful as Snoop Dogg, nor as furiously articulate as Nas, the raps here represent a pretty mediocre, cardboard kind of throne, truth be told.

Produced mostly by Max Martin and Shellback, the settings blend twitchy electro riffs with skeletal, scudding beats and understated guitar parts, with occasional details hinting at 1980s influences.

The Old Magic is stuffed with the kind of retro-styled standards that will doubtless be mined by generations of Nashville crooners to come, performed here in unassuming arrangements that try not to get in the way of the songs.

Adele's engaging ebullience is powerfully persuasive on this DVD/CD package.

It's a one-sided album: following the soulful “Late Night”, things plummet badly in the second half.

The words themselves are glorious, as frequently absurd and brilliantly imaginative as some of the best sci-fi writers--Arthur C Clarke, Philip K Dick, HG Wells--while the instrumentation recalls their cinematic adaptations, or classic superhero cartoons.

Always an unflinchingly open songwriter, Conor Oberst leaves himself even more exposed on Ruminations, where his songs are accompanied just by his own piano, guitar and harmonica.

The contrasts of the title are evident throughout John Legend’s latest album--in the push and pull between devotion and desire, indulgence and empowerment, and musically in the dialectic between comforting familiarity and exploratory urges.

Familia is but a faint impression of what Cabello is truly capable of.

It may not reach the pinnacle of sex or sadness, but Fine Line is a fine album nonetheless.

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott’s third album as a duo is disappointing, with Heaton’s lack of musical intrigue leaving some of his poorest songs badly exposed.

Eels songwriter Mark "E" Everett has always trod a peculiar, idiosyncratic path that runs parallel to most pop music, but here he collides with it in such a tender, open way that the emotional hit of some songs is quite shocking.

It’s an elegant, thoughtful album, rendered in deft, subtle brushstrokes.

Things begin well enough with the single "Rolling in the Deep", with its thumping piano quadruplets and gospelly backing vocals, and continues reasonably with the galumphing Tom Waits-style arrangement of "Rumour Has It"; until, two-thirds of the way through the song, it grinds to a halt for a slower, torchy middle eight.

This follow-up to the original 2006 Rogue's Gallery sea-shanty compilation is slightly less salty but just as broad-ranging musically.

Cypress Hill demonstrates across the record, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The Cheech and Chong of hip-hop are back – and are as clear-headed on hazy-eyed matters as ever.

It's all typically hard work to decipher, both lyrically and musically, but unlike Yorke's earlier endeavours with Radiohead, this time I'm rather less convinced that it's going to be worth the effort. It's certainly less fun.

Thankfully, the further Wilson gets from his heroes, the better he gets.

Sometimes, sheer ambition can render music too top-heavy to succeed. Hang, by Los Angeles duo Foxygen, is a case in point.

On their sixth album, Calexico finally sound more like a band with memorable, individual songs, than a project dedicated to creating audio soundscapes evocative of the American southwest.

["Mr Tembo" is] a rare moment of extrovert cheer on an intimate, introspective album that takes tentative steps to reveal the soul behind the star.

Grasscut push the electropop envelope in intriguing new directions with Unearth, its songs inspired by alliances of people, poetry and places.

But in cementing one style, some of the possibilities offered by Lungs have been choked off.

It's presented as 39 miniature sonic studies in the vein of European "library music" fragments, interspersed with dialogue clips from the movie and sound effects to evoke the protagonist's deteriorating mindset.

His band certainly nails Jennings’ trenchant country-rock tread on the title-track, a warning of the downside of the outlaw lifestyle for which Earle’s joined by Waylon’s old buddy Willie Nelson.