FIBS highlights Meredith as a much-needed creative force. Her shape-shifting genre-defiance constantly surprises and intrigues, but it’s good to get back down to Earth afterwards.

I doubt many listeners would be able to identify these as Tomlinson songs. But this is a likable, grounded collection of sunny-side-up pop from a likeable, grounded guy.

The usual bouts of brusque dissing rub shoulders with love songs, fond tributes to his mom, and a fulsome, swaying devotional hymn “Blinded By Your Grace Pt. 2”. But it’s the engaging sense of vulnerability and self-deprecation that brings depth and charm to Gang Signs & Prayer.

Connick displays his versatility with the bossa nova sway of “I Love Her”, the New Orleans R&B of “S'pposed To Be” and “You've Got It”, and the sentimental country stylings of “Greatest Love Story”.

In the Blue Light is not the sound of a man reinventing himself, nor is it a final meditation on decades gone. But in shining a light on a handful of overlooked gems, Simon has succeeded brilliantly.

The songs are littered with piquant period references--Eric Bristow, Bruce Lee, Roman Polanski, spaghetti hoops--often in absurd situations, such as the mash-up of teutonic terrorism and mad-scientist sci-fi that is “Ulrike Meinhof’s Brain Is Missing”. But Haines’s genuine affection shines through fond tributes like the chugging glam boogie “Marc Bolan Blues” and acid-folk exploration “The Incredible String Band.”

It’s an enjoyable, occasionally virtuosic romp, fronted by Thundercat’s smooth soul harmonies, which lend proceedings the lustrous sheen of Earth, Wind & Fire.

Love is a pleasant although occasionally overly earnest capsule collection of pop sounds where Diamantis proves herself to be the master of the “brief pause... and gentle drop” technique. ... Her voice skitters across songs with a frostiness reminiscent of Madonna’s Ray of Light era, and sometimes it feels like a lecture being delivered into the mirror: everyone’s just like you, no one’s happy, enjoy your life.

“Heading South On The Great North Road”, sounds like an outtake from Sting’s musical The Last Ship. But otherwise it’s fairly standard AOR fare, only baring its teeth on the snarling “Petrol Head”

It's all neatly-dressed, buttoned-down and restrained but sometimes suffocatingly introspective, with lyrics mining a private image bank; even so, some moments cut to the emotional quick.

Though hobbled by the occasional cliche, it’s an album with its heart in the right place.

There’s a little of Prince in the sensuousness of certain songs, but Bay doesn’t possess that same crackling sexual energy as the Purple One; he’s more brooding, introspective.

Though not entirely “unplugged”--there’s a wealth of keyboard drones and subtle electronic detail lurking behind the foreground mandolins and acoustic guitars--applying this stripped-down format to some of their most memorable moments does help dilute the excessive stadium bombast which became a cornerstone of Simple Minds’ style.

The homogeneity of the album's arrangements effectively denudes the individual songs of their emotional power.

When they stray from their core heavy rock duties, there’s an Oasis-like magpie quality to the songs, be it the way that the acoustic harmony-pop of “Happy Ever After (Zero Hour)” recalls ‘60s pop trifle “Sitting On A Fence”, or the way Dave Grolsch’s Lennon-esque inflection on “Sunday Rain” is winkingly set within guitar and dynamics echoing Abbey Road’s “I Want You”.

Further confirmation of the enduring strength of old-school electronic music.

John Martyn's valedictory recordings have a suitably weary presence that makes even such legendary laidback soporificos as J J Cale and Leonard Cohen seem positively sprightly by comparison.

There is no earworm melody as insistent as “White Flag” here, but melancholic opener “Hurricanes” and single “Give It Up” boast that same persistent emotion. And, of course, there’s that voice: steadfastly pure and mellifluous, just as it sounded 20 years ago.

There's often a mismatch of temperament between the most brutally juddering of Lidell's quacking synth grooves and the floaty, unanchored manner of his vocal lines.

She harmonises piquantly with herself over the languid guitar groove, and B.o.B's rap is pleasingly modest enough, too. The same can't really be said of such tracks as "Casualty Of Love" and "Rainbow", however, both singularly unimpressive songs tricked out with the showy vocal bling favoured by R&B divas as a substitute for genuine soul.

Cliched rock band they might be, but the problem lies more with the fact that they used to be bloody good at it. Night People is a painfully disjointed album that shows a band at an impasse, unsure about which direction they want to go in.

As ever, it's an eclectic mix of styles.

It seems a huge effort being expended to achieve so little.

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.

The Menahan Street Band have proven a fertile sampling source for such as Jay-Z, Kid Cudi and 50 Cent, and it's not hard to tell why listening to the grooves on this latest album.

On their tribute to The Everly Brothers, Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Faun Fables' Dawn McCarthy avoid the obvious hits in favour of more unfamiliar items from the brothers' repertoire.

A trio of absorbing driftworks.

The music Kanye West reserves for his own albums is so much more ambitious than that apportioned to the collaborations on this compilation from his new label, Good Music. Which isn't to say it's not effective.