There’s plenty here to suggest Chloe X Halle have the chops to rival their superstar mentor [Beyoncé].

It reminds me how much I miss the devilish Old Nick, but it’s a privilege to bear witness to such a beautifully realised artistic, emotional and philosophical journey by one of the greatest singer-songwriters of our time.

QOTSA now know what is expected of them after a decade of commercial appeal: rock ‘n’ roll that’s not too heavy, lyrics that aren’t too vicious. Then they decide to stick their middle fingers up and make what they want regardless.

Wrecking Ball may be his angriest and most overtly political collection, yet the fury is contained in some of his most uplifting and celebratory music, so you can never be quite sure if he has come to raise the flag or to burn it.

Made up of 11 taut tracks, the highlights come thick and fast.

It showcases U2 at their most mature and assured, playing songs of passion and purpose, shot through and enlivened with a piercing bolt of desperation.

It's a fine album--and well done the conciliatory middle son for bringing the family together. Well, musically, at least.

Five of the 12 songs have been previously released in various versions over the years. Collected together with seven previously unheard songs, the effect is to compound the sadness at their core. There a couple of pleasantly throwaway druggy jams to lighten the mood, including the title song and the amusing We Don’t Smoke It. ... I have little doubt it would have been acclaimed in 1975, but it rings just as sweet and true in 2020. Heartbreak never gets old.

Young offers up rough and ready songs about the state of the environment, slightly mollified by dreamy ballads for his third wife, Daryl Hannah (the Splash star is characterised as “a mermaid in the Milky Way”), sung in a tender, trembling falsetto.

Still Woman Enough makes it clear that she is still up for a lively session.

There was a time when Morrison created elaborate, adventurous arrangements, but for decades now he has fallen back on standard tropes of rhythm and blues, accompanied by virtuoso musicians trading tasteful licks. Yet Morrison can still clamber inside a song and punch through, as if battling for emotional release, until that gorgeously modulated voice soars somewhere unexpected.

Self Made Man is a further confirmation that these are women of substance.

Will loyal Snarky Puppy fans be disappointed? Not likely. They’ll be delighted by the band’s continued scale and grandeur; for its music that is as unclassifiable as it is virtuosic.

Individual songs don’t matter quite so much as the overriding mood. Compared with the brash appeal of Uptown Funk, I’m not sure you could really describe these as bangers. They are more like Catherine wheels spitting flames into the night before burning out. And all the lovelier for it.

The resulting guitar pop sound is more professional and commercial than the Alabama duo's formerly more playful style, but thanks to a wealth of well-written songs, fans of old and new should be equally entertained.

Don’t go into this record expecting grand revelations or the sort of ferocious rock swagger that characterises the work of other artists who have worked with Rubin in the past; its softness is wholly responsible for its charm.

Anyone expecting a stroboscopic hoedown may be disappointed, but if it’s great performances of great songs you’re after, then fill your boots.

A gorgeous noirish set of cinematic songs with a bittersweet emotional core.

This is Måneskin’s big strength. The songs on RUSH! may not be particularly original, reading heavily from a well-thumbed big-riffs-and-god-times playbook, but they write a very good one, and play them with an energy that frequently boils over with exuberance.

He seems to have found a new and more sincere voice, less bullish than we have heard him before, whilst using a fantastic roster of contributors to push the mood and narrative.

Record’s producer Ewan Pearson pushes her back, fruitfully, into an electronic setting. This creates quite a retro, Eighties sound, linear and stratified, with pulsing bass synths and tidy drum machine patterns. But it lends Thorn’s wry, sharp lyrics a welcome sparkle.

Kehalni’s lubricious vocals and tender slow jams are not for the faint-hearted, but there is a real core of emotional truth burning through these X-rated grooves.

In a mood of nostalgia, Albarn is looking back at his life as it unspools over some of his most subtle, beautiful and melancholy melodies, rendered in a slightly hung-over, low-fi tone, occasionally pepped up by samples from producer Richard Russell.

Thematically tight, thought-provoking and packed with tunes, it is, once again, far in advance of most pop in 2011. What a way to go.

While it is less commercially focused, there is no discernible drop of quality on the expanded Anthology, crammed to bursting with beautifully worked songs that add different shades and angles to her essential premise of a woman working out why her love life has left her in such emotional tatters.

As an art experience, Honeymoon is gorgeous, and needs to be heard in context with her atmospheric home-made videos. But as pop music, it can fall a bit flat.

The songs are cerebrally bold but really get going when Gilmour finishes singing and launches into ambitious codas that remind us what an extraordinarily gifted guitarist he is, with impeccable touch and tone that can shift sublimely from tender melodiousness to flaming rock-outs.

This is a classy debut, from a sophisticated talent who takes things at her own sweet pace. She may not turn out to be the next big thing, but Celeste sounds like she is in it for the long haul.