The melodies are lovely, if conservative: as elegant and classically tailored as her gowns.

As a generation of UK rappers comes of age, Hus still leads the pack with his pitless charisma, linguistic inventiveness, and musical curiosity.

His smooth but expressionless voice can be a little bland for a frontman (and is always improved by Thorn’s occasional harmonies) and his carefully considered lyrics have a tidiness that sometimes verges on the prosaic. Yet the gentle mesh of flowing melody, woven instrumentation and mood of hard-earned contemplation adds up to something quite profound.

Holy Fvck sounds like a genuine attempt to deal with a troubled adulthood and leave the past behind.

World Record is classic Young: passionate, direct, ragged and beautiful.

This record is undoubtedly their strongest offering since 2006’s Meds, strengthened by the inclusion of the sort of furious social commentary that made them such heroes to countless kohl-eyeliner-wielding teenagers in the late 90s.

This is not so much pop music, as music that might make your ears pop.

Ballads like Ripples and Lovesong barely make a dent, although the bossa nova lilt of The Perfect Pair and pop beat of Tinkerbell Is Overrated fare better. Matty Healy of prominent labelmates The 1975 co-writes a couple of tracks, but his influence overwhelms the album’s delicate palette.

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.

They may have been left in the band's boot for a while, but there's nothing dead about them.

Inspired by his hometown of Torquay and musically taking a leaf from Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac, swapping his computer for the studio seems to have paid off with these brilliant, sunset funk songs.

To listen to Hold On Baby is to feel like you are really inside someone else’s world, their voice urgently delivering their most intimate feelings in your ear, transmuting them into pop gold.

This is a beautiful, beguiling, disturbing and rewarding album of love, loss, grief and recovery from one of the most intriguing singer-songwriters currently active in British music, of either gender.

Its 14 overloaded songs jostle awkwardly together in a cornucopia of conflicting impulses, shifting from beatboxing punk to beatnik poetry, ambient moodiness to sophisticated showtunes, peppered with snappy couplets and gilded with gorgeous melodies.

Four decades into their career, Soft Cell have rarely sounded more current.

The 58-year-old, who is writing his memoirs, is as busy as ever, and he's still got what it takes.

Despite having been layered and processed through Autotune, her voice conveys genuine intimacy. Cabello had a hand in the writing, and a few songs convey a charming honesty and vulnerability, perhaps a relic of the album’s original themes. But there remains a gulf between the craft of commercial pop and the artistry of confessional songwriting, and there is not much doubt about which has been prioritised on Camila.

Though consistently ground-breaking and lyrically challenging, Ritual Union never feels like hard work.

Knocking around for twenty years and now down to a duo, Cornershop are still coming up with brilliantly playful pop.

A treat.

Del Rey has sometimes been characterised as a modern day torch singer but on Lust For Life she sounds like she is finally ready to take that torch and burn down her ex’s house with it. Lust For Life lets a bit of light into the darkness of Del Rey’s moody past works, hinting at emotional recovery without drastically altering her sensuous musical palette.

On the strength of Tell Dem It’s Sunny’s liltingly exploratory grooves, a world-wide audience will surely start getting acquainted with this maverick icon-in-waiting.

There is nothing disappointing about the way he conjures art from emotional defeat. Toast deserves to be acclaimed amongst his finest works. Twenty-one years since the album was made, Young has reminded us once again why he stands tall amongst the greats of the rock era.

Some of the noisier blues are cheesy, but, in the main, this is a warm, authentic and durable record: the musical equivalent of a well-worn plaid shirt.

Metallica have made their Metallica record again.

Now he inhabits classic lines by songwriters like Johnny Mercer with weathered ease.

Hypnotically compelling.

Her soprano singing is a little derivative of Krauss's but is still sweet and clear and is surely a work in progress given her youthfulness.