It sounds gimmicky, but far from it: Raw Data Feel is a thought-provoking experiment that aims to reshape the dissociation and damage caused by endless scrolling into fodder for the dance floor.

At times it does sound like it is trying a bit too hard to please. But it's more pop than Pop ever was, and it certainly does the job it apparently sets out to do, delivering addictive pop rock with hooks, energy, substance and ideas that linger in the mind after you’ve heard them.

A slight tone of weariness may have crept into 1D’s lyrics with songs about break-ups and yearning for home but musically it remains anthemic, up-tempo, superior pop, with elegant song structure, ear worm hooks and radio busting choruses.

There’s real genius at work here – but it’s so effortlessly delivered, you might almost take it for granted.

All [songs on Ashes & Roses] command attention because of Chapin Carpenter's warm, weathered, unshowily authentic voice which has a kind of peace at its core.

The timeless appeal of Carnival is echoed in Keep Your Courage, which speaks volumes for the cohesive, eternal quality of Merchant's ability to weave romantic, folk-rock ballads rich with organ, brass, and tidal waves of strings all anchored to simple piano melodies.

Weird! is his most crunchy and sonically streamlined work to date, replete with catchy earworm hooks and meaty singalong choruses.

What comes forth is disarmingly honest music that indicates a newly mature era for UK rap.

Bieber’s offering is less of a mainstream crowd pleaser and all the more interesting for it, a quirky, atmospheric electro R’n’B concoction with sci-fi sounds and offbeat vocal samples that focus attention on the star’s soft, supple and seductive singing.

All 11 original songs spiral out from a strong, controlled core of patience.

Sparks, Fun., Norah Jones and Jarvis Cocker imbue pithy vignettes with their own personalities, Jack White and Jack Black play with chirpy nonsense songs and Swamp Dogg’s soulful take on America, Here’s My Boy is heartbreaking. This is certainly more than an academic exercise.

Though certain tracks like In My Head leave you wishing she’d cut through the glistening sounds and breathy choruses with some power vocals, Mahalia’s pen is sharp, and her raw take on relationships and self-development is delivered with the diva attitude of Mariah Carey and the raspy cool of Erykah Badu.

The Gift is a quixotic compilation of tracks. ... One of the things that comes across most impressively in this afro-futurist mix of hip hop and R’n’B is that it all sounds fresh and exciting but not remotely alien or intimidating.

After the wild beach party of 2007’s Volta and the shiny wonders of 2011’s Biophilia, Vulnicura is a windswept trek of a record. But one which gradually repays its difficulties with the raw exhilaration of survival.

Badass has been criticised for failing to take his retro stylings anywhere new, but he lovingly recreates the Nineties vibe with an appealing low-slung swagger and infuses it all with a thoughtful, pavement-pounding philosophy.

The album that emerges from all this is both busy to the point of overload and proof of a complex, inspirational figure in full command of his many gifts.

Her new album is a successful repetition of the formula: sweet, crisp country licks with witty twists of live-and-let-live philosophy.

Track for track, it’s the equal of anything Petty has released in a long and righteously distinguished career.

The Cutting Edge allows fans to bear witness to perhaps the most astonishing explosion of language and sound in rock history, a new approach to song being forged before our very ears.

Even the simplest songs here are studded with magic moments that shift the centre of gravity.

Despite the album’s occasionally jolting stylistic shift from darkness to light, there’s something reassuringly well-crafted about Sable, Fable. In a world of fluff and mayhem, it feels solid, needed even.

Heartfelt, spirited, lyrical, moody and mostly magnificent pop rock.

Food for Worms is all the more exciting for its contrasts in brutality and beauty. It’s challenging, consummately constructed, and thrilling throughout.

If the song strategies seem predictable and the sentiments over familiar, the album as a whole still grips my heart and squeezes. I find myself wanting to listen to it again and again, and I can’t say that about every album I review.

This is a warm, bluesy album of country-fuelled rock ’n’ roll that oozes old-timer class.

The sound on this pivotal sixth album, however, is subdued, moody, even dark at times, the instrumentation stripped back to bare essentials.

Vega’s enduringly classy knack for quirky rhythm, sleek ideas and direct-but-detached delivery shines through much of this album, though it does suffer at times from the leaden, ye olde phrasing hinted at in the title.

There is nothing particularly original or surprising here, yet in a pop market that is all interesting edges, self-enclosed scenes and leftfield genres, Ryder offers a hearty return to the reassuringly obvious, pitched straight into the mainstream. A star is born.