The great joy of this late period album is that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Lifetime Achievement is not so much a last will and testament as a bravura insistence on Wainwright’s intention to carry on living and loving for as long as he can.

Divine Symmetry shows that this metamorphosis didn’t happen without a good deal of huffing and puffing. Therein lies its intrigue, as the groundwork is revealed. ... It’s a fascinating journey.

King of a Land is unlikely to bring in legions of new fans – Yusuf’s Pyramid appearance will hopefully do that. But it’s a lushly beautiful album from one of pop’s master songwriters. Indeed, the medium is perfect – it’s just the message that is a little monothematic.

It’s not all perfect: every so often, the tracks swing from sounding like impossibly cool, experimental rock to, er, Coldplay. Overall, however, this is guitar music at its most thrilling.

It is the sound of an old rocker at full steam ahead, determined to keep on rolling for as long as he can.

There is a maturity and conviction to this album that makes it a step up.

In moments, it becomes too saccharine, particularly with the tooth-achingly twee track Darling. But .... When he then takes aim at rappers who fake their street credibility despite enjoying middle-class childhoods (probably a diss towards Drake), you’re reminded that there are few major label emcees still capable of such honesty.

This is an album that underlines the greatness of Dark Side, rather than challenges it.

Whatever philosophical conundrums are addressed, the gorgeously staggered harmonies on the chorus of Dares My Heart Be Free offer profound answers in the music itself, a tangible spirit of human connection that warms the cockles of Skellig’s querulous heart.

There is a tangible sense of joy in performance, although with no greater clarity of lyrical expression. ... His own work remains wilfully obscurantist, emotionally open and lyrically closed, as deep and meaningless as listeners are prepared to let it become.

Goulding’s spectacularly tremulous vibrato, raw mid-range and fluttery high notes imprint unique character on everything she sings. It’s a voice that can make even her “least personal” record sound very personal indeed.

Hurry Up Tomorrow is certainly a bold way to drop the curtain on a phenomenal career, a luscious pop epic about how awful modern fame really is.

It is an album bursting with epigrammatic phrases, ridiculous rhymes, huge melodies and provocative opinions. The sound is brash and arresting.

Sturgill Simpson has recorded an interesting album about the lure of home. Musically, it's a bold step away from the excellent Metamodern Sounds in Country Music (there's more soul and brass in A Sailor's Guide to Earth) but the songwriting remains strong and beguiling.

Brimming with both spiritual depth and astonishing musical dexterity, Shook feels contemporary and important, reflecting America’s present-day diversity and letting the disenfranchised speak.

The Texas-raised Malone proves genuinely good at this stuff, with a sharp lyrical wit and sweet singing voice that rises to heights of soulful passion when needs be, notably on the disco flecked What Don’t Belong to Me and twisty alt-folk of Nosedive (the latter with Lainey Wilson).

Here, leading lights of electronic music remix King Midas Sound's underrated debut album to striking effect.

You and I lacks the depths and textures of Grace--the intoxicating communion with other musicians, the wild strangeness of his own nascent songwriting and the assuredness that came with locating his place in music. Yet, even without all that, Buckley’s raw talent alone remains an astonishing thing.

While Caustic Love is clearly the work of a maturing singer-songwriter (shedding jaunty charm for depth and ambition), it finds the 27-year-old still skittering around in search of an artistic identity.

Rather than pivoting to rockstar to play the part, Cyrus is shedding some previous layers of industry artifice to speak to a genre that has always unleashed her voice from any electropop or hip-hop audience-baiting cage. Not only that, the arena of rock enables Cyrus to indulge controversy in provocative stage performances that needn't alert the cultural appropriation police.

It's real music for grown-ups.

His weary regrets are cradled in a simple, swaying hammock of piano, violin and mournful horns. ... It’s a miserabilist masterpiece.

Tension is Minogue’s 16th album, and certainly ranks among her best.

Chromatica offers Gaga at her most energetic and forceful, and that is something to behold.

Premonition is a finely wrought, searing career-coda, determined to take a sledgehammer to the cliché that growing older must result in complacency.

As a 40-minute listening experience, it’s equal parts eccentric and impassioned, thought-provoking and out-there – if not exactly fun, given the mental-health issues, then certainly liberating, nourishing and thoroughly memorable.

Pink Elephant doesn’t have quite the same swagger as earlier albums. It is almost too personal, like listening to a preacher begging for forgiveness from his flock. Yet the sheer power of Arcade Fire in full flight should be enough to restore any sinner’s faith in rock and roll.

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.