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.

This ranks with the very best of Gabriel’s work, which means it is very great indeed. Peter Gabriel is a genius. i/o is a masterpiece. That is all ye need know.

Dirty Computer establishes itself as a contender for album of the year, in more ways than one. The witty, interlinked songs tackle subjects that have fuelled much of the discourse around “woke” social consciousness in the age of #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter.

It feels as bold and weird as anything in Bowie’s back catalogue, sure to delight some and infuriate others.

Happily, the words are wonderful and Something More Than Free is an album that grows and grows on you. Producer Dave Cobb is in fine action again and gets the best from the settings behind Isbell's effecting voice. Some of the songs are simply splendid.

Those same multilayered textures [in Loveless] are all here, and if anything there are more finely chiselled planes of fresh variation: there is a discipline as well as wildness behind the distortion.

It’s a detail that in outlook and delivery brings to mind the offbeat confessionals of the late Dory Previn. Mitski’s a rare talent.

The album offers a rousing, belligerently upbeat response to global crisis, albeit at the time of composition they were addressing climate change, environmental activism, the impact of austerity and rise of fascism. ... This is the sound of a group breaking out of their shell and demanding to be heard.

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.

Nutini has a voice that could transform any song, riding melodies with lazy restraint until suddenly unleashing notes that would have any throat specialist reaching for their speculum in alarm. On Last Night in the Bittersweet, he sounds like he’s having the time of his life.

[Wizkid's] finest body of work so far, showcasing a maturity and an artistic vision that cements his status as one of the most influential people in pop music today.

This irresistible album is yet more evidence that London’s musical scene might just be the liveliest in the world.

Blonde makes for sensationally beautiful background music that can morph into a bizarre hodgepodge of disparate ideas when you concentrate on bringing it into the foreground.

The joy here is in basking in the creative process, how Dylan chipped away at differing tempos, alternate arrangements and revised lyrics for each composition, ultimately to arrive at the final 11 tracks.

This is an elegant, mature work of a songwriter and performer at the height of her powers.

Like our planet, this album is a rare thing of wonder.

The brilliance of No Thank You is how Simz uses her brazenly unapologetic narrative to spin out larger points about institutional and generational racism, the danger of business practices indifferent to their human impact, and links all of that to contemporary mental health crises.

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.

Drill is a music aimed at dedicated acolytes rather than general listeners. But strip away the lyrics, and the strange mix of electro loops, nervous beats, sad melodies and sci-fi sounds is utterly compelling and contemporary, evidence of a cutting edge local music scene that continues to thrive even with venue doors barred shut.

If sensuous, whip smart R’n’B rocks your boat, Victoria Monét’s debut album, Jaguar II, is a luxurious treat.

It is an absolute blast, a crunchy, punchy, smart, deliciously goofy charge through new wave pop rock. It bursts with earworm hooks, snappy choruses and the delightful sense that the duo at its heart are having such a hoot they don’t really care what anyone else thinks.

Their return should be heralded from on high, because it is the boldest, smartest, most colourful and purely pleasurable dance album of this decade.

You feel each artist shares your yearning to hear Dalton sing each song herself. Haunted and haunting.

Yet the over-riding sense of her almost unremittingly sombre sixth album, Norman F______ Rockwell!, is of Del Rey shedding veils of production mystery at the risk of being revealed as just another over sensitive and particularly self-absorbed singer-songwriter.

There are lovely instrumental passages, lustrous strings, and it has all been crafted with love and care, but it doesn’t hit the heights we expect from a great Beatles ballad, ending up sounding like a poor imitation of genius, the kind of soft rock whimsy you’d find on thousands of second-rate Beatle influenced albums in the Seventies.

The album is peppered with playful uses of samples. It’s deeply sophisticated music – an astute melting pot of genres bound together by the latest production techniques.

While this is in one sense African music like they don't make it any more, there's nothing precious or retro about it: its energy feels entirely modern.

No tracks are particularly surprising from a production point of view, but it’s the affecting lyrics which have always been Carner’s strength. ... The newfound sharpness in Carner’s delivery has brought a much-needed grit to this album – it’s exciting.