It's Brand New Heavies, it's D'Angelo, it's slow mo videos of sexy ladies in satin walking through rustic swinging doors into a dimly lit room with candles and a freestanding bath, it's cadburys flake, it's a glass of pinot on a Sunday night. It's souless, advert music. I will never - never - intentionally listen to this insipid lounge music again.

Grows with age like a fine wine. Suffers when compared to Nevermind - not comparable so don't do it. Couple of fillers.

Awesome album. Problem is, you judge Elton by Elton. So some filler here by Elton's standards. Some White Album syndrome too - if you could cull 20% of the tracks it's the perfect album. 4 stars.

An album of two halves. Or to be more efficient with my language, an album of halves. Bland big-band, saved in the second half by elegant orchestral balladeering.

Overall, a consistently soulful feel, a relaxed flow, great use of samples, anthemic tunes. A few distractions with the like if Takeover and Renegade (which are good but feel a little out of place here). This gets a fourizzle.

Think I've got something of a new found understanding of metal. I also understand that most of it is shit. But will this be different? No. (sic) sounds like an amphetamine-induced rampage, and as an opener it works pretty well. Can really imagine being in the mosh in the Des Moines metalfest, and punching a stinking teenager in the mouth with this one. Decent stuff. They aren't Pantera. They aren't Napalm Death. Thankfully. A scattering of interesting stuff here and there. But mainly feel like this pushes absolutely no boundaries and offers no memorable tunes.

You can sense from this why Elvis was such a success, interpreting rock n roll, country, blues, ballads, throwing them all in the pot and cooking up a very tasty Mississippi gumbo, with only a couple of bland ingredients. Easy four.

I'm really in two minds about this album. I find some of it, like Life in the Fast Lane or Victim of Love, gets too lost up its soft rock fundament and actually sounds very 80's ZZ Top-rock. Elsewhere they seem to be actively chasing the anthem - such as Wasted Time reprise which is Disney levels of trying to be meaningful. Aside from that it is consistently excellent. Title track, the country style licks harking back to previous albums, such as New Kid or Try and Love Again.

The Spector formula for Christmas really is faultless. Is there any other Christmas album that is bearable in such a fashion? I may put the recent Dylan one up there. And Chas n Dave's cockney Christmas. But nothing else comes close. And I haven't even mentioned the incredible vocals of Ronnie Spector, Darlene Love et al - incredible. It's hammy, It's over the top, and it sounds like Christmas. Great.

Overall, this keeps growing on me. The wall of noise, amorphous schtick works for the most part, as it's backed up with catchy hooks and melodies, which admittedly take repeated listens to find. I really like several of the tunes, particularly the first track, and this is better than Dirty. Just clears the hurdle for a four.

Several certified bangers in here. Many more which are above average to great. It melds New Wave, disco, 50s rock n roll, to create a definitive late 70s post-punk album.

This album has a lot of making up to do after that album cover. The first question to Mr Cave may well be 'who hurt you?'. Such is the industrial bleakness of the music and lyrics, it could be the dystopian soundtrack to the contemporaneous Mad Max. The album is the seeds of The Seeds. But much more refinement was to take place after this. Few Seeds-worthy songs such as Junkyard, 6" Gold Blade and Several Sins.

The soaring Living for the City and the towering Higher Ground, and in amongst that some fantastic album tracks (e.g. Golden Lady), culminating in the incredible He's Misstra Know-It-All. Probably my favourite Stevie album.

The production sounds great compared to many contemporaneous efforts - reverbed, Everly's-style harmonies, nicely mixed. It's the sound of the Western plains, and it is more Western than Country. Overall, I thought this a great embodiment of this tradition, interesting, excellently produced, and with some great originals, and excellent playing and harmonies.

This reminds me of introspective emos at school wearing hyper-baggy jeans with chains, who listened to bands like Coheed and Cambria and wallowed in their faux pain. Their only real pain at that time being they'd forgotten to do their homework for Further Maths and Mrs Cole was in a particularly foul mood so they were worried they'd get detention. It's bland, it's less ground-breaking than a plastic hammer, and the rapping/scratching is bad. It has 2 songs which I consider passable, one of which, In the End, is decent.

The sort of album that you look back on affectionately because the songs are associated with an 80s movie you really like. Except, here there is no movie. And the album is left floundering in the sea of forgettable could-have-been-soundtracks. Basically this needed to be a soundtrack to make it better. But While You See a Chance is superb. And there's some decent passages here and there.

On balance I think it's important, influential, innovative, and a word that begins with 'i' meaning powerful political messaging. It lacks Run DMC and NWA hooks.

For a sad day, a lonely train journey, a break-up, when you find out your newborn is ginger, this is quite the soundtrack, albeit highly formulaic. The formula features heavily reverbed guitar picking out a melody and downbeat delivery. The vocal duets work excellently. It's actually rather surprising how many of these tracks have seeped into my consciousness, without going out of my way to listen to them or ever to listen to this album. Maybe because the BBC has probably used every one of these for advertising various bleak dramas over the years, probably written by Jimmy McGovern. The album does dip as it goes on, never quite matches the opening run of 4 or 5 songs.

It's a great fusion of many style but delivered via angular rock with incredible alternative guitar. Tom Verlaine is my new favourite guitarist. And this my new favourite album. For today.

Some very nice tracks here indeed, mainly the first half of the album, after which my patience runs out a little with the lack of variety, and the surplus of introspection without catharsis or humour. It's a respectable three.

As a debut album it's impressive. No doubt the legend has helped its critical standing - but listening with critical distance I think it's a great album, full of atmosphere, emotion, great harmonies and Radiohead-influencing melodies. Self-indulgent here and there but hey, who doesn't like to indulge. I know I do.

Despite the album being languorous, indulgent, bloated, there is such a commitment to it - something completely imperious about this album. I don't think it has the warmth of Dark Side - it feels a lot more clinical. But there is an ambience to be enjoyed, and you can cast aside the pretension of a song in 9 parts. An album which conjures a mood and does it really well. And included one of the greatest tracks of all time, in the title track. It's so close, but it gets to a high four.

They're cool, they're breezy, they're VH1's dream. Nit just your typical 80s new wave rock, meld quite a few influences from jangle pop, new wave, afrobeat, blue-eyed soul. I very much enjoyed it without being blown away. The highest of threes.

They have the electronic dance rock feel of Metronomy or Foals, and when done well I like this genre. Wild Beasts also add a lot of slower ambience to their tracks, sort of Eno meets Metronomy. It adds another element to this band which means they are not just another post-Britpop outfit with decent tunes (a la Courteeners or some such). An interesting album with some decent tunes.

Rarely do the songs let that great voice fly - instead it's replaced with a sort of club singer inflection and hackneyed big band parping. Even the ballad here 'We'll Be Together Again', seems very pedestrian by comparison to something like 'I Get Along Without You Very Well' from Wee Small Hours. And the recording on Small Hours was excellent - Frank was singing next to your ear - this often feels a bit lost in the big band mêlée.

They were very exciting back in the mid 90s I recall. Maybe their direct punk-pop was a breath of fresh air to the death note of prog-rock-derived 90s grunge and introspective whinge-rock. This generally feels more joyful. But they strike me as a singles band, not sure they've released a solid album, if they have I haven't heard it yet. There are some bangers here, it's balanced out by the Busted and McFly influencing cheap power pop. Mid-three.

The album is nothing short of a soft-rock masterpiece. It doesn't have any of the raw emotion of Lennon or Harrison's early efforts; it's altogether more polished Macca - it's the nicest cup of cocoa you've ever had, and sometimes you get a surprise marshmallow. As demonstrated by the unapologetically saccharine Bluebird or the non-offensive Mamunia. Then you get Vandebilt, title track, Let Me Roll It, Jet and one of Macca's mightiest tracks in Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five; finishing (after a fantastic synth + jazz clarinet crescendo) with that great 'Hard Day's Night'-type chord en route to a Band on the Run reprise. It feels like a winding and expansive album, yet all comes in at 40 minutes. One of the few albums that feels longer than it actually is (there is so much packed in), but you don't want it to end. And a handful of out and out bangers. Top marks.

An album that feels two-thousand light years ahead of anything they did before. Aside from a reasonably successful foray into disco, this is what they do best. As the first album in the classic run, there is still a lot of looseness, swampiness, less polish here, which only works to make the album sound more authentic. The fact they are finding their classic sound here is titillating. Keef's guitar work, focusing mainly on acoustic with no/little drumming, is superb. He's found his open G tuning. This is classic Stones kicking off proper. Throw in two epic bangers, Sympathy and Streetfighting, and you got yourself a five.

With a roll call of The Eagles, Jim Keltner etc, and a knack for a humorous narrative this could be fantastic - but in retrospect he really is quite the one-trick pony. The slower numbers work best. A high two.

It's Brand New Heavies, it's D'Angelo, it's slow mo videos of sexy ladies in satin walking through rustic swinging doors into a dimly lit room with candles and a freestanding bath, it's cadburys flake, it's a glass of pinot on a Sunday night. It's souless, advert music. I will never - never - intentionally listen to this insipid lounge music again.

Meat and potatoes blues rock. Formulaic bar-rock. But it's compact and doesn't outstay it's welcome. It's real downfall is that last two tracks which are dull and go nowhere. A great shame for an album that is hitherto wall-to-wall groove, very lean, and enjoyable. I much prefer it to Eliminator but it still doesn't get a four - a very strong and respectable high three.

I've listened to this a few times and I'm not sure how good it is. He is a tragic figure really, and I know his view have been less than wholesome but, benefit of the doubt, he'd forgotten to take his meds. He did help move rap on from the ostensible inexorable bling movement, and probably paved the way for the likes of Kendrick Lamar. For that, and for some good tunes in here it's a three.

I can understand that right place, right time, they were exciting back in the day; but hardly pioneering over what the Stooges or Bowie or Bolan was doing - and everything they've done has been superseded and done many times better. They remind me more of Kiss than a glam or punk I outfit I like. Are a couple of great songs though, Personality Crisis, Trash, Frankenstein, Private World. Makes it to a three, just about.

Both the desolation and the uplifting beauty of the Icelandic landscape. There are points in Mouth Mantra where the enveloping strings (with all the foreboding of Prokofiev) and scattered beats make you feel like your swooping over it. Stonemilker is the most glorious and sorrowful song I have heard in many a year. I like that the album makes use of the viola organista, constructed to Da Vinci's design. That's rather fitting, given the album has all the enigma and chiaroscuro of one of the great man's paintings. All this beautiful music she's made, and she'll still be remembered for slapping that Thai reporter in the gob after a long plane journey. But, albums like this are rare indeed. It's immersive, challenging, painful, beautiful. One of those albums you can constantly relisten to and get something new each time. I think I've pseud's cornered my way into a five.

Goldrush, Harvest, One the Beach, Tonight's the Night. What a run; and in the words of the now disgraced portly pervert Andy Gray: "He had no right to do that. Take a boo son!". The real heart of the album are the triptych of lonely-man-on-the-road folk numbers. 'See the Sky' one of those effortless, bittersweet songs that can get you in the feels, especially the whole feeling of the lap steel and 'rolling down the track again'. Motion Pictures not far behind, again effortlessly melancholy. Finishing with the epic, Bert Jansch inspired fingerpicking of Ambulance Blues, one of his epics, packed with perfect lines (the riverboat was rocking in the rain), great fingerpicking and not a care for fret buzz. The perfect follow up to Harvest. Avoiding any doubt he could be pigeonholed.

On the face of it, a debut album of British reggae, by a few 20 year olds, recorded on rudimentary equipment in an amateur's flat in Birmingham, with 80s social commentary, should _not_ work. But nor should ackee and codfish, but by Jah it does. The UB40 I know is a bit of a light, commercial cover band, with hyper 80s production. It's good to discover they cut their teeth on a genuine album of originals, with some incisive social satire and authentic dub (a few throwaway tracks notwithstanding). Excellent.

Against some odds, I ended up enjoying this, on account no doubt of the stripped back arrangements of the majority of the tracks. A gospel feel pervades, and scathing or humorous lyrics take things up another notch. There is still some of the Broadway schmaltzy arrangements, but this just tips to a four for some superb tracks, not least the title track.

Neil Young at the absolute peak of his acoustic country-folk period (he'd have many more peaks) where he couldn't write a bad song, except maybe There's a World. It's ingrained in my psyche; it reminds me of a fond period in life. What else do you want from an album?

I found this to be a reasonably enjoyable jazz album, and eminently more enjoyable than the other big band albums we've had hitherto, such as Count Basie. I also like that the audience gets more vocal as it goes along, responding to the band's sporadic ejaculations. It's a very good live performance. I don't know what, if any, boundaries are being pushed, except for that clarinet player's temporal veins at the end of Diminuendo when it sounds like he's gonna pop a lobe. It suffers from the fact I've discovered Kind of Blue which, I think I'm beginning to understand, is a very different jazz to this - but nevertheless that is so good, that this pales a bit in comparison. In saying that, Duke was a massive inspiration to Miles Davis, and there are nuances in this performance which provide a hell of a lot more than vanilla big band swing. So overall I think it is in the three range and maybe pushing a high three.

A lot of the album, puts me in mind of Bond. As well as the lush strings, and reverbed vocals, there are dramatic semitone movements everywhere. 'Lovely Head' in particular is a zombie-cowboy apocalyptic track of excellence. After a good opening run the pace slows down to a drag, with the painful Deer Stop, a third-rate Portishead rip off. Then a couple that go a bit too cabaret for my liking. The second half highlight is undoubtedly Utopia. Absolutely spellbinding mash up of 50s pop, Barry orchestral manoeuvres, Lynchian bleakness, and indie rock. On balance a high three. ⭐⭐⭐

Classic country soul pop Spector sound. Knowingly schmaltzy ballads. Some throwaway or overly derivative, some lost classics (Only You Know). Very difficult to rate - but I'm going high three.

American Girl has basically set the blueprint for every Strokes song, 25 years before the Strokes wrote a song; as well as the intro being lifted wholesale for Last Nite. It's probably the only real classic here. But punchable face on the cover aside, this album has the hallmarks of everything I like: compact, polished garage-rock, still a rawness, catchy melodies, no guitar wankery. It is very naive but charming. It has a few throwaways (Fooled Again, Anything That's Rock n Roll) Hmmm. Scrapes a 4 for it's ramshackle charm, naïveté, and lack of pretension, alongside a handful of good tracks.

The album could feasibly be a collection of unreleased home demos. But somehow - through the strength of the melodies, and a lovely dose of humour and eccentricity - it has the charm of something like the Beatles Anthologies. The homemade solitary feel is like Bert's Jansch first album. Dare I say even early Dylan, albeit Devendra's lyrics area more early Bolan than Dylan. And Devendra Banhart is pretty much a carbon-copy of Tyrannosaurus Rex-era Marc Bolan. Warbling vocals against a folky backdrop of abstract and pastoral lyrics. And yet the man protests he had never heard early Bolan before recording! Lots of charm, it continues to grow on me with every listen.

I have a liking for the dystopian feel of Depeche Mode's dark-brand of 80s electronica, without being a fully-fledged fan. Behind the Wheel - it's the Crystal Maze! I actually can't listen to this without hearing "start the fans please!" and thinking of over-excited contestants running in shell suits to the Aztec Zone. This one in particular feels like a warm up for Enjoy the Silence. It's a very solid album, and the first half evocatively foreboding with catchy melodies. 'Things You Said' is superb. That is some Smiths level of greatness. But the second half tails off into little of note. It can smell a four. But I think it remains a strong three.

Every song is peppered with great riffs and licks. The songs are forever moving into different catchy phrases, vocal and musical, punk, funk, disco, new-wave. And the tempo is pumping throughout. Eno was fresh out of Low - there is none of that Berlin-brooding here, but he gives it a driving consistency. Perversely, the single 'Take Me to the River' is the weak spot for me, and doesn't replace the majesty of Al Green's version with anything much interesting. But this album is easily a five so can afford a small trip up. Superb.

Overall, I do find the hard-rock tropes are mitigated by some really soulful guitar playing and effective riffs, which elevate this above the likes of the one-trick ponies Motorhead, or the soft-rock of Iron Maiden and co. 'Maybe I'm a Leo' a good example - dull power-chords but into a pretty solid Cream-type blues rock riff. And so it is with 'Pictures of Home' and 'Never Before'. The 'Smoke' riff is a classic for any guitarist - mainly because it's easy to play. It feels stately in its slower tempo. The song doesn't get lost to tiresome ubiquity - the narrative about the Montreux casino burning down, alongside the vivid lyrical imagery and cool band references, is involving and evocative. Rightly a classic. I thought it a very solid album with some nice touches.

I don't like the overt Beatles/60s pastiches e.g. '...And in Every Home' with its use of smugly gleeful horns, straight out of the era of dated Sgt Pepper psychedelia. It reminds me a bit of Macca's string-laden reworking of Beatles classics, in his pompous vanity project, 'Give My Regards to Broad Street'. there's rarely a bad melody to be found here. The meandering 'Man Out of Time' is one of the standouts. 'Pidgin English' is immediately catchy, although almost sunk by more horns and Bee Gees impressions. 'You Little Fool' another decent pop number with the quick chord progressions heard in Pidgin English, Little Savage (and previously used so well in Oliver's Army). I particularly enjoyed the lounge-pop numbers - 'The Long Honeymoon', 'Boy With a Problem', 'Kid About It' and 'Almost Blue', despite the latter's similarity to the superior 'Shipbuilding'. There are others (Human Hands, The Loved Ones) which are ok but feel like a product of the Costello sausage machine. It's a 3/4 borderline case, because it's interesting I'll tip it.

The album soon gets into its rhythm with the mammoth sound of 'It's Tricky'. A rap-rock tour de force. And all the rap/rock fusion numbers yield glorious results (Walk This Way, It's Tricky, Raising Hell). Without detracting from its historic importance, outside of the rap-rock, it can sound dated. The minimalist beats with the early rap-style offers little light and shade, and doesn't feel like it's moved on too much from Grandmaster Flash. However, it remains pretty entertaining and doesn't take itself too seriously. Like the Beasties, Run-DMC has a consistent style, theme, it's entertaining, and the rap rock is great.

Plenty of the album feels anodyne at best, and soulless at worst, due to The Emperors New Clothes of the Edge's droning guitar sound and Bono's breathily sanctimonious vocals. On the flip side, and it is quite a flip side - there aren't any bad songs here, aside from 'Tryin' to Throw Your Arms' which is appallingly lacklustre and throwaway album fodder. Basically there's some cracking songs but often the production is devoid of life. And the album is too long. It could do with shaving a fair bit off (like your Mum's bush). On account of 'One' and 'Mysterious Ways' alone, it rates high three.

A quarter of it is a like an ominous oratorio, evoking murders in dark medieval cathedrals. Could only be constructed by a genius. The rest sounds like Yoko Ono taking a shit.

It did grow on me after four or five listens. He's clearly a good songwriter and retains a great pop sensibility through all the country clichés about leaving this one horse town and hard drinking pappy on the farm, since Billy died at the factory, goin via the gas station down the interstate in the Chevy 67, hear the rubber on the blacktop, past that truck stop to get a beer and play ball and get a gal and Grandmammy's crying cos most people live and die here and the bank's fucked us over, but you could get that ol Greyhound outta town, one day it's gonna be fine, and you don't need to end up like your Daddy, yeah one day it'll be fine. One day. And on balance that's a three.