Sophie's chart positions may have dropped, but there's no dip in the quality pop on offer here.

Eliza Doolittle is an album of potential but, for the moment, that's all it is.

One crucial difference is The Pierces' music has changed from something that sounded like awkward whimsy a few years ago into something middle-aged people will like; and that's basically the key to selling loads of records these days.

It's big, it's shiny, it's unashamedly happy and we wouldn't want it any other way.

Few records will be made this year with such love and devotion, and you'll be able to tell it too. It's delicious.

She has already made pop interesting just as it was declining into irrelevance; now it's time for her to make it great again.

Certainly, it's by far the best album of his career to date--proof that going it alone was a decision that most certainly paid off.

Aficionados may balk at an actor trespassing on sacred ground, but even they'd have to admit, that for a white, middle-class Englishman, Hugh Laurie plays a surprisingly convincing bluesman.

Overall, Smother is brilliant, and a record by a band with a big brain, a generous heart, hungry ears and a permanent erection.

No doubt Helplessness Blues will win Pecknold further fame and success, whether he likes it or not.

An average album over produced, Love? has Lopez throwing everything she's got at relaunching her pop career and coming up shorter than anyone could ever have thought possible.

To anyone who's felt like they've been along to share even a little bit of that journey, it's an album-of-the-year contender that's bound to do nothing but delight.

If you can manage to put such quibbles aside--and it will be a struggle--Light After Dark has some redeeming features.

Jennifer Hudson would do well in stepping outside her comfort zone.

Worst of all, it turns out that commercially-minded dubstep is--perhaps inevitably--a much weaker prospect than its club counterpart.

It's certainly not Joy Division, but there's a bittersweet, melancholy and intelligent edge here that's worth investigating.

Though there are still moments of eyeball rolling twee, the darker undertones are enough to more than keep us interested.

If this is what we get - because this is what enough of us apparently want - the end of the music business cannot come soon enough.

Like on James Blake's album, every swoon is accentuated with the help of a computer and at times just sounds like someone crying and using Auto-Tune at the same time.

No, it isn't as good as that, but getting anywhere close is proof that Damon Albarn remains a musical alchemist, turning what could easily have been crude and leaden into something that often gleams like gold.

Nine Types Of Light is an album that manages to blend experimentation with a welcoming accessibility that proves pop music can still be bold this far down the line.

Recent devotees may be left wondering why there's nothing for them to sing-along to.

Could 'Blood Pressure' restore The Kills fortunes to their early glory days? It would seem that Hince's luck might be running out.

Far from a behind-the-scenes veil-lifting, though, 'Doggumentary' largely ensures that the worst preconceptions of self-indulgent hip-hop remain in place.

Neither a triumph nor a calamity, EUPHORIC HEARTBREAK delivers just enough to make you believe Glasvegas may still have that perfect album in them some day.

Who You Are doesn't entirely deliver, but even when its songs fall short of the promised hype, their potential is obvious.

More vintage sound than classic album, All You Need Is Now won't revive any careers, theirs or Ronson's.

Femme Fatale is also unevenly paced, overlong (16 tracks in its deluxe version) and burdened with filler like the generic 'I Wanna Go', which tries to find a shortcut to the dancefloor but gets lost en route. But the weaker material is outweighed by the fantastic, from the slamming, techno-tinged 'Trouble For Me' to the glorious bubblegum house of 'Up N' Down'.

The album, taken as a whole, is remarkably disjointed, because eight of the 13 songs on it have been written with the intention of dominating a different corner of music land.

These songs don't sound anxious, or troubled, just lacklustre.

Despite the overarching feel of having a bit of the early MGMT's about them (which, to be fair, is hardly a bad thing), there's enough variety within the New Zealanders' debut to prove they're more than just a one-trick, party-starting pony.

While Lasers isn't the equal of its superb predecessors, there's still much here to admire; even though the fact that there isn't quite as much to love is no real surprise.

This is not the work of a band prepared to make a song and dance to keep everyone interested, but one happy to build something good from not a lot and hope you like it.

Far from Noah & The Whale lagging behind their popular folk peers, with Last Night On Earth the band are finally punching above their weight to create a sound that's altogether new and wholly theirs.

Collapse Into Now isn't a bad album but crucially it isn't a classic.

An effective, but ultimately generic, pop album.

Broken hearts litter pop music of course, but the way this 24-year-old almost welcomes desolation into her life is nothing if not fascinating.

Reflecting their influences without becoming burdened under them, their self-titled debut is an impressively varied beast.

Amongst the glam rockers and the tender janglers, it seems that Beady Eye have simply written a Supergrass album. Let's see if Noel has an answer for that.

The album's predominant mood is not glumness, it is togetherness, and it invokes images of storytelling, late nights, campfires, whiskey and beards. The stuff of men with things on their minds.

The truth is, however much or little you enjoy them, Radiohead are one of the few mainstream bands who try not to retrace their steps.

This is an album that's far from complacent and what's most in evidence throughout is they're seeking to challenge themselves as much as their audience.

Computers & Blues doesn't match up to The Streets' visionary early promise, and there are a few songs which sound sketchy and half-hearted. But when it works, it's a reminder of what a tender, articulate and original voice Skinner has been in British pop, and how sorely he will be missed.

Perhaps it's no surprise that eighth album Let England Shake is the first for which Harvey does not appear on the sleeve.

It would be interesting to see Chase & Status explore this extra dimension further, but--for now--this is a thrilling case of cum on feel the noize.

Written, arranged, performed and recorded by Blake in his bedroom, the album isn't just a good collection of touching songs, it's a complete world of his own; a mood, a moment, a sound that's uniquely his. Just as a future classic should be.

It's mixed-up, mashed-up and flagrantly, unapologetically odd. It's everything we want The Go! Team to be. But with added extras.

Crucially though, what Diddy lacks in eloquence he makes up for in pop sensibility, which here keeps edgier elements the right side of radio friendly.

If Adele's debut '19' marked her out as a young chanteuse with a booming voice, her follow-up '21' has shown a maturity in her songwriting that makes her the de facto authority when it comes to soundtracks to broken hearts.

Aside from the odd pervy foray however, Doo-Wops & Hooligans is a fairly impressive pop record; packed full of guaranteed arena fillers, it's an album that's literally born to be big.

There are moments where the mini-pops Joy Division approach hits paydirt, notably on the relentless, single-minded surge of the single, 'Bigger Than Us'. But mostly the trio are at their best when they wriggle free from the colossal shadows they're hiding under.

The mixed messages are infuriating, and the complete lack of soul or identity perplexing.

Daft Punk have done their homework, and there's enough here to suggest that, with a bit of debugging, they'll have no problem hitting all the right buttons next time.

Unforgivably bad.

The rest is a lacklustre recast of her debut that displays about as much personality as Duffy's sweetly banal interviews, all of which suggests her production team are a weakened bunch. Like we said, a remarkable return.

Despite some great tunes, his high-pitched, duck-on-helium vocals start wearing thin, becoming the detraction, rather than the attraction, of this album. Had it been 15 minutes shorter, The Lady Killer could have been this year's top pop album.

Epic, exciting, strange and unexpected, it's exactly what pop needed, but surely not quite what Gary Barlow had in mind.

Winner Stays On proves that crossing over needn't be a terrible business.

Living up to expectations is tough, especially ones as high as those that have been hovering over Minaj throughout 2010. But it's hard to see who actually wanted to hear a record like this, stripped of curiosities and bombast, that leaves the biggest talent in hip hop with more to prove than ever.

If his family and creditors truly cared about Michael Jackson's legacy, they would now let it and him rest in peace. And chimps will fly...

There are a couple of songs so overfamiliar that Boyle can do little to revitalise them, including a predictable trudge through 'Auld Lang Syne' and the saccharine overdose of 'Away In A Manger', but Boyle herself once again emerges from trashy circumstances with class intact.

Kanye's ...Dark Twisted Fantasy is also the densely-produced work of a clearly erratic soul.

So far so daft but what prevents Gerard Way and co from descending into the po-faced seriousness that blighted Green Day and their preposterous "21st Century Breakdown" album is a sense of fun that has eluded the SoCal punks in their latter years.

After coming out fighting last time round off the back of a messy, violent break-up with ex-boyfriend Chris Brown, it's nice to hear Rihanna getting back to something approaching normality on Loud.

He may not possess the eloquence or understated flair of a (Neil) Hannon or a (Richard) Hawley, a fact highlighted as the cheesy horn arrangement of 'Run With The Boys' sends things all a bit too Phil Collins, but most songs here play host to a charming menagerie of ideas and perhaps prove that the band dynamic he's lusted after to this point was the one thing holding him back.

Swift's thoughtful honesty and surprisingly articulate take on life should be commended.

It's not just that these sentiments are timeless - these songs, in these hands, are only now receiving their definitive interpretations.

It's all a show with Kings Of Leon, and there's nothing they yearn for more than the chance to exercise their sexual prowess.

Playful yet touching at (almost) every turn, Write About Love may not shake any musical foundations but it certainly proves that Belle and Sebastian still can't be pigeon-holed.

While never as life-changing as these memories clearly were, Hurricane succeeds in its sheer force of conviction.

The Defamation Of Strickland Banks is an unlikely, remarkably successful stab at launching the first major new male star of the decade.

He, like Ashcroft before RPA & The United Nations Of Sound, has absolutely no idea how rubbish he's capable of being. Take note Liam, and be careful.

You certainly don't reject it outright though, not immediately, as almost every song at least knows the function of a chorus and everything has a glittery and palatable radiance, but such anodyne, airbrushed electro-pop leaves you searching for the magic ingredients.

With such brilliantly explicit expositions of death, loneliness and faith in his words, there's more than enough here to soften the blow about that other thing he was supposed to do.

This is Gold Panda's own record, an album of proper emotional heft that'll be enjoyed with a box of tissues, during tingling comedowns and on more discerning dancefloors.

Where she was once a gutsy folk-pop mature-student, tailor-made for the modern-day Radio 2, she now has the power and arrangements to begin approximating the diva she tried to sell us when collecting Brit Awards for her debut album mid-decade, punching the air for women in pop and attempting to align herself with Kate Bush.

Evidently it's his source material that defines him, and this time it's disappointingly weak.

With so much of the joyous, uplifting and just plain life-affirming Motown back catalogue freely available (not to mention the any number of soul all-nighters dotted across the country), Going Back is a redundant exercise into one man's nostalgia.

It's hard to imagine how Hands All Over could have been any more underwhelming. In truth the only exceptional thing about it is just how average it is.

The Welsh agit-poppers' tenth album isn't terrible--certainly not as listless or confused as Lifeblood--but it does sound lazy, lyrically and sonically.

Like the three Killers albums, Flamingo is patchy, the sound of a vivid talent not living up to its initial promise.

Hurley's feet are firmly rooted in the present but this collection is, without doubt, the closest the band have come to recapturing their glory days.

Almost everything here boils down to Cave's perennial concerns of sex and violence, rather than any Dark Lord of rock'n'roll stuff, coming loaded with lines to make even the most grave-faced goth chortle into their gruel.

The suspicion lingers that Band Of Joy will be remembered more fondly than its wonderful predecessor.

Instead of ending tensely and dramatically they are the final whimper and sigh of an album named after a band that have lost their way and aren't sure which direction they should be heading.

Lady Gaga apart, the most interesting stars in 2010 are women in their 30s and beyond, artists with phosphorescent personalities that might burn the fingers of anyone wishing to mould them. Singers like Alison Goldfrapp, Grace Jones and Robyn Miriam Carlsson.

There's none of the ABBA or Cardigans influence she claimed, nor any of the fun she seems to have in real life. For now she just sounds like another of pop's Stepford Wives.

This is a relentlessly exciting album--it's just that sometimes you feel it would be more rewarding to turn off the boosters, slow to a float, and take in the view with awe.

It's likely to be a defining point in their career even if it's not their definitive release.

This is a contemporary collection of eclectic modern folk songs by a bold woman who has more in common with an interesting raft of contemporaries than her mentor.

Take those hats off and launch them into the air for one of the most uplifting, career-topping albums anyone could have released, regardless of age.

There is a tendency, due to the slow, quiet nature of these songs and the occasionally syrupy harmonies, for them to blend together. But look beneath the surface, to the fragile emotions that inspired these songs, and The Runaway remains a moving exercise in good old fashioned catharsis, one that exposes the sad hearts of this band more than ever before.

She might be mouthy, trendy, shallow and opinionated without having all of the facts, but MIA creates terrific pop moments.

For the most part, it sounds like the most joyous exploration of death and madness since, perhaps, "They're Coming To Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!"

Perhaps the most fascinating aspects of Flesh Tone are the songs named 'Segue 1', 'Segue 2' and so on through to 'Segue 6' which are positioned to avoid gaps between songs. They're the album's most imaginative moments, and suggest that although Kelis is refining her sound to become queen of the disco, there's still dozens of ideas waiting to announce themselves.

It's eclectic, electrifying, eccentric and more than a little bit ludicrous, but Sir Lucious's ambition is as infectious as its madness is dazzling.

A likeable fusion though it is, there's none of the innovation of the much groovier The XX, nor are there the soaring peaks and chilly troughs, bonkers FX or even the gauche emotion that propels most dance music.

Night Work, the Sisters third studio album, is both their filthiest and most musically downbeat effort to date.