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As expected, Simon toys with various global styles and genres to produce an utterly intriguing album. Its not light or fluffy like some of his earlier pop works were, instead, this is a deeply thoughtful and introspective venture, engineered to be a challenging voyage of discovery. That said, its far from flawless and you cant help but feel that artistic merit has, on a few tracks, dampened the overall listening pleasure just a bit.
Top Tracks: The Werewolf, Stranger To Stranger, The Riverbank

Beneath the guise of a dark and ominous sound, filled with lyrics of despair, dread and flashes of witty sentiment, lingers an album of beautiful, spirited songs. Strong themes revolve around loss, disillusion and the trials of modern city living besieged with finding hope in the depression and substance abuse. If this album were a trainwreck, it would be a beautiful one, but its not. Its solid and wonderfully written, with bittersweet tones and honest reflection. All that keeps this from being one of the years stand-out albums is one or two more really gripping songs. Nonetheless, its solid from start to finish.
Top Tracks: Death Dream, An Otherwise Disappointing Life, Lump Street

One of rocks most consistent performers with another stunningly crafted album of deep angst and powerful anger. Their brooding style has become second nature to any Deftones album and they somehow manage to deliver each and every time. Even in its more subdued moments, there is an underlying aggression to Gore and a desire to communicate beyond the rigidity of modern existence, tearing through lifes common shapes. It may be Gore, but its a beautiful thing.
Top Tracks: Prayers/Triangles, Hearts/Wires,Phantom Bride

If there has been a better album released this year, I've not heard it. As much as there is uniquely Radiohead-esque material, they also never fail to explore new territory. At times its sheer beauty and at others there is a an intentional unease and confrontation. Some of the lyrics get blurred by the bands insistence on treating Yorkes voice as just another instrument, but it certainly doesn't lack in layers upon layers of lyrical depth either. They've utterly perfected the art of taking awkward, disjointed, disaffected and jarring music and turning it into an infinitely stunning mesh of classical and electronic-rock.

Singling out individual tracks is a thankless task with Radiohead.
Top Tracks: Burn The Witch, Decks Dark, The Numbers, True Love Waits

Bearing in mind that this is a debut... its fan-fucking-tastic. Glam rock with a perfect balance of bravado, yearning, sexuality and downright ass-kickery. There are moments where it becomes a little too playful or even silly, but they're scarce, and they're completely offset by the sheer brilliance of the rest of the album. Its closer to The Darkness than to Queen, but there are flashes of Freddie on here. Im pretty sure Everybody Wants to hear whats next, cos if they can deliver something even better next time, it'll be album-of-the-year worthy.
Top Tracks: Roll Up, Could Have Been Me, You & I

There are moments when the vocals are absorbing, times when the music is scintillating, it just doesn't always happen at the same time... In the deeper, more tense and pensive moments, Ian Astbury's voice can be haunting and powerful, but with the exception of 'Dark Energy' it seems all too often that the more frantic the music, the worse the delivery. Make no mistake however, there are several thunderous and wonderful tracks on this album.
My Top Tracks: Dark Energy, No Love Lost, Deeply Ordered Chaos

The first somewhat coherent vision of Bowie's future exploits are on display here. Obviously, the stellar Space Oddity, but a number of other interesting, tracks are littered throughout. Some hit, some miss, but Bowie announces himself as a serious talent.
Top Tracks: Space Oddity, Janine, Memory of a Free Festival

Beautifully ambient and dreamy. Soaring psychadelic rock imbued with subtle nuggets of listening joy. But its more than just 'spaced out', there is a definite edge, and uneasiness that makes it all the more fascinating. Here Be Monsters... and they're having an epic jam
Top Tracks: Lacuna+Sunrise, I.M.S., Big Black Dog

With the release and antics surrounding the release of 'Formation' I was expecting a far more politicized album, instead what we've been given is one long revenge-track with brief cursory nods to her political beliefs at the end... Nine songs in and all I've really heard is a lot of whining about jealousy and infidelity and a whole lot of effort being made to sound like Rihanna (to the point of virtually mimicking her on 'Hold Up') and that apparently her dad is a bit of a douchebag ("When trouble comes to town, and men like me come around"). Musically, thankfully, its a lot more diverse than previous albums, which makes for more interesting listening. At one point Beyonce asks "Tell me, what did I do wrong?"... to be honest, if this hell-bent revenge album doesn't answer that question, nothing will. Also, Lemonade... was there a high-school competition to come up with album titles?
Top Tracks: Dont Hurt Yourself, 6-Inch, Freedom

Scattershot, but not without its appeal. There are genuine highlights on Anti and some of the most intriguing, honest lines Ri-ri has ever delivered, however, its tempered by the over-reliance on sexuality, most of which feels forced and one or two that are just complete drivel. It doesn't help with juvenile lines like "If you had a twin, I would still choose you".

Pop/RnB has exhausted the well of cheesy love songs, so much like hip-hop it seems that the unfortunate next step is to be as sexually explicit as radio will allow... its a sorry lack of originality. However, she sounds a lot more honest than anything Beyonce or Kanye has done, so that scores extra points for me.
My Top Tracks: Same Ol Mistakes, Love On The Brain, Higher