Channelling a melting pot of pop influences, Addison Rae manages to avoid sounding derivative on a confident, sultry debut which happily revels in its own ridiculous at points. If I was to pin down Addison's main influences, I'd say there's a hybrid of Ariana Grande and Charli XCX going on with light touches of Janet Jackson's 'janet.' era on the best song on this set, 'Headphones On'. The singles go hard. 'Diet Pepsi' is a saucy Lana Del Rey ... read more

Always happy to stand up for Robbie, but I've just realized that he hasn't really released a good album since 2002. It's the usual frustrations. You're in the middle of a Robbie song you're getting on with and a garish, ham-fisted lyric will completely ruin proceedings. I think "Wind your body to the bass line /
Forget about your waistline" from Selfish Disco on the deluxe edition takes the victory for me. On a more positive note, 'Spies' droning ... read more

I was worried my worst fears were to be realized when I was struggling with the unnecessary #Mother, f***er' refrain on the opener, especially in the context of the middling reviews. However, I really enjoyed the majority of this. I legitimately work on the 7th floor so the corporate tedium of that track was much appreciated. The bombast of 'Down Season' and 'It's Just Light' stand out on a record which feels a little cobbled together when compared with the fully ... read more

I was really shocked by how accomplished and fully formed this sounded. As this hadn't been available for like the entirety of my lifetime, I had built-up an assumption that this would be quite lo-fi and understated. It might be that the remaster job is excellent, but this sounds just as clean as the Mac mid-70s stuff. 'Frozen Love' is just spine tingling, an unfurling epic that stands up against anything else written by these two. I'm normally more of a Buckingham guy, but ... read more

Unsure on the timelines here, but wouldn't be surprised if the majority of this came out of the Short n' Sweet sessions and Sabrina's looking to capitalize on the success by releasing the backlog. Backlog is a harsh word to use for this material as there is still plenty to enjoy and the pop hooks are everywhere. Cannot quite believe we're at a point in pop music where even the most mainstream of artists are going all in on the explicitness with a song like 'Tears'. ... read more

One of those bizarre psychedelic artefacts. No complaints with the comments labelling this a Beatles pastiche. 'Red Chair Fade Away' and 'In My Own Time' (aka Taxman) are the biggest offenders and I really like them both. 'To Love Somebody' is head and shoulders above anything else. It's got to be one of the greatest ever blue-eyed soul tunes. Contrasting this is the ramshackle sound of a lot of the rest of the album. I think they could have gotten away with ... read more

Quincy rarely lets me down, but I struggled to find much to cling onto on Body Heat. There's a lot of meandering, minimalist stuff which feels half-baked and overstays its welcome. 'Soul Saga (Song of The Buffalo Soldier)' is the patient zero for this issue. The last two tracks have helped this rating significantly. There's a marvellous arrangement of 'Along Came Betty' and Minnie Riperton's sweet vocal contributions on 'If I Ever Lose This Heaven' ... read more

The debut album from this lot will likely go down as one of my favorites of the 2020s. The narratives aren't quite as strong on Moisturizer, mainly because the heavy dose of cynicism has been scaled back. Rhian Teasdale is very clearly in lurrrrveeeeee. The singles selection is absolutely on point. 'CPR' and 'catch these fists' match the quality of the debut album, and 'david mccall' is a super comforting all-out love song which somehow references the famous ... read more

Call this one Lindsey Buckingham feat. Fleetwood Mac. Lindsey’s everywhere - If he’s not taking the lead vocal, he’s providing kooky BV’s or a bit of production magic. Most of this is pretty marvellous. The singles deserve their status of pop ubiquity and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the album tracks, especially ‘Family Man’ and ‘You and I, Pt. II’. It’s a mixed bag from the female vocalists. I was particularly disappointed by ... read more

Concerned that Lorde might be a one album wonder for me. Melodrama was a life-changer and came at the perfect moment. I guess, like for most people, something changed around Solar Power. The idea that Lorde had freed herself of the millennial condition with a bit of Vitamin D and by sending a few less WhatsApps (FAR OUT MAN!) felt contrived to say the least. This was coupled with a concert I attended at London's Roundhouse where there was a lovely wooden set design accompanied by endless ... read more

Albums you weren't expecting to age well ageing well: Exhibit A. There's a genuine argument that Kelly Rowland has a better debut album than Beyoncé. Sure, there's no 'Crazy In Love', but there is 'Dilemma'?! The singles are mega, 'Stole' weaves a moralistic tale with an unexpected rock aesthetic on its chorus. 'Can't Nobody' is classic early 2000s R'n'B-dance-pop with jittery sound effects and a killer hook. Rodney ... read more

Women In Music Pt. III was a banging pandemic album, and although Haim don't quite hit those heights on 'I Quit', there's still plenty to enjoy. There's a palpable sense of anger and frustration in the air, helped by some fantastically sharp percussive elements. 'Gone' is a super opener, introducing the album's themes of escape and the prevailing sense that the protagonist has not quite recovered from whatever they're running from. Top of the ... read more

The usual pros and cons of Zappa. The experimental stuff is bursting with energy and ideas. As always, the rhythm section runs riot. The drums are probably the highlight, especially on the call and response sections of ‘The Nancy and Mary Music’. The more straightforward affairs, however, are laced with the expected adolescent humour and the garishness of the vocals doesn’t exactly help. If I was try to explain Zappa’s dichotomies I might well use this album, but ... read more

I might be completely Sparks'ed out at this point after my mammoth discography binge, but this is their weakest studio effort. At least with Interior Design I had 'Just Got Back From Heaven' to cling onto, but I'm not finding much to connect with on Mad! It's a similar story to a lot of their less impressive material in that there's nothing that outright repulses me but there's a sense of paint by numbers that differs so greatly from their boldest experiments ... read more

Very little of substance to hang onto unfortunately. A lot of this is the worser side of Robbie’s garishness and/or cringe inducing explorations of fatherhood. I am so happy I will never have to actively seek out ‘Motherfucker’ and ‘Pretty Woman’ again. The frustrating thing is that there will be a strong verse or an unexpected musical turn at points which promise so much more. The only song which sustains throughout is ‘Hotel Crazy’. Even stranger is ... read more

Hippopotamus Part 2: The slightly better one. Not seeing a great deal of difference from the previous album here, and there's a uniformity that I'm not too keen on. When they step out of this into their characteristic strangeness, things really get going. The three song run of 'Onomato Pia', 'iPhone' and 'The Existential Threat' saves some of the less impactful material. A point above Hippopotamus as there's nothing as annoying as 'Giddy'. ... read more

Plays a little like an Exotic Creatures of the Deep B-side collection to me. Not too many gripes with the first side of the album, especially the magisterial marching ode to interiors on ‘Scandinavian Design’. The title track eventually won me over after a dodgy first couple of listens. I’ve got to say that ‘Giddy’ and ‘When You’re a French Director’ are two of their weakest songs since the 80s nadir. Not much to report from the second half apart ... read more

Best album of all time for hand claps? The easy listening Tijuana Brass guy turns uber cool on an album of smooth sounding jazz-funk and disco compositions. The title track is probably one of the most important instrumentals in American popular music history. It straddles a whole host of musical stylings including shades of (improbably) proto-hip-hop. Has anyone heard the excellent sample on Dua Lipa and Blackpink’s ‘Kiss and Make Up’ remix? ‘Rotation’ is the other ... read more

Couldn't think of two bands better suited to team up. This collaboration did work. The irreverence and surrealism in both groups lyricism is dialled up to 11 and there's some truly gripping and bizarre narratives in here. Masterful sequencing to stick 'Johnny Delusional' at the front. It acts as an accessible introduction without alienating the die hard cultists. Most of the rest follows a similar path with a plethora of kooky characters and small town silliness. We get yet ... read more

Another round of hypnotic repetitions, as incredible as they were, would have been too much, so Sparks return to more traditional song structures on Exotic Creatures of the Deep. Russell leans heavily into his early career falsetto with mixed results, although it works marvellously on ‘Good Morning’. There’s a great album in here somewhere where Sparks could have combined their 2000s work into a pop opera amalgam but lengthier cuts ‘Strange Animal’ and ... read more