Artist: P!nk

Whilst easily one of the most distinctive female pop vocalists of the last ten years, with her hot-headed persona and torching rock vocals barrelling through empowered songs both infectious and tender, P!nk did step back into line somewhat for more one-size-fits-all last album I'm Not Dead. Her voice aside, there was little pull her apart from her peers or to suggest she'd ever again go on to release anything as definitive as her breakthrough album M!ssundaztood. But whether driven by young pretenders like Katy Perry making a grab for her crown or by that perennial emotional motivator--break-up (she was divorced between albums)--Funhouse utterly redeems P!nk. From the front cover through most tracks on the record she stokes the wild-child inside herself that made her famous in the first place, but in most examples there is also evidence of a fostering maturity, whether in the crystal beauty and depth of ballads "Glitter In the Air" or "I Don't Believe You" or the firm-handed command of more built-up tunes like the Red Hot Chili Peppers vs. Joan Jett coarseness of "Sober" or sassy rocker "Boring" that somewhat improbably combines The Dandy Warhols' "Horse Pills"...
Brilliant CD, 2009-01-04
I purchased this album as a gift for my daughter for Christmas, and listened to it to make sure the CD played ok.
I have to say that I loved it straight away and is one of the best albums I have heard in a while.
I love it especially turned up really loud whilst doing the ironing, I must now listen to other Pink Albums....

Artist: Will Young

Still driving people mad around seven years--yes, seven!--after his landmark Pop Idol win (it's almost enough to make you dewy-eyed for the early days of the Simon Cowell TV talent franchise), mainly by refusing to be typecast as a one, or two, or three (etc.) hit wonder and continuing to be so alarmingly consistent, Will Young returns with Let It Go, his fourth--yes, fourth!--album. Of course he's never quite so bold as to actually be alarming; it's easy listening, wholesome, modern soul-lite pop all the way from the former politics graduate, kind of like George Michael without the underlying tension, clawing requirement to prove himself or mind-boggling tabloid scandals. Any of that would just serve to muddy Will's waters unnecessarily, there's purity here like a ripple on the surface of a crystal lake that rebounds languidly to and fro across these 13 tracks, one that is reflected in and a necessary backdrop for his suave, mildly textured and famously powerful voice. There is the sense that he still might not be using it to its full potential as he sounds so comfortable throughout. --James Berry
WILL YOUNG LIVE !!!, 2009-01-01
I've always been a fan and seeing Will live in November was a highlight. He is fabulous on stage and he interprets the songs on the album brilliantly. I can listen to the tracks and bring back memories of the night.

The album rates as his best so far. The tracks are so varied and carefully chosen to follow each other. They fit every mood/emotion anyone can feel.

Artist: Kanye West

808s & Heartbreak sees Kanye West move somewhat controversially away from hip hop towards what he calls "pop art"--not the art movement championed by Andy Warhol, but his own artful pop music. This translates as Kanye dropping his rap shtick and picking up the Auto-Tune to help even out his singing voice, and trading his usual summery bounce for the brittle, wintry sound of the electronic Roland TR-808--the drum machine used in early hip hop and techno. Where previous Kanye albums have been about bling, 808s & Heartbreak is a paean to pain and misery. Prompted by the recent death of his mother, opening track "Welcome to Heartbreak" sets the album's key themes--lyrics about the emptiness of fame and wealth crooned over a desolate electronic backdrop. Things don't get much cheerier as Kanye continues to pour his heart out on songs like "Coldest Winter", "Street Lights" and the slow jam "Say You Will". High profile high guests like Young Jeezy, Lil Wayne and Herbie Hancock can't lift the gloom either, but the consistent aura of sadness that envelopes this unexpected album is ultimately what makes it so compelling. --Danny McKenna
A "Closer" for the hip hop generation, 2009-01-03
First and foremost, I'd like to express my exasperation at hearing or reading people moaning at some - currently successful - black artists (Kanye West being one of them), accusing them of having betrayed the so-called "original true spirit of hip hop". These, behaving like self-proclaimed guardians of some private temple, seem to forget that hip hop, like every other form of art, is a mean not an end.

I also recall the great Mos Def was once asked, a few years ago, what he thought of his peers parading in videos with lavish ladies and expensive cars instead of providing supposed conscious statements in their music. His answer has baffled me for years (and still does): he said that it was precisely this (i.e. the fact of seeing black people behaving that way in front of huge audiences of, say, MTV proportions) that was revolutionary, more than any kind of political contest. And so, whether you fancy it or not. I can't agree more, as it seems, more generally, that a black artist is, still nowadays, supposed to deliver what's expected of him: making "black music".

Sorry for that somewhat long introduction, but I thought those two distinct points could be helpful to fully understand what Kanye West's fourth album proper is all about, and what it aims to be. On the previous one, 2007's "Graduation", he already considerably extended his sonic palette (sampling Daft Punk or legendary german krautrockers, Can), yet after that, last summer he produced, in the form of his duet with the promising Estelle, the wonderful "American Boy", which can only be described as the single best musical mainstream moment of the year, all straightforward dancefloor power and heavy beat science upfront.

"8O8s & Heartbreak" is an altogether very different beast to both those releases; having recently both lost his mother and ended up a longtime relationship with his fiancee, Kanye West isn't exactly in a partying mood here, to say the least. Yet, and it's what makes this record so satisfying, he still manages to entertain while expressing his utter sadness and pouring his deepest doubts over every song featured. From the first few bars of "Say You Will", it's understood Kanye's probably unleashed his landmark piece of music this time: over a bleak, possibly new wavish rhythm synth, he croons in a desperate yet suggestive and seductive manner about the loss of his love. The much-publicized use of the auto-tune process, supposedly a limitation, in fact allows him more freedom than ever: some reviewer pointed out he's not Nas nor Guru (he actually barely raps on the whole LP, mind you), and heaven knows he ain't Marvin Gaye either, but if the spine-tingling lament that is "Heartless" or the broody hypnotic complaint the first single "Love Lockdown" manages to be fail to move you, then nothing ever will. On the only upbeat track, "Paranoid", Kanye West even delivers the most perfect slice of pop angst ever heard since, say, Depeche Mode's "Enjoy The Silence" (yeah, that good). Perhaps only the quite blank "Robocop" is a relative failure, as every other song is a fascinating trip through this visionary artist's mind, even the somewhat rawer-sounding live freestyle "Pinocchio Story", that closes proceedings with an overwhelming tearjerking class.

Being very intimate, sounding entertaining at it and clearly conscious of what he does, somewhere between Kool & The Gang produced by New Order and the late and great Al Green stuck with The Neptunes in an elevator, Kanye West has achieved, minor weaknesses aside, a truly perfect pop album.

In a world that enjoys nothing as much as pigeonholing people of every kind (let alone artists), that alone is a triumph in itself.

TO ENJOY, CHERISH AND TREASURE...

Artist: Duffy

A new star, 2008-12-17
I had heard people describe Duffy as the new Dusty Springfield. I would say she is a cross between Dusty and a young Lulu. I am a child of the sixties and I love this album.There isn't one song that I can fault. Her voice suits the rock numbers just as well as the ballads - Mercy to Warwick Avenue. I look forward to hearing what she comes up with next.

Artist: Simply Red

alan lockwood ,south yorks, 2008-12-27
nice cd but not all original recordings, very annoying, why cant they do the original recordings?

Artist: Alexandra Burke

I LOVE IT, 2008-12-27
THIS IS INCREDIBLE
THE SONGS MEANING IS EXCELLENT
AND HER VOCALS ARE THREW THE ROOF
INCREDIBLE, A DEFINATE WORTHY
WINNER! I WOULD BUY ANY OF HER ALBUMS!
YOU GET 3 SONGS
ALL SUNG AMAZING!!!
10/10
HIGHLY RECCOMENDED

Artist: Various Artists

Going for Gold, but not quite reaching it., 2008-12-24
If you want a Motown collection, the white covered album, Motown Gold, which has been out for a few years now, is much better.

This being the 50th anniversary of Motown, I had high hopes for this album being a success. Well, it is a success in terms of sales; I see it's charting pretty highly.

But it's not as definitive or varied as it could be, and although yes, it includes all the classics, it's nothing new or different. I think a wider variety of artists could have been used, and/or different tracks from the ones being featured, as this label already has many of the tracks from this record on the "original" white covered album.

Artist: Duffy

Rockferry, the Welsh singer's lovingly constructed debut album, has already succeeded beyond expectations, and although Duffy may not quite be the ingénue portrayed by a clever press campaign (she nearly won a local television talent show a few years back while a single credited to Aimee Duffy is still available on iTunes) she is surely the most appealing of the current flood of young soul sirens. The astonishing title track, co-written by Bernard Butler, sounded like a lost transmission that had taken decades to get through as soon as it hit radio last year. But the gently rolling soul ballad "Stepping Stone", that strapping, inescapable monster hit "Mercy", the ice cool "Serious" (the one time she really does channel the spirit of Dusty Springfield) and the wistful, elegant "Warwick Avenue" are similarly effective. Suggestions by some that Rockferry is little more than sixties pastiche are churlish. Butler's previous work with David McAlmont (featured here as a backing singer) showed his skill at writing and arranging the dramatic, while her other collaborators such as Steve Booker and the team of Jimmy Hogarth and Eg White are hardly lightweights. But despite some...
60s Revisited, 2008-12-27
Fantastic album really hits the spot,as a "child of the 60s" myself I can identify with this music, buy it,you won't be disappointed.

Artist: Ne-Yo

If the mark of the skilful Lothario is the one who knows to always tell his lover what she wants to hear, surely Def Jam's R&B sensation Ne-Yo--aka Los Angeles singer-songwriter Shaffer Chimere Smith--is one of the greatest of them all. On third album Year of the Gentleman, Chimere channels his hitmaking talents into a suite of R&B songs that more respectful than rampant in their approach to the romancing. "Single" is a song that reaches out to all the lonely girls, Ne-Yo promising "I'll be your boyfriend til the song goes off", while the Stargate-produced "Miss Independent", lit up by neon synthesisers, suggests Smith isn't too concerned with his own machismo to test out flipping the traditional gender roles, serenading a girl who's a player in her own right: "Everything she got, you bet she bought it". The album is at its best with the central, two-song movement of "Why Does She Stay" and "Fade Into the Background"--the former, Ne-Yo questioning his own neglectful nature over a backdrop of shimmering keys, the latter a sombre piece that finds our narrator accepting the news his lover has found another with a rare, heart-rending magnanimity. --Louis Pattison
"FANTASTIC", 2008-11-07
This has to be one of the best albums I have bought in a long time. Every track is good usually there is always a couple of songs that don't do it for you but every track is great.

This is my first Neyo CD but not the last.

Artist: Beyonce

The latest outing from former Destiny's Child starlet Beyonce is an intentionally schizophrenic affair. Splitting herself into two separate characters--herself and alter ego Sasha Fierce--is the artist's way of presenting what she obviously sees as an artistic duality. The first set, I Am... is intended give a glimpse beneath the surface of her usual R&B-pop persona. Featuring recent single "If I Was a Boy," the soaring "Halo", and ballads like "Disappear", and "Ave Maria", it seems her "real" self is way more saccharine than the lady that brought us sassy pop moments like "Crazy in Love" and "Baby Boy". That side of her personality comes rushing back out on Sasha Fierce, a more rousing collection that kicks off with the infectious handclaps of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)", ventures into Euro-dance territory with "Radio" and gets surprisingly risque with the voyeuristic "Video Phone". Which part of the album you enjoy most will depend on your musical proclivities, But the new, bifurcated Beyonce ensures there's enough diversity to satisfy the most demanding pop aficionado. --Danny McKenna
Absolutely fantastic!!, 2009-01-01
This is an absolutely sensational album in my opinion-I have never been a massive Beyonce fan and whilst I enjoyed Bday-it is not even in the same league as this collection.

The first CD is mainly made up of great ballads and mid-tempo songs:
1.If I Were A Boy-great pop song, justifiably high-charting! And her performance of it on X-factor was outstanding. 10/10
2.Halo-Repetetive chorus makes this song addictive and powerful. 10/10
3.Disappear-Great lower range showcased here. 8/10
4.Broken-Hearted Girl-Love the synth effects on this fantastic ballad. 9/10
5.Ave Maria-Verging on operatic, beautiful! 9/10
6.Smash Into You-A hypnotic song, brilliant again! 9/10
7.Satellites-In my opinion the weakest song on this CD, not bad though. 7/10
8.That's Why You're Beautiful-The powerful guitars make this song great. 8/10

The second CD is much more uptempo, although that's not to say there isn't a place for ballads here.
1.Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)-Growling Beyonce is back! This takes a second listen to get into it. 8/10
2.Radio-Slightly strained vocals, but I do like the song. 8/10
3.Diva-Not my kinda song really-tuneless. 5/10
4.Sweet Dreams-Love this song. 9/10
5.Video Phone-Very strange premise, not my favourite. 7/10
6.Hello-This is probably my favourite song on both CDs, a classy uptempo ballad. 10/10
7.Ego-This is such a different sound, with its blaring trumpets and it works. 9/10
8.Scared Of Lonely-The only song here that is a bit forgettable, not bad though. 7/10

If you want a representative sample listen to the two lead singles, plus Hello, Diva and Halo.