Busted may look about as rock as Westlife, but A Present for Everyone confirms that under those chiselled cheek bones and polite smiles they're every inch the British Blink 182. For the most part, the clean-cut trio's second album is full of the same dumb fun as their first. Careering hyperactively through trashy skate-punk fantasies, classroom crushes and troublesome girlfriends, "Crashed the Wedding" and "Who's David" are irresistibly throwaway teen trauma, while "She Wants to Be Me" deals with the difficult issue of an overly dependent girlfriend ("she's so obsessed with me/now she stands up to pee"). That line aside, second time around there's even a newfound maturity that creeps through in some of their songwriting, which means that they carry off the bittersweet pop of break-up song "Over Now" with conviction and without resorting to cheap laughs. Ultimately though, it's the pogoing choruses and crude one-liners that are the main attraction. And they don't come much better than "Air Hostess" with its less than wholesome appreciation of a girl in uniform: "I messed my pants when we flew over France". -Dan Gennoe.

Thanks largely to input from Flying Burrito Brother Chris Hillman, Stills's 1972 release is more of an ensemble work than any of his other excursions or those from his friends David Crosby and Graham Nash. This band of famous session players, drawn together by Stills for just under two years, display an integrity, panache and professionalism that was unanticipated by the critics, the band, or, in all probability, even Stills himself. Each side of the original double LP-now on a single CD-bore a heading which (if sometimes vaguely) classified its songs. "The Raven" (side one)-a reference to the nickname of Stills's groupie lover and muse Rita Coolidge-provides a somewhat softer, more country-rock focus. With their fiddle, pedal steel guitar, unison vocals and lyrics about the environment and Jesus, it is the songs on "The Wilderness" (side two) that set this album apart, for they are all genuine excursions into country music. "Consider" (side three) features mainly acoustic numbers. The sound of "Rock & Roll is Here to Stay" (side four) is just what you would expect from such a title, with the addition of the odd fiddle break here and there. Its centerpiece is the eight-minute guitar extravaganza "The Treasure (Take One)" where Stills gets to match the electric mayhem of former band mate Neil Young. -James Swift.

An eerie dispatch from the furthest reaches of Bowie's cocaine paranoia, Station To Station has not become easier to listen to with the passing years. At this stage, Bowie was wrapped up in his peculiar-even by his standards-Thin White Duke period, which revolved largely around dressing like a fugitive war criminal and not blinking, at least not in public. Appropriate to such a detached, deranged persona, Bowie set about making what was effectively a soul record devoid of any soul whatsoever. He did it, as well. Station To Station spawned one lingering hit, in "Golden Years", but the album was littered with malevolent miracles. Bowie crooned like a replica Sinatra on "Word on A Wing" and "Wild is the Wind" and may have single-handedly invented the New Romantic movement with "TVC15". He sounds throughout on the verge of cackling dementedly and wandering off into the night; Station To Station is an absorbing postcard from somewhere you're kind of glad you haven't been. -Andrew Mueller.

Road-tested in a car speeding the mean streets of Staines, Stars Of CCTV - the debut album from Middlesex's Hard-Fi - consciously sets out to update the sense of frustrated tension and suburban dread that powered second-wave ska acts like The Specials and The Beat back at the close of the `70s. Don't get it twisted, this isn't ska-punk a la Brit troupers [Spunge] and Capdown: Hard-Fi play this music lean and moody, like The Streets on downers, or Massive Attack plugging in and tuning up. "Cash Machine" sees a swallowed debit card as the jump-off for vocalist Richard Archer to spin a tale of crushing poverty and unwanted pregnancy, spurred along by thrumming dub bass and the sad wheeze of a vibraphone. They do upbeat as well, as club anthem "Hard To Beat" - a heart-fluttering composite of Northern Soul elation and fist-pumping Rockers reggae - joyfully confirms. But it's the emotional struggle, the ups and downs of life, that keeps Stars Of CCTV engaging throughout: see penultimate track "Living For The Weekend", a hedonistic blast filled with not a little of the passion that fuelled Oasis' Definitely Maybe, which succeeds chiefly because it's all too aware of the bad times as well as the good. -Louis Pattison.

Oxford's Supergrass have relaxed into a comfortable sort of middle age, the youthful rush of their early albums replaced by a muscular, if somewhat conservative breed of rock'n'roll. Diamond Hoo Ha, however, shows their early mischief hasn't entirely deserted them. The opening "Diamond Hoo Ha Man" surfs out on a distinctly White Stripes riff, Danny Goffey's drums beating out a distinctly Meg-like pulse; Gaz Coombes' lyrics, meanwhile, rock out with tongue firmly planted in cheek: "When the sun goes down, I just can't resist… bite me!" Supergrass' sixth album continues along such playful lines: "Bad Blood" melds swooning melodies and gloomy lyrics ("Milk and honey!/Won't heal my heartache") to lolloping, upbeat glam riffs, "Rough Knuckles" gets surprisingly funky with some great keyboard work from fourth member Rob Coombes, and the hilarious "Whiskey & Green Tea" is a gonzoid rock number peppered with horns and lyrics about "being chased by Chinese dragons". The heartfelt "Ghost of a Friend", meanwhile, is a Dylan-tinged number that mourns the loss of an old acquaintance to the "vultures, peacocks and hounds"-a veiled diss at celebrity culture?-and throws some grand shapes towards the close. -Louis Pattison.

The Ultimate Yes-35th Anniversary Collection-an unarguably accurate, slimline two-CD appraisement of their most defining work and one which still manages to defy the laws of physics by squeezing in the luxury of a Roger Dean poster-arrives at time when Radiohead's self-gratifying awkwardness is universally admired and where-as a possible consequence of this-the 1970s prog-rock era is undergoing a begrudging critical reappraisal. Suddenly, free-thinking rock bands everywhere want to attempt algebraic time signatures, play songs that last longer than the three-minute punk curfew and indulge the repressed "muso" within themselves by allowing their fingers to wander into unchartered fretboard (or even keyboard) territory. Yes-five proficient musical eggheads in one very large and quizzically unique basket-may yet come to be regarded as the obvious role models. Despite incessant criticism to the contrary, Yes (at least when they were at their pre-Tales from Topographic Oceans best) were always more interested in the artistic ends than the means. While the music of leviathan contemporaries Emerson, Lake and Palmer was sometimes nothing more than a bucking bronco on which to ride and show off their rodeo skills, Yes were an ego-crushing tour de force (which may explain the manifold personnel changes) whose creative peaks ("Starship Trooper", the seismic violence meets heavenly grace of "Heart of the Sunrise", the Trevor Horn produced pop perfection of "Owner of a Lonely Heart") could only have been scaled by communal map reading. Of course, they had their troughs; "Nous Sommes Du Soleil" (taken from Tales from Topographic Oceans, the longest suicide note in history) is grandiloquent poppycock and 1987's "Big Generator" is disgracefully gluttonous fat funk in the mould of Duran Duran offshoot The Power Station. Shame about the inadvertent inclusion of a work-in-progress version of "And You and I" (a blessing for completists but a curse for those seeking the definitive Yes overview) but other than that The Ultimate Yes exceeds expectations. There may well never be a smaller, better Yes collection. -Kevin Maidment.

Homegrown soul produced by Trevor Horn and including the pop hit "Look of Love", The Lexicon of Love is bursting with hooks, clever lyrics and synthetic funk-inspired grooves that hold up better than most others from the early 1980s. ABC leader Martin Frey sings with a histrionic despair, at once naive and cynical, and all dressed up by horn and string sections that feel positively overwhelming. Such larger-than-life arrangements may seem over-the-top to some listeners, but as the soundtrack to a lexicon of love-how else would you expect it to sound? -David Cantwell.

The Gorillaz claim to have found their motley crew of cartoon characters sleeping in Leicester Square but Blur's Damon Albarn (aka 2-D) and cult cartoonist Jamie Hewlett (Murdoc) are not fooling anyone. As the ultimate experiment in manufactured image, the Gorillaz are a virtual, cartoon-character-based hip-hop band which bring together some of the wittiest, silliest lyrics and the most seriously talented musicians. Infectious old school hip-hop rhythms, rhymes and effects courtesy of Deltron 3030's Kid Koala and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien (Russel) are combined with Albarn's passion for chugging lo-fi and edgy melodies to create a seemingly raw but ultimately slick blend of styles which is all their own. This is nowhere more evident than on hit single "Clint Eastwood", which is carried along by the sound of 2-D's slurred voice and a bluesy harmonica melody interrupted by Russel's punching rhymes. But the surprises do not stop there: Ibrahim Ferrer's appearance on "Latin Simone" could have come straight from Buena Vista Social Club but for the obvious Blur-influenced piano style, while the spooky intro to "M1 A1" wouldn't sound out of place on Michael Jackson's Thriller. Backed up by Jamie Hewlett's death-wish character on bass, Cibo Matto's Miho Hatori (Noodle) on guitar and occasional hyperactive vocals and produced by Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, it's hardly surprising that Gorillaz is marked both by a sense of playfulness and a passion for experimentation. -Caroline Butler.

This compilation album is fascinating in that it tracks the dramatic artistic decline (and parallel commercial rise) of one the most successful groups of the post-punk era. "Love Song", "Promised You A Miracle" and "Someone, Somewhere In Summertime" see Jim Kerr and co. teetering like a cat poised on a fence, their sound a skittering, graceful interplay of glittering keyboards and adrenaline guitars, with Kerr's lyrics epic yet ambivalent on top. Then around the mid-1980s, Simple Minds fell from the fence into lumbering stadium rock rifferama. "Alive And Kicking" and "Sanctify Yourself" were big scarf-waving anthems but lacked the tantalising panache of their earlier work. As Jim Kerr sank further into megastardom, the music suffered further as he indulged in piously cumbersome ballads like "Belfast Child" and "Mandela Day". But while critics sighed, the Minds' audience swelled regardless-their "New Gold Dream" had come true. -David Stubbs.

James Taylor's mid-70s departure from Warner Bros may be one of the best things that ever happened to the label; otherwise, it might not have been in such a rush to compile his Greatest Hits, one of the company's biggest sellers ever at 11 million and counting. Taylor's style, which all but defines the word diffident, has more backbone than it's often given credit for. Here, as surprisingly complex songs like "Carolina in My Mind" (in a newly recorded version) and "Steamroller" stack up, he sounds like an artist worth spending some time with. At the least, few of his singer-songwriter cohorts came up with a melody as lovely as "Sweet Baby James". -Rickey Wright.

Many reckon 1970's Sunflower to be amongst the Beach Boys' finest moments. Certainly, it has a maturity and consistency which belies the turmoil the Wilson brothers must have been feeling at the time-a bitter split with their label coincided with creative lynch-pin Brian Wilson's withdrawal from the spotlight. This is no Pet Sounds, however. Tracks such as "At My Window" and "Slip on Through" display an unseemly fondness for pop schmaltz, while "It's About Time" is Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?" diluted. Dennis Wilson's rather beautiful "Forever" and the timeless "Tears In The Morning" go some way to rectifying the balance, though. 1971's Surf's Up, meanwhile, is a decidedly patchy affair. Dennis had mostly succumbed to his elder brother's demons, and tracks such as Mike Love's pseudo-political "Student Demonstration Time" are plain embarrassing. Meanwhile, proto-green politics take over in places. Fortunately, the album is saved by two incredible Brian Wilson songs: the brass-textured title track (one of the highlights of shelved Smile), and the morbid introspection of "Till I Die". This joint reissue included new liner notes by Wilson biographer Timothy White. [+]

Possibly the kitschiest band of the 1980s (as Joy Division was for the 1970s), Tears for Fears turned out a small treasury of well-crafted songs during their heyday and helped to define a genre that everybody recognises, but nobody can name. "John Hughes movie pop" comes close, but somebody should find something more apt. Tears Fall Down collects all their best and adds a scattering of good album cuts. The original albums will still hold some delights after this, but they won't be required listening. If you want more Tears for Fears, check out their strong, though under-appreciated, later work like 1996's Saturnine Martial & Lunatic. -Gavin McNett.

Must I Paint You a Picture is a generous, two-disc, 40-track survey of Bragg's career to date. The tracklisting was apparently assembled with the help of Bragg's fans, who were asked to vote for their favourites on Bragg's website, but this democratic initiative has only been taken so far: while "Little Time Bomb", for example, was a more popular choice than, say, "The Boy Done Good", the latter is included and the former isn't. It would, of course, be uncharitable to suggest that this is reflective of the authoritarian instincts that lurk inside most socialists. At any rate, though Bragg has always been chiefly characterised as a political songwriter, his best work has always been that which deals with the politics of the personal: there are few more acute summations of the eternal failure of the male and female to make sense to each other than his "How can you lie there and think of England when you don't even know who's in the team?" Bragg's superb love songs and love-gone-wrong songs are well represented here, from the angry, naive scratchings of "The Milkman of Human Kindness" to such older, if no wiser, musings as "Moving the Goalposts" and "Sulk". Curiously, his older, politically motivated songs now feel like they've reacquired an urgency they lacked during a 1990s largely devoid of stark ideological boundaries, when they sounded rather like quaint period pieces. The so-called war on terror and the increasing discomfort about global trade both have ready made soundtracks in "Between the Wars" and "There is Power in a Union". -Andrew Mueller.

The Arista debut of Carlos Santana and band gives fans of the soulful guitar vet two albums in one, but it's a decidedly good-news, bad-news proposition. First, there's a fine collection of late-1990s-model Santana-tastefully tooled songs driven by Latin jazz and Afro-Cuban rhythms ("[Da Le] Taleo", "Africa Bamba", "Migra", "Primavera" and the emotionally charged instrumental "El Farol") that allow Carlos plenty of elbowroom for his passionate soloing. Then there's the collection of tracks featuring a lineup of de rigueur alternative and hip-hop stars, including Dave Matthews, Everlast, Lauryn Hill, Wyclef Jean and Eagle Eye Cherry. To their credit, Matthews ("Love of My Life") and Eagle Eye Cherry ("Wishing It Was") muster enough chemistry to make the fusion work. But the rest of the collaborations feel like an unnecessary stretch to reach out to a younger demographic that El Jefe has little trouble attracting on his own terms. -Jerry McCulley.

Music from the OC Mix 1 is strangely unique for a TV soundtrack compilation. Often, US teen dramas don't put a great deal of thought into the show's music, relying heavily on bland, melodramatic MOR (think Paula Cole and Dawson's Creek). However, a glance through the track listing reveals a host of acclaimed indie guitar bands from around the world. Goodtime retro acts such as Jet ("Move On") and the Dandy Warhols ("We Used to be Friends") in addition to more downbeat artists such as Turin Brakes ("Rain City"), South ("Paint the Silence") and the Doves ("Caught By the Rain") make for an eclectic mix of new music. Music from the OC Mix 1 serves well as the soundtrack to a hit show but more importantly, it's a great introduction to good bands who many may not have been discovered without it. -David Trueman.

Trent Reznor has always been a one-trick-pony, but it's a damn good trick: sunny melodies filtered through ferocious electronics. Unfortunately, the trick's impact was often watered down by a tendency toward petulance and self-absorption. Still, almost six years after NIN's last release, The Fragile, the trick itself has lost none of its Teen-Beat-from-hell appeal. With Teeth blisters from the start with "All the Love in the World," and tracks like "The Collector" take full advantage of Dave Grohl's sledgehammer drumming. Reznor stretches occasionally, trying out different tactics, from crunchy, overtly commercial rave-ups ("The Hand That Feeds") to borderline New Wave ("Only"). But Teeth isn't about stretching. It's about doing the same trick, only better, with less clutter and more bite. By neatly distilling the sparseness of Pretty Hate Machine with Downward Spiral-style density, it ends up being the most focused record in the NIN catalogue. -Matthew Cooke.