POP
TAKE THAT
The Circus (Polydor)
****
The reunion that spawned a dozen other unwanted comebacks continues to soar far beyond realistic expectations, with 600,000 tickets for next summer's tour sold in five hours and that rarest of things: new material that is genuinely worth hearing. The boy band turned man band's second album is a masterclass in quality grown-up pop. Gary Barlow's pure falsetto still defines their sound, though Mark Owen's thinner voice is more prominent than usual. Owen sings Hello, a jaunty Beatles-style highlight to rival earlier hit Shine. A large string section adds grandeur to tracks including How Did it Come to This and Hold Up a Light, with their choruses big enough for stadiums. Another sure-fire number one.
DAVID SMYTH

KANYE WEST
808s & Heartbreak (Roc-a-Fella)
****
Kanye West does not, in case anyone doubted it, lack confidence. This isn't a rap album but a collection of tunes sung in a voice that has been enhanced/messed with by a sort of vocoder device. The accent is on slow songs dripping with world-weariness and lost love. Say You Will opens proceedings with a flourish, marred only by the bleeps that become irritating after repeated plays. Welcome to Heartbreak, complete with cello intro, is a lovely song, as is Heartless, which follows. Robocop comes with the type of string arrangement that would have thrilled Jeff Lynne, with a catchy chorus to match. This is a pop album — the 808s of the title are those ancient drum machines that set the rhythm for the Eighties — and none the worse for it.
PETE CLARK

BRITNEY SPEARS
Circus (Jive/Zomba)
**
Six albums in and Britney is still no more than a bit-part player in her own career. Here, her songwriting contribution is negligible and she's been placed in the hands of producers who iron out the kinks of her tinny voice, give her lyrics that whine about photographers (Kill The Lights) or stardom (Mannequin), present her as a sex goddess (Lace And Leather) and bathe her in their musical effects — either an up-tempo Glitterstomp (If U Seek Amy) or a down-tempo drone (My Baby). Unsurprisingly, the results sound phoned-in — if she doesn't care, there is no reason for anyone else to.
JOHN AIZLEWOOD

JAZZ
JOHNNY GRIFFIN
Live at Ronnie Scott's (In and Out)
****
Nobody was astonished to learn that the hard-living, hard-swinging, ever crowd-pleasing tenorist Johnny Griffin had died. Having outlived nearly all his contemporaries, he celebrated his 80th birthday with vigour last summer. Here's an excerpt from that all-star thrash, featuring drummer Billy Cobham, trumpeter Roy Hargrove and UK pianists David Newton and James Pearson. Griff's power was diminished but not his speed of thought or his mature lyricism, as shown on his beautiful ballad, When We Were One.
JACK MASSARIK

WORLD
FRANCO
Francophonic (Sterns)
****
In Europe, Franco means the Spanish dictator, but in Africa it refers to one of its greatest-ever guitarists. Franco (1938-1989) grew up as a street urchin in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa), made his own guitar at seven and signed his first recording contract aged 15. Pleasure in his World, one of his first tracks, is included plus classics from his group OK Jazz and notes by Ken Braun that really make sense of the music. An excellent production bringing great music to life.
SIMON BROUGHTON