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CDs of the week

Duffy: Astonishing voice

Goldfrapp: A pastoral collection of extreme beauty

Janet Jackson: An album designed to outrage America

Los Campesinos!: Boisterous

OneRepublic: Pretty bland pop

Sebastien Tellier: Propelled by the lush

Gonzalo Rubalcaba: Outstanding new album

Toumani Diabate: A sublime concoction

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• Read the latest album reviews

A five-star debut from Duffy, Janet Jackson's monstrously long new album and the extreme beauty of Goldfrapp.

POP
Duffy
Rockferry (A&M)
*****
Some people are so hard to please. We're enjoying a renaissance of the female voice in pop, but there are those who just can't help sniping. Lily Allen is dismissed as froth, Kate Nash as a fake cockney and Adele as an Amy Winehouse wannabe.

Only Winehouse really does the trick for most of these critics and you suspect that's only because she's had the good grace to be a drug-raddled mess.

There's nothing these people enjoy more than a proper old-fashioned rock casualty - if Amy would only kick the bucket, then her place among pop's legends would be assured.

Now there's a new target for the authenticity police: Duffy. She's copped it in the neck because she was runner-up in Wawffactor, the Welsh version of X Factor, in 2003.

She's also already released three songs under her full name, Aimee Duffy. You can find them on iTunes, but be prepared, they are not unlike a Welsh Enya. This is not a good thing.

Duffy's mistake was to pretend it never happened. Anyway, it's given her critics a big old stick with which to beat her. She's a mere confection, apparently, a vehicle for other people's creativity.

Like that would matter anyway. The only thing that matters is that Rockferry is a fantastic debut album.

Duffy may have made mistakes but her choice of collaborators is not one of them. One of her co-songwriters is Bernard Butler, ex-Suede guitarist and writer of fabulous Sixties-tinged pop gems with David McAlmont.

It's the Butler connection that offers the first clue to how Rockferry will sound. There's a very obvious Sixties feel to the album but somehow accusations of retro kitsch don't stick.

Perhaps it's the sheer quality of the songs. Take the one Duffy song that everyone will have heard by now, Mercy, the current No. 1. It kicks in on an obvious Stand By Me rhythm, but slightly digitally processed to give it a lick of modernity, and by the time that voice comes oozing through the speakers, surfing that monstrous tune, you couldn't care less.

Some have suggested that Duffy's voice is reminiscent of Dusty Springfield, but only on Stepping Stone, with its Walk On By string dabs, does she truly resemble the late soul girl.

Accurate comparisons are a little more prosaic. Delayed Devotion and I'm Scared, fluid streams of soul both, bring to mind Gabrielle, while on Mercy itself, Duffy recalls wee Scottish belter Lulu in her prime. But it's the title track that really exposes her critics as dolts.

Duffy's vocals, backed by skyscraping strings and tubby drums, simply astonishes, one second yearning, the next almost roaring. Sometimes the voice is all you need. PAUL CONNOLLY

Goldfrapp
Seventh Tree (Mute)
****
In 2005, Goldfrapp's Supernature album launched them towards the A-list of disco pop superstars - so much so that people started calling Madonna "Oldfrapp". The follow-up is such a sharp left turn that the duo must be suffering whiplash.

Taking its cue from the recent vogue for electronic folk music, the dreamy soundscapes of Kate Bush and the more whimsical experiments of the Beatles, it's a quiet, pastoral collection of extreme beauty.

Alison Goldfrapp sings in a pure, vaporous tone of paper moons, caravan girls and a woman who turns into a crow. Acoustic guitars are plucked with sensitivity, strings flutter softly and psychedelic backwards noises add a sprinkling of magic. They may have left the dancefloor behind - but where they've ended up is even more fascinating. DAVID SMYTH

Janet Jackson
Discipline (Mercury)
***
It seems the second most famous Jackson has no intention of leaving 2004's Superbowl "Nipplegate" behind her. Discipline, her 10th album in 26 years, is not only a monstrous 23 tracks long it's also designed to further outrage America.

For example, the title track, a slinky, crackly slow grind, has Janet asking for discipline from her lover whom she calls "daddy". Gadzooks! Elsewhere on this mammoth album Janet occasionally sounds like Michael, especially on the Eighties-tinged belter 2Nite.

This is unfortunate as she sings of "being soaking wet", which conjures unwelcome images involving Michael, a monkey and a llama. But when Janet sounds like herself, as on the ballad Greatest X, it works rather well. Far too much filler though. PAUL CONNOLLY

Los Campesinos!
Hold On Now, Youngster... (Wichita)
****
Last June I witnessed these seven Welsh twindie-pop rapscallions bashing Scala's stage to within an inch of its life with clattery, pretentious, screechy, ear-crunching tunes. I wasn't impressed.

Too much was happening and little of it was happening at the right moment, let alone in the right key. But with a mini-nudge towards sanity by producer David Newfield they have tightened up their boisterous act 10 squillionfold. Suddenly you can hear the hummable, arm-waving tune of rambunctious, power-punk opener Death To Los Campesinos! And explosive You! Me! Dancing! even resembles battalions of fancy-dressed bagpipers clambering out of treetops and hurling themselves on to a gargantuan bouncy castle. Phew. MARTHA DE LACEY

OneRepublic
Dreaming Out Loud (Mosley/Interscope)
**
Spotting in-demand hip hop producer Timbaland's name in big letters on the back of this LA quintet's debut album should be a good sign, but sadly he's only here in an executive role, collecting the cash while lesser names work on what proves to be a pretty bland pop-rock sound.

Timbaland's mild-mannered R&B reworking of the band's ballad, Apologize, was a giant hit last year and appears here as a bonus track. Otherwise it's all polished, ringing guitars, tasteful piano and tearful boyband vocals.

OneRepublic singer Ryan Tedder co-wrote Leona Lewis's huge-selling number one Bleeding Love, so he knows his way around a decent tune. But surely Timbaland's work with Nelly Furtado and Justin Timberlake proved that pop music can be more innovative than this? DS

Sebastien Tellier
Sexuality (Lucky Number)
***
With Air and Daft Punk fading fast, French dance-pop needs a saviour. Step forward, then, Air protégé Sebastien Tellier, whose third album is produced by Daft Punk's Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo.

Alas, Sexuality's silly billing as a soundtrack for the very act of sex is undermined by Tellier's vocal similarity to The Beloved, except, of course, for those who close their eyes and think of The Beloved's Jon Marsh.

All, though, is far from lost, for it's a sweet thing, mostly propelled by the lush, warm keyboards which envelop the languid Look and Une Heure.

Oddly, the more strident he becomes, especially on the relatively wham-bam instrumental Sexual Sportswear, the more satisfying he is. Presumably he's not like that at home... JOHN AIZLEWOOD

JAZZ
Gonzalo Rubalcaba
Avatar (Blue Note)
****
A former boy wonder from Cuba, originally billed as "Gonzalito", Rubalcaba is now in his early forties, working in New York and in full flower as a jazz pianist.

Whereas his exotic keyboard wizardry once bored listeners, pensive ballad performances (as in Aspiring to Normalcy, by his bassist Matt Brewer, and Peace, by Horace Silver) on this outstanding new album show that technique is now his servant rather than master.

And the quintet he leads, including altoist Yosvany Terry, trumpeter Mike Rodriguez and Roy Haynes's brilliant drumming grandson Marcus Gilmore, is top-class. JACK MASSARIK

WORLD
Toumani Diabate
The Mandé Variations (World Circuit)
****
The West African kora is one of the most seductive instruments on the planet - a sublime concoction of calabash gourd, cowskin and fishing line. And Toumani Diabaté, from a hereditary family of musicians in Mali, is its greatest exponent.

With filigree, rippling melodies, the music is soft, elegant and profound. As the title suggests, this is a sort of classical kora album revisiting some classic tracks, but also laying down improvisations which sound experimental even if you've never heard a note of kora music before, such as his homage to his friend and fellow musician Ali Farka Touré.

Two titles, Elyne Road and Cantelowes, are named after streets in London although the music takes you to another world. SIMON BROUGHTON

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