Album: Bright Eyes, The People's Key (Polydor)

Conor Oberst has always been an artist to inspire, irritate and frustrate, and on what he says will be the final BE album he does these things in equal measure.

Quoted as saying he's "over the rootsy" thing, People's Key feels like the musical battleground between old ideas and new technology; a distillation of all the bangs and whimpers that have gone before. Where he goes next is anyone's guess: but at 30, he has finally caught up with the wisdom he had beyond his years.