AND SO, with a wave of her wand, the fairy godmother turned Cinderella Spice into the new Sandie Shaw. As her querulous Spice-sisters jostled for the limelight, Emma Bunton gently won the nation’s heart with soft-focus retro-pop. Deftly combining Motown, Latin and easy-listening on such songs as Maybe and Crickets Sing for Anamarie, she sighed, cooed and serenaded until the spell was complete.

INCUBUS
A Crow Left of the Murder
(Epic/Immortal)

SOUNDING like Pearl Jam’s smarter kid brothers, Incubus have a keen ear for a tune and that indignation which is integral to adolescent life in sunny California. “I’m kicking myself that I shared spit with you,” Brandon Boyd sings on Leech. Too much information, perhaps, but a great voice, tremendous performances, a bundle of killer hooks and choruses.

KENNY CHESNEY
When the Sun Goes Down
(BNA/BMG)

CHESNEY is credited with winning over a teen audience to the delights of country music. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen here. He takes the most banal elements of the genre — rilly sincere lyrics, smug Tennessee twang, silly hat — and toasts them gently in the Caribbean sunshine. Kenny Cheesy more like.

NICK HARPER
Blood Songs (Sangraal)

HARPER is the son of the folk-rocker Roy Harper, but don’t let that put you off. Blood Songs is a witty, alert set of original numbers. Harper plays acoustic guitar with more attack than most people muster on an electric instrument, and sings such numbers as Love Junky and Love is Music with an urgent, wiry grace.

PRESTON SCHOOL OF INDUSTRY
Monsoon (Domino)

SINGER, songwriter and label boss Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg labours in the shadow of his former group, Pavement. Joined by various members of Wilco for this, the second PSI album, he meanders through alt.country and slacker-rock songs that are little different from the lot on the last one. It’s an agreeable sound, if a complacent formula compared with past achievements.