The Singles Bar - 30/01/12

With the furore surrounding the release of Lana Del Rey’s debut album, you’d be forgiven for forgetting there were even singles being released today. But being released they are, and not only that, there are tons of the things. So many, in fact, that we’ve had to leave a fair number out of this week’s Singles Bar just in order to meet the publication deadline. If you listen closely, you can hear them now, just outside the double-locked doors, begging to be let in, but meeting firm resistance from our crack-team of Singles Bar security guards.

Anyway, hope you enjoy this week’s selection and apologies if your favourite was one of the unlucky few that missed out.

Radiohead – Bloom (Jamie xx remix)

Bloom, the opening track to last year’s disappointing The King of Limbs LP, already sounded like a glitchy, dance-influenced remix anyway, so it’s interesting to see what producer du jour Jamie xx can bring to the party. It’s clear soon enough that Jamie xx has taken Bloom in a far more traditional dance-led direction than the original, but that’s not to say it’s without its inventive touches. The background synths sound regal and ominous, and the twitchy bass and percussion mean the track holds your attention, even in the more repetitive sections. It doesn’t bear too much resemblance to the Radiohead version and, if anything, Thom Yorke’s wails get in the way of a skilled, atmospheric creation. We already knew Jamie xx had significant skills behind a mixing desk and this reworking of Bloom simply reinforces his burgeoning reputation. 8/10

Baddies – Bronto

Southend’s Baddies have built up their reputation through relentless gigging and this song is also available for free download through their Bandcamp page. It’s an immediate rock attack with fearsome drums and thrilling electronics coming from all angles. There’s a strong track under all this, though it’s slightly let down by some decidedly dodgy lyrics (“Kilo-BYTE! Mega-BYTE! Giga-BYTE! Terra-BYTE!”). The mountain of squall and feedback where a bridge should be smacks of a lack of ideas, which is a real shame because there’s enough on show here to demonstrate that Baddies are capable of great things. Think a more aggressive Futureheads or Hadouken! with singalong choruses instead of rapping and you’re halfway there. 6/10

Pixie Lott – Kiss The Stars

You know what? Pixie Lott’s been around for a while now, is a strong media presence, and yet I don’t know the first thing about her. The image she projects is one of a dizzy blonde, which is either extremely unfair on her, indicative of a bizarre and sexist campaign on the part of her record company, or means I’m extremely judgmental and not very observant. Whatever the reason, it means she doesn’t project an awful lot of personality, and that means that tracks like Kiss The Stars struggle to really make an impact. It’s a perfectly decent dance-pop song which is redolent of what countless other singers are doing in this day and age, but because of Lott’s presence, or lack thereof, you can hear it many times without really noticing it. 4/10

The Kills – The Last Goodbye

Do you ever forget that some bands are still going? With Alison Mosshart’s extra-curricular musical activities and Jamie Hince’s elevation to tabloid fodder, The Kills have taken something of a backseat in the last few years. But, they’re still recording and releasing material and here’s their latest single – a simple, piano-led ballad that sounds like it’s been recorded on slightly dampened, out-of-tune instruments. This gives it a much warmer feel, which is a boon as the track hasn’t got an awful lot else going for it. Mosshart handles all the vocal duties and – along with a sweeping string backing – ensures that there’s a whiff of show-tune about The Last Goodbye. However, it’s got “album filler” written all over it; give it a few hours and I’ll have probably forgotten about The Kills’ existence again. 3/10

Sebastian Rochford, Ranjana Ghatak & Gina Loring – Love A Sacred Path

Exceptionally-coiffeured jazz sticksman Seb Rochford (Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland) has launched a new Singles Club venture, which sounds very much like a certain internet-based new music weekly review column if you ask me. Anyway, his first offering from the series (known as Days And Nights At The Takeaway) sounds absolutely nothing like the free jazz experimentation he’s best known for. Love A Sacred Path is an affecting spoken-word piece with foreboding synth and Asian influences. As it builds, there are some seriously heavy synths, which mirror the vocals as they get more and more fevered. An unlikely collaboration which has really come up trumps – it’s very reminiscent of the 1 Giant Leap project which had brief success a decade or so ago. Love A Sacred Path matches world influences with contemporary pop adroitly, and is certainly worthy of your time. 8/10

Lil Wayne feat. Bruno Mars – Mirror

Some artists are so ubiquitous, you assume they must have access to embarrassing Polaroids of all the senior figures in the music industry. If Bruno Mars and Lil Wayne are joining forces for one track, I guess this spares the world two separate releases, so every cloud has a silver lining. Mirror is a brooding, reflective track with a haunting backing but, like much contemporary hip-hop, it does introspection terribly, sounding solipsistic and trite. Rappers can be enormously verbally dextrous when it comes to listing their strengths and roll call of material goods, yet fall victim to repeated cliché when attempting to verbalise doubt and vulnerability. Could that be because it’s all a calculated sales move and they’re incapable of even the smallest modicum of modesty and self-awareness? Surely not… 2/10

Clock Opera – Once And For All

Several of the more pretentious and scenester-led music publications gave art-rock collective Everything Everything short shrift upon the release of their debut album in 2010. This seemed enormously unfair to a band looking to fuse dance and rock together in an exciting manner, so we can only hope Clock Opera are given a bit more of a chance as their reputation and fanbase grows. Once And For All features a raft of kaleidoscopic electro shimmers, purposeful bass, post-punk percussion, soaring vocals and – crucially – a well-crafted song underpinning the whole thing. It also grows and develops in a way few tracks can manage, and shows the maturity and understanding of a band with far more experience. 8/10

DJ Shadow feat. Little Dragon – Scale It Back

Poor DJ Shadow seems like he’ll be forever destined to disappoint people by not delivering Entroducing….. part 2. However, if he can put out more tracks as good as Scale It Back, the world may be more prepared to move on. Featuring the sweet vocals of Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano, Scale It Back has the feel of an early 90s soul track, but with a little more bite. There’s a fairly traditional ballad at the heart of this, but the head-nodding, heavy hip-hop drums pull it away from “insubstantial” territory while electronic and squealing guitar embellishments give it heaps of character. It’s a wonderfully lazy, flowing track that has a gorgeous feel from start to finish. Like great hip-hop from twenty or more years ago, there’s a real effortless presence to Scale It Back that invites repeat listens and descriptive superlatives. 9/10 – SINGLE OF THE WEEK

Cloud Nothings – Stay Useless

It’s not you, Cloud Nothings, it’s me. I have a severely limited tolerance for distortion-heavy, breakneck-speed punk with rubbish vocals. Without wishing to sound pretentious, given the wealth of musical options available to artists these days and over a half-century of pop music history to mine, I fail to see why any group would decide to play four-to-the-floor songs with power chords that sound like they’ve been written in five minutes. Clearly, this kind of thing is very popular, and the success of The Thermals amongst others has shown this, but I prefer to give it a miss. It’s a decent pop track but Cloud Nothings are doing their best to roughen it up and make it lo-fi. So, along with soap operas, alcohol-free beer and the appeal of Miranda Hart, we can now add Cloud Nothings’ garage punk stylings to the ever-growing list of things I just don’t “get”. 4/10

Youngman – Who Knows?

A bit of hasty internet research reveals Youngman to be an up-and-coming grime MC, and this track has been produced by Skream of Magnetic Man. Who Knows? has Skream’s fingerprints all over it, with its dub bass and whip-crack snare, but it’s entirely ruined by Youngman’s vocals, which are heavily auto-tuned and exceptionally reminiscent of Chris Brown’s. What could be an exciting, forward-thinking dubstep track has been completely spoiled by this fool emoting all over it like he’s both K-Ci and JoJo. The dubstep/pop crossover has been picking up pace rapidly over the past year or so, and this is the inevitable conclusion – radio-friendly dubstep designed to appeal to the largest possible audience. This is what Craig David would sound like if he were breaking through today; it’s official – dubstep is the 2-step garage of the 2010s. 2/10

The Singles Bar - 31/10/11

The nights are getting darker, the days are getting colder and Christmas albums are already beginning to hit the shops (both Justin Beiber and She & Him released their festive efforts today). Luckily, you can still rely on the Singles Bar to give you a warm glow and put a spring in your step, as well as giving you the lowdown on all that’s going on this week in music. You lucky, lucky people.

Charlie Simpson – Cemetery

Six years is practically a lifetime in pop music and a lot has changed since Charlie Eyebrows left Busted in 2005. First, McFly took their crown as kiddie-friendly pop-punks du jour, and then children decided they wanted to listen to Rihanna and didn’t like guitars that much anyway. Simpson has made a pretty decent fist of his post-mainstream career, initially with hardcore quartet Fightstar and now solo. Cemetery is a jaunty, singalong strum-fest that meanders along quite harmlessly. It’s spoiled somewhat by young Charles’ insistence of injecting “emotion” into every syllable by growling and/or over-enunciating, but hey, it’s a decent three-minute pop song. Melodious, hummable and well-written, just stop trying to “keep it real”. 6/10

Beyoncé – Countdown

You’re never quite sure what to expect from the fragrant Ms. Knowles. Her album, 4, has already produced one stormer (Run The World (Girls)) and one clunker (Best Thing I Never Had) so a lot could hinge onCountdown. Luckily, it’s pure genius from start to finish. It races through its allotted time with frenzied percussion and genuinely thrilling horn stabs throughout. There’s also a – you’ve guessed it – countdown which samples Boyz II Men. Mixing dancehall, hip-hop, R&B and mariachi, Countdown appears to be about everything and nothing all at once. It’s also had me walking round for the last week or so singing, “Grind up on it girl, show him how you ride it!” which is entirely inappropriate for a man in his mid-20s. It’s so strong that it’s fit to go toe-to-toe with the best R&B singles of the past decade: Kelis’ Millionaire, Janelle Monáe’sTightrope and, of course, Crazy In Love. So, is it Single of the Week? More like Single of the Year. 10/10 – SINGLE OF THE WEEK (AND POSSIBLY THE WHOLE YEAR)

Kelly Rowland – Down For Whatever

Cruel, cruel alphabet, making the title of the new Kelly Rowland track come immediately after that of her erstwhile bandmate. Whereas Beyoncé is pushing the boundaries, Kelly Rowland is following the tried and tested tropes of pop music in 2011. Down For Whatever is yet another example of the continuedGuettaisation of music which sounds like countless other anonymous house-inspired tracks. There’s also more than a passing resemblance to the music that backs Pitbull’s rap sections in Jennifer Lopez’s monster smash, On The Floor. Cynics may like to point out that Ms. Rowland is mostly devoid of clothing in the video for this song and is currently enjoying much prime-time exposure on British television as an X Factor judge. Well, I’m a cynic then. 3/10

Connan Mockasin – Faking Jazz Together

I wrote an opening sentence mocking (hur hur) Connan for his ridiculous stage name, but did some research and, as far as I can make out, it’s his genuine name. Anyway, Faking Jazz Together is onetrippy, psychedelic mind-messer of a song; marginally discordant notes reveal themselves all the time and there are swimmy, reverb-soaked background vocals. The first three minutes or so sound like a chillwaveFlaming Lips backed by tribal percussion, but then it all fades away before starting up again. Faking Jazz Together is the kind of otherworldly track that completely transports you and is an utterly gorgeous, immersive experience. Highly recommended and a staggering piece of work. 9/10

Sean Paul – Got 2 Luv U (featuring Alexis Jordan)

Sean Paul records tend to be exceptionally irritating and Got 2 Luv U, from its text-speak title downwards, is no exception. It features his usual blend of dancehall and Caribbean rhythms, but it appears even he isn’t immune to the creeping influence of David Guetta, the man responsible for all that is homogenous is today’s pop music. Alexis Jordan’s voice is fairly indistinguishable from a handful of other female singers and the whole thing ends up sounding like a calculated attempt at staying relevant. Well, hats off and well done to these two for creating the mix of tired dancehall and ubiquitous early-90s house that precisely no-one was waiting for. 2/10

The Drums – How It Ended

It always seems like the amount of column inches dedicated to The Drums is inversely proportional to their popularity and the quality of music they actually make. How It Ended is a case in point, it’s nice enough but there’s nothing particularly of any note to report. It sounds a bit like something from Vampire Weekend’s cutting room floor spruced up with vibrato-heavy synths and annoying “eurgh eurgh eurgh”backing vocals. If this is a particularly short synopsis, then it’s because it represents the lack of interesting aspects of this track. How very post-modern of me. 5/10

Little Dragon – Little Man

Little Dragon released a rather fine album earlier this year, Ritual Union, whose title track was a thing of sheer delight. Little Man doesn’t quite reach those heights, but its icy synths and nonplussed percussion sure are compelling. In the chorus, the vocal line matches the keyboard melody effectively, and the track continues to build and add elements throughout its playing time. It also achieves the all-too-rare feat of not sounding over-crowded, and as such it shows admirable restraint. At less than three minutes, it doesn’t outstay its welcome either, so while it may not be a heart-stoppingly breathtaking piece of music, it’s a great listen and has that all-important go-back-and-play-again factor. 7/10

Doctor P – Neon

A quick bit of online research reveals that Doctor P is a dubstep producer known to his Mum as Shaun Brockhurst, and this is a new version of a track that’s been available for over a year. He’s also not a real doctor. Sounds like those on Neon would have seemed unusual a couple of years ago, but dubstep has infiltrated the mainstream to such an extent that this doesn’t seem like anything particularly new or refreshing. It’s fairly low BPM as dubstep goes, and would be better off soundtracking a video game or clips montage than being released as a stand-alone single. It’s a little faceless, and needs more ideas to justify its running time. Is dubstep in danger of jumping the shark? 3/10

Birdy – People Help The People

The Singles Bar can be a touch on the caustic side occasionally, but I’ll try and be nice here because Birdy – the nom de rock of Jasmine Van den Bogaerde – is a mere 15 years old. This is the third single from her forthcoming solo album, and they’ve all been piano-based cover versions (following Skinny Love andShelter). Originally, this was a hit for Cherry Ghost and it’s difficult to see what Birdy’s added to it. This trend for stripped-down reimaginings of songs is reaching critical mass, likely prompted by Radio 1’s Live Lounge cover version policy and television talent shows, and it’s completely baffling. Presumably, reducing a song to its elements displays some level of “authenticity” in the minds of the artist or arranger, but more often than not, it’s simply dull. Birdy has a fantastic voice that belies her tender years, but her career is unlikely to have any longevity if she continues to be marketed in this way. Her management will likely spend the next few months getting themselves in a flap trying to contact anyone who worked on the Adele album. 4/10

Toploader – She Said

Poor Toploader, they’ve become a byword for everything that was wrong with early 21st Century British indie. Dancing In The Moonlight was everywhere, Jamie Oliver liked them, and there was THAT hair. After several years away, they’ve made a low-key comeback and She Said is certainly rockier than ‘ver Loader were in their heyday. As expected, they’ve managed to crowbar in an anthemic chorus that’s signposted from a good few miles away; like a Jennifer Aniston film, you know everything that’s going to happen when you’re only 5% of the way through. They’ve had a rough time of it and are nowhere near as hateful as they’re made out to be, but She Said means they rank alongside Feeder, Athlete, Embrace et al as insipid stadium indie practitioners. 2/10

Gruff Rhys – Space Dust #2

Well this was a surprise. Super Furry Animals are generally known for their progressive, forward-thinking pop-rock, but frontman Gruff Rhys teams up here with Sarah Assbring (a.k.a. El Perro del Mar) for a beautiful slice of lounge music. It’s an old-fashioned duet with each singer replying to a line sung by the other and it’s beautifully adorned with sweeping strings. The drumming is jazzy and loose too; it’s not at all the kind of thing you expect to see released as a single in 2011 and it’s a real breath of fresh air. Gruff Rhys has been making music for nearly two decades now and is still producing inventive, interesting, vital work. How many people can you say that about? 8/10

Avril Lavigne – Wish You Were Here

Despite having seemingly been playing a stroppy teenager for around a decade, Sk8r G1®L Avril Lavigne is actually 27 years old. Once every few years, she stops with the bratty persona and releases a ballad to prove to everyone that she’s a real person with, y’know, feelings and stuff. Sadly, ladies and gentlemen, that time has come around again. Wish You Were Here is a drab mope-fest with as much get-up-and-go as a mortuary in the middle of a power cut. The chorus mainly consists of Lavigne wailing “Damn, damn, damn”; perhaps the nadir of this whole sorry exercise. At times, she can be good fun (like on Girlfriend) but this is the kind of insipid ballad even the Goo Goo Dolls would balk at. 1/10

Cher Lloyd – With Ur Love

Cher Lloyd has followed up the frankly bizarre Swagger Jagger with a much more restrained song. However she still can’t refrain from alluding to “swag” during the verses – extremely apt, as Cher hails from Malvern in Worcestershire which, as we all know, is the spiritual home of swag. Swagger Jagger was a mind-melting mix of heavy dubstep and nursery-rhyme pop and there’s a suspicion she may have put all her eggs in one basket, as With Ur Love contains none of the edge that propelled her to fame. In fact, it’s a relatively insubstantial R&B track with a grating cameo from Posner, although it does have an extremely catchy melody. Her album will certainly be an interesting listen, if nothing else. 5/10