This week’s singles are brought to you by THE
BOOK OF REVELATIONS. Best ones at the top, getting worse as we go down the page
INTO HELL.
And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and
the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars Janelle Monáe/Tightrope The album (The ArchAndroid)
is having some pretty big claims made on its behalf, which for my money are a
little too big, but this is the real business. It's what syncopation was made
for. The sort of classic 7" that means that you're always going to be on a
party mixtape somewhere in the world even if you never have another hit. The
stormer to play when you've only got 10 minutes or so of your DJing set and you
want to keep everyone right up on their feet. The sort of thing, in fact, that
Big Boi has been dropping A* raps over for the last 15 years, and does so again
here. Watch the video (or the Letterman appearance) and fall in love for 289
seconds. Can new black music start being better than or as good as new white
music in 2010, please?
The waters which thou sawest, where the
whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues School Of Seven Bells/Windstorm Oooh, it's 1991. Blissed-out pop with blank-sounding pretty girls! Big
guitars multitracked then buried in the mix! Big finishes with interlaced
vocals! There is no reason to have made a song so stuffed with clichés, other
than it being tremendously lovely, which it is, so that worked out all right.
So then because thou art lukewarm, and
neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth Foals/Miami This is... this is the beat from, bloody hell it is as well. Foals seem to have
been 'inspired by' or 'interpolated' Straight Up by Paula Abdul. Quite a lot.
Well. Fair enough. It's got something about it, a useful bit of clatter and
jitter and jump. They're as technically capable as any white-boy guitar band in
Britain at the moment. But I am pretty much completely unmoved by this. I dunno. Mebbe
someone from this band will go on to do something great. But this isn't it.
I know thy works, and charity, and
service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more
than the first. Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee Sia/Clap Your Hands Sia appears to be one of those people who live and work and write in the
professional machine of pop music. She has sung with Zero 7, written for
Christina Aguilera, had a long and storied career, and probably knows the biz
like an alcoholic knows the opening times of the local offies. This is a really
well made bit of bouncing, pumping pop, but it bores the arse off of me and
couldn't be more sterile if it was being used for major surgery. It stinks of
pro-musicians, expensive studio time, and finishing in the Top 40, but not the Top
35.
Repent; or else I will come unto thee
quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth JLS/The Club Is Alive Good Fucking God. Among all the debates about whether Rage Against The Machine
were apposite, opposite or complicit in the great Cowell hijacking of Christmas
2009, the point was lost a bit. The point being that Cowell's involvement in
anything with a stave and an octave tends to be a miserable aesthetic car
crash, bereft of life, joy, decency or hope. The musical minibus of morons JLS
not deviating one bit from that norm. This is a horrific parody of three-year-old
R&B tropes, and the chorus is based on the hook from The Sound Of Music.
Without any irony, or even a relieving pinch of camp.
Shabby Ranks has the
levels on his computer set all wrong so he can barely hear the songs he's
reviewing. But he's going to plough on regardless.
SYMPHONY HALL Laura Marling/Rambling Man Warbling woman, more like! Eh? What? Eh? Where does she get that accent from,
for God's sake? She sounds like David Quantick doing an impression of Tom
Cruise in Far And Away. If you can get past that then Rambling Man is her best
song. Not that I can make that out from this. On these headphones it sounds
like she's singing it over a mobile phone, walking in and out of a motorway
tunnel.
BUSH HALL Mos Def/History That title is asking for it a bit, isn't it, given the state of his recent
output. Perhaps that's what he's rapping about but all I can really hear is "tory"
from the "history" that's sung on the sample repeated over and over
again over some white noise. (Perhaps Nick Clegg listened to this, etc.).
Despite all that it's somehow jaunty.
BRIXTONACADEMY Silver Columns/Cavalier I'm getting autotune over synth. That's about it. And now a clapping drum
machine and some burbling whistles and a voice through a megaphone. If
listening to this song like this doesn't make you feel ill, you're a robot.
It's quite long too but it seems to build into something. It's just not really
obvious under these conditions what that is.
BACKROOM OF PUB WHILE PEOPLE CHAT Boyzone/Love Is A Hurricane Ah, the blessed relief of distortion. Hang on. This isn't a ballad, is it? Or
is it? It seems a bit upbeat. Now that would be really unfair on poor old
Gately. Sits on those stools for years listening to and performing tedious
droning balls. Then dies for no reason/because of his gayness and then the band
go and do a record that doesn't make you wish for the blessed release of
death's welcoming arms. Or maybe Ronan's Yvonne was holding them back.
MOBILE PHONE ON TOP OF BUS Drake/Over Hot young rapper and protege of Lil Wayne slurs his way through some workaday
rapping. There's strings and horns on the samples but they're all broken up by
this bloody computer. Can't make out many of the words but he does mention the
Rosetta Stone, so he deserves points for that. What does come through crystal
clear is that the chorus is really annoying.
Shabby
Ranks gets all Noo Yoik on our limey asses as he rates this week’s new singles.
SOHO Taio Cruz featuring Ke$ha/Dirty Picture This one - from Brit-in-US success story and tedious interviewee Taio Cruz -
starts off like a lonely R&Bster missing his wumman. Whenever he's not with
her, it's so hard for him to see, he sings, tugging at the heart strings. So,
quite reasonably, he asks for her to teks him a Dirty Picture. Then it goes all
wompy, and there's a big Bassline-y, er, bassline. Then Ke$ha has a bit of an
autotuned sing about how she likes all sex and that too. They are going to send
each other pictures of their nobs and boobs and all that, so that worked out.
Both of the stars involved in this song are grotesque phonies, and this song is
disgusting. It is also, however, bloody great, and I am going to steal it off
the internet and put it on my walkman.
MEAT PACKING DISTRICT/CENTRAL
PERK/DOWNTOWN/WILLY-AMSBURG/LOWER EAST SIDE The Dead Weather/Die By The Drop Speaking of nobs and boobs and all that, I can't listen to anything Jack White
does without the spectre of his trouser-redefining schlong filling my mind.
Jack probably takes Gentleman Jack for granted now, and there's a danger of
taking Jack for granted too, as everything he's done for such a long time has
been so tremendous and rockin'. This, his new supergroup, is far better than
his last supergroup, as it has more chicks, less good-times musicianship and a
whole load of blistering balls. He's better with a girl around.
CHELSEA HOTEL Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti/Round And Round I don't know how to review this without referring to the fact that the YouTube
link is a pencil drawing of a man and an alsatian kissing passionately. I now
don't know whether my affection for the blue-eyed soul, blessed-out futurefied
Elvis Costello single is genuine, or whether I am just covering up my
excitement/trying to ignore my dismay at this dog-dating-disgusting dilemma.
NSFW. Not safe for dogs kissing men. Not safe for reviewer objectivity. Not
safe for bloody anything. Wait, the song's gone somewhere else now. I like it.
Hound-spittle to one side.
HELL'S KITCHEN Timbaland Featuring Justin Timberlake/Carry Out Time was, I would have looked forward to Timbo and Timber dropping something
new like I would have looked forward to a weekend break or a sunny picnic. Then
they both got omnipresent in a good way. Then they got omnipresent in a boring
way. Timbo stopped making head-spinners and started making bum-borers. Timber
went from the next Michael Jackson to a producer of a steady stream of R&B
slow jam parodies. Does this reverse the trend? No.
GROUND ZERO The Big Pink/Tonight Dunno how they get away with it. The Big Pink are a hotchpotch of elements of
wilderness years Brit indie (88-92) - crappy sequenced drums,
funky-but-not-actually-funky bass, double-tracked shouty indie vocals (for
singers who can't sing) and some sub-sub-MBV layered guitars going through the
effects pedal marked "epic". You're meant to be good to be on 4AD.
Fuck off.
Shabby Ranks gets off his behind to place this week’s singles in
suitably arbitrary, vaguely hierarchical order.
STAR BAR Florence + The
Machine/Dog Days Are Over Ah, I love it when they release Dog Days Are Over. It reminds me of the autumn
of 2008, early 2009, the first days of spring 2009, summer 2009, that balmy
October 2009, the festive days of 2009, January 2010 and now the Great Thaw of
2010. Heady days. It's bloody ace though. Epic yet subtle, driving mad pop
rock. If only Flo could do some other good tracks. Just one. Still, I look
forward to Dog Days Are Over soundtracking the summer. And next Christmas.
TWIX Erykah Badu/Window Seat Badu's New Amerykah Part Two is, on the pretty face of it, no great step
forward from 1997's Baduizm. Silky smooth soul with the lightest touch and
grooves that worm into your marrow. This time though, it's deeper, more
sensual, possibly sweatier and... OK, the same, just a bit older.
MARS BAR Foals/Spanish Sahara Which side were you on in the Math Rock wars of 2008? Oh. Well, there was
Battles and there was Foals, and they weren't really opposed; in fact, they
shared a lofty love of complicated guitars and po-faced impenetrability, but
Foals had the tunes. Seriously. Now they're back, and Spanish
Sahara bears the familiar carefree, laugh-a-minute spills of
earlier Foals larkabouts. In all its earnestness, it's an attractive bit of
slow-burning "big" rock that suggests an ambitious second album.
BIT OF FLAKE THAT’S RUINED YOUR WHITE
T-SHIRT Paul Weller/Wake Up The Nation Weller's old enough to be my dad. Um. Hang on. He's old enough to be my really
old brother if I was a late last-ditch mistake on my parents' part. Speaking of
my parents, I'm reminded of an alarming moment watching some Culture Show type
affair with my mum a decade or so back. Miranda Sawyer was saying she reckoned
Weller's popular resurgence was down to everyone "wanting to shag
him". My mum said she could understand the point of view. God. Anyway,
Wake Up The Nation is pleasingly choppy for a fellow of his years, but really,
mod-by-High-Numbers.
HERSHEY BAR Kate Nash/Do Wah Doo I've got an inordinate amount of time for the Nasher, a talented, engaging
performer, but come on - these lyrics are getting worse. Do Wah Doo (a giveaway
title) is teeming with non-sequiturs ("I'll just read a book instead"
Instead of what?) and some disgraceful cussing from such a nice young lady.
Good thumpy piano and blaring horns on this Pipettesy number are undermined by
ideas running out after ONE MINUTE.
Shabby Ranks breaks off from
arguing about Arsenal long enough to place this week’s singles in descending
order of Doctor Who aceness.
TOM BAKER The Drums/Best Friend Weren't the indie 80s terrific? They still are. Brooklyn Postcard-y revivalists
The Drums have made a corking, generous little ditty that takes some perky
Cure, a dab of Orange Juice and pretty much all of that Pillows & Prayers
compilation and makes your heart soar. You may surmise there's nothing very new
here, but I don't give a stuff.
DAVID TENNANT Shakespear's Sister/It's A Trip Confession: I heart Shuv. Always have. Even when she left Sarah and Keren in
the lurch to make mad harpy records with that screecher off Popstar To
Operastar, she still looked cheekily cute mentalling around on You're History
and that other one I quite like. "Bye, bye, my old friend," you know
the one. Pop-Op screecher was booted way back, so this is Shuv and pals
sounding like Juliette Lewis fronting Garbage covering I Feel Love, and not as
bad as that sounds. In fact OK.
WILLIAM HARTNELL Clipse/I'm Good Pharrell Williams's bitches treat us to what is, in essence, a four-minute
intro. I could've sworn Clipse were all hard and street tuff (woo/yeah)?
Instead, this is soppy and summery hip hop in Fresh Prince stylee and features
the immortal assertion, "Hell yeah, my rims match". Which is good
news all round, let's face it.
COLIN BAKER Tiësto featuring Nelly Furtado/Who Wants To Be Alone Because we all need Howard Jones's synth-plink scorcher New Song redone as politely
pulsing eurohouse topped off with Furtado whining like a doodlebug, don't we?
Actually, I'm a little bit exercised that Gordon Brown has allowed it to be
released in this country at all. It's as compelling a reason as any for a
change of government. We can't go on like this.
JOHN CULSHAW Scouting For Girls/This Ain't A Love Song Indeed not. It's a Keane song. And not one of the good ones either (shut up;
there are good Keane songs). Which makes it a Script song, heartfelt in the
purely box-ticking sense with puny piano vamps and please-get-this-to-Number-1
strings. And yeah, this is going to be Number 1. It's going to be Number 1 on
the day our lord Jesus rose from the tomb. Think about that.
Shabby Ranks has the
levels on his computer set all wrong so he can barely hear the songs he's
reviewing. But he's going to plough on regardless.
Shabby Ranks gets off his behind to place this week’s singles in
suitably arbitrary, vaguely hierarchical order.
Shabby Ranks breaks off from
arguing about Arsenal long enough to place this week’s singles in descending
order of Doctor Who aceness.