Shabby Ranks puts this week’s
singles in some sort of order so you don’t have to.
He’d have stiffed the Stereophonics one for Charlie Winston’s I Love Your
Smile if it’d been the Shanice song and not some earnest Blunty folk-a-drivel.
Anyway…
AIR CHIEF MARSHAL Los Campesinos!/Romance Is Boring The Welsh 40-piece return after - what? - three weeks since their last
album? Anyway, the best part of a month seems to have put some meat on their
bones and toughened up Gareth's voice. He still uses a MASSIVE AMOUNT of words,
sarky asides ("Sure there are things I could do if I was half-prepared
to" - that's ennui, that) and (possibly) a xylophone, but this is taut,
none-more-indie stuff and fiercely catchy. A bit like their other records then,
only more compact. Beano.
AIR COMMODORE Dum Dum Girls/Jail La La Feel the glossy production on this little beauty from Sub Pop. It could be
the new Usher single. As it happens, it's a thoroughly loveable stick of lo-fi
indiepop rock, printed through with "Can we be the new Primitives,
please?" Bet the drummer gets tired.
FLYING OFFICER The Courteeners/You Overdid It Doll Who gave The Courteeners sequenced beats? What have they done with the
drummer? Why has Liam Fray got that haircut? Is it 1994? God, maybe it is. In
that case, we'd like Ace Of Base back, and China Black and Whigfield. Any
amount of processed pop could knock this sort of convictionless rock into a
cocked hat. It's not that You Overdid It Doll is a terrible record (yeah, it is
a bit); it's that it's so polite when all along we thought these lads were the
saviours of rawk (we didn't).
OFFICER CADET Timbaland featuring Katy Perry/If We Ever Meet Again Teddy bear-faced producer Timbaland sounds even more beautiful all autotuned
up like that. It's like a nightingale serenading a courting couple on a balmy
summer's evening, but lo! What's this? It's Pat Benatar de nos jours Katy
Perry, here to get all unlovely on our asses with her subtle 4 Non Blondes coo.
Somehow these seemingly unmatched croons dovetail gently, over soothing cheap
synths, to create a delicate flower of a clunking soul-free mess.
WORKING THE TILLS IN THE NAAFI Stereophonics/Could You Be The One No.
