Single Releases 03/08/07

Ok so first an apology. Yes, I did totally forget to review KT Tunstall's comeback single Hold On.
So better late than never...

It's good. I can't quite see why she keeps insisting it's got an "R'n'B" vibe to it, but maybe that's just me. My only criticism of it would be that it could do with a catchier chorus. It's not a bad chorus by any means but it drags the song down slightly. As for the "you've got to be drastic to be fantastic" thing, I'll hold judgement on that until the album.

Onto this week's stuff.

Girls Aloud slam back on the scene with Sexy! No No No. I'd prefer a question mark instead of an exclamation mark. But anyhoo, it's a decent effort. Not as catchy as their best stuff but it does have that tinge of maniacal genius that all their best stuff has. The opening is brilliant; the rest of the song doesn't quite match it. The "duh-duh-dirty mind" bit though is perfection.

Rhianna may be boring as a pop star, but she comes up with some cracking pop singles. Ok, so she's "presented" with them, but Shut Up & Drive is very good, although it's New Order recreation isn't as good as the Soft Cell driven SOS. But as I've said before; in pop terms what else is these days?

Bring out the Roast Chicken because James Blunt is back. 1973 is pretty awful though. And I'm speaking as someone who hasn't got sick of his album. He's come back with the kind of song the record company wanted him to come back with. It just doesn't have that soaring quality that his best singles have had. Ok, that High had.

Candie Payne's record company have finally decided that my tipping her for success in 2007 needn't mean the end of her career by getting Mark Ronson in to remix One More Chance. A good job he's done too. Now all I need is people to actually start buying her records.

Isn't this a "big name" single's week?

The Editors return with that one song they always do. Fair's fair though, they do do the one song very well. I'm growing less and less enamoured with his voice though every time I hear it. Watching them live may be a painful experience...only joking Gee man.

Is there a worse single this year knocking about than Plain White T's Hey There Delilah? There may be, but this is definitely on the short list. I particularly love how this song's success somehow is supposed to signify a good thing. It's not. They're rubbish, the song is rubbish and, in effect, this is naught but a novelty record.

Speaking of awful novelty records, we come to Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston. It's a close run thing over whether this is worse than even Plain White T.

Of course both of those will sell thousands more copies than Lucky Soul's One Kiss Don't Make a Summer but then life isn't fair. Why it's been released now, instead of the height of the summer is beyond me, but then I don't run a record company do I?

Paramore's Hallelujah is a nice little track. Nothing earth shattering, but good all the same.

Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip are seemingly awesome. The Beat That My Heart Skipped is another winner.

As mentioned before, Bonde do Rolê don't quite have the killer single that would see them doing a "CSS" but Solta o Frango is a typically good track from them all the same.