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.

I Wish I Could Have Loved You More - Candie Payne

You may remember me sticking my neck out at the back end of last year with my "tips for 2007" list. Most will be long forgotten before the year is out, but Candie Payne might actually make it.

I Wish I Could Have Loved You More must certainly go down as one of the best debut albums of the year. Some critics have labelled it Dusty Springfield meets Portishead and whilst it may be a little unfair to limit to that, that's not a bad description to give you an overall feel of Candie Payne's oeuvre.

The title kicks things off with a bang and, in the space of three and a half minutes, encapsulates everything that is wonderful about Payne. Swirling orchestral sounds mix with modern beats to provide the perfect backing for Payne's sublime vocals. Lyrically you might be fooled into thinking that it's a tender piece, but there's a toughness that belies what you may think and proves that the song shouldn't be taken as a lament.

These themes carry on throughout the album; Why Should I Settle For You again straddles the line between vulnerability and toughness whilst Take Me is a vibrant brush-off towards a potential lover which almost gives you the impression she's trying to make him give up his attempts to woo.

Other highlights include the wonderful One More Chance and the rather delightful All I Need To Hear.

The only minor gripe would perhaps be that lyrically the album pretty much treads the same ground throughout the track listing; most of the songs seem to be a variation on a theme of lost love or "my man's a bit of a bastard." Still, it is a very minor gripe.

It might not be the out and out smash some of us may have hoped, but that probably says more about excessive expectations than it does about the album itself. It is, quite simply, fantastic. But perhaps the best feeling is that there is still plenty to come from Candie. As this album shows, she's a genuine talent.

Single Releases 14/05/07

If your only touch with "new" music is Edith Bowman you might well think that the "new" single by CSS is rather good. If you actually have a clue you'll of course have heard Lets Make Love And Listen To Death From Above at least 12 months ago. Still, lets not be too damning. It may be on about it's 37th re-release, but it is still a fantastic pop tune.

I've also been raving about Candi Payne for ages too; she was, pray remember, one of my "tips" for 2007. For the moment we'll ignore the fact that most of my tips have already shown absolutely no suggestion of making it and concentrate that on the back of her performance on Jools Holland last week she's on the verge of cracking it. I Wish I Could Have Loved You More is another reason why she's going to make it.

Alternatively if Lucie Silvas' 2nd album was going to repeat her success of the first time around then it surely would have done by now. Place To Hide will make no difference to that fact.

Maroon 5, on the other hand, are about to hit the stratosphere again. In fact they'll be cracking it on the Timberlake level if Makes Me Wonder is anything to go by.

I'm getting less and less convinced by Sophie Ellis Bextor with every single. Me And My Imagination isn't very good really.

Still she's better than either BWO (who are just plain weird, despite what Popjustice might try to claim otherwise) or Biffy Clyro. I'd espouse more on the latter, but that would bring us back to Edith Bowman again, and I've had more than enough of her for one day.