LL Cool J featuring Jennifer Lopez
Control Myself
Mercury
Oh Jennifer, did it have to come to this? After last year’s Rebirth album bombed, the pelt-sporting, scent-flogging, movie-cursing Latino diva is reduced to a cameo spot on a record by a rent-a-rapper. Thing is, this single might just save Lopez the way Mariah Carey’s collaboration with Busta Rhymes– I Know What You Want, name fans- saved her. For Control Myself is Sharon Stone circa 1992 sexy: a lascivious slice of electro R&B which, at times, threatens to break into the Eurythmics’ Here Comes The Rain Again. And, you know what, even Lopez’s Fergie-off-of-Black Eyed Peas impression is kinda appealing. Expect a blockbuster comeback album, The Liberation of J.Lo, early in 2007.
More? More singles reviews? More singles reviews by Daz Sampson, The Beautiful South, Hot Chip, Gear, Neil Leyton, Pet Shop Boys and Boy Kill Boy? After the jump? OK then…
Daz Sampson
Teenage Life
Sony BMG
Ten things you need it’s not unpleasant to know about Daz Sampson and his single Teenage Life:
Daz Sampson will be representing the United Kingdom in the Eurovision song contest later this month.
He’s the man behind Bus Stop’s hit cover of Kung Fu Fighting from a few years ago.
He’s the man behind Rikki and Daz’s hit Rhinestone Cowboy from 2002.
He’s the man behind Out Of Touch, 2004’s BBC trailer-dominating hit from Uniting Nations.
Daz Sampson is a “rapper, not a singer.”
He looks a bit like the man who came round to sort out your dodgy drainpipe, took a few notes to buy some replacement guttering, and then disappeared forever.
Teenage Life features a choir of young people.
It’s more There’s No-One Quite Like Grandma by St Winifred’s School Choir than Another Brick In The Wall by Pink Floyd.
The production techniques employed on this single range from state of the art circa 1998 (the recurring synthesised chord sequence) to state of the art circa 2002 (the skeratchin’ vinyl sound from Avril Lavigne’s Complicated).
But the chorus is really quite catchy.
The Beautiful South
Manchester
Sony BMG
Twelve years since their high-water mark – the astonishing seven-times platinum success of compilation album Carry On Up The Charts – The Beautiful South soldier on to ever diminishing returns. Where once they were prefaced by the ultimate backhanded compliment – “They’re everyone’s second favourite band!”– these days they’d be lucky even to make Mojo Man’s top ten. Manchester, the lead single from the band’s upcoming Superbi album, is a typically melodic paean to the drizzle of the capital of the North. Paul Heaton’s lyrics are as idiosyncratic as ever- his rhyming “melancholy” with “brolly” and “lolly” surely deserves an Ivor Novello category all of its own – and there’s no doubt that the ‘South have captured the sound of classic British pop on this single. Trouble is, it’s nothing they haven’t done better before, back when they really were everyone’s second favourite band.
Hot Chip
Boy From School
EMI
Things are progressing nicely for London’s Hot Chip: they scored their first top forty hit in March. For some reason this success makes the ‘spray think of Heather Small foghorning out Movin’ On Up in celebratory fashion, but that’s not for here. Anyway, Boy From School is a pretty electro-folk ballad, all gurgling synths, kooky sound effects and melancholy vocals. If Giorgio Moroder had spent his youth listening to Fairport Convention – and never bumped into walking orgasm-simulator Donna Summer – Boy From School is what he might well have produced.
Gear
Liquor
An admission, we don't know too much about Gear – except that they have a rubbish name and their single Liquor is a ferocious beast of a thing. Driven by a drum pattern that sounds like the world's worst hangover, Liquor is textbook rebellion in musical form. Billion decibel guitars, a man screaming "I don't want to!" over and over again, a quietLOUD passage like The Pixies used to do – if you don't hear Liquor playing from the window of the angry 15-year-old that lives down your road before the end of the summer, we'll eat out hat. And we'd hazard a guess that Gear are even better live.
Neil Leyton
Dead Fashion Brigade EP
Fading Ways
When people get compared to Jeff Buckley, chances are they make insipid Coldplay-lite music. So it's a pleasure to report that Neil Leyton is nothing like that at all. The Dead Fashion Brigade EP came about after Ginger from The Wildhearts asked Neil Leyton if they could re-record four tracks from his last two albums and then, presumably, set a million guitars to RAWK and dumped them all over Leyton's songs. Sometimes this approach is a little overbearing – such as on Of Course You Knew – but once the music relaxes a little, Neil Leyton gets the chance to show off his staggering voice. And it really is breathtaking; impressive but never showy, and able to convey all kinds of emotion despite Ginger's sometimes overblown production. Best of all – the Dead Fashion Brigade EP contains two non-Ginger songs which show what Neil Leyton is really capable of, and has us whipped up into a frothy state about the release of his third album.
Pet Shop Boys
I’m With Stupid
Polydor
It should be a truth universally acknowledged that the Pet Shop Boys are Britain's greatest ever pop group. You want evidence? Well, there's the 35 top twenty hit hits, the classic albums like Very and Behaviour and, perhaps most impressively, the fact that- as well as penning comeback smashes for Dusty Springfield and Liza Minnelli– the boys even managed to give Patsy Kensit a hit tune back in the day. I'm With Stupid, the lead single from the boys' upcoming Fundamental album, is a quietly scathing attack on the falseness of the Bush/Blair political alliance: "You ring, we pose, it's not about sincerity everybody knows”. Musically it's more eighties than a Pacman marathon with Timmy Mallett – well, what else would you expect from a thumptastic Trevor Horn production? – but, hey, you won’t care when the ringing synth-pop chorus kicks in.
THE ‘SPRAY INDIE BAND FACT FILE #4: BOY KILL BOY
Print off and keep each week. And keep away from your straightening irons!
Name of single: Suzie.
Domicile: Leytonstone, East London.
Current level of popularity: Last single Back Again made the top 30 in February.
Current state of play: Debut album Civilian will be released on 22nd May.
Critical acclaim: NME? Check. XFM? You betcha! Radio 1? B-List-O-Rama!
Key Words: “jerky riffs”, “nice big chorus”, “power pop”.
Suggested Conversation Piece: Strange band name, eh? Well, apparently lead singer Chris Peck misheard the name of a band named Boy Called Roy. Ah, suddenly it all falls into place…
The ‘Spray’s final word: Boy Kill Boy are actually quite a lot better than this sarky review would suggest.
[reviews by Nick Levine]