Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Gold Lion
Polydor
Let’s get one thing straight: the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (CDs) are hip. Achingly hip. ‘Drop the band name to get in with the cool kids’ hip. But, with Gold Lion, they’re now a great band too. The first single from the New Yorkers’ upcoming Show Your Bones album is a less frenetic offering than those hip kids have come to expect – gasp-o-rama! It even features some acoustic guitar – but its chorus is as explosive as ever. In fact, Gold Lion is the band’s catchiest, most appealing tune yet. Factor in the mesmerising, trouser-tighteningly sexy vocal from Karen O – not to mention her iconoclastic performance in the video – and you have a band poised for mainstream success. There’s just one problem: will the cool kids still like them when they’re sitting on an oversized sofa with Myleene Klass talking about their “ugh-maaaay-zing year”?
More electric singles reviews after the jump, from Nelly, Nouvelle Vague, Sean Paul, The Voom Blooms, The Strokes and Pink…
Nelly
Grillz
Island
Nelly’s (CDs) had some great moments (Hot In Herre, Ride Wit Me, Dilemma
before MTV spun it to death) but Grillz is hopeless. Why? Well, for
starters there’s the excruciating lyric about covering your pearlie
whites in bling: “open up my mouth and you see more carats than a
salad” indeed! Then there’s the fact that the entire track exhibits
less creativity than the paint-by-numbers picture of Shayne Ward into
which your little cousin Eve’s currently pouring her soul. You want
more? Well, the obligatory female vocal hook doesn’t take hold; the
droning keyboard riff sounds cheap and dated; and even Nelly’s vocal
tics (“Woooh!” “Uh!Uh!”) sound tired and self-parodying. Grillz? Right
now the only thing Nelly deserves round his chops is a good slap.
Nouvelle Vague
I Melt With You/Teenage Kicks
Peacefrog
“Qui est Nouvelle Vague?” is a question you might get asked during your
Tuesday evening French class at the adult learning centre. And the
‘spray’s here to help you. Nouvelle Vague (CDs) are two anonymous Frenchmen
with a penchant for re-interpreting classic new wave tunes in a bossa
nova style. You’ll doubtless have heard their covers of The Undertones‘
Teenage Kicks and Modern English‘s rather more obscure I Melt With You
on the recent T-Mobile TV ads. I Melt With You is languidly sung by the
sort of saucy French starlet we’d imagine Serge Gainsbourg spent his
latter days with and is the musical equivalent of drowning in honey
(organic, of course). Teenage Kicks drifts by in a shoegazey haze
that’s only interrupted by one jarring sound: that of John Peel
spinning in his grave. But, really, “Qui est Nouvelle Vague?” Well,
they make music for trendy Hoxton dinner parties. Nothing more, nothing
less.
Sean Paul
Temperature
Atlantic
Sean Paul (CDs) hasn’t quite recovered in the ‘spray’s eyes from his
infuriating ubiquity during 2003. In those twelve looong months he
scored three top ten hits and appeared on smashes from Beyonce (Baby
Boy) and Blu Cantrell (Breathe). Well, there’s only so much
radio-friendly dancehall delivered in an unfathomable Jamaican patois
we can take, right? But Temperature, the third single from his Trinity
album, might just make us revise our opinions of the rent-a-rapper. The
gargantuan drums are almost hypnotic; Paul sounds utterly inspired
(even if we can’t work out a ruddy word he’s saying) and the occasional
electro flourishes add a nice contemporary edge. Good work Seanie, but
we’ll give you some advice for free: if Rihanna/Christina Milian/Ciara
call DO NOT ANSWER.
The Voom Blooms
Politics And Cigarettes
Fiction/Polydor
That’s The Voom Blooms, not The Von Bondies. It’s easy to tell them apart, though: The Voom Blooms have never been beaten up by him out of The White Stripes, and The Von Bondies aren’t friends with bitey rockers The Paddingtons. And you’ll probably be a bit more hesitant to put down your ridiculous pint of cider and dance to The Voom Blooms at the indie disco. That’s not to say that they aren’t good, though, and – judging by Politics And Cigarettes, anyway – they’re an ambitious lot. Ambitious as in ‘sounds a bit like a U2 demo’. And that’s something they’ll be wanting to nip in the bud pretty sharpish.
The Strokes
Heart In A Cage
Rough Trade
Since when do Strokes (CDs) tunes feature iddly-widdly guitar solos? Surely
this entirely masturbatory musical practise, so beloved of middle-aged
guitar heroes who utter anachronisms like “spaced” and “bitchin” and
insist on wearing double denim, is the very antithesis of the band’s
languid New York cool. Still, said solo helps to raise Heart In A Cage
above its limited, Strokes-by-numbers appeal. All the usual suspects
are here: the galloping rhythm guitar, the insistent drumbeat and, of
course, Julian Casablancas‘ poorly-enunciated whining. Heart In A Cage
isn’t a bad single, but, as with all second-rate Strokes tunes, you
find yourself appraising the band’s hair as you listen. Mr Valensi:
you’ve nailed it.
Pink
Stupid Girls
Sony BMG
Pink’s (CDs) M!ssundaztood album was the gutsiest about-face in recent pop
history. Dropping the generic R&B that had made her debut a
surprise success, the former Alecia Moore fashioned a kaleidoscopic pop
opus taking in arena rock redux (Just Like A Pill), B-52‘s-esque party
pop (Get The Party Started) and self-lacerating confessionals (Family
Portrait). Her chutzpah was well rewarded: the album shifted twelve
million copies and set the template for a swarm of rock-influenced
female pop albums that followed (Christina‘s Stripped, Kelly‘s
Breakaway, Ashlee‘s Autobiography to name but three). But the
follow-up, 2003’s Try This, sank quicker than the record label could
scream “Quick! Someone call Linda Perry!” Was writing the lion’s share
of the album with an LA punk – Rancid’s Tim Armstrong – an unlikely
collaboration too far? Were we just sick of hearing Pink’s goddamn
voice on the radio? Or was the lead single’s later being covered by
Shakin’ Stevens on Hit Me Baby One More Time evidence of an almighty
musical misjudgement? All of the above, if we’re honest.
But now Pink’s back and fighting like Amir Khan on steroids for the
juicy, Madonna-sized slice of the pop pie that she clearly thinks she
deserves. Stupid Girls takes its musical cues from everything Pink’s
done before (except, of course, the stuff from Try This that nobody
liked). It’s a little bit rock! But it’s a little bit urban too! It
features handclaps! The chorus screams “radio play me!” And, for added
comeback impact, Stupid Girls is a single with An Important Message:
Pink’s had enough of those vacuous, image-conscious slebs who provide
Heat magazine’s raison d’etre and seem poised to take over pop culture.
“What happened to the dreams of a girl president?” she pleads in her
usual fags‘n’whisky, white-girl soul voice. “She’s dancing in the video
next to 50 Cent,” comes the wry answer. And, in case we might somehow
miss her point, Pink sends up these inane fame-whores in the MTV
playlister’s wet dream of a video. Ooh, look! She’s dressing up as
Paris Hilton. And is that meant to be Lindsay Lohan? And, no, she can’t
be doing that, surely. But she only ruddy is! She’s
ac-choo-ul-ly simulating bulimia – that’s sure to grab a few column
inches.
Stupid Girls is the least musically adventurous single Pink’s released
for five years but, you know what ‘spraylets, she gets away with it.
Why? Because its message – executed with gimlet-eyed determination and
multi-channel precision – proves that Pink is a popstar with something
to say. In 2006, that’s something to be bloody grateful for.
[reviews by Nick Levine]