Madonna
Get Together
Warner
"Do you believe in love at first sight? It’s an illusion; I don’t care," is a fairly inane pop lyric but, surrounded by the pulsating Gallic disco of Get Together, it sounds utterly life-affirming. The third single from Madonna’s Career Salvation on a Dancefloor album – released to coincide with the European leg of her arena-raping tour – recalls Stardust’s Music Sounds Better With You thanks to its thumping bass line and transcendent, arms-in-the-air chorus. Sexual icon, queen of the dancefloor, H&M designer: is there nothing Mrs Ritchie can’t do?*
*Except, of course, act.
Brace yourself for a veritable attack of singles reviews, from Pet Shop Boys, Forward, Russia, Snow Patrol,Ray Lamontagne and Christina Aguilera, all after the jump…
Pet Shop Boys
Minimal
Parlophone
Life is good for Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe at the moment: their Fundamental album’s been greeted with plaudits they haven’t enjoyed since the early nineties – "A magnificent return to form!", "Trevor Horn-tastic!!", "Greatest British Pop Group of the Last Twenty Years!!!" – and rumour has it that they’re currently working on the new Robbie Williams album. Second single Minimal is a sleek electro tune about the absurdity of blank interior design, with a vocodered chorus and typically sharp lyrics from Tennant: "An empty box, an open space, a single thought leaves a trace". As stylish and sexy as Sienna Miller wafting through The Conran Shop in a vintage Chloe frock.
Forward, Russia
Eighteen
Dance to the Floor
Sheffield’s got the Arctic Monkeys; Newcastle has Maximo Park; so why shouldn’t Leeds get in on the post-punk revival act with Forward Russia? Helpfully, the band have a lovely self-conscious quirk to raise them above the legions of hairy NME types in possession of the Talking Heads back catalogue: they don’t have song titles, but rather song numbers. Hence they’re following their top forty hits Twelve and Nine with new single Eighteen. It’s a strangely impressive track, beginning with jerky new wave guitar licks but propelled by an insistent drumbeat and keening vocals into muscular 70s rock riff-o-rama. After a few listens you’ll even find traces of a melody buried in the mix. We still think the whole number thing’s bloody irritating, though.
Snow Patrol
Chasing Cars
Polydor
Snow Patrol’s last single – the sprightly, catchy You’re All I Have – almost managed to dispel their reputation as dull-as-Lineker’s-golf-coverage bedwetters. But Chasing Cars takes a well-positioned pin to the shiny balloon of hecklerspray goodwill that last tune created. Its plodding piano riff and bloodless vocal meander along for four and a half minutes, never hitting fifth gear and only really leaving neutral for the last minute or so. And life’s too short to endure tedious, navel-gazing lyrics like "I don’t know how to say how I feel" ever again. Like spending 24 hours locked in a windowless cell with Imogen from Big Brother.
Ray Lamontagne
Trouble
14th Floor
Ray Lamontagne’s Trouble has been knocking around for over a year now, but its New Radio Mix has finally propelled the tune into the top 40, on download sales alone. You’ve seen the ubiquitous TV ad no doubt- "I’ve been saaaaaaaaaaaaved by a woman"– so you’ll have heard Lamontagne’s extraordinary voice in all its gravelly, whisky-soaked glory. We hate to recommend another male singer-songwritery type in the current climate – it’s a bit like ringing up Imelda Marcos and waxing lyrical about how bloody marvellous Manolo Blahniks are – but Lamontagne really is a cut above the James Blunts of this world.
Christina Aguilera
Ain’t No Other Man
RCA
Once upon a time there was a lovely pop princess called Christina. She was cute and blonde and blessed with a voice to keep Whitney in rehab ‘til at least 2020. And, you know what, she was a genie in a bottle baby; you had to rub her the right way. But then she decided she wanted to grow up; she wanted to be sexy; and, most of all, She Wanted To Gain Artistic Control. So she made a preposterous seventy-seven minute album about how hard it is to be 'Xtina', taking in arena rock (Fighter), an urban pop sexathon (Dirrty) and the best power ballad of the new millennium (Beautiful). Sample lyric: "Sorry I'm not a virgin; sorry I'm not a slut…" The world went mad for the new Christina – sorry, Xtina – and they even put up with her slightly creepy penchant for arseless chaps. But was she happy? Was she ballbags!
Now Xtina wants to convince us that she really loves early 20th century Black Music. Hence her upcoming Back to Basics opus, which she describes as "a throwback to…20s, 30s, and 40s-style jazz, blues and feel-good soul music, but with a modern twist!" As if that isn’t enough to whet our appetites, it features song titles like Candyman, Nasty Naughty Boy and Still Dirrty. Lead single Ain’t No Other Man combines blistering horn samples, old skool hip hop beats and that raise-the-dead voice to singular effect. Against all odds, it’s kinda brilliant. Somewhere in deepest, darkest Louisiana Britney’s sobbing jealous tears into her tub of Ben & Jerry’s.
[reviews by Nick Levine]
nomadjf says
chasing cars rocks.
have you seen. the new snow patrol video on youtube with all the scenes from grey’s anatomy in it? it’s awesome!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=NNZV2C5bpmA&search=snow%20patrol%20anatomy