The Pipettes
Pull Shapes
Memphis Industries
“I just wanna move; I don’t care what the song’s about” is perhaps the best pop lyric ever. Or, if we’re being more precise, the most pop pop lyric ever. Such a perfect distillation of that sticky old liquor we call popular music is what we’ve come to expect from Brighton’s Pipettes – equal parts polka dots, hands-on-hips sex appeal and endless legs – who cracked the top forty in April with the 60s doo-wop channelling Your Kisses Are Wasted On Me. New single Pull Shapes is almost as good: a veritable hat-stand of hooks, a great girl-group melody and some lovely melodramatic strings to add to the period charm. Listen, swoon and then buy that polka dot tie.
There's more; oh, there's more. Singles reviews for Lily Allen, Razorlight, Paolo Nutini, Jamie T and George Michael all after the jump…
Lily Allen
Smile
Regal
Lily Allen is summer 2006. She’s all over radio like bottles of Bolly on a Wag’s bar tab; the music press have declared her the Saviour of Pop TM and her songs have been played two and a half million times on MySpace. Yup, that’s right, 2.5 mill-ee-yun. It’s easy to see why she’s been hyped to Max Clifford levels: she’s gobby, witty and likable, and her new single Smile is a revelation. It’s a gorgeous slice of tropical reggae-pop over which Allen delivers lines like “When you first left me I was wanting more, but you were fucking that girl next door” as though she’s trundling through her life story in an East End caff. Well and truly, a star is born.
Razorlight
In The Morning
Universal
As much as many, many people hate Johnny Borrell – the Razorlight frontman who’s previously declared himself “better than Bob Dylan” and “the greatest songwriter of our generation” – he kinda saves his band from mediocrity. There’s nothing wrong with In The Morning – the lead single from the band’s upcoming second album – but it’s about as exciting as a Sudoku marathon with Wayne Rooney. It’s got a decent chorus, and is nice ‘n’ wiry ‘n’ angular in all the right places, but what’s it got to make it stand out from the legions of similar singles spotlighted in the NME each week? Nothing, of course, except an arrogant gobshite of a lead singer and a drummer with an enormous chin.
Paolo Nutini
Last Request
Atlantic
Paisley’s Paolo Nutini has the face of a Benetton model and the voice of a sexagenarian soak. Last Request – his first single to released in the shops as well as online – is a tender mid-tempo strumalong with an intriguing hint of the carnal about it. “Baby let’s get closer tonight,” he implores, and, with those cheekbones, would you bet against him getting his own way? We don’t a need another sensitive male singer-songwriter right now – or a female one for that matter – but Nutini’s extraordinary voice suggests he might just be poised to feast on James Blunt’s scraps.
Jamie T
Sheila
Virgin
Wimbledon’s Jamie T is a baby-faced cheeky chappy with an incredibly Lahndon rapping style and a nice line in quirky samples. New single Sheila fuses wideboy vocals, a very 80s drum loop and a calypso-tinged keyboard riff to hypnotic effect. He even finds room for a superb Lily Allen-esque opening couplet: “Sheila goes out with her mate Stella; it gets poured all over her fella” indeed! Dazzlingly original, and laden with more samples than the World’s Greatest Carpet Salesman, Sheila shows that there’s more to Wimbledon than strawberries and cream and furry little scavengers with one eye on the pop charts.
George Michael
An Easier Affair
Sony BMG
Oh Georgie, Georgie. For the second time in a decade he’s weathered a tabloid storm by making a self-deprecating, good-humoured appearance on Parkinson and announcing a Greatest Hits collection. An Easier Affair – his first new single since 2004’s patchy Patience album – is a slick slice of mid-tempo radio-pop, which showcases both his effortlessly soulful voice and his ear for 80s-inflected R&B production. But it’s no Faith – hell, it’s no Amazing either- and shouldn’t he have outgrown lyrics like “I told myself I was straight” by now? There’s enough pop craft behind An Easier Affair to make it likable, and it certainly repays multiple listens, but it won’t be bringing the house down when George’s 25 Live tour hits Wembley this Autumn.
[reviews by Nick Levine]