Alt-J's matador metaphor and five other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round up of the songs I didn't have time to blog about this week.

Today's selection includes...

1) Alt-J - Something Good
Restrained but beautiful, the new single from Mercury nominees Alt-J is one of their more straightforward songs... musically, at least. On their Soundcloud page, the band say the song "documents the death of a matador", which in turn is "an analogy for the slow mending of a broken heart through fun distractions". Taking that into account, the video is both gory and meditative.



2) Missy Elliot - Triple Threat
Followers of Missy Elliot's twitter account won't have missed the fact she's got a new single out because she spent the start of the week retweeting every person who mentioned it in an unrelenting, 48-hour egowank. Fun for her, trying for the rest of us. A bit like the single, in fact.

Triple Threat is the better of two songs on the double a-side single, even if you have to slog through an entire minute of Timbaland "rapping" before she turns up. Love the string sample.



Nelly Furtado - Parking Lot
This is one of the stand-out moments on Nelly's sadly-underwhelming new album, The Spirit Indestructible. Gritty and funky, it's a tribute to her mis-spent youth, hanging around in shopping mall parking lots listening to hip-hop. If the piercing car horn sample doesn't give you a headache, the video will...



4) Chvrches - The Mother We Share
Chvrches (try typing that on an iPhone) are a synth-pop trio from Glasgow, who have stockpiled more tunes than a newsagent during a flu epidemic. You know, because of the cough sweets called Tunes? Oh never mind...




5) Bobby Womack and Lana Del Rey - Dayglo Reflection
Earlier this week, Lana Del Rey put out a cover of Bobby Vinton's Blue Velvet this week - but even her sultry black magic can't improve that damp towel of a song. Instead, here's her duet with Bobby Womack, which is getting a single release next month. Atmospheric.



6) Carly Rae Jepsen - This Kiss
Carly Rae Jepsen has daintily dodged the one-hit-wonder bullet by following up Call Me Maybe by releasing This Kiss, a perky pop song that is approximately 500% better than anyone was expecting - especially after that awful duet with Owl City. Nicely played, Carly. Nicely played.

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