New Music Friday: Timberlake, Dua Lipa and the rest...

THERE'S SOME NEW MUSIC. AND IT'S FRIDAY. IT MUST BE NEW MUSIC FRIDAY.

Here are a few brand new "jams" to spread on your musical toast.

1) Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop The Feeling
Perfectly acceptable stop-gap between "proper" albums. Not his finest work.

Also, anyone who's ever sat awkwardly in a room while an artist cues up their new material will know how unrealistic the video is.




2) Dua Lipa - Hotter Than Hell
This is a song about "a really horrible relationship - one that went off the rails," Dua told me earlier this year. Don't worry, though, this isn't a gruelling trudge through her emotional wreckage. No, it's a total banger.

Note the "unusual choice for the YouTube "hero image".




3) Jake Bugg - Love, Hope and Misery
This is really good. Like a Paolo Nutini ballad, only more nasal.




4) James Blake - Radio Silence
After appearing on Beyonce's Lemonade, James Blake has Beyonced his own album, and this is my favourite track (initially, at least).

Meanwhile, there's a big interview with James over on The Guardian today, which features one of the most name-dropping paragraphs in pop history.

It reads: "Madonna called his music 'the kind of thing that makes me jealous', and told him so over the phone while he was in the studio with Kanye West, who has publicly called him 'Kanye’s favourite artist'. Joni Mitchell, one of his heroes, gave him career advice after a show. He has been covered by Lorde and sampled by Drake. Listen to artists including Jack Garratt, Låpsley and FKA twigs, or the melancholy, nocturnal end of hip-hop, and you hear echoes of Blake everywhere."

James's response to all of this? "That's nice."




5) Gallant - Bourbon
"I love in cold blood," is a fantastic lyric. The whole song is fantastic, to be honest.




6) Ariana Grande - Into You
Ariana's new album is shaping up to be very good indeed.




7) Charli XCX - Explode
This is taken from the Angry Birds movie, but don't hold that against it. Charli's best work often comes on movie soundtracks - Boom Clap, Kingdom, etc, etc.




8) Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dark Necessities
This has a really dramatic slow building intro, then Flea jumps in with a trademark slap-thonk bassline and it's business as usual.

Anthony Kiedis' most ridiculous lyric this time round: "You're like ice cream for an astronaut".




9) Skepta - Man
"Upset because your wife is a fan / She done with the little boy / Now she wants to be with a man."

Skepta is on show-stopping form right across his new album, Konnichiwa. Not for the faint-hearted.

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