Fab Macca's celebrity friends and five other songs you may have missed

It's that time again: A bunch of songs from the last seven days that you may not have seen, or that you have seen but I forgot to blog about along the way. Either way, here's this week's Bo Selection.

1) Paul McCartney - Queenie Eye
Meryl Streep, Jude Law, Johnny Depp, Kate Moss, Jeremy Irons, Tom Ford, Sean Penn, Chris Pine: All of them dancing awkwardly to Paul McCartney's new single.

Like the title track of Sir Paul's new album, New, this is a pleasant return to a sort of Beatlesy instrumentation and chord progression - although the production by Paul "turn up the drums" Epworth is strangely neutered.




2) M.I.A - Yala
I was very excited to interview musical provocateur M.I.A. earlier this week (the interview is going up on the BBC soon) - and she didn't disappoint. The interview covered the NSA, Wikileaks, the SuperBowl, Hindu mysticism and the wonders of Sade's farm - from which M.I.A. borrowed a cow for her Bring The Noize video (no, really).

MIA went on from our interview to speak to Zane Lowe and premiere her new song YALA - You Always Live Again. It's been interpreted as an attack on Drake's YOLO, but she told me that was nonsense. "It's not an anti-Drake song, it's just an alternative concept," she sighed. "People find offense in anything."




3) Kelly Clarkson - Underneath The Tree
Today is officially 2 months before Christmas Day, so what better time to enjoy Kelly Clarkson's first ever Yuletide single? It fits snugly into Phil Spector's sleighbell-tastic template, although it's no All I Want For Christmas Is You.




4) The Internet - Dontcha
Fancy some mid-90s acid jazz vibes? The here are Odd Future-offshoot The Internet to help you out. Equal parts Brand New Heavies and Solange, Dontcha has one hell of a slinky bassline. Niiiice.




5) Svē - Talking To The Walls
Svē is an unsigned artist from Brooklyn, who majored in songwriting at college and recorded this single "in bedrooms and closets". It doesn't sound like it. Talking To The Walls is a stunning, slow-burning pop ballad, whose chorus will fling you out of your socks. Very, very impressive.




6) Jungle - The Heat
Mysterious London duo Jungle were recently named NME's New Band Of The Week - but don't let that put you off. The group don't let anyone see their faces, but the music can do the talking just fine, thankyouverymuch.

Their new single is a slippery twist of funk, and the video is sublime. Expect big things.

That's it for this week. Congratulations if you got this far.

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An explosion in a wig factory, and five other songs you may have missed

*MUTED FANFARE* This week's new music round-up is a bit of a mixed bag - which presumably means we're heading headfirst into the summer song drought. Nonetheless, there are a few sparkling gems knocking about if you're prepared to look hard enough. And these are they.

1) Breach - Jack
The most bonkers video of the week is this wig-tastic clip from Breach, aka UK house music producer Ben Westbeech. Everything in the video is made out of hair, from the furniture to the dancer who looks like, but probably isn't, Lady Gaga. The song's not bad either - a minimalist, repetitive, but exceedingly catchy, club track.




2) Liz - U Over Them
This is my favourite new track of the week. Liz is an singer from Tarzana, California, whose style harks back to the late 90s robo-R&B of Brandy and Aaliyah. In fact, she sounds so much like Aaliyah, I had to pinch myself. As if to reinforce those millennial reference points, her biggest social media presence is on MySpace. One to watch.





3) Chvrches - The Mother We Share (live)
If Chvrches were suffering nerves on their US television debut they certainly didn't show. This is more down to Lauren's awesome vocals than the band's Chris Lowe double act (note to accountants: one Chris Lowe is usually enough). NB: Spot the radio edit - "fucks up" becomes "stuffs up". Controversial.




4) M.I.A. - Bring The Noize
Never has a song title been more appropriate. This is what happens when you load up a sampler with 82 random noises and push it down the stairs. Invigorating and rubbish all at once.





5) Foals - Bad Habit
I interviewed Yannis Philippakis yesterday for a BBC Glastonbury thing. "Do you get a rider," I asked. "OF COURSE I get a rider," he replied, indignantly. And what's on it? "Oh, just scotch. Lots and lots of scotch".

I have sneaking suspicion Foals' set is going to be one of the festival's unexpected highlights. The band have just come back from a four-month tour of the US, leaner, hungrier, and ready for a home crowd. Their new single is bound to be on the setlist - but it'll be the almighty Inhaler that really sets things off...




6) Alex Metric & Jacques Lu Cont feat Malin off Niki & The Dove – Safe With You
That band name needs a bit of work, but this is a gorgeous and surprisingly soulful slab of Euro House music. A word of warning, though: No matter how great the singer's boyfriend is, I'm not sure it's wise to promise "I'd break my back for you". Just a thought.

That's your lot for now... As ever, send any more tips and suggestions to editor@discopop.co.uk. Cheers!

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Guetta grip

I wrote a big thing about David Guetta being like the Great Wall Of China: Immense, monolithic and unchanging. Then I deleted it because it was (a) a horrible metaphor, and (b) pretentious bollocks.

The point was that, although Guetta's songs all sound the same, they are spectacularly well-built pop tunes. He is the Stock Aitken and Waterman of "EDM". He is the Alfred Hitchcock of "the drop". He is the Phil Spector of Ibiza, haircut-wise.

What I love about the French DJ is that he makes no attempt to disguise the fact he's sticking to a formula. His follow-up to last year's album Nothing But The Beat is called Nothing But the Beat 2.0. For the lead single Every Chance We Get We Run, he trades brilliant-but-underappreciated singer Sia for brilliant-but-underappreciated duo Tegan and Sara, but that's the only appreciable change.

Tegan and Sara teased the song on their Twitter feed last week, and now the full thing has emerged. You won't be surprised, but you will enjoy.

BEHOLD:
David Guetta ft Tegan And Sara - Every Chance We Get We Run

PS: Not content with a whole new album, Guetta is apparently remixing every track on M.I.A's new record, Matangi. According to this website, her hilarious nickname for the producer is David Forguetta Boutit. Oh dear.

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Take a good look at this man

That, ladies and gentlemen, is William Orbit, the famed producer behind Nadine Coyle's Unbroken and Ricky Martin's Cuidado Con Mi Corazón.

He may not be instantly recognisable from a photo, but you'd know his music if you stumbled across it: There will be beeps and bloops, there will be synth washes, there will be a tremulous guitar tremulating tremulously.

Perhaps you know this song, or this one, or (best of all) this one. They have been on the radio.

This week, a couple of Orbit's unfinished and unreleased tracks surfaced online. They're rather good, so I thought I'd flag them up for you.

First up we have three (three!) versions of a song called Liquid Love, originally recorded for Madonna's Music album in 2000. It contains a lot of the same psychedelic sonic signatures as the previous year's Beautiful Stranger, which maybe explains why it was dropped.

Bootlegs have been circling the internet for years - but these new versions got Orbit's seal of approval on his Facebook page the other day. My favourite take is the second one...



The second leaked track was also intended for Madonna but it has a much more interesting provenance. Baby was written and demoed by MIA for this year's MDNA album. It's slower and more melodic than the rapper's usual abrasive polemics - partly thanks to Orbit's sticky fingered remix.

MIA is predictably unhappy about her demo being tampered with. "Who ever LEAKED THAT BABY song should know that ive never heard this version B4 it sounds crazy different 2 wht i worte for madonna." she said, semi-illegibly.

Whatever she thinks, I reckon it turned out rather well.

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Madonna's Super Bowl performance: 10/10

Even LMFAO couldn't spoil it...

Madonna - Super Bowl Half Time performance 2012


As one friend pointed out on Facebook: "Madonna makes an amazing cheerleader because behind that smile you know she's a bitch."

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Automatic, systematic, hydromatic

Knock, knock
Who's there?
Carson
Carson who?
Carson two wheels in the new M.I.A. video


M.I.A. - Bad Girls

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Cheerleaders and leotards

What is this, Madonna? 1985?

Madonna - Give Me All Your Luvin'


Madge'n'MIA'n'Minaj (Madgina for short) are performing this at the SuperBowl this weekend... If it's as good as the video, it's going to be spectacular.

If you can't watch the video at work, here are the key frames.

1) Nicki Minaj can't believe her luck.

2) M.I.A. shakes her pom-poms.

3) For Madonna's big entrance, she is pushing a pram, because she is just a regular mum like the rest of us.

4) M.I.A. is left holding the pram because Madonna doesn't really care about children, after all.

5) Bum cheeks.

6) Director instructs the principal vocalists to line up in descending order of height.

7) Cunning perspective trick resembles cut-price version of Lionel Richie's Dancing On The Ceiling.

8) If Madonna entered a Madonna look-alike competition, do you think she would win?

9) Literally no idea what's going on here.

10) Backing dancer has an opportunistic grope.

11) It all ends up at the imaginatively-named "Disco Club".

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M.I.A. and the arms aloft quandary

One of these days, rappers will discover that putting your hands up in the air isn't as difficult or amazing as they think. Look, I just did it now. And again. My hands go up and down at will. And I'm not alone. I was in a school classroom recently (18 years ago) and the kids were putting their hands up all the time. In the supermarket this weekend, I even saw a woman of very advanced years put her hand up, in order to reach a packet of Bourbon biscuits that had been placed on a high shelf.

Eventually, I went onto Wikipedia and checked up on this phenomenon. Apparently, the ability to raise your hand above shoulder height is common to all primates. It's no big deal. Chimps can do it less than half an hour after they're born.

So come on, rappers, let's have some REAL challenges in your music. I have some suggestions:

• Fold your legs over your shoulders like you just don't care
• Pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time for Detroit
• Throw your hands up (having previously cooked them into a warming casserole, then tried to swallow them prompting an involuntary gag reflex) in the air

While this message filters through to the hip-hop community, here is M.I.A., whose supremely slinky new single Bad Girls contains several "hands up" moments.

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M.I.A's got The Right Stuff

Last year's /\/\/\Y/\ album was crushed under the weight of expectation. M.I.A. seemed to be trying to second-guess her audience, acting like a political (and sonic) provocateur because it was expected of her; making futile, brattish attempts to counter accusations of selling out by marrying a millionaire; before finally letting loose on songs like Teqkilla.

Since that troubled third album hit the streets, not to mention a barrage of critical brickbats, M.I.A's material has become infinitely more interesting. First up, she realeased the Vicki Leekx mixtape (it rhymes with Wikileaks, you see) on New Year's Day. It was a mixed bag - an hallucinogenic collage of clips, beats and song fragments - but tracks like Gen N.E.Y. and Bad Girls saw M.I.A. triumphantly reacquaint herself with melody.

Over the weekend, another new song leaked. This one's called Zig Zag and it is absolutely the sort of M.I.A. track I can get behind... Flirty, fun, playful, catty, catchy and sexy. Harking back to the 80s with a huge Roland TR-808 drum kick, it's an eccentric, cosmopolitan playground chant. Better still, it interpolates the chorus to the NKOTB's The Right Stuff.

Welcome back, pop M.I.A. We missed you.

M.I.A. - Zig Zag Co-write by AntWhiting

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Better late than never: An MIA video

She's always shunning convention, that MIA. Writing her album's name as a series of keystrokes (/\/\/\Y/\) so that you can't Google it. Making short films about murdering gingers. Marrying multi-millionaire record company executives.

It must get tiring, though, bucking the trends and defying people's expectations all day long.

Would you like salt or pepper with your penne arabiata? NO WAY, ASSHOLE. That's just SOCIETY forcing its PREJUDICAL CONVENTIONS on my tongue.

Do you need a receipt with that? HA HA HA You can't fool me with your FASCIST SURVEILLANCE techniques. I will set your FACE on FIRE.

Fancy coming to see Toy Story 3 later? ARE YOU KIDDING ME, TWATBAGS? There are CHILDREN DYING in SRI LANKA.

MIA's latest escapade is to make a video for her truly excellent single XXXO, just two short months after it was released. I warn you now, she directed it herself.

MIA - XXXO


If your head hurts after sitting through that, then spare a thought for MIA's poor husband, Ben Brewer. Imagine living in a house where MIA has control of the decorating budget...

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M.I.A. - Critical meltdown

There's a quite extraordinary interview with M.I.A.'s producer, Diplo, over on the Black Book website.

The US DJ, who has worked on all three of M.I.A.'s albums, says the star "didn’t care" about her new record, "didn’t write anything" in the studio, and has "a bunch of yes men around her". Ouch.

The interview comes in the wake of lukewarm reviews for /\/\/\Y/\, which was released on Monday. Several critics have bemoaned a lack of progression in the singer's culture-busting, genre-splicing soundclash style. But I suspect most of them are peeved because she refused to make an entire album of radio-friendly hits like Paper Planes.

My favourite critique came from the All Music Guide, who wrote: "There are moments during MAYA when it seems like M.I.A.'s next move might involve walking into a laundromat, filling the dryers with bricks and silverware, pulling the fire alarm, blaring a drop-forge beat from a tinny boombox, and recording the result."

It's true - but it was also true of her first two records, so why gripe?

Musically, I think the album is great. It scampers back and forth over the (very wide) line that divides sachharine pop melodies from a full-blown intercontinental nuclear assault on your ears.

XXXO, It Takes A Muscle and Teqkilla are shocking, exhilirating and experimental, but they all have tunes your milkman could whistle. Or, to be more precise, tunes your milkman could scream through a loudhailer if he had tourettes.

My problem, therefore, is with the lyrics.

M.I.A. peddles a constant stream of post-millennial paranoia so myopic and blinkered it would make 9/11 conspiracy theorists a little uneasy in their tin foil hats. If we take her word for it, everything bad in the world is a result of Government Control and Corrupt Politicians. At one point, she deliberately mis-pronounces Obama as "a bomber". Ooooh, controversial.

It's not hard to guess the root of her neurosis. M.I.A. grew up in the middle of Sri Lanka's bitter, ongoing civil war. The conflict has been bloody and the tactics morally murky (on both sides). Suspicion is ingrained into her psyche.

But I also grew up in the middle of a conflict - in Northern Ireland - and I learnt a very different lesson: People with strong, immutable opinions are either (a) clowns or (b) clowns exploiting extremism to further their own goals.

So it might be a defence mechanism, but when I heard M.I.A. intoning: "Arm bone connects to the handbone, hand bone connects to the internet, connected to the Google, connected to THE GOVERNMENT" in a voice laden with portent and drama, I laughed so hard I got a hernia.

Anyway, if you put the words to one side (and to be honest, most of the time they're so muddled and processed you can't make them out anyway) you're left with a great album.

Let's just take one more listen to Born Free, as performed with an army of clones on a mainstream US television show:

M.I.A. - Born Free (David Letterman)


Amazing.

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Ladies' chart battle - and more!

Sorry the blog's been a bit underpopulated for the last couple of days - I've been poorly sick. But here's a few things you might have missed (or seen elsewhere while I was away, natch).



:: Is this the biggest battle of the pop divas in the history of the cosmos?

Big guns Britney, Beyoncé, Christina Aguilera and Alesha Dixon (and Leona Lewis) all have singles out this week, while Girls Aloud have squeezed out their fifth studio album. Chart-wise, it looks like X Factor's not-quite-as-awful-as-you'd-expect version of Hero will be number one again, with Girls Aloud's The Promise at two and Beyonce's gramatically-incorrect If I Were A Boy at three. Meanwhile, Out Of Control looks set to beat Razorlight to the top of the album charts, giving Girls Aloud their first ever non-compilation number one. Amazing. [More on the midweeks at Music Week]

:: Jamelia has a comeback single, Break It Down, Tear It Up. It's miles better than the confused mess of her last album - but is it good enough to put her back where she belongs (somewhere between The Saturdays and McFly on the bill for T4 on the Beach)? The jury is out. [listen / download]

:: Another track from the Killer's new album, Day & Night, has leaked. No surprises here: Too many synths, Brandon Flowers not very good at singing, the track itself = brilliant.

The Killers - Spaceman


:: It's like a blogger's wet dream - M.I.A. covers the theme tune to The Wire. Sadly, it's rubbish. [Youtube (youtube)]

:: Is this a new Justin Timberlake single? Hmmm... it sounds a bit like a FutureSex/LoveSounds cast-off to me.

:: The NME has published its annual "cool list" - with entries for Jay-Z, Liam Gallagher, Amy Winehouse and, er, Peter Gabriel. The number one slot, as is customary, goes to someone the NME is trying to justify having put on their front page in April, despite the fact they've made absolutely no impact on anyone, anywhere in the intervening six months. This year, it's Alice Glass from Crystal Castles (they're like the Human League with all the tunes taken out). As Stereogum points out, the NME have once again confused "cool" with "notorious". [Stereogum]

:: A Kiss Is Not A Contract - but a baby is a life sentence (in a good way, obviously). Flight Of The Conchords star Jemaine Clement is a dad. Congratulations. [3 News, New Zealand]

:: Lukewarm S Club 7 reunion is lukewarm. [Popjustice]

:: Oh yes, and there was a completely historic, paradigm-shifting, momentous election in the US. Barack Obama is President elect (Yay!!!) and Will.i.am has written a song about it (woop!). And so has Nas (respect) and so has Seal (er, hooray?!)

Back to business as usual from tomorrow...

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M.I.A. has a strop

Underground rap superstar M.I.A. has posted a massive rant on her myspace page, complaining about how her new single, Paper Planes, has been "sabotaged" by MTV and the American establishment.

You see, the London / Sri Lankan singer performed the song on David Letterman's US chat show, but the gunshot percussion that punctuates the chorus was replaced by a cheap electronic snare drum.

"IT WAS WAC OF COURSE" reports M.I.A. who has yet to learn how to use the shift key. "I WAS ABEL TO SOUND CHECK FOR THAT SHOW AND THEY LET ME SOUND CHECK FINE, THEN ON THE ACTUAL TAPING MY SOUND WAS SOOO DIFFERENT FROM WHAT ID AGREED."

If you watch the video of the performance, you can actually see M.I.A. look round in confusion the first time the replacement sound effect is played (youtube link).

And it does somewhat ruin the point of the song, the chorus of which runs: "All I want to do is *pow, pow, pow, pow* and take your money". M.I.A. has said the lyrics are a comment on how (some) people in the West view immigrants, and it's clear that "All I want to do is play a 1980s Casio keyboard and take your money" doesn't have the same impact.

Unfortunately, MTV have also chosen to censor the video in this way - raising the singer's ire even further. Here are some words she uses to describe this turn of events: DISAPPOINTED, BULLSHIT, FUCKED UP MESS.

I think she's angry, don't you?

M.I.A. continues to say that this is exactly the kind of thing that happens to people who have an "OUTSIDER MESSAGE", which is fair comment. But when your song contains the line "Some I murder, some I let go" perhaps you shouldn't expect mainstreams TV networks to fall at your feet praising your artistic integrity.

Anyway, this all clouds over the fact that Paper Planes is a brilliant song from one of the best albums on 2007. Here is the uncensored video, which the corporate whores at MTV can shove up their wazoo!

M.I.A. - Paper Planes


NB: This video is brought to you by Youtube, which is owned by Google, a company that makes almost $15bn per year and is part of the Nasdaq 100.

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Jimmy Jimmy revisited

Last week, I posted a preview clip of M.I.A.'s new single, Jimmy Jimmy, and likened it to a Bollywood remake of camp disco classic (I Lost My Heart To A) Starship Trooper.

It turns out the song is actually a western remake of a Bollywood song called Jimmy Aja (Disco Dancer). A quick scan through Youtube turns up a clip from the original film, in which a woman wearing red sweatpants dances provocatively in front of a zombie during an Indian version of The Generation Game. No, really.



While we're at it, here's the full version of the M.I.A. video. Nice arm work.

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M.I.A.'s new single

...is a Bollywood remake of I Fell In Love With A Starship Trooper, and I claim my five pounds.

M.I.A. - Jimmy (sneak preview)

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New M.I.A. single - Boyz

M.I.A. is an odd fish. According to wikipedia, her music combines elements of grime, hip-hop, ragga, dancehall, R&B, electro, and baile funk. I don't even know what half of those are, to tell you the truth, but they sound quite good when you throw them all together and get a young lady to shout over the top.

She released an album, Arular, two years ago which lots of bloggers raved about but no-one bought. For once, that was entirely justified. M.I.A.'s not one of those underground artists who's suddenly going to appear at number one. Her music is a bit too noisy and angular to embed itself in the national pop conciousness. Nontheless, she's insanely talented, and if you like something a bit different she will be right up your street. Not literally, of course. She thinks your street is rubbish.

Zane Lowe played the first official single from her second album, Boyz, last night. It’s a right old racket, but you'll like it. Promise.


M.I.A. - Boyz (radio rip)

We're off to the new house tomorrow morning. Normal service will be resumed... erm, soon. I hope. Byeee!

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