The return of Leona Lewis and 10 more songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of songs I've been too busy, lazy, stupid or myopic to blog about in the last week or so.

Today's page sees the long overdue comeback of Leona Lewis, a high school gem from Mark Ronson and a heart-warming performance by the Blur.

Enjoy!

1) Leona Lewis - Fire Under My Feet
It's as if Leona Lewis, owner of the world's most pointless umbrella, downloaded the blueprint for Adele's Rolling In The Deep and ran it through a cheap 3D printer.

The results are good - this is a perfectly-rousing slab of gospel pop - but you can't escape the nagging feeling that you've heard it, better, before.

The lyrics are bound to earn a few tabloid inches, given that Leona's new material has been very publicly trailed as a sideswipe at Simon Cowell, whose label she left last year. "Moving on to bigger things, I begin to spread my wings," she sings. "No longer in chains, I'm dancing over these graves."

A return to form, yes. But there's better to come on her new album.





2) Prince - Baltimore
A call for gun control in the US is the centrepiece of Prince's protest song, Baltimore - inspired by the death of youngster Freddie Gray in police custody.

"If there ain't no justice then there ain't no peace," chants the purple one over the sound of marching feet. It's a stirring, timely tune.





3) Lunchmoney Lewis - Bills
Lunchmoney, as well as holding a Guinness record for the worst stage name ever, has worked with both Nicki Minaj and Jessie J. This song sounds more like 1990s novelty abomination Scatman John, though.

A contender for song of the summer, with all the dumb joie de vivre that implies. You are never going to hear the end of it.





4) Mark Ronson and Mystikal - Feel Right
Set in a school talent show, and starring a marvellous mini-Mystikal, this video is a riot.





5) Chemical Brothers ft Q Tip - Go
It's unreasonable to expect the Chemicals to match the lunatic brilliance of Push The Button on this, their latest collaboration with Q-Tip. And so it turns out - Go has a brilliantly nagging bassline, and the duo still know how to build a crescendo, but the chorus falls sadly flat.

It's not helped by an abnormally uninspired Michel Gondry video.





6) Rachel Jane- Awaken
Born in Bristol and raised in Bath, 19-year-old singer/songwriter Rachel Jane is shaping up to be one to watch this year.

Awaken is one of the most surprising, rhythmically complex songs I've heard in ages. Beatboxing, tribal percussion, and drum and bass loops all get referenced in this primal, chanting track that rips up Florence's template and rearranges the pieces into something altogether more lissome.







7) Ed Sheeran - Photograph
Ed Sheeran raids the family archives for this touching little ditty.

Following the singer (who looks adorably like the Milky Bar kid) from cradle to stardom, it ends with the young Ed climbing on a rock and being asked by his father, "Are you at the top of the mountain?" - before cutting to Sheeran on stage saluting a festival crowd. Lucky bastard.






8) Lianne La Havas - Unbreakable (Jungle remix)
Jungle's shimmering, summery funk snuggles up to the supple new single from Lianne La Havas. A clever, thoughtful remix that elevates the original.






9) BenZel - Waiting.... ft Ben Abraham
Jessie Ware collaborators BenZel are in fact super-producers Benny Blanco and Two Inch Punch. Their new single is a stuttering, chaotic electro banger, drenched in pitch-shifted vocals.

Worth sticking around to the end to hear a sample of the common-or-garden soul track the duo ripped apart to make their record.







10) Lyza Jane - If It Hurts
Alt-pop singer Lyza Jane describes this video as "looking like Barbie's bad trip". She's not wrong.





11) Blur - Tender (acoustic with Jimmy Fallon)
You can't help but be buoyed by the irrepressible grins on Graham Coxon and Damon Albarn's faces during this performance. It's nice to know the band - whose Magic Whip album is much better than it has any right to be - are properly enjoying their reunion. Or this bit of it, at least.

And that's your lot for this week. More as soon as I can muster, I promise!

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Songs you may have missed: Santa Claus edition

Hello!

I'm about to wrap up the blog for 2013, with just the annual Top 10s to come between now and New Year (unless something ridiculous happens like, say, Adele suddenly releasing a 24-track video album recorded on the moon with a backing band of hamsters on Boxing Day). So, for one last time, here's a round-up of songs you may have missed, interspersed with a few festive favourites.

1) James Brown - Go Power At Christmas Time
Not a sleigh bell in sight, but it's still a big shiny bauble of brilliance.



2) Busta Rhymes - Thank You ft. Q-Tip, Kanye West, Lil Wayne
Q-Tip and Busta have a long history of top-drawer collaborations, starting way back with A Tribe Called Quest's Scenario in 1992. Their latest, from Busta's forthcoming album E.L.E. 2 (Extinction Level Event 2), is no exception.

Based around a sample from Alicia Meyer's I Want To Thank You, it also features verses from Kanye and Lil Wayne who, frankly, sound a little intimidated by the competition.

And if you want more of the same, Busta and Q-Tip have just put out a free, collaborative mixtape, The Abstract and the Dragon, which is available here.




3) Disclosure - Help Me Lose My Mind (SOHN Remix)
If you thought Disclosure's Help Me Lose My Mind was minimalist before, wait til you hear what London-Austrian producer SOHN has done with it.

His hushed, stripped-back production makes a virtue of Hannah Reid's choral vocals, drawing you deeper and deeper inside the song as it unfurls like ink in water.





4) Kate Bush - December Will Be Magic Again
"Oh Saint NICK-o-lass, Up the CHIM-en-eee." Totally amazing.





5) Grouplove - Ways To Go
Grouplove are basically the indie-pop Scissor Sisters and this song, which has featured in an advert for GoPro cameras, looks like it'll be their breakthrough hit.

The video, in which a young Kim Yong-Un becomes a fan of the band and starts wearing Hawaiian shirts around Pyongyang, is a must-see:





6) Blood Orange - You're Not Good Enough (Holy Ghost bootleg)
Poor Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange, aka Lightspeed Champion) lost everything - even his pet dog Cupid - in a New York apartment fire this week. The letter he published about the devastation ("It's my life. It's everything I've ever owned... loved... it's all gone") will break your heart.

At one point, he talks about going back on tour to give his life a sense of normality. I'm not sure that's wise - but whatever works...

In the meantime, handing over some cash for the music he's made could help him get back on his feet. Thankfully, that includes such classics as Solange's True EP, MKS's Flatlines and Sky Ferreira's Eveything Is Embarrassing and this, his new single, remixed by DFA's Holy Ghost. It's terrific.





7) Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You
Next time someone tells you "well, of course, objectively speaking Fairytale Of New York is the best Christmas song ever written" put this on at full blast and tell them to get a grip.





8) Angel Haze - A Tribe Called Red
Furious, thrilling, magnificent.





9) Vance Joy - Riptide
This was a huge hit in Australia earlier in the year, and I can see it doing the same in the UK in 2014.

Jammed full of pop culture references (Midnight Cowboy and Michelle Pfeiffer to name a few) it also carries a shrewd lyrical observation in the chorus: "I love you when you're singing that song - and I get a lump in my throat cause you're gonna sing the words wrong."

Warning: Riptide is a little bit like the Lumineers' Ho Hey played on a ukelele, so steer clear if that's the sort of thing to make you want to rip apart a cushion.





10) Otis Redding - Merry Christmas Baby
"Santa came down the chimney
Half past three y'all
Left only my good old present
For my baby and for me
HA HA HA"

The sound of a man in the recording studio after one too many sherries.

Hmm, looking back at it, that's quite an eclectic mix of styles and genres. Well done for getting to the end. And have wonderful Christmas, one and all, wherever you are.

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Remix request

Hi there, we have just been "serviced" with the new single by Soundgirl - three singers called Olivia*, Nikki and Izzy who, it says here, were inspired by the likes of SWV, Salt-N-Pepa and other non-terrible girl bands.

Of course, no-one's ever going to declare "our main influences are B*witched and Hepburn", but at least we've established they're aiming for a 1990s urban pop-swing angle. Which places them nicely amidst that whole end-of-a-century throwback scene spearheaded by Yasmin and Katy B and Magnetic Man.

The new single, Don't Know Why, interpolates Carly Simon's Why, which means there's a writing credit for Chic's Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards. It's unashamedly commercial, with a few neat lyrical flourishes from Miranda "Girls Aloud" Cooper: "You make my heart go boom, boom, boom / I'm making mixtapes in my room".

The video is shot in Barbados, so expect a breathtaking blue / green colour palette.

Soundgirl - Don't Know Why


Now, this isn't the first song to lift the hook from Carly Simon's 1982 hit. Q-Tip and A Tribe Called Quest revamped it into a Daisy Age love song back in 1990. Aside from the phrase, "I've got crazy prophylactics," it's a stone-cold classic.

Could someone with better DJ skills than me please create a Soundgirl / Quest mash-up? There's not a Top Shop in the world that wouldn't play it.

Tribe Called Quest - Bonita Applebum (Why Remix)


* "Interesting" fact: Olivia's dad was in The Pasadenas

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Back on the block

Hello! So what's been going on round here for the last week? Anyone care to fill me in?

No need to worry about the following three videos, however. I couldn't fail to avoid them, even in the wifi wilderness of the Peak District. So here they all are, for the sake of completion.

1) Mark Ronson & The Business Intl - Bang Bang Bang


:: This was quite unexpectedly the song of the holiday.
:: It contains lyrics from French nursery rhyme Alouette.
:: "Je te plumerai la tête" means "I shall pluck your head" (?!)
:: The video will appeal to fans of the Simmons electronic drum.


2) Katy Perry - California Gurls

:: Helpfully, the video contains the same air of forced jollity as the song.
:: But I like the bit with Snoop Dogg buried up to his neck in spunk.


3) Kelis - 4th Of July (Fireworks)

:: The radio edit of this song is a triumph.
:: "Nothing I ever say or do will be as good as loving you" is a brilliant pop lyric.
:: The video is slightly awkward, although I like the nod to Jacko's Rock With You.
:: The bit with a skipping rope made of lights (3'11") is a genius display of making special effects on a limited budget, that sadly outstays its welcome by about 30 seconds.
:: The whole endeavour would have been improved tenfold by the inclusion of an eagle.

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Q-Tip pays tribute

The latest single from Q-Tip's incredible The Renaissance album is the Norah Jones-featuring Life Is Better. You will not be surprised to hear that it's a jazzy space odyssey with a laid back lyric from the Donald Duck-voiced rapper (seen right, in front of some tasty curtains).

Among the song's many highlights is a sublime potted history of hip-hop in verse two:

Playlist setting: Cold Crush, Furious Five, and the Master Fon
Cosmic Force, Bammbaataa, Jazzy 5
Lovebug Starski, Junebug, Busy Bee
Run, D, Jay, LL, Kane, Biz Markie
Doug E., Will, Barry B., Spoonie, Schooly D.
Rakim, BDP, Dana Dane, Ricky D.
Leaders of the New School, Snoop Dogg, Monie Love
B.I.G. and Pac are up above, Eazy-E and Bone Thugz
Fat and Skinny Boys, Cash Money and the rapper Nas
Large Professor, Lauryn, Wyclef, and Pras
Brand Nubian, Diamond D, Ludacris, and Jay
R.I.P. Pimp C, Common, Lil Wayne, and 'Ye
Primo, OutKast, where my nigga Dilla at?
S.V. - uh uh, where my nigga Dilla at?

In keeping with the song's romantic nostalgia, the video is shot in the style of a scratchy black and white home movie, embellished with hand-drawn doodles of puppies and feathers and stars.

It's the most charming, anti-rap-cliché rap video of the year.

Q-Tip ft Norah Jones - Life Is Better

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New Q-Tip video: Manwomanboogie

We're huge fans of Q-Tip's latest album, The Renaissance, here at Discopop Towers. His new single, Manwomanboogie, is one of the best bits, with a bassline that may actually have been played on some rubber bands strectched over a box of Kleenex. The video is a bit pants, but we can forgive that because it made us want to get up out of our seats and do a tiny dance.

Q-TIP - New Music Video - Man Woman Boogie


Note to Q-Tip: This is how to really spark impromptu dancing on the subway.

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50 Cent, Q-Tip catch bus out of dumper

Rap music isn't a genre where people make spectacular returns to form. I'm sure I could think of a thousand reasons why - maybe it's the shallow, self-aggrandising lyrics; the restrictive musical straitjacket of "hardcore" rap; or the fact that so many stars retire before they burn out.

But there are a few exceptions. Jay-Z has been pronounced dead in the past (by himself, more often than not) and come back bigger and better than ever. LL Cool J's had the occasional resurgence, too, although it's never been successfully sustained.

Now we can add to that list former Tribe Called Quest frontman Q-Tip and - believe it or not - cartoon gangsta waste of space 50 Cent, both of whom have come up with new material that, quite frankly, rocks.

Fiddy (was there ever a more ridiculous nickname?) has teamed up with Christina Aguilera's tunesmith Scott Storch for a slamming club anthem, Get Up, which is easily the equal of his awe-inspiring In Da Club. Q-Tip is, true to form, more funky, more humorous and more full of cod spiritual bollocks on the slinky Manwomanboogie.

Check out these clips.


50 Cent - Get Up


Q-Tip - Manwomanboogie

Believe me, I'm as shocked as you are.

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