Trainwreck was clearly the standout track on Banks's sophomore (second) album, The Altar, when it came out last year. Featuring lyrics she wrote at the age of 14, it's a pulverising damnation of an "idiot" who dragged her down into his persojnal problems.
When she performed it on US television last November, three days after Donald Trump's election victory, she turned it into an angrily defiant rejection of the president-elect, slamming her microphone to the floor as she stomped across the stage.
Shorn of that context, it remains a powerful piece of music - and the video does it justice, as Banks is manipulated by (and fights back against) a group of faceless suits.
Unlike the Amy Schumer film of the same name, however, this does not contain any hilarious sex jokes.
"You and me together, we were Gemini Feed," said Banks, in a tweet accompanying the hand-written lyrics to her addictive new single.
It's an allusion to the light and dark side of a relationship with a man who "convinced me other people don't care about me" - although, to be honest, there isn't much light in the song's depiction of a passive-aggressive lover whose behaviour borders on abuse.
The video picks up the theme, though, with Banks (who is an actual Gemini) representing the two sides of her personality in contrasting black and white costumes.
Directed by Philippa Price, who also shot the Fuck With Myself video, it's an arresting, stylish piece of work.
If you wondered why Banks's second album was called The Altar, now you have an answer: It's a lyric from her new single, Gemini Feed.
But the singer hasn't suddenly found happiness and tied the knot. Oh my, no.
Here's how it goes:
And to think you would get me to the altar
Like I follow you around like a dog that needs water
But admit it, that you wanted me smaller
If you would have let me grow
You could have kept my love
As usual, then, she's wearing her heart (and her psychology degree) on her sleeve. Yet the song is neither as dark nor as self-destructive as the first taster of her new album - Fuck With Myself. In fact, in Banks's world this is a positive ray of sunshine.
Premiering the track on Annie Mac's Radio 1 show, Banks said writing the new album helped her "come out of a depression" and gave her a major confidence boost.
"I've gone through a lot the last few years, my life has changed a lot," she said. "I've confronted new obstacles and new relationships. I had so much to write about.
"This album, for me, is a metamorphosis. I feel more empowered. In my past, I've wanted to hide a little bit, and this album is me solidly standing on pavement and taking up space. I think you can hear it in the vocals and the songs."
Banks - the queen of emo R&B - is back with a frankly disturbing new song, called Fuck With Myself. It premiered on Zane Lowe's show earlier today, swiftly followed by a creepy video from Philippa Price - the visual artist behind Rihanna's Brits performance.
It's... well, take a look.
I've watched that a couple of times now and a few moments really stick: the choke-hold, the tongue, the dismembered head, the careless application of make-up. But I'm still not really sure what to think about the song.
So I turned to the internet, to see if anyone could speak my brain. Turns out, they're all as confused as I am.
So congratulations for creeping everyone out with the video. But what about the actual song?
It's heavy but minimal; with icy, stabbing synths underscoring Banks's brutal vocals. The hook ("I fuck with myself more than anyone else") is instantly indelible, but it's not exactly "sing it in the lift" material.
Perhaps people were underwhelmed - although I found the song improved when I stopped watching the video. In particular, I like the sentiments of strength and self-confidence from an artist whose previous songs have frequently touched on other people's ability to dictate her state of mind.
She explained the song's genesis on Zane Lowe's show earlier today.
"This was the last song I wrote on the record. I was completely drained. I didn't think I had any more in me, and I was planing on working on a song I had already finished.
"I was diving into my fear of what could I put out first - I've changed a lot, I've developed a lot and I guess I was just venting.
"My dear friend and collaborator Tim Anderson was in the studio with me. After I was done on my little rant, he was like, 'Do you want me to read you some of the statements you just said?'
"And then he said I'd said, 'I fuck with myself more than anybody else.' It just felt so perfect for that day and I needed it so bad. So that's how the song was birthed."
The song is out now, and a new Banks album follows in September.
So, I started a new job last week - accounting for (yet another) gap in the blog posts. Here's my penance - everything I heard in the last seven days and thought "I really should write something about that," before being dragged into another meeting.
Enjoy!
1) Drake - Hotline Bling As the entireinternet has noticed, Drake has let his drunken aunt choreograph his latest video. Still, nice turtleneck.
2) Frances - I Care (ft Pomo)
I'm calling it now: Frances is going to be on all of the "Sound Of 2016" lists, or I'll eat one of James Bay's hats.
3) Hot Chip - Dancing In The Dark
Hot Chip have been covering Bruce Springsteen's rock'n'roll classic in their festival sets all summer. Now there's an (impeccable) studio verison, complete with a preposterous 1980s public access television video. Why? Who knows? Who cares?
4) Jones - Indulge
The cleanest filthy song you'll hear all year, Jones's Indulge is all about surrendering yourself to a night of passion. "I know that it's wrong, but I want to indulge in you," the London-born singer purrs over a crepescular synth wave.
Indulge has been around since April but, spurred on by her wave-making Jools Holland appearance a couple of weeks ago, the song now has a video. Simple but effective.
5) Ben Haenow - Second Hand Heart (ft Kelly Clarkson)
The first "proper" single from last year's X Factor winner comes with a rare Kelly Clarkson "feature". It's low on subtlety (the pounding, Ryan Tedder-esque beat and the singers' powerhouse performances don't leave much space for nuance) but it's the first time in a while that a male X Factor star has recorded anything worth listening to.
Interestingly, it started out in life as a country song. I'd prefer to hear that version but, for now, this is perfectly acceptable radio filler.
6) Will Young - Brave Man
A remarkable video, in which a transgender man sheds his clothes and walks into the street, suffering abuse, violence and bullying until, finally, a woman offers her coat and - most importantly - acceptance.
"This video isn't about selling records or my personal benefit," said Will. "This video is about taking a moment in time to explore a section of society who stand up for themselves. To tell a story and offer a window through music into someone's life."
7) Five Seconds of Summer - Hey Everybody
I only mention this because no-one seems to have noticed the verse is entirely ripped off from Duran Duran's Hungry Like The Wolf. Surely it's not just me?
8) Jack Garratt - Breathe
I'm calling it now: Jack Garratt is going to be on all of the "Sound Of 2016" lists, or I'll eat another one of James Bay's hats.
9) Eska - Shades of Blue
Every year, the Mercury Prize list has one head-scratcher: An artist I've overlooked but instantly fall in love with.
This year it's Eska. Born in Zimbabwe, raised in London, she has been a session singer and vocal arranger for years, appearing on albums by the likes of Zero 7 and Grace Jones. Her debut is the sound of all those years of frustrated musicianship being unleashed. It melds soul, jazz, folk, reggae and Western African rhythms without sounding opulent or overblown. And it's all held together by the most stunning, precise, soulful vocals you'll hear this side of Erykah Badu.
Here's her most recent single.
10) Alice Olivia - Lovers
A YouTube sensation (16 million views!) and a BBC Introducing finalist, Cambridge-born Alice Olivia recently signed a deal with boutique pop label Soko Records.
Her first single is called Lovers - "about watching someone you love remain in a destructive, poisonous relationship and helplessly watching from a distance."
Dark and gnarly, this is a great introduction to an interesting singer-songwriter.
11) Anne-Marie - Boy
Quirky, streetwise pop from another up-and-comer (it's that time of year, isn't it?). Anne-Marie is going to be on all of the "Sound of 2016" lists or I'll eat a casserole of The Edge's beanies.
12) TĀLĀ - Wolfpack (with Banks)
TĀLĀ was inspired to make music by her British mother's love of Tom Jones, and her Iranian father's obsession with uber-diva Googoosh (think Madonna crossed Celine Dion, if you dare). Thankfully, her charcoal-coloured electric pop sounds nothing like either.
Her latest single sees her team up with another R&B temptress - the magnificent BANKS - for an anthem to sisterhood that would have Beyonce running for the hills.
2014 wasn't a great year for albums, truth be told. Or maybe I bought the wrong ones. Anyway, here are the 10 best CDs that found their way onto my iTunes library, sorted by the number of times they were played (with my trademarked Excel formula to weight the albums by release date).
10) The Black Keys - Turn Blue
Neither as sleazy nor as catchy as 2011's El Camino, Turn Blue saw The Black Keys take a long, dark road-trip of the soul after Dan Auerbach's very messy, very public divorce. Along the way, they delved into psychedelia, 60s beat music, 70s disco funk and - on the pleasingly daft closing track - solid gold drivetime pop hooks.
Oh, but this album is so gloriously, deliciously IN PAIN. Banks uses music like primal scream therapy, howling her distress over an array of sawbuzz synths.
As an album, Goddess is as dark and foreboding as a graveyard, but her melodies beguile and her honesty disarms: When she disses a boyfriend by reminding him she's "the girl who made you soup," it's so awkwardly specific it can only be drawn from real life.
Then, just when you think she's getting too miserable, she pulls out a filthy sexballad like Warm Water. This is what a femme fatale with a broken heart sounds like.
After achieving commercial success with the glossy soft rock of 2011's You & I, The Pierces smudged their mascara, consulted a shaman and revisited the backwood gothicism of their earlier records. The result is an album that retains You & I's soaring choruses while sending shivers down your spine.
Allison and Catherine's sisterly harmonies are worthy of Agnetha and Frida - but can you imagine Abba ever singing a lyric as sinister as: "Held down by the devil's hand / Dressed up like a gentleman"?
Not out in the UK until this month because Tove's UK label hate us, but available on import since September. SEPTEMBER.
It's worth the wait, though. Tove Lo plays pop like her life hangs in the balance. "I've always wanted my music to have that desperation," she told me last April, "where you just want to strip your clothes off and run down the highway".
I haven't quite gone that far, but it's been close. Timebomb, Not on Drugs and Moments ("on my good days I am charming as fuck") have hooks so thunderously bombastic I have literally started air drumming on the bus. There is no higher praise.
Dance music doesn't produce solo artists of longevity or substance, but Katy's astute combination of underground sonics and pop structures made the "difficult second album" seem effortless. Best of all, she knew it. The opening track painted her as Queen B, easing a newcomer into the rituals of the night: "Keep your jacket on my friend, don't sit down / There's so many things to do round here, let me show you around".
But while her debut was so in thrall to clubland it should have come with a complimentary strobe light, Little Red offered a few glimpses of what happened off the dancefloor: Katy nervously waiting for a date to arrive on All My Lovin'; or succumbing to guilt on the magnificent Crying For No Reason.
The result is a rare thing: A club record that sounds just as good at home.
Ed Sheeran spends most of x singing about getting his leg over but, incredibly, you never recoil in horror or throw up in your mouth. Not even once.
Maybe it's his sincerity, maybe his humility, maybe it's just that these are bloody great pop songs. Gossipy, confessional and instantly memorable, the upbeat ones bounce and the weepy ones are suitably blubsome.
Occasionally he turns out a lyrical clunker ("put your faith in my stomach" is the year's least romantic come-on) but even those makes him more relatable. No wonder x became the biggest album of the year.
First of all, Bad Blood is the most horribly misjudged song of the year. A diss track, supposedly about Katy Perry, it's pathetically petulant and paints a particularly unflattering portrait of its author. It has been excised from my library, otherwise this album would be languishing at number 10.
Secondly, why all the shouting? Almost every chorus is emphasised by T-Swift screaming the hook: "We never go OUT OF STYLE"; "Are we in the clear yet, IN THE CLEAR YET? GOOD." All you had to do was STAY (STAY) STAY (STAY)". It's almost as if she's worried the songs won't stand on their own merits.
But, of course, they stand 50 feet tall. The lyrics are funny and knowing, the production is enthusiastically bright, the hooks are harder to dislodge than a tapeworm.
1989 sounds nothing like the year it was named after, but Taylor Swift defined pop music in 2014.
2) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part One - Various Artists
Asked to contribute to the last Hunger Games soundtrack, Lorde handed in a diverting cover of Tears For Fears' Everybody Wants To Rule The World. For Mockingjay, Part 1, she was given complete creative control of the whole album.
The result is surprisingly cohesive, the nailbiting intensity of the film mirrored perfectly in the grungy, brooding music. Meltdown - by Lorde and Pusha-T and Haim and Q-Tip (!) - is a gothic call to arms; Chvrches' Dead Air chillingly depicts a disappeared population; Tove Lo's Scream My Name reflects the heroine's steely torment: "I'm dirt, I'm ice... I can take bullets to the heart".
The quality and the tension rarely dip - although Jennifer Lawrence's spellbinding The Hanging Tree should really have been on the track list.
Jessie Ware's second album is pinch yourself dreamy. A slow-burner, but one that goes from tugging at your heartstrings to snapping them in two.
Listen to the restraint with which Ware sings, "Say you love me to my face / I need it more than your embrace", then imagine how it would have sounded if pop music's other Jessie had wrapped her acrobatic tonsils around it. Horrible, that's how.
In fact, Ware's instincts are flawless throughout. She references Sade, Prince and The xx, and is never afraid to make unexpected choices. She favours subtle, unfolding grooves over obvious pop arrangements. And every song is structured around the ebb and flow of those flawless vocals. Or, to use her own words, "I thought it would be great to show people what it's like when I attempt to sing like a dolphin."
It's not the most exciting or original, album on this list. But it's by far and away the best.
And that's another year wrapped up, except for the honourable mentions: Paolo Nutini - Caustic Love; St Vincent - St Vincent; Royal Blood - Royal Blood; George Ezra - Wanted On Voyage; Prince - selected tracks from Art Official Age and PlectrumElectrum; Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence; Lykke Li - I Never Learn. I heard U2 had an album out, as well, but for some reason I couldn't find a copy in the shops...
OK, apologies for the hyperbolic Buzzfeed headline - but this is gorgeous.
US public radio station NPR has a strand called "Tiny Desk Concerts" where they bundle performers into their cramped offices and force them to play for the staff. Then they film it, and put it up online. Singing for her supper yesterday was doom-and-bass queen Banks. On this evidence, she must have earned a six course degustation at the Fat Duck.
NPR's producers explain it all much better than I could, so here's an extract of the write-up on their website:
The setting is particularly challenging for vocalists, especially those accustomed to heavy production, effects or — in the case of recent guest T-Pain — generous dollops of Auto-Tune.
T-Pain's effects-less set grabbed more attention at the time, given the extent to which digital alterations are expected of him, but this performance by Banks is, in its own way, an even greater high-wire act. Banks' terrific full-length debut, Goddess, is constructed out of layer upon layer of electronics, beats, samples and other means of submerging the singer's voice in swirling accoutrements. With assistance from keyboardist/guitarist John Anderson and percussionist Derek Taylor, she's not all alone behind the Tiny Desk, but her expressive voice is fully exposed here.
It also contains some amazing "I am emoting" hand gestures.
You can watch the full, 13-minute performance below.
Banks' new single, Beggin' For Thread, is something of a monster; particularly the Middle 8, where she plumbs the very depths of her vocal range before rising a full octave to a throaty scream of "my tracks are better".
It's spine-tingling stuff - and she more than does it justice in this live performance (and her first ever TV spot) from Jimmy Kimmel's chat show on Friday.
Bonus points for continuing despite almost swallowing a mouthful of hair.
In case you missed it last week, Banks broke her social media silence to post a statement about British girlband Neon Jungle, who've covered her single Waiting Game on their new album...
People keep asking why I let Neon Jungle put my song "Waiting Game" on their album when my album has yet to come out. The answer is I was never asked. I was as shocked as you to see this song made up of my own heartbeats on their album. A song that was born from my real life, my real heartache, my real fingertips when I was at one of the most confusing times in my life. How strange it is to see it used on someone else's album before it even comes out on mine. It makes me feel very uncomfortable. Like my own thoughts were stolen from me and sold as someone elses. I am a new artist and new to this business and I am told it is legal. But it feels really icky. I guess I can only hope Waiting Game means as much to Neon Jungle as it did to me when I wrote it....... BANKS
Ouch. To be fair, Waiting Game has been available to buy for over a year now, so it's not like Neon Jungle have snatched the prize from under Banks's nose. But their version is a poor imitation of the original - the band's over-produced vocals simply don't convey the desolation and desperation of Banks' performance. Compare and contrast below.
The tempo's been turned up, the torment toned down, and the chorus sounds a bit like Black Coffee-era All Saints. In other words, this wouldn't sound out of place on daytime Radio One.
Having said that, the lyrics might be a touch too gothic for the mums and dads: "You got me beggin for thread / To sew this hole up that you ripped in my head," the R&B star intones, to chilling effect.
The song is called Beggin' For Thread and you can buy it now if you live anywhere except the UK.
A round-up of the songs that slipped through the cracks over the last seven days. This week's selection starts right here.
1) Cheryl Cole - Crazy Stupid Love (Handbag House bootleg)
Scottish remixer Iain Macleod, aka Handbag House, was impressively quick off the mark with this one, uploading his remix of Cheryl's comeback single about 15 hours after it got it's first radio play. He hasn't done a bad job, either.
The image at the top of the page, by the way, is from Cheryl's video shoot earlier this week. The promo is due to "hit the streets" (be uploaded by a record label intern) on Monday.
2) Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence
The Ellie Goulding to Kimye's Wills & Kate, here's Lana Del Rey with the title track to her second album. The usual adjectives apply: haunting, gauzy, hazy, woozy, ethereal, dreamy, etc, etc.
3) OneRepublic - Love Runs Out
"Love Runs Out was originally going to be the first single on our album but I couldn't crack the chorus" Ryan Tedder told me earlier this year. "It gutted me because I had it marked on the board as 'first single' for six months."
It's a good thing he kept working on it, as it would have been a shame to lose this gospel-pop gem.
"I'll be your light, your match, your burning sun," he sings over an insistent piano rhythm, that harks back to Moby's Bessie Wright sampling hit Honey.
4) Ella Eyre - If I Go
Ella's trying out the old Lionel Richie "Dancing On The Ceiling" trick for this video - but she's overlooked one crucial detail. While Lionel had a tightly controlled afro, her shaggy lion's mane always falls in the direction of gravity, giving away the secret of the optical illusion (it's a rotating box).
Amazing song, though. What. A. Voice.
5) Klaxons - Show Me A Miracle
A cross between an ITV Chart Show ident and one of those internet cat videos. In other words, awesome.
6) Sam Smith ft Mary J Blige - Stay With Me
There's a mutual love affair going on here. "Working with Mary J. Blige is one of the biggest highlights of my career so far," said Sam Smith after recording this live band duet.
"I remember holding her album in my hands in the car when I was a young boy. To meet your idols is a magical thing, but to work with them is truly a dream come true."
Blige was no less gushing, saying: "Sam's true soulful voice is the first of this kind I have heard since Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson and all great soul male voices."
Oh, Get a room, you two.
7) Banks - Drowning
Banks sings her latest ballbreaking R&B ballad in a room full of mirrors. No wonder she's got a tortured mind - it must be a nightmare cleaning off all the fingerprints.
8) Kylie - Sexy Love
I can't really recommend the song, which is so bland and generic it might as well be a Tesco own-brand Rich Tea biscuit. But the video features Kylie doing the hoovering, and you can't argue with that.
9) Jack White - Lazaretto
The blues in black and white.
10) Neon Jungle - Louder
With two bona-fide top 10 hits under their belts, Girlband-with-attitude Neon Jungle have taken the shock decision to release a ballad. "It's still got energy and power," they insist, "but in a more subtle way".
11) The Ting Tings - Wrong Club
No, wait... Come back. This is a return to form, although it never reaches the heady heights of Great DJ or That's Not My Name.
As Fraser McAlpine noted on Twitter, they're up all night to get Lucky-y.
And that's it for another week... Stay tuned for more on Monday.
I've been mithering over what to post to the blog all day.
:: Michael Jackson's Billboard awards hologram? Nah, it gave me the creeps - falling right into the "uncanny valley".
:: Robyn and Royksopp's new video? Nope. Too headachy.
:: Jay-Z and Beyonce's tour trailer? Maybe. It's got Sean Penn and Rashida Jones in it, and you get to hear Beyonce cover Justify My Love - but it's so po-faced and self-important that I began to go a little Solange.
So it was a great relief when star-in-waiting Banks popped up 10 minutes ago with a menacing new track called Drowning. Premiered on Zane Lowe's Radio 1 show, it'll suck the breath out of your universe like a collapsing star.
If you've been following Banks, you'll know what to expect: Sultry, stuttering R&B sculpted from the shards of her shattered heart: "From the girl who made you soup and tied your shoes when you were hurting - you were not deserving," she quivers.
Have a listen below.
After the premiere, Lowe asked Banks it was painful to bare her soul like this: "It's a good pain," she replied. "I let it out because I need to. It doesn't feel painful but it's necessary."
Drowning is a mesmerising trailer for her album Goddess, which is out on 8 September.
In case you missed it, I quite like cheekboned R&B siren Banks, and her peculiar brand of haunted doompop.
After what seems like an interminable wait, her debut album has finally been given a title (Goddess) and a release date (9 September, 2014), which is 19 WHOLE WEEKS AWAY.
A gerbil could get pregnant and give birth four times in 19 weeks. I trust Banks's album will be at least as good as four litters of gerbil babies, or else there will be hell to pay.
In the meantime, here is the title track, as premiered earlier on the NPR website. It features the borderline-irritating couplet "she was a goddess, he should have got this" but manages to be magnificent anyway.
Just before Banks takes the stage at Koko, the PA is blaring out a mixtape of 90s R&B ballads. It's wall-to-wall bumping and grinding and getting freaky "on you".
It's also a great illustration of how far we've come. Banks has taken that R&B template and bludgeoned it with the sub-bass paranoia of Massive Attack. "Before I ever met you, I never knew I could be broken in so many ways," she quivers in her opening number. It's bruised and tortured and magnificent.
What separates Banks from the rest of the sad sack R&B pack (Drake, Frank Ocean and her erstwhile touring buddy The Weeknd) is her sheer physical presence. Constantly back-lit, she prowls the stage like a grown up Wednesday Addams, draped in black and dancing as though she's trying to raise the spirits.
The spooky/sexy vibe is only enhanced by her sultry, spine-tingling vocals, which really shine during a mid-set acoustic section - featuring a breathy jazz reading of Warm Water, and a playful acoustic take on Aaliyah's Are You That Somebody? The crowd, surprisingly, knows every word of both - although the best reaction is reserved for the yearning Waiting Game, which builds to a stunningly claustrophobic climax.
"I'm buzzing off your energy," the singer beams as the set draws to a close. But she has one last, secret weapon: A new song, Stick, built around the irresistible click of a castanet (think Missy Elliot's Pass That Dutch). Smoking hot and instantly memorable, it must be a shoo-in for her next, breakthrough single.
As the song unfolds, Banks struts to the front of the stage and purrs: "I wanna know how you taste." Perhaps we haven't come that far, after all.
SETLIST
Before I Ever Met You
This Is What It Feels Like
Change
Brain
Goddess
Bedroom wall
Fall over
Warm Water
Are You That Somebody? (Aaliyah cover)
Waiting Game
Stick
Encore
What You Need (The Weeknd cover)
PS: Banks plays Koko again on Tuesday, 1 April. It's sold out but there were a few last-minute production tickets on the door tonight. As you can probably tell, I'd recommend it.
1) Zane Lowe made Tove Lo's Habits the hottest record in the world.
In case you hadn't noticed, we're obsessed with Tove Lo (you can read about that obsession here and here) and now it seems Zane Lowe agrees.
Last night, he made her song Habits his "hottest record in the world", correctly describing it as "incredibly special". He also revealed that the proper pronunciation of Tove Lo's name is "Toe-vuh Low".
Toe-vuh was on the phone during the show, and declared she'd written her album in a Scandinavian "dungeon". You can hear the chat on the Radio 1 website, and watch the brand new video for Habits below...
If you love as much as we do, why not head over to iTunes, where you can download it as part of Toe-vuh's Truth Serum EP.
The other obsession we're harbouring at Discopop Towers is Creme Eggs LA soul singer Banks. Everything she touches literally turns to gold. That makes tying shoelaces impossible - but luckily she can just turn some paper into gold and use that to hire a shoelace-tying slave. Result.
She popped up on Phil and Alice's "Live Lounge Late" to perform her new single, Brain, and a cover of Aaliyah's unimpeachable Are You That Somebody. The full performance is available on Radio 1 - but Banks has helpfully snipped out the Aaliyah bit with her gold-plated scissors and bunged it up on Soundcloud.
Banks is one of the most intriguing, exciting singers I've come across in a long time.
Like a musical Darth Vader, she deals in the dark side of R&B - releasing a clutch of aching, bruised EPs that have barely left my turntable (iPod dock) since they appeared in the middle of last year.
In preparation for her UK tour next week, the LA-born singer has released a new video, for Brain. According to a press release: "Brain presents Banks at her most unflinchingly direct and emotionally raw. Introducing itself as a deceptively tranquil electronic lullaby, it emerges into a towering vocal tour-de-force, showcasing with goosebumps-inducing intensity the hypnotic power and penetrating lyricism at the heart of BANKS' music."
In other words, the song starts quiet then it goes all shouty.
I don't get to vote in the BBC's Sound Of 2014 because I help put it together - but if I was given a choice, I'd have nominated sultry, seductive R&B siren Banks.
So I'm very pleased that she's taken third placem (as announced this morning) and even more pleased that I got to interview her for a second time as part of the coverage.
You can read the results on the BBC site today, and I've put some of the quotes that didn't make the main piece below.
You famously started writing music on a toy piano when you were 15. Was it all very plinky-plonky?
No, the piano was actually quite large, but it was really light and it sounded like a toy. It wasn't a really high quality one. The keys were lighter than a napkin.
And did you learn everything by ear?
I do everything by ear. I still haven't had training. I don't know what chords I'm playing. I wouldn't know if it was A or A minor, or anything like that.
I once played in a band with a guy who called D major "the sunshine chord" because that was the shape his fingers made on the keyboard
You see, that's how I think, too. I totally get that. I don't have names for the chords, but I feel that guy.
You must have sung before you were 15, though? A voice like that doesn't come out of nowhere.
I sang a little bit but, honestly, I really discovered it through writing music. I discovered my voice more after I started writing songs. It all came together at once, really.
Was that a surprise? Were you creative before that?
I've always... I love drawing, I love painting. I've always been very in tune with that side of my mind. But I didn't really notice, like, "oh, I’m starting to write music. I want to be this". It just happened. It was almost my little secret. Once I discovered it, that whole year I was just in my room with the door shut.
Like a typical teenager
Yes. It sounds like a dirty typical teenager, but it wasn't!
Would you say there's a confessional element to your songs?
I don't know about confession, but it's definitely a release. I want to hear a song that feels like the person who wrote it had to make that song or they'd go crazy. That's how I write, and that's the music I connect to.
You come from Los Angeles where the perception is that everyone is superficial and obsessed with appearances. Did you feel like a black sheep?
I... Definitely, when I discovered writing, felt very alone. It was hard for me to connect with people, with what I was going through. I love LA, it's such an amazing place. But I definitely found music because I felt different.
Is it true you wrote Warm Water with TEED in just three hours?
Yeah, it was really cool. It just kind of came together. That's how the music is that I've made. It just flows out sometimes – and that song in particular. I don't know. It just came out.
You're clearly not using a toy piano any more. Where do all those incredible sounds come from?
I know what I want my music to sound like. I want to create a really dark atmosphere. I want it to feel heavy. Having an idea of what you want to sound like, mixed with working with really, really talented people who understand your idea – you can’t go wrong, I don't think.
The final two places in the Sound Of 2014 are announced tomorrow and Friday, "fyi".
"The most plainly obvious pop star you’re ever likely to see."
That's how Vice Magazine described Banks, within 10 seconds of meeting her earlier this year. The LA singer-songwriter is certainly rather special: The sort of person who who puts her actual cellphone number on her Facebook page (it's really real).
Banks is her surname - her friends call her Jillian. She started making music aged 15, when a friend gave her a toy keyboard to distract her during "a tough time" with her family ("parents fighting, being alone in the house"). Expressing her fear and loneliness through music helped her cope. "I became addicted ever since," she told Billboard.
For years, she kept her music private, "because it was such an outlet for me". She enrolled in university, earning a bachelor's degree in psychology. Then she took a deep breath and uploaded a song to Soundcloud.
Brooding and bruised, the darkly dealt R&B of Before I Ever Met You ("I never knew I could be broken in so many ways") was played a quarter of a million times before it got an official release at the start of the year.
Banks has put out a couple more tracks since, of which the seductive Warm Water is the definite highlight. People have compared it to Lana Del Rey - and the two artists certainly share a femme fatale quality, but there's also a fragile intimacy to Banks's music that Del Rey never quite achieves.
"I definitely want [my music] to be really cinematic; I want you to be able to visualize things while you're listening to it," she told Interview Magazine. "I just want everything to be moody — I want it to affect people."
The 25-year-old spent the summer in the UK recording new music (and performing her first ever gig), which resulted in the London EP, which was quietly released onto iTunes a fortnight ago.
The lead track is This Is What It Feels Like. Understated and beautiful, it's the sound of the ghost in the machine - if the machine was Frank Ocean's laptop. The video ("made possible by Garnier Fructis") was premiered on Noisey's YouTube channel last night, and finds Banks loitering in a kitchen during a calamitous storm. At least, I think it's a storm. It might just be Joey's rainy window from Friends. Either way: Brilliant.
Remember at the turn of the millennium years ago when R&B was the dominant genre on the radio? Back in the days of Destinty's Child and Usher and Aaliyah - when every pop star worth their salt went to the Neptunes for a crossover track, and even Sisqo was taken seriously. It was a time of wild invention: From Beyonce speed-singing on Bills, Bills, Bills to Aaliyah sampling a baby gurgling on Are You That Sombody.
When it fell apart, it fell apart bad. From about 2003, Missy Elliot and Eminem started expressing a fascination with British club drug Ecstasy (it makes you dance, it makes you fall in love, it makes you have panic attacks - yay drugs!). But, aside from Missy's 4 My People, they never experimented with house music which, at that time, was still a minority interest in the US, popular in the urban gay scene but ignored elsewhere.
Will.i.am changed all that - teaming up with David Guetta for I Gotta Feeling and opening a floodgate of crap that swept up Rihanna and Ne-Yo and Nicki Minaj and pretty much everyone else making chart-orientated R&B. And that's how it's been for the last four or five years, unless you were Alicia Keys and her magic piano.
But something changed at the end of 2012, when Frank Ocean looked down his kaleidoscope and pronounced "I have been listening to Marvin Gaye and I wish to become him, only more conflicted about my relationships". Then Solange popped her head round the door and said, "Is that so? Well, I'm going to put out an EP of rump-shaking R&B that's so devastatingly great my sister will scrap an entire year's worth of recordings and look like a twit."
And so they did. And each of their albums had monochromatic sleeves, which was probably a coincidence but you never know.
As a result, R&B got a massive kick up the bumparts. Now everyone is making seedy, soulful grooves with unsettling bass notes and fantastic tunes. Even the new Jason Derulo song isn't 100% hateful, despite being called Talk Dirty. But the latest singles from Drake (Hold On We're Going Home) and up-and-coming LA singer Banks (Waiting Game) are even better. Check out all three of them below.
So welcome back, R&B. We missed you a lot.
Now, if someone could just make the 21st Century End Of The Road, that'd be perfect.
