Ten more Songs You May Have Missed

Half-term is over and I've survived more episodes of Thomas The Tank Engine than any is permissible under the human rights act. But there was music - there's always music - to soothe away the sound of the steam engines.

Here are some of the tracks I've been listening to. Maybe you'll find a new favourite.

1) Selena Gomez - Kill Em With Kindness
In which the director's treatment simply read: "Selena Gomez has a pretty face. Let's point the camera at her pretty face. She's so pretty." It turned out well.




2) Shura - What's It Gonna Be?
A tribute to the films of John Hughes, this is an absolute delight. The song is also excellent.




3) Rationale - Palms
Futuristic funk from London's very own Tinashé Fazakerly. Taken from his debut album, Rationale, which is due in September.



4) Matidla - Ghost
Norways' Matilda joins the swelling ranks of really rather good Scandipop singers with this shimmering, Ellie Goulding-style pop banger.




5) The Avalanches - Frankie Sinatra
Memorable, in the worst way.




6) Ariana Grande - Into You
There's a lot of implied snogging in this video but, if you look closely, the camera consistently cuts away just before Ariana's mouth reaches that of her generic video boyfriend. Those lips are just for donuts, ok?




7) Jurassic 5 - Customer Service
The rap collective release their first new song in a decade, and it's a scorcher. Based on a classic funk loop (The Spirit of Doo... Do by Edwin Birdsong), the track sees the MCs trading lines with familiar funky freshness.




8) Beck - Wow
Remember when Beck's Morning Phase won a Grammy and perennial sore loser Kanye West protested he'd never heard of him? Well it seems Beck is going out of his way to rectify that, with the surreal bedroom trap-funk of his new single. Not so much a change in direction as a complete artistic shedding of the skin.




9) Wild Beasts - Get My Bang
No, Wild Beasts, you go and get your own bang. I'm not your mum.




10) Bat For Lashes - Sunday Love
Bat For Lashes' new album, The Bride, is easily the highlight of her career. A concept album about a woman left at the altar, the record is dramatic, haunting and thought-provoking. Few musicians are brave enough to explore grief but on this evidence, more should.

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Songs you may have missed: Dadrock corner

Hello! It's not all platinum-plated pop around these parts. Every so often, I like to relax beside the fire with a nice cuppa and a suitable biscuit while I "have a Lamacq" (stop sniggering at the back). Here's some of the videos I'd put on if my Dad was round for dinner.

1) Damon Albarn - Lonely Press Play / Mr Tembo
If you missed Damon Albarn's recent Culture Show special, you missed something really special. The BBC followed Mr Blur back to his childhood home, where he got all misty-eyed at the sweet shops, dustbins and church halls.

The walk down memory lane was in aid of his first solo album, Everyday Robots, which is a proper who am I and what have I done mid-life crisis project, as Damon readily admitted. "For those who give a shit, and I'm not assuming anyone does, hopefully there's a bit of an insight into who I am," he said. "Otherwise it's just a neurotic, left-handed, middle-aged man talking nonsense out there into the void".

Here's Damon on the Tonight Show performing the gorgeous Lonely Press Play, and the playful Mr Tembo - which is genuinely about an Elephant.

Recommended biscuit accompaniment: Jammie Dodger.






2) Amber Run - Spark
Amber Run are a new band from Nottingham, who've been getting a lot of love from their local BBC Introducing programme. The Independent compared them to Coldplay, and they're about to support Kodaline on tour - but don't let that put you off. The chorus on this track is going to drill into your skull like an alt-pop woodpecker.

Recommended biscuit: Tracker bar.





3) Beck - Say Goodbye
He's a chameleon in a sheep's clothing. He's got a razorblade overcoat. He's a loser, baby.

He's also produced an album, Morning Phase, of uncommon quality. A companion piece to his big break-up record, Sea Change, it's gentle and affecting without slipping into syrupy mawkishness.

Beck turned up to perform the stand-out track, Say Goodbye on Jimmy Fallon's show the other night and, despite the banjos, it's really rather lovely.

Recommended biscuit: Rich Tea.




4) Paolo Nutini - Scream (Funk My Life Up)
Awful title, brilliant song. All sticky and swampy, Paolo's Delta Blues reinvention is a perfect fit for a man who's always dabbled in the soulful side of pop.

A crueller soul might say he's starting to sound like Terence Trent D'Arby covering Movin' On Up, but I wouldn't dream of such a thing.

Recommended biscuit: Tunnock's Caramel.





5) Team Me - With My Hands...
"From the deep woods of Elverum, a small city not far a way from Oslo and even closer to Lillehammer, comes young six-piece indie pop band Team Me," says the official website of Team Me's record label.

They're being touted as ones to watch at SXSW, for what that's worth, but the two songs they've put online so far are uplifting, rambunctious and full of youthful sparkle.

My favourite is the splendidly-titled "With My Hands Covering Both of My Eyes I Am Too Scared to Have A Look At You Now", which features the damning couplet: "Mediocre band, perform your mediocre songs for us / Mediocre band, dance for us, dance for us."

One for the cool dads.

Recommended biscuit: Party Rings.

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Beck's video game soundtrack and five other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of the songs and videos I haven't had the chance to blog during the week... Some excellent tracks this time round, starting with:

1) Beck - Cities
This is one of three tracks Beck has written for a Playstation game called Sound Shapes. Less linear than Guitar Hero or Rock Band, the song takes shape according to your skill at the game - a relatively simple 2D platformer. Cities (below) is probably the best of the bunch but the game also comes packaged with songs from Deadmau5, Jim Guthrie and I Am Robot and Proud.



2) A thousand million people singing Somebody That I Used To Know
Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration, but there are literally hundreds of cover versions of Gotye's megahit on YouTube. And, as a thank you to fans, he's taken all of those covers and stitched them together into a Somebody That I Used To Know megajam. It's much more enticing than it sounds - rather than a note-by-note recreation of the original, the Aussie singer has re-sampled all of the covers to create a trippy, Avalanches-esque sound montage. Just a shame you can't download it!



3) Jade Alston - Sober
Indie and R&B aren't two words that normally go together, but Philly girl Jade Alston is an soul diva who's independently releasing her own material. Funky and fresh, she's been working with Claude Kelly (Britney Spears, Kelly Clarkson, Jessie J) and Chuck Harmony (Mary J Blige, Rihanna). Her mixtape, Single On A Saturday Night, was released for free last December - but she's just got round to making a video to the cheeky, body-popping single Sober. Definitely worth a look.



4) Regina Spektor - How
One of the most sincere, straightforward songs on Regina's latest LP, How is a heart-rending break-up ballad. "How can I begin again? How can I try to love someone new? Someone who isn’t you..." pleads the New Yorker, dispensing with her usual "hic dong Wallop plop!" vocal tics. This performance, from Jay Leno's show last night, will bring a lump to your throat.


5) Alison Valentine - Peanut Butter
Florist by day, singer by night, Alison Valentine once spent an entire summer following Prince around Europe. There's basically no higher recommendation in my book - and she delivers on that promise with Peanut Butter, a crunchy summer jam with more hooks than a meat locker. It is also - TA-DA - free to download.




6) The Darkness - Street Spirit (Fade Out)
The Darkness have been covering this as their encore for years. But that doesn't make this awful, karaoke-bar cover version any more acceptable. If Ben Elton ever writes a Radiohead musical, it will sound like this.



And that's all... Hope you have a great weekend!

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Beck & friends cover INXS

Musical polymath Beck has an ongoing project called "Record Club" where he and various guest artists cover entire albums, just for kicks. And they're getting double kicks (ADVANCE APOLOGY FOR LAME PUN) with their latest effort - INXS' seminal 1987 album, Kick.

Ahem.

The results are being released in weekly installments and, so far, they're three tracks in - with a scuzzy Guns In The Sky; a spooky take on New Sensation and a not-very-good-at-all Devil Inside.

Next up is Need You Tonight.

Here are the videos, which feature Beck alongside Liars, Annie Clark and Daniel Hart from St Vincent, Sergio Dias from legendary Brazilian band Os Mutantes and Brian Lebarton. I'll keep an eye out for any further gems.

Record Club: INXS "Guns In The Sky"


Record Club: INXS "New Sensation"


Record Club: INXS "Devil Inside"

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Charlotte Gainsbourg video amazingness

Stop what you're doing right now and watch this video from French singer-songwriter Charlotte Gainsbourg. It features the following objects, which you will not see in any other music video this year:

:: A giant walnut
:: A man with half a beard
:: A monster in a bath
:: Spongebob Squarepants being wrestled to the ground
:: A skateboard resting on four stacks of burgers

What does it all mean? Probably nothing. During the shoot, director Keith Schofield told Anthem Magazine: "I’ve got a big folder full of about 800 pictures and whenever I get a music track, I just scroll through the images and see if any idea pops." On this occasion, he presumably pulled out several dozen of those pictures, cut them up, stuck them back together in a random order, and recreated the results on film, in slow motion, for a laugh.

The song, Heaven Can Wait, is a strangely beautiful duet with Beck*, who produced Gainsbourg's forthcoming album, IRM.



* Doesn't he look skinny?

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