Coldplay, Demi Lovato and the rest of the best of new music Friday

Obviously the new Lorde album is the only new release you need today, but here's a few other tracks worth checking out once you get bored of it on Wednesday afternoon.

1) Coldplay - All I Can Think About Is You
Coldplay are uncharacteristically mellow and muffled in this love song, taken from their new Kaleidoscope EP. It's hardly Chris Martin's finest lyric (he compares himself to a shoe), but Guy Berryman's sinewy, agile bassline is worth the price of admission alone.




2) Jax Jones - Instruction (ft Demi Lovato & Steflon Don)
"If you're the supreme, then I'm Diana Ross," is the best worst lyric since Selena Gomez and "like the battle of Troy, there's nothing subtle here". But this song has such a massive grin plastered all over it's face that it's easy to forgive.

Musically, it's practically a carbon copy of Jax Jones' previous single, You Don't Know Me (especially in the rap-sung prechorus) but why tweak a perfect formula? A strong contender for song of the summer.




3) Arcade Fire - Creature Comfort
I admit, I was really prepared to hate this... After five albums of whining about modern things, Win Butler's "instinct that something isn't right with the human condition" is starting to look less like concern and more like misanthropy.

This song, a sort of electro nursery rhyme about suicide, contains what seems to be a particularly self-serving line about a girl who "filled up the bathtub and put on our first record". But towards the end of the song, Win clarified: "It's not painless. She was a friend of mine, a friend of mine" - and, all of a sudden, my own cyncism was punctured.

I thought Arcade Fire might have lost the power to move me. Turns out I was wrong.





4) George Ezra - Don't Matter Now
A distinctly odd comeback from George Ezra, he of the deep voice and the album inspired by a Eurorail ticket.

It's all mariachi horns and big, dopey backing vocals - as George recites a mantra about switching off from the big, bad world that Arcade Fire live in and having a nice old shindig at his place.

Maybe, given the horrors of the last month, this is just the song we need - like an Agadoo for the Trump era.




5) DJ Khaled - Wild Thoughts (ft Rihanna)
"I know you want to see me naked," sings Rihanna, in a video where she appears with her baps right out. How thoughtful of her to consider our desires in such a forthright manner. I wonder if her next song will also contain the line, "I know you'd like me to put them away once in a while and get on with the job of making incredible pop music."

Because make no mistake, this is not incredible pop music. Sure, it wears the clothes of incredible pop music - the beat from Busta Rhymes' Put Your Hands Where My Eyes Could See, and the guitar riff from Santana's Maria Maria - but the garments are as threadbare as Rihanna's blouse in the video.




6) Tove Styrke - Say My Name (acoustic)
Still an absolute tune.





7) Calvin Harris - Feels (ft Pharrell and Katy Perry)
This probably won't give Katy Perry the number one she so desperately needs right now, but Calvin's bouncy brand of diet funk is always welcome around here.





8) Hey Violet - Break My Heart
This actually came out two months ago, but Hey Violet's album was released today and contains at least five totally brilliant pop song; including one gallantly called Fuqboi.

The young band have quite an interesting back story: They were once a punk-rock project called Cherri Bomb, before they ditched their singer and signing to 5 Seconds of Summer's record label. There, they started working with Julian Bunetta, who co-wrote and produced all the good One Direction songs, and "went pop".

You can read more about the transformation on Stereogum, or just forget all that nonsense and enjoy the music. Bands are whatever you want them to be, and that's why pop music is great.




9) Jorja Smith - Teenage Fantasy
This was actually out last week, during one of my increasingly frequent lapses in blogging, but the video came out on Monday, giving me the perfect excuse to wang the song into this week's round-up.

Simply a perfect summer soul jam.




10) Dizzee Rascal - Space
As grime emerges as a full-blooded force, Dizzee comes back into the fold with this sparse and tough rap track.

"Can't find enough time to dine on rappers, all of these MCs are looking like tapas," he chides the competition. "Ain't no point in playin' it safe." Well, quite.

There you go, then. And now it is time to go back to the Lorde album. See you next week...

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The best and worst of new music Friday: 24 February 2017

A vintage week if you like Coldplay and songs that go Wzrrp-worp. Not so much if you're into anything else at all. Sort it out, "the music industry".

Anyway, here's a rundown of the week's best new ones. And the Coldplay one, too.

1) Billie Eilish - Bellyache
Why put all the big artists at the top, when someone new could do with a leg up? California's Billie Eilish recently signed to Interscope, and has a great acousti-pop sound that'll appeal to fans of Ellie Goulding and Aurora.

She wrote her first song at the age of four, about falling into a black hole and being happy to be there. Her new single, Bellyache, finds her plotting revenge on her boyfriend for an undisclosed transgression. It's fair to say things don't go well for him: "Where's my mind? Maybe it's in the gutter, where I left my lover".





2) Calvin Harris ft Frank Ocean and Migos - Slide
Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in a post-chorus environment.





3) Zedd ft Alessia Cara - Stay
"Alessia and I first met at rehearsals for the HALO Awards, where Alessia, Daya and I performed together," writes Zedd. "I've loved her songs before but realised that she's an unbelievable talent when we started rehearsing together, so I asked her if she was interested in making music with me."

The answer was a resounding OF COURSE I DO and the result is the best of this week's onslaught of producer+vocalist collabs.




4) The Chainsmokers ft Coldplay - Something Just Like This
The title is clunky, the beats are generic, the melody is pedestrian. No-one is doing their best work here (except, perhaps, the team that animated the lyric video).




5) Lana Del Rey - Love
Already covered extensively on the blog, this is very much business as usual while managing to be one of Lana's strongest-ever singles.




6) Ed Sheeran ft Stormzy - Shape Of You
One of the highlights of Wednesday's Brit Awards, this collaboration got an official release today as part of a Ed Sheeran remix package. The guy has sold nearly 2 million singles over the last seven weeks. What does he think this is, 1994?




7) Thundercat ft Kendrick Lamar - Walk On By
Thundercat played bass on most of Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly album. Now the rapper repays the favour by adding a typically virtuoso verse to this melancholy R&B track. At the time of writing, its only got 2,000 views on YouTube. It deserves 100 times that.




8) The 1975 - By Your Side
A vocoderised cover of the Sade classic (Grammy-nominated for best vocal performance in 2002, but beaten by Nelly Furtado's I'm, Like, A Bird). Released in aid of War Child, this one of those rare charity singles that doesn't sound like it was knocked off in an afternoon.




9) Powers - Heavy
Powers are pop heavyweights Mike Del Rio and Crist Ru, whose credits include Kylie and Selena Gomez. They've just served up this calorific slice of pop that's equal parts Rocksteady-era No Doubt and Lady Gaga on a good day. Nice work.




2,000,002) Jason Derulo, Nicki Minaj and Ty Dolla Sign - Swalla
A song about cum.

Sorry about that last one, but I refuse to suffer alone. Sometimes I wonder what did we do to deserve Jason Derulo? Whatever it was, I'm sorry and we won't do it again.

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Video: Coldplay - Amazing Day

Rock band and paintball massacre victims Coldplay are now onto the sixth (sixth!) single from their Head Full of Dreams album - putting it in the same bracket as Michael Jackson's Thriller, only with a tenth the cultural significance or value.

Still, their new video is beauty. The clip for Amazing Day is compiled from footage filmed and submitted by fans on 19 November last year. During the video, you'll see skydiving, a wedding, dolphins flipping in the ocean and a pack of husky dogs tearing across the Antarctic.

All of which rams home the global appeal of Coldplay's music, although I'm sure that wasn't the point. Or was it?

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Coldplay are literally on top of the world

Coldplay's A Head Full Of Dreams is a pretty patchy album, but the closing track Up & Up really stands out as a potential set-closer when they take it on the road later this year.

As ever, it's a spiritually uplifting anthem with a "woah-oh-oh" bit for people too lazy to learn the words. Which is probably just as well when the words include words such as these words: "Lying in the gutter, aiming for the moon / Trying to empty out the ocean with a spoon."

Bleurgh.

Anyway, Up & Up has been officially announced as the third single from the band's album; and it comes with a visually-stunning video, full of clever camera tricks and composite images - including drummer Will Champion drumming on top of the planet, like a terrifying Mecha-Phil Collins. Imagine the din. 

Watch it below. Or don't. It's up to you, really.

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Five of the best performances from the American Music Awards

The American Music Awards took place last night, with lots of people winning trophies like "best country lady" and "most votes for One Direction". It was all very exciting, I'm sure, but the main draw was the spectacle of pop's toppermost stars playing their songs in a live environment.

There were a patience-testing 19 performances - including a weird a capella rendition of the Star Wars theme. But some of them were actually worth watching. These are they.

Ariana Grande - Focus
The best vocal performance of the night - on a cabaret version of Grande's hit single. Bonus points for her grandmother Marjorie, who can be seen dancing in the audience.




Coldplay - Adventure of a Lifetime
In which Chris Martin is surrounded by dancing gorillas.




Selena Gomez - Same Old Love
The dancers do all the heavy lifting here, but the song is still a corker.




Alanis Morissette and Demi Lovato - You Oughta Know
Giving the censors kittens, here are two of pop's fiercest ladysingers with a gutsier version of Adele's Someone Like You.



Justin Bieber - Justin Bieber Medley
Thankfully, it's only a medley of the recent, good stuff. The acoustic version of What Do You Mean is superb, and then you get the chance to see Bieber being waterboarded. Bonus!

PS: Sorry for the Coldplay video auto-playing. If anyone knows how to fix that, message me on twitter.

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Songs you may have missed: Surprise Coldplay edition

Songs You May Have Missed is a semi-regular depository of music I've omitted to write about. This week kicks off with one of the world's biggest bands going heavy on the cowbell. The results are surprisingly good.

1) Coldplay - Adventure of a Lifetime
The colourful, upbeat Adventure of a Lifetime was stealth released on Friday morning, with the simultaneous announcement that Coldplay's new album A Head Full of Dreams was due in four weeks.

Even their biggest detractors surely have to admit that, seven records into their career, Coldplay are going to have an amazing greatest hits collection. This does nothing to detract from that.




2) Pia Mia - Touch
19-year-old singer-songwriter and model Pia Mia ditches Chris Brown for the follow-up to the worldwide smash Do It Again. A seductive serving of R&B, this features a pan pipe solo for some reason.




3) Lissie - Hero
The first taster of Lissie's third album, My Wild West, Hero is a languorous country-rock daydream. Not her strongest song... but the mariachi trumpets are a nice touch.




4) Adele - Hello (live)
A sneak peak at Adele's BBC One special, with footage of the first live performance of Hello. Apparently she'll do a full 45 minutes of material in the primetime show, which is due to broadcast on 20 December.




5) SNBRN - Beat The Sunrise (ft Andrew Watt)
LA-based house producer Kevin Chapman, aka SNBRN, has remixed everything from Sexual Healing to Need You (100%) but this original track is a sign of bigger ambitions. A sunset house groove with an excitable bassline, it'll make you nostalgic for August.





6) Dua Lipa - Be The One
London's Dua Lipa stands out from her contemporaries thanks to a smoky voice that's a world away from the thin and auto-tuned sound of most radio-bound pop. Whether that's a help or hindrance only time will tell - but I suspect we'll be hearing a lot from this 19-year-old once the new year rolls around.




7) Fleur East - Sax
A perfect reminder of what happened in the 1980s when British artists tried to copy the Minneapolis funk sound: It's overly fussy production makes it a pale imitation of the Prince's pared-down arrangements, but Fleur has just enough sass to stop it being embarrassing.





8) Rudimental - Lay It All On Me (Ft Ed Sheeran)
A grainy, experimental clip accompanies this uplifting Lean On Me-alike from Rudimental and an unknown newcomer called Ed Sheeran.

According to the press release, the video portrays some of the things the Rudimental boys experience on their path to fame - "freedom, peace, struggle, frustration, brotherhood, family, love and life."

And ballet.



9) Shura - Touch
I'm always nervous when artists I love make their TV debut on Later... With Jools. Can they cut it live in a room full of their peers - or are they studio creatures, totally devoid of charisma or charm?

Shura falls somewhere between the two extremes. She spends most of the performance hiding behind her fringe, but the music is captivating enough that you can forgive her... I think.



10) Sia - Alive
Sia's first video in a long time not to feature Maddie Ziegler is still pretty powerful - with a young martial artist matching the song's bombastic "I survived against the odds" narrative beat for beat.




11) Sia - Bird Set Free
As you may know, Alive was co-wrotten by with Adele and Tobias Jesso Jr. during sessions for Adele's 25. Earlier this week, Sia released another off-cut from those sessions, the stirringly dramatic Bird Set Free.

Despite rejecting (at least) two of Sia's songs, Adele has been effusive about working with the Australian singer-songwriter, telling Rolling Stone: "I actually enjoy the dynamic of us both being in there and just fucking being bossy. And it's all these male producers, and they're all fucking shitting themselves 'cause we're in there."




12) Blueyes - Ain't Gonna Love You
Blueyes is the brainchild of Belfast native Bronagh Monaghan, who's been messaging me about her music for a year or so, now. Her new track, Ain't Gonna Love You is the sort of flickering, late-night seduction jam you could imagine Jessie Ware finds herself singing when she sleepwalks. One to watch.

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Cotton's last stand

Today marked Fearne Cotton's last show on BBC Radio 1 (although she's popping up to host some of the Big Weekend coverage before she hangs her headphones up for good).

Never as bad a DJ as her detractors would have you believe, she championed Lana Del Rey and Fleet Foxes on daytime Radio 1, making up for her inexplicable love of Kodaline. Well, almost.

Her last show was a truly star-studded affair with appearances from Dave Grohl, Ricky Gervais and... er, Keith Lemon. But the best bits were the surprise songs recorded in her honour. And, bless the BBC, they've put them up online for your listening pleasure.

My personal favourite was this cover of Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 by Lucy Rose. In typical Live Lounge fashion, it took a perky pop song and turned it into a seriousface acoustic "jam". But in this instance it really works. A cover of unusual beauty.


Rae Morris also popped up with a cover of Ben Howard's Keep Your Head up that practically defined the word "ethereal".


Lianne La Havas played Fearne's favourite song, Etta James's At Last.


And Coldplay (no wait, come back) penned a tune especially for the occasion, called Gone But Not F. Cotton.

Witty and affectionate, it was a highlight of the show.


So #FarewellFearne, as twitter would have it ("it's not like I'm dead," the presenter wryly observed). You played some good music, you were brilliantly scathing about Fuse ODG, and you said "amazing" a lot. I'll miss you even more than the paparazzi who waited outside the BBC every day to see what kaftan you'd worn to cover up the baby sick.

I'm also looking forward to Clara Amfo's take on the show, and the Live Lounge, when she settles into the hotseat next week. I've heard they've revamped the whole format - so it'll be interesting to see what difference the new host makes.

And, if you're interested, here's Fearne's hand-picked playlist from her last show.

• Arctic Monkeys - Hold On, We're Going Home (Radio 1 Live Lounge, 13 Sep 2013)
• The Avalanches - Since I Left You
• Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros - Home
• Kodaline - The One (Fearne Special)
• Chris Malinchak - So Good To Me
• Hozier - Do I Wanna Know? (Radio 1 Live Lounge, 15 Sep 2014)
• Take That - Pray (Radio 1 Live Lounge, 22nd November 2010)
• James Blake - Limit To Your Love
• James Bay - (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher
• Duke Dumont - The Giver (Reprise)
• Royal Blood - Out Of The Black (Radio 1 Live Lounge, 18 Feb 2015)
• First Aid Kit - Stay Gold
• Dave Grohl - My Hero (Radio 1 Live Lounge, 4 Nov 2009)
• Kings of Leon - Dancing On My Own (Radio 1 Live Lounge, 10 Sep 2013)
• Jack White - Sixteen Saltines
• Lucy Rose - 9 To 5
• Coldplay - Gone But Not F Cotton
• D.A. - Glowing
• Adele - Hometown Glory (Radio 1 Live Lounge, 27th Jan 2011)
• Eaves - As Old As The Grave
• Rae Morris - Keep Your Head Up
• SOAK - Immigrant Song
• Lianne La Havas - At Last
• Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues
• Darwin Deez - Constellations
• Tom Odell - Farewell Fearne
• Lana Del Rey - Video Games

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Here's that BBC Music thing "in full"

Lorde, One Direction and Alison Balsom - together at last!

That's the pitch for the BBC's spectacularly lavish, star-studded music video / charity single / promotional campaign, which was unveiled a couple of hours ago on every BBC channel except Radio Three and BBC Parliament, which are much too posh to entertain this sort of hoi polloi.

Ostensibly, it's this year's Children In Need single - a cover of The Beach Boys' God Only Knows, performed en masse by an ensemble of en vogue superstars, from Pharrell to Dave Grohl and, somewhat inevitably, Emeli Sande. But it's also a huge flag in the sand for the new "BBC Music" brand, which aims to give the corporation's musical output equal footing to BBC News and BBC Sport. And that is the reason you get pianist (and BBC Young Musician of the Year) Martin James Bartlett rubbing shoulders with the A-list pop stars.

You might be asking why the BBC needs a brand to promote its musical endeavours? Surely everyone knows the Beeb does music exceptionally well from The Proms, to BBC Introducing to Glastonbury and even creaky old Jools Holland and his boogie woogie pianola. But no, politicians don't.

Even in an era when David Cameron loves The Smiths and Gordon Brown plays air guitar to Arctic Monkeys, MPs are endearingly clueless about "how music works" - and why Britain's pivotal role in the worlds of classical, jazz and pop can often be traced back to BBC music champions like (deep breath) Zane Lowe, Huw Stephens, Lauren Laverne, Alison Howe, Max Reinhardt and Roger Wright.

Now, it just so happens that "BBC Music" in general, and this advert in particular, are being launched as the broadcaster heads into what's rather grandly called Charter Renewal - which is basically the government telling the corporation what it can and can't do for the next decade. In previous negotiations, BBC music has often been seen as an easy target compared to news and sport. There's always someone, from any of the major parties, willing to declare, "you don't need Radio 1 when we have Magic FM," despite never listening to either.

So this sort of branding exercise is a way of neutering that message before the starting pistol is fired. And funnily enough the BBC have done it once before, with this song:


God Only Knows has a much higher budget than Perfect Day. In fact, the three-minute promo was shot over two years at Alexandra Palace (there's a great behind-the-scenes report in Creative Review, which reveals the original song choice was Iron Maiden's Phantom Of The Opera).

But where Perfect Day succeeds, and God Only Knows falters, is that it gave the singers space to put their stamp on the song.

Bono's "you just keep me hanging on" was full of Catholic remorse; Heather Small brought the gospel; and Ronan Keating's reading of "It's just a perfect day" was so deadened and bleak it completely nailed the song's underlying sarcasm (by accident, presumably). Even more satisfying were the jarring juxtapositions - in particular Tammy Wynette handing over to wizened old Shane McGowan.

The 2014 version doesn't take pleasure in those moments. Chrissie Hynde and Paloma Faith trade lines, but they're over so briefly you'd be hard pressed to tell which was which without the video. Lorde and Chris Martin both shine, but their voices are surprisingly similar side-by-side. Jake Bugg, meanwhile, gets handed a couple of desultory "la las", stretching his charisma beyond breaking point.

It's still brilliant and audacious (and the BBC employee in me wants the lobbying to work) but imagine what it could have been.

Especially if they'd done the Iron Maiden track.


PS: Some of the observations on Perfect Day are indebted to Tom Ewing's excellent review on his Popular blog - possibly the best music site on the internet.

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Remix ahoy: Coldplay's Sky Full of Stars

It's a solid gold fact that Coldplay songs instantly become 20 times better when someone shoves a drum machine, two rave synths and a stick of dynamite up their backside, strikes a match, lights the fuse, retreats to a safe distance, records the results and hands them over to Dave Pearce.

It's another solid gold fact that putting crowd noise underneath a song makes it more exciting by a factor of a million (conservative estimate). The KLF never mentioned it in "The Manual (How To Have A Number One The Easy Way)" but they did it on every single one of their songs. Look at the liner notes to The White Room, and it's right there: They sampled crowd noise from live albums by U2, The Doors and - if you can believe it - Haircut 100. It works. Every time.

So imagine a Coldplay song that's been given an explosive rave enema AND had the sound of an enthusiastic audience slapped all over the top of it. Well, you don't have to imagine it, because someone has done it for you. Here's the Hardwell Remix of Sky Full of Stars:


Disappointingly, this turns out to be a live recording of a DJ playing the song to a crowd of tanked-up holiday revellers. The studio version of the remix is precisely 25% less brilliant, but an improvement on the original, nonetheless.

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Songs you may have missed: Time pressure edition

Hey there... I'm knee-deep in Glastonbury preparations right now. Interviews to transcribe, features to write, schedules to be finalised, wellies to be de-stinkified. So this week's "songs you may have missed" column comes with the bare minimum of commentary. 

But that's not to say I don't have some corking tunes to embed. So here they are:

1) The one where Alt-J sample Miley Cyrus
Not as bad as it sounds.




2) The one where OK Go play tricks with perspective
If only they wrote songs as well as they made music videos.



3) The one where Coldplay pretend to be buskers while clearly miming to a backing track
Try to watch this without cringing.



4) The one where Sinead O'Connor sounds reinvigorated
Unexpectedly brilliant.



5) The one where Duke Dumont hopes to score a third successive number one
He's got more bangers than a butcher.




6) The one with Beth Ditto and some Belgian guy
Key lyric: "I'm over-thinking everything. I'm drinking everything."




7) The one where Tove Lo makes her US TV debut
Bare of foot, husky of voice, tousled of hair. I love her.




8) The one by an artist called "Potato Potato"
Clicked on it for the name, stayed for the song.





9) The one with Jess Glynne in the back of a pick-up truck
She's lucky she didn't break her neck.




10) The one with Lana Del Rey and an awesome guitar solo
One of the six good songs on Lana's new album.

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Andrew Garfield joins Arcade Fire and 10 other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of songs I didn't quite get round to blogging over the last week... Lots of A-listers in this selection, plus a song about an elephant.

1) Arcade Fire - We Exist
We Exist contains one of the stand-out lyrics on Arcade Fire's Reflection - telling the story of a gay kid talking to his dad: "Daddy, it's true, I'm different from you. But tell me why they treat me like this?"

The video stars Spider-Man's Andrew Garfield as a victimised, alienated transvestite, who finally finds acceptance during Arcade Fire's set at Coachella earlier this year.

It's also got an amazing, Footloose-inspired "angry dance" sequence.


2) Michael Jackson ft Justin Timberlake - Love Never Felt So Good
The concept for this Michael Jackson video is: Michael Jackson is dead, so let's get a load of grinning imbeciles to dance around while we piss on his grave.

At least Justin Timberlake has the decency to look embarrassed by the whole thing.



3) Coldplay - Always In My Head
The songs on Coldplay's new album are the most direct and heartfelt they've recorded since their debut. Chris Martin sounds smaller and humbler, and the delicate arrangements frame his voice with negative space.

A case in point is the softly mesmerising album opener Always In My Head - which got a live outing on Jimmy Fallon's show earlier this week.



4) Charli XCX - Boom Boom Clap

I wrote about this song, from the soundtrack to The Fault In Our Stars, a couple of weeks ago. Now it now looks like it'll be set free from the movie and released as a single in its own right.

A video was shot in Amsterdam a week ago but, for now, we have to make do with the lyric video.



5) Iggy Azaelea ft Charli XCX - Fancy
Speaking of Charli XCX, she popped along to the Jimmy Kimmel's chat show this week to perform the teen rebel anthem Fancy with Leggy Azalea. I like how she sits out the verses on the steps, looking moody, instead of dancing around aimlessly.



6) Damon Albarn - Mr Tembo
The sole moment of levity on Damon's mid-life-crisis of a solo album, Mr Tembo is a song about an elephant he wrote for an unrealised children's album.

Apparently, the first time the elephant heard the song, it shit itself.




7) Nonono - Hungry Eyes
Nonono's industrially adhesive Pumpin' Blood never charted over here (partly due to the record label dicking around with the release date until everyone lost interest) - but their debut album is selling faster than pickled herring in Sweden.

Hence this remix, by fellow Swede Kleerup, which is something of a triumph.





8) Nero - Satisfy
It's four years since Nero's debut album but they've lost none of their power. With vocals from Alana Watson, Satisfy is more intense than two days in a human centrifuge.




9) Naomi Pilgrim - House of DreamsNormally, I hate the continuous play function on Soundcloud... If I want to listen to another song, I will bloody well click on it myself, thank you very much.

But when this song by Naomi Pilgrim popped up after La Roux's new track earlier this week, I was transfixed. Swedish-Barbadian singer Naomi Pilgrim may have got her start singing backing vocals for Lykke Li, but her own music is an altogether sunnier affair.

"This is my palace, this is how I live. I'm staying here all day," she sings, in a soulful ode to duvet days. Beautiful.




10) Nick Mulvey - We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together
Shock news: An indie artist has played a minor-key cover of pop song in the Live Lounge. Still, this reworking of Taylor Swift's break-up anthem is a cut above the rest: Not least for the intricate fretboard work.

Nick will be on Jools Holland next week, if you like this sort of thing.




11) Gorgon City - Never Too Far (ft Laura Welsh)
Just added to Radio 1's playlist, this Gorgon City's follow-up to the excellent Ready For Your Love.

Lots of sub-bass here, as you might expect.

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Easter round-up: Kylie, Prince, Lana and more

Because they're all servants of Satan, pop stars don't take Easter off. So while we were all lazing around and enjoying the bank holiday weekend, tons of new music started cropping up online. Here's a selection of the best...

1) Prince - Breakdown
Actually, this song of pentinence is quite in keeping with the Easter theme.

"I used to throw the party every New Year’s Eve / first one intoxicated, last one to leave," sings Prince, who catalogues the material things he used to crave, and how they left him feeling empty.

The first release from his freshly-inked Warner Bros deal, Breakdown is also his best ballad since Gold. Sadly, it's only available in the US.


PS: Prince just tweeted a link to a video for Breakdown, where the song is played over a scene from Analyze This, in which Robert DeNiro bursts into tears during a television commercial. Most odd.




2) Lana Del Rey - West Coast (radio mix)
Producer Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys has tweaked Lana's new single to make it stand out amidst the Aviciis and Calvin Harrisses of daytime radio. It's not vastly different, just a little crisper and forthright.





3) Jack White - Lazaretto
Warning: Contains violin solo.




4) First Aid Kit - My Silver Lining
Swedish folk duo First Aid Kit were one of the surprise hits of last summer's Glastonbury - easing everyone into Sunday morning with a set full of lilting harmonies and astutely-judged covers of Bob Dylan's One More Cup Of Coffee and America by Simon & Garfunkel.

Backed by the Omaha Symphony Orchestra, their new single My Silver Lining is a rolling station wagon, ploughing through the dusty plains of, er... Stockholm. This week's record of the week on 6 Music, it's taken from Johanna and Klara Söderberg's forthcoming album Stay Gold.




5) Kylie Minogue - Golden Boy
An off-cut from Kylie's Kiss Me Once album, released on vinyl for Record Store Day. It's good b-side material, basically.




6) Coldplay - Magic (Giorgio Moroder remix)
This wouldn't sound out of place on a Pet Shop Boys album. And I mean that as a compliment.




7) Lily Allen - Sheezus
This is all going so well until Lily starts singing about her period.




8) Janet Jackson - Untitled new project
Legendary producer Jimmy Jam popped up on Twitter this weekend to hint he'd been back in the studio with his longterm muse, Janet "Ms Jackson if you're nasty" Jackson.

In anticipation of some exciting @JanetJackson news let's refresh our memories of her greatness. http://t.co/r68jnNl4gf

— Jimmy Jam (@flytetymejam) April 17, 2014

I'm not sure anyone but her hardcore fans are going to be excited by this news BUT as one of those hardcore fans, I'm dying to know what they've been up to. Janet's career took a nosedive after the SuperBowl incident - but the scandal was only part of it. She'd largely cut off her relationship with Jam & Lewis, who co-wrote all of her biggest hits, and her last three albums just weren't good enough for people to forget that nipple piercing.

So, in the hope that's she's rediscovered her mojo, let's remind ourselves of Janet and Jam and Lewis's finest moment - onstage at the 1987 Grammys. Trenchcoats at the ready!

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Chris Martin is a witch. Burn him!

There's sorcery in his fingers...

Chris Martin has been raiding the dress-up box for Coldplay's new video, Magic. The singer and concious uncoupler plays both hero and villain in a black-and-white potboiler, where Cecile, a beautiful young circus performer, must choose between Claude, "her mustachioed husband, the famous but drunk magician," and her assistant, Christoph.

Shot in the style of a 1930s silent movie, intertitles and all, it stars Crouching Tiger's Zhang Ziyi as Cecile and is the work of Swedish director Jonas Akerlund, who'll you know from Lady Gaga's Paparazzi, Christina Aguilera's Beautiful and, err.. Me Julie by Shaggy and Ali G.

I won't spoil the plot - but both video and song are pleasingly light-of-touch from a band who often veer into self-righteous pomp.

9/10

Coldplay - Magic

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Pharrell, Coldplay and other songs you may have missed

Hello, and welcome to another instalment of "songs you may have missed", aka "songs I have forgotten to write about".

There's a bumper crop this week, kicking off with...

1) Pharrell Williams - Happy (at the Oscars)
Guaranteed to slap a grin on your face, here's an ebullient performance from man-of-the-moment Pharrell Williams. So what if the song didn't win an Oscar, who else can say they got Lupita Nyong'o, Meryl Streep and Amy Adams to dance with them on Sunday night, despite wearing the worst pair of shoes ever seen by humankind? No-one, that's who.




2) Coldplay - Magic
True story: In 2011, one of my 6 Music colleagues ended up sitting next to Chris Martin at an awards show. All night long, she badgered him for an interview. All night long, he refused.

"You probably don't even like Coldplay," he said, trying to shut the situation down.

"I do!" she protested. "I really love your first album."

Eyebrow raised, Martin asked: "And you hate all the others?"

"No, no. It's not that," she protested. "It's just I never bought any of them, so I wouldn't know."

Coldplay apparently took the exchange to heart, because their new single sounds closer to that debut album, Parachutes, than anything they've recorded since. It's called Magic and it goes like this.




3) Arctic Monkeys - Arabella
Four singles in, and AM continues to deliver the goods. Arabella is the moody one, and comes with a video by in-demand director Jake Nava (Kanye's Monster, Beyonce's Single Ladies). Disappointingly, we don't get Alex Turner doing a dance routine in a leotard, but he delivers the song with one almighty swagger.




4) Moonboots ft Kyiki - Don't Ask Why
"I encountered the mysterious undiscovered star @kyiki on a winter night spacewalk," writes producer Moonboots on his Soundcloud page. "We came back with this song."

Not to ruin a fun story, but Kyiki is actually Crystal Fighters' frontwoman Ellie Fletcher, whose vocals caress this feel-good dance track into a dizzy swoon. It's a free download, too. So that's nice.





5) Shakira - Empire
Christing Jesus on a Hotdog, she's not holding anything back, is she?




6) Kate Miller - Collar Up
Don't let the unassuming name fool you, Kate Miller is one heck of a singer. A 19-year-old who is (I think) still unsigned, she sounds like Florence + The Machine, if Florence + The Machine discovered restraint. Her debut single Collar Up is a jagged shard of noir pop, with a chorus that'll stick to you like velcro.




7) Janelle Monae and Charli XCX - Simply Irresistible
Sadly not a duet, but R&B oddball Janelle Monae and pop's best-kept secret Charli XCX have separately recorded versions of Robert Palmer's Simply Irresistible.

The tracks were made for TV channel E! and played during their Oscars red carpet show on Sunday (although I watched it, and failed to hear either of them).

8) Paolo Nutini - Iron Sky (live at Abbey Road)
This one's a slow-burner, so stick with it. Taken from Paolo's forthcoming third album, Iron Sky is a powerful, passionately delivered protest song, which samples Charlie Chaplin's speech from the 1940 anti-Nazi movie The Great Dictator. Adele is a fan:

Fuck!!! This is one of the best things I've ever seen in my life hands down http://t.co/D47sRGtni1

— Adele (@OfficialAdele) February 27, 2014

And that's a wrap. More "fun" and "mayhem" (music videos) tomorrow.

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And so it begins...

Rock's favourite whipping boys Coldplay are back with a new song which is, GASP, not entirely bollocks.

Plinky-plonky atmospherics and hushed vocals are the order of the day, as Chris Martin implores "In the darkness, 'fore the dawn / Something something the light on". Possibly. It's hard to tell. His lyrics are practically indecipherable, thanks to multi-layered harmonies and a squashy talkbox effect that pushes his vocals deep underwater.

The end result is a cross between Sigur Ros and Bon Iver, with an unexpected nod to Color Me Badd in the coda (ok, I made that last bit up).

Coldplay - Midnight

The song heralds Coldplay's forthcoming sixth album, about which we know very little. There's a potential clue in the timing of the video release - which the band specifically uploaded at midnight, Mongoloian time. We should find out more when they play the iTunes Festival at SXSW on 11 March.

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Coldplay, Kylie, Calvin, Lana: That was the week that was this week. Or was it?

OH, HI THERE. It's Friday morning, so let's not dilly-dally with pleasantries. Here are some videos you may have missed over the last week.

1) Coldplay ft Rihanna - Princess of China
Stifle your yawns - it's the new video from Coldplay. Clearly inspired by wuxia films like House Of Flying Daggers, it's a sumptuous oriental martial arts epic in which the song's duelling lovers duel in real life with swords. The metaphor is almost too powerful to handle.

NB: Don't blame me if you feel the sudden urge to play Mortal Kombat after watching this video.





2) Kylie - Jubilee medley
Thanks to my job, I had an amazingly privileged view at the Jubilee concert on Monday. The BBC radio booth was right beside the Royal Box - and actually had a better angle on the stage (The Queen was watching from the right hand side, for some reason). I wouldn't describe it as the best concert of my lifetime, but it had an incredible atmosphere - not so much patriotism as magnanimity.

Madness and Sir Fab Paul Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft Veggie Sausage McCartney were undoubtedly the highlights, but Kylie's eight-minute hits medley made the best telly. Here she is doing her song-and-dance number with Flawless which, she confessed to us backstage, had been rehearsed outside the portaloos. Prince Harry loved this.





3) Calvin Harris and Example - We'll Be Coming Back
Can anyone pinpoint the exact moment Calvin Harris sold his soul to the devil? Because his 12-month run of hit singles - We Found Love, Bounce, Call My Name, Let's Go, Feel So Close, Only The Horses - simply cannot be natural. Here's the latest product of his collaboration with Beelzebub.





4) Lana Del Rey - Body Electric
At a gig that must surely have been marketed as "Del Rey at the El Rey", serious chanteuse Lana Del Rey gave a concert for a crowd of disturbingly devoted fans at Los Angeles' El Rey Ballroom on Monday. They came dressed with garlands in their hair and hysterically shouted things like "I fucking love you" and "nice lips". She came armed with a brand new track, Body Electric, which ranks among the best of her unreleased material. It namechecks Walt Whitman's poem, which contains the line "those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead". Make of that what you will.

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Coldplay are coming to get you

Mylo Xyloto. It sounds like a character in a Japanese video game. The sort of game where the visuals give you a contact migraine and the soundtrack is like having jagged kebab skewers shoved into your eardrums.

Mylo Xyloto is, in fact, the new album from Coldplay - so the effect is broadly similar. Or so you'd think...

Because Paradise, the second single from the band's latest long player, is actually quite tolerable. Much like Lost, the funky, Jay-Z featuring single from Prospekts March, it melds the bands melodic instincts to a rhythm worthy of Timbaland. And Chris Martin doesn't sound too moany for once.

"Listen without prejudice," as it says in the Bible [are you sure about this? - Ed].

Coldplay - Paradise


PS: Mylo Xyloto doesn't actually mean anything. But it is a unique search term on Google. How modern.

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Covered up: Billie Jean & Coldplay

Just a quick post today with a couple of superlative cover versions I've stumbled across this this week.

First up, Aloe Blacc, who might not be the one-hit wonder I'd assumed. His string quartet rendition of Billie Jean is oh so classy, if a little down in the dumps.

Aloe Blacc - Billie Jean


Next, we have pop newcomer Neon Hitch. She's a British singer/rapper, formerly signed to Mike Skinner's label and, unvbelievably, Neon Hitch is her actual name. She's been popping up as a background vocalist on songs by Ke$ha and 3OH!3, and this cover of Wiz Khalifa's On My Level is an attention-grabbing calling card for her forthcoming solo material.

Neon Hitch - On My Level


Finally, and on the most shaky ground, is Robyn - who has unforgiveably chosen to cover Coldplay's Every Teradrop Is A Precious Resource So Please Save Them In A Jar And End The Minor Drought In East Anglia.

The Swedish starlet improves on the original, by virtue of a trickling synth line that builds to an arms aloft robo-tronic climax. Robyn also has the decency to mumble the year's most awful lyric: "I'd rather be a comma than a full stop" (if we're expressing punctuation preferences, I'd rather have a colon than a semi-colon).

Here it is, in all its Live Lounge glory.

Robyn - Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall (Live Lounge)

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An embarrassment of new songs

We're long overdue a big old metapost of new music. So here, in no particular order, are some songs from the last seven days which you might be interested in hearing.

:: COLDPLAY - EVERY TEARDROP IS A WATERFALL
This has literally just gone up online (and on iTunes). It starts well - as though it might suddenly explode with a massive arms-akimbo DONK. Instead, it transmogrifies into a terrible Big Country poodle perm rawk dirge. Will sound good at festivals.




:: THE STAVES - WINTER TREES
I literally just stumbled across this earlier today. According to their website, The Staves are "three sisters who blend their distinctive voices into beautiful, spell-binding harmonies". Basically, a British female Fleet Foxes. Lovely stuff.




:: THE SUGABABES - FREEDOM
Because nothing says "confidently bouncing back after a flop album" like premiering your song on a mobile phone advert. Oh, wait...




:: THE VERONICAS - SOME OLD NONSENSE BY THE VERONICAS
Is anyone eagerly anticipating a third album by Aussie twins The Veronicas? They certainly seem to think so, if this thrilling teaser video is anything to go by. Interesting to hear that their new single is produced by Nellee Hooper, though.




:: JUSTICE - CIVILISATION
Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay, or Justice, as they are better known, released this track as an Adidas advert earlier in the year. The video, which has just been finished, is nothing short of spectacular.




:: COLOURMUSIC - YES
A vaguely hypnotic chant, of the sort you might hear in a creepy Haight Ashbury hippy commune circa 1968. This is either a teriffic sing-along or a sinister attempt to brainwash you into giving all your clothes to a donkey and walking nude down the central reservation of the M6.

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Jo Whiley's last daytime show

About three hours ago, Jo Whiley wrapped up her last daytime show on Radio One. I know a lot of people couldn't stand her, or her taste in music, but I always found her a disarmingly warm and human presence in the middle of Radio One's never-ending parade of shouty bastards.

The fact that this talented broadcaster is being replaced by a girl whose vocabulary consists of 22 words, eight of which are "amazing", only makes her demotion all the more depressing.

The case against Jo seemed to be that she championed a great deal of indie drivel - from Badly Drawn Boy to The Wombats - but she also introduced me to The Killers and Gnarls Barkley and Lupe Fiasco, so it all evens out in the end.

In the end, her last show wasn't exactly the rousing valedictory I'd expected, partly because of the bizarre decision to play an hour-long Coldplay concert in the middle of it, but the presence of Jay-Z - who played basketball on Jo's driveway - was radio gold.

I've put together a two-minute highlights package in case you missed it.



Oh, and there were a couple of great new Live Lounge tracks for the last show. The Jay-Z ones in particular are worth 10 minutes of your time. Links below:

:: Jay-Z - Encore (acoustic live lounge)
:: Jay-Z - Roc Boys (acoustic live lounge)
:: Dizzee Rascal - Holiday (flamenco version)
:: Coldplay - Shiver (live lounge)

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