Lorde, Louisa and the rest of New Music Friday: 10 March 2017

Here we are again. In a post-Ed Sheeran landscape, none of these songs have a hope in hell of charting but what are the charts really for any more? Just listen to this stuff on Spotify and get on with your life.

Louisa Johnson - Best Behaviour
It starts off with a Curtis Mayfield bassline and a distorted vocal sample. Then Louisa summons in a chorus of handclaps (never not a good thing), then the hook is played on a panpipe. One of the most unusual and brilliant songs ever released by an X Factor winner. 10/10





Lorde - Liability
A sombre piano ballad inspired by Rihanna's Higher - and which really highlights Bowie's influence on Lorde's new album. Contains the lyric "he made the big mistake of dancing in my storm". Amazing.




Nicki Minaj ft Drake and Lil Waybe - No Faults
Nicki is on fire in this rapidly-recorded response to a Remy Ma diss track. "Soon as I wake up keep an eye out for the snakes," she spits on the single, which precedes her fourth album later this year.




Steps - Scared Of The Dark
Astonishingly good. Imagine if this was our Eurovision entry.




Alt-J - 3WW
If you can imagine Fleet Foxes covering Massive Attack's Teardrop, you're well on your way to imagining Alt-J's new single. Complete with choir chants, strings from the London Metropolitan Orchestra and guest vocals from Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell, it's "quite the thing".




Astrid S - Breathe
A 100 carat electro-pop anthem, mined from the jagged fjords of Norway. Contains my favourite lyrics of the week: "Did you slip me a magic pill? You got me lifted like an astronaut, no helmet on and my lungs just stop. I forget to breathe when I'm with you".




Laura Marling - Wildfire
Laura's sixth (sixth!) album, Semper Femina, is out today and it's possibly the best thing she's done. Wild Fire is one of the standouts, but you should also investigate the jazz-infused Soothing and the gorgeous Nouel.




Charli XCX - Babygirl (ft Uffie)
Today sees the release of Charli's long-awaited Number 1 Angel. It might be a mixtape, but most artists would kill to have these 10 tracks as a single. Babygirl is a highlight - all chunky mid-80s Madonna basslines, with a funky rap verse from Uffie.




Stargate ft Sia and Pink - Waterfall
Stargate are the Swedish team behind Beyonce's Irreplaceable, Rihanna's Rudeboy, and the majority of Coldplay's last album. Sia is a songwriter of some repute. Pink is a pop star turned trapeze artist. Together, they have turned in a song that sounds exactly like you would expect based on their standard operating parameters. Not bad, just so-so.



Steel Banglez - Money
While Stormzy and Skepta make great strides in broadening Grime's horizons, this single relies on the same old stale tropes we've heard a million times. It's a shame, because the production - from one of London's hottest young musicians - is on point.



Goldfrapp - Ocean
"We wanted to sort of bring the synths again," Alison Goldfrapp told Billboard about this new track. And, oh boy, are the synths back. This is huge - recalling the tougher moments of Black Cherry and Supernature, with a shade of Depeche Mode darkness. Not a single, but a stunning song nonetheless.

There's also a Clean Bandit single due out today, but it hasn't appeared yet. It'll probably turn up on Greg James or Zane Lowe's show later this afternoon. Radio, eh?

Update: The Clean Bandit single is out next week. As you were.

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Discopop Directory: Top 10 singles of 2016

Hello strangers!

I'm emerging from blog hibernation to post my annual Top 10 list. Hopefully this will prompt a bit more posting in the new year... Fingers crossed.

As usual, my Top 10 is compiled using the play counts in my iTunes library, keeping me honest about the songs I actually listened to, rather than the ones that sound cool. So here they are, in reverse order...

10) Muna - I Know A Place
Brand new girlband Muna put on one of the best shows I saw this year, deep underground in London's Notting Hill - and this was the highlight: A great big exuberant hug for the LGBTQ community (lead singer Katie Gavin wrote a moving essay about the lyrics in Time Magazine, which is well worth a read).

Played live, it's one of those coming together moments, where the whole club - from the cloakroom to the drum riser - jumps up and down in unison. The recorded version loses some of that energy, but emerges as a terrific singalong, nonetheless.




9) Zara Larsson - Lush Life
When I first heard Lush Life, I thought it was Rihanna. But apparently she only does life-affirming pop songs for Calvin Harris these days, leaving an open goal of Zara Larsson to score one of the year's biggest breakthrough hits. Looking forward to the album next year...




8) Shura - What's It Gonna Be?
This would have made it into the Top 10 for the John Hughes-inspired video alone. But luckily What's It Going To Be is also a perfect happysad pop banger in its own right, so everybody wins.




7) Ariana Grande - Into You
I wished Ariana Grande's Dangerous Woman album had been a little bit more... well, dangerous. Imagine if she'd fully committed to the promise of the title track, recording a dozen dusky showtunes, draped over a piano like Michelle Pfieffer in The Fabulous Baker Brothers. It could have been a classic. But then we'd never have gotten this - a sexy, synthy prelude to an historic romp under the sheets.

For once, old cat ears sounded like she just might start purring.




6) Selena Gomez - Hands To Myself
"I mean I could, but why would I want to." It's the sort of line Lauren Bacall would have said to Humphrey Bogart in the 1940s, but in a pop song. Amazing.




5) Drake ft Kyla and WizKid - One Dance
Confession time: I can't stand Drake. His drowsy, monotonous voice is my own personal chloroform. And yet... and yet... One Dance is just so deliciously moreish.

Maybe it's Kyla's coy, come-hither hook; maybe it's that outer space piano; or maybe it's the sinewy, arabesque guitar line. But it gets me every time.



4) Grimes - Kill v Maim
According to Grimes, "Kill v Maim is written from the perspective of Al Pacino in The Godfather Pt II. Except he’s a vampire who can switch gender and travel through space."

Amazingly, it comes close to matching that description; while the visuals look like a Manga cartoon and a sweet shop threw up over Michael Jackson's Bad video. A signpost for the future of pop. In 2187.



3) Christine & The Queens - Tilted
A dance track about being so awkward, your feet won't do what you tell them. A work of genius in both the English and original French versions.




2) Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop The Feeling
Total fluff. A flimsy song for a flimsy film. But put Justin Timberlake in the same room as Max Martin and you're guaranteed some pop magic. Listen to the playful way JT elongates the word "aaaaaaand" in the chorus; Or the casual way they throw in a gargantuan sing-along hook in the last 20 seconds, forcing you to rewind and start again, just to get more of that exquisite sugar rush.




1) Solange - Cranes In The Sky
My favourite single of 2016 was, in fact, written in a hotel room in 2008. An essay on depression and escapism, it was kept in a drawer for eight years, until Solange dusted it off and used it as a template for A Seat At The Table. Like the rest of the album, it's an elegant, dignified response to harrowing experiences, and a truly exceptional song.

I couldn't resist it - and nor could my kids (which might explain the higher-than-expected placing in this countdown, to be fair).

It was a good year for singles. So, if you're interested, the next 10 would have been:

11) Beyoncé - Hold Up
12) Radiohead - Burn The Witch
13) Ariana Grande - Dangerous Woman
14) The Chainsmokers ft Halsey - Closer
15) Rag N Bone Man - Human
16) Lady Gaga - Million Reasons
17) The Weeknd ft Daft Punk - Starboy
18) All Saints - One Strike
19) Lissie - Don't You Give Up On Me
20) Glass Animals - Life Itself

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Songs you may have missed: The Drake dance-off edition

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 entire internet 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.

And that's your lot!

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Drake, Beyonce and 13 other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of tracks I overlooked over the last week - some good, some bad, some unusual.

This week's star guests include:

1) Drake and Beyonce - Can I
Described perfectly by Vice as "a fat drizzle of maple syrup over an already delicious pancake stack".



2) Little Mix - Pretty Girls
Wondering what the Iggy / Britney song would have sounded like if Little Mix (who wrote the flipping thing) actually recorded it?

Well, wonder no more because The band performed an a capella snippet on Capital FM the other day, evidence of which is below.

Note that they need lyric sheets. Tsk. The youth of today, etc, etc.

New queens! Soooo flipping cute @LittleMix do #PrettyGirls #Instaoki @britneyspears @IGGYAZALEA 👏👏👏😜❤️ pic.twitter.com/H79ujXTUAG

— MAX (@ThisIsMax) May 24, 2015

3) Sigma ft Ella Henderson - Glitterball
More chilled than Sigma's standard sound, but a perfect fit for Ella's liquid vocals.





4) Wolf Alice - Bros
Echoing the lyrics, this is an Instagram-filtered tribute to childhood friends.

It's all a bit Dramarama (ask your dad) but the song brilliant.





5) Walk The Moon - Shut Up and Dance
A big, dumb pop song by a big, dumb rock band. It's going to be everywhere this summer.





6) Kendrick Lamar - These Walls (live on Ellen)
Kendrick turned up on Ellen's chat show for this faultless performance of To Pimp A Butterfly's most melodic moment (accompanied, for no discernible reason, by a portrait artist painting a dancing couple).

Afterwards, the rapper talked "fascinatingly" about his collaboration with Taylor Swift. "I've always been a fan of hers, and she was a fan of my music and she reached out and we got it done."

You can see both below.





7) D.R.A.M. - Cha Cha
Namedrop aleert: This was recommended to me by Lucas from Lionbabe, during an interview for the Beeb (it goes up tomorrow, I think).

It's one of those songs that succeeds despite itself. You'll find yourself involuntarily smiling as D.R.A.M. raps drowsily over an elevator-grade mariachi song and samples from Super Mario Bros.

D.R.A.M. stands for "Does Real Ass Music", by the way. Of course it does.






8) Bonnie McKee - Bombastic
"It’s a summer banger and the video is hopefully going to break the internet," Bonnie McKee told Billboard shortly before this song was released.

The internet remains unaffected in the 48 hours since it premiered, but if you ever wondered what an Avril Lavigne / Lady Gaga duet would sound like, you've found the song you're looking for.




9) Aston Merrygold - Get Stupid
Aiming for: Bruno Mars.
Achieving: Peter Andre.






10) Mark Ronson - I Can't Lose (Duke Dumont mix)
The story behind I Can't Lose is great. Mark Ronson co-wrote it with Jeff Bhasker (Alicia Keys' Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart) but they didn't have anyone to sing it. Instead of trawling Soundcloud, they went on a roadtrip in an Astro Van, driving up the Mississippi and stopping in Baton Rouge, Jackson, Memphis, Little Rock, St Louis and Chicago.

They heard "a few hundred amazing singers but we had a very specific vocalist in mind," he told The Guardian, "and when Keyone [Starr] came in the room in Jackson, MI and started singing, we realised she was the one."

Now the song has some added donk from Duke Dumont. And who amongst us can argue with added donk?







11) Asha - We Can Do This
Former street dance teacher and current vocalist Asha has released this kick-ass soul jam as her debut single.

With a coy, tremulous vocal she delivers the hackneyed line "can't nobody love you like me" in a way that makes it believable. Classy stuff.






12) Alesha Dixon - The Way We Are
Better than it has any right to be, Alesha's comeback slots nicely into the deep house revival while failing to stand out on its own merits.

Great dancing in the video, though.






13) Jess Glynne - Hold My Hand (live at the Big Weekend)
Worth it just to see the two kids, pressed up against the barrier at their first ever concert, gustily singing the wrong words.




14) Blur - Girls & Boys (live du Grand Journal)
"So apparently it was requested, this song," says Damon Albarn, looking for all the world like he'd rather be singing backup for Olly Murs.

Well, screw him. This is excellent.

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Haim go disco and nine other songs you may have missed

The latest in a semi-regular round-up from pop's bargain bins. This week's overlooked classics include:

1) Haim - If I Could Change Your Mind (Cerrone Mix)
A couple of months ago Haim got Giorgio Moroder to remix Forever. Now they've roped in French disco lynchpin Cerrone (the inspiration for Goldfrapp's Supernature) to overhaul If I Could Change Your Mind.

He keeps nothing but the vocals, laying them over a smooth Chic groove, thus transforming Haim into a shaggy-haired Sister Sledge.

Roller skates at the ready...





2) Shakira - Empire
Always at her best when she goes full bananas, Shakira holds nothing back on this furniture-chewing torch ballad. As usual, her metaphors go awry in translation ("And the stars make love to the universe??") but she sings it with such demented conviction you let her get away with it.

If you fancy more Empire, Shakira's performance on last week's The Voice UK was a masterclass in stagecraft.




3) Nick Mulvey - Meet Me There
Until 2011, Nick Mulvey was one of the members of Mercury-nominated jazz outfit Portico Quartet, where he played the Hang, a sort of steel drum invented in Switzerland 13 years ago.

These days, however, he's doing lots of clever, Latin-flecked finger picking on his acoustic guitar. You may have already come across his Jack Johnson-y single Cucurucu, which got to number 26 last year.

Meet Me There is even better - elevated above the usual "wispy boy with a guitar" fare by a beguiling bowed cello counter-melody. You don't get a degree in music from the School of Oriental and African Studies for nothing, you know.






4) Tourist (ft Will Heard) - I Can't Keep Up
Signed to Disclosure's Method Records, Tourist is the alter-ego of DJ William Phillips. Like the Lawrence Brothers, he's been building a profile with a bunch of influential instrumentals, before hiring in a few vocalists to send his career chartwise.

Lifted from his forthcoming Patterns EP (which also features Lianne LaHavas) I Can't Keep Up features the soulful crooning of Ireland's Will Heard, and builds steadily for three minutes before, whoosh, soaring off into the stratosphere.

In the week when Frankie Knuckles sadly passed away, this is just one of a dozen new releases that's utterly indebted to his music.




5) Rita Ora - I Will Never Let You Down (Westfunk mix)
I wasn't sure about Rita Ora's comeback single when it premiered on Monday but, with every listen, it sounds more like a hit. Calvin Harris's production is a little subtle, though, so here's a ridiculous rave remix. Air punch o'clock.






6) Sex On Toast - Hold My Love
Of course there's a band called Sex On Toast, and of course they make retro 80s lurve ballads. This is essentially trying to cover Prince's Scandalous, all slap bass and vocoder solos and sticky-fingered fumbling under your sweater.

At least the band don't take themselves too seriously, as the video demonstrates.




7) Drake - Draft Day
New material from "Drizzy" who's always better when he's rapping. This samples Lauryn Hill's Doo-Wop (That Thing), which should go some way towards paying her legal bills.




8) Chloe Howl - Rumour (acoustic)
Chloe Howl deserves a break. Rumour only got to number 84 when it came out earlier this year - but somehow #Selfie goes Top 10? The world is an unjust place.

Especially when you can make a terrible bit of "online content" work so well in your favour. Would you catch Beyonce delivering a flawless performance on a freezing cold rooftop with her hands shoved in her pockets to avoid chillblains? I think not.



9) Sam Smith - Stay With Me
An acceptable recovery after the godawful Money On My Mind, here is Sam Smith doing what Sam Smith does best - singing a lovelorn ballad with the voice of an angel.

"Hang on," you might say, "Surely warbling over the top of Disclosure songs is what Sam Smith does best?" And you would be right. So here is Sam Smith doing what Sam Smith does second best.




10)How To Dress Well - Repeat Pleasure
With touches of both Janet (breathy falsetto)and Michael Jackson (Human Nature synth line), this is seductive, forward-looking soul from American musician Tom Krell. The comparison isn't completely plucked out of thin air, by the way, he covered Janet's Again last year.

NB: You should stick with this one to the end - it grows and grows like a Wotsit in a glass of water.

The end.

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Drake unveils shooty bang bang Hold On video

Drake's Hold On We're Going Home is by far the best thing he's recorded, which is a strange thing to say given that it sounds exactly like every other Drake single ever released. But there's something about those dreamy synths and barely-there vocals that just works this time around.

The video popped up online last night, and it's a seven-minute, Miami Vice-inspired, crime-ridden, gun-toting kidnap-and-revenge tale [that's quite enough, hyphenation ed]. Drake, who started off his career in Degrassi Junior High discussed the clip with MTV News thus:

"Bill Pope, who directed The Matrix¹, directed the video. Basically it's a video full of acting² because I'm dying to get back into acting.

"I based it off of some of the old Michael Jackson videos like Moonwalker³. So it's sort of exciting, violent a little and scary a little⁴."

1) The Wachowski Brothers directed The Matrix.
2) Mostly people firing guns.
3) Moonwalker was a film, not a video.
4) About as scary as a Calippo.

Petty gripes aside, this is a visually-stunning mini movie. Worth watching full-screen with a bag of popcorn.

Drake - Hold On We're Going Home

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R&B: Getting back its mojo?

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.

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Drake and Rihanna and a buffalo

Drake is single-handedly putting the blues back into rhythm and blues. For proof, see Take Care, his duet with Rihanna - a tender, mournful tryst between two broken hearts. It's a world away from the dry-humping, brand-pimping, "sexy bitch" misogyny of Akon and Taio Cruz and their ilk. And if you're feeling delicate, it'll even make you do a little cry.

The track, which is based on a chunky Gil Scott-Heron sample, has been doing the rounds for months now but the video's only just been finished. It's hard to see what took so long - for the most part, it's just a Drake and Rihanna cuddling in an empty room. There is also a recurring buffalo, but the metaphor is lost on me.

Nonetheless, if your internet connection can handle it, you should watch this in full-screen and high definition. The photography - by French director Yoann Lemoine (Katy Perry's Teenage Dreams, Lana Del Rey's Born To Die) - would give one of those BBC wildlife documentaries a run for its money.

Drake ft Rihanna - Take Care


PS: I interviewed Rihanna recently for her new movie Battleship. It was one of those "round table" affairs, where lots of journalists gang up on an actor for 20 minutes. There's always one mental case from Europe who asks questions like "why do you smell so nice" but this one was relatively sane. You can read a transcript here.

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