Songs you may have missed: AMA special

A semi-regular round-up of songs I should have blogged about, but didn't.

This week, I've spiced things up with a few performances from the American Music Awards, which will probably have been whisked off YouTube before this sentence ends. Take your chances below...

1) Sam Smith ft A$AP Rocky - Stay With Me
Vocal chops, he's got 'em.




2) Ariana Grande - Break Free / Love Me Harder
Vocal chops, she's got 'em.





3) Fergie - LA Love
Vocal chops, she's got 'em on a backing tape.





4) Beyonce - 7/11
The best thing about this home-made video is discovering Beyoncé's bedrom is just as messy as mine.




5) Taylor Swift - Blank Space (AMA performance)
Magic tricks, homicide and another outing for Taylor's crazy eyes acting face. Superb.




6) Take That - If You Want It
I do not want it.





7) Gwen Stefani - Spark The Fire
After the lacklustre response to Gwen's comeback single, Baby Don't Lie, this Pharrell-produced club has a lot of heavy lifting to do. Thankfully, it's a cheerleader earworm in the vein of Hollaback Girl.





8) Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk (Live on SNL)
I just checked and this song is still amazing.




9) Clean Bandit - Show Me Love
Sounds exactly like you'd expect a Clean Bandit cover of a 1990s house classic to sound. It's like Hooked on Classics all over again.





10) MNEK - The Rhythm
MNEK's Wrote A Song About You was one of this year's best singles - smart lyrical conceit, indelible melody and insane vocals. The fact that it stalled at no. 66 is a genuine travesty.

His follow-up isn't half as adventurous, but it'll probably sell a bucketload.





11) Paul Oakenfold ft Azealia Banks - Venus
After years of delays, Azealia Banks's Broke With Expensive Taste turned out to be quite good after all. And this collaboration with Paul Oakenfold (who must be about 75 now?) is an Ibiza sunset delight.

The career rehabilitation starts here.




12) Years & Years - Desire
There's an argument that the UK electro-house scene is starting to become saturated, from Disclosure downwards. But I reckon Years & Years might squeeze in a few hits before the door slams on the scene forever.

Desire, their latest single, is getting a few spins on Radio 1 and they've just made it onto MTV's "Brand New for 2015" list. Ones to watch.



13) Labrinth - Jealous
Not sure how I missed this when it came out last month, but after last night's X Factor performance, it's leapt into my consciousness (and, more importantly, the iTunes top 10). A terrifically heartfelt piece of songwriting.

An exhaustive list, I'm sure you'll agree... And there are plenty more AMA performances (Lorde, Charli XCX, Selena Gomez) that are worth checking out if you can find a valid link.

Back to business as normal tomorrow.

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Songs you may have missed: A Lorde (and S Club) special

So it was back to work this week after a very generous (although partly-unpaid) 12 weeks' paternity leave. I won't say it was easy to leave the kids behind but on balance my wife has the harder job.

Anyway, the cogs of the music industry machine continue to turn despite my domestic arrangements. Here's a round-up of the songs I heard this week and couldn't find time to write up. NB: They're basically all by Lorde.

1) Lorde - Yellow Flicker Beat (Kanye West Remix)
Intense.



2) Charli XCX ft Simon Le Bon - Kingdom
This one's from Lorde's hand-picked soundtrack to The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1.

Charli talked about it to Pitchfork earlier this week, using the following words: "I worked with Rostam [Batmanglij] on that song. We went to the Miley Cyrus show in LA and got really wasted. Then we went back to his house and I sat on top of his piano, and we wrote Kingdom. We sung it into his phone.

"I remember thinking in the morning, 'Ugh, this is going to be the worst thing ever,' but it was really good. So when Ella [Lorde] reached out to me about the soundtrack, I decided to send her that song even though it’s really different than my usual shit. She was really complimentary about it."

So there you go.



3) Lorde - Don't Tell 'Em (Radio 1 Live Lounge cover)
Intense.





4) S Club 7 - Greatest Hits medley (from Children In Need)
A greatest hits medley featuring four songs isn't really worthy of the title but it's interesting to see what S Club look like in their mid-to-late 30s.

Paul Cattermole is the highlight, dancing like a drunk uncle at a David Brent lookalike competest.





5) Nicole Scherzinger - Run
Intense.





6) Lion Babe - Jump Hi (ft Childish Gambino)
Possibly R&B's best-kept secret, Lion Babe have been on the Discopop radar since 2012. They've been quiet for a while but this song, the title track to a forthcoming EP, suggests they're getting their ducks in a row for a major push 2015.

Sample watch: The chorus uses a vocal hook from Nina Simone's interpretation of Mr Bojangles.





7) Ariana Grande - All My Love (ft Major Lazer)
Also from the Hunger Games soundtrack. A total racket, but in the good way.






8) Calvin Harris - Outside (ft Ellie Goulding)
Do you think Calvin regrets giving all his best material to Rita Ora?





9) Taylor Swift - Shake It Off (Tesher remix)
This is magnificent - reframing Taylor's pop hit as a dark and dirty club hit. If Lorde had written Shake It Off, it would have sounded like this.

Sample-watch: The backing track is based around the intro to Justin Timberlake's What Goes Around (Comes Around).





10) One Bit - Won't Hold Back
Superlative sunset grooves from Radio One's "Most Played New Act of 2014". For fans of Disclosure and Holy Ghost!




11) Fergie - LA Love
Featuring cameos from Hilary Swank, Chelsea Handler and Ryan Seacrest. Hardly Liberian Girl, is it?




12) Chvrches vs Bleachers - You Can Go Your Own Way
Featuring the worst live sound mix you have ever heard in your life, this is nonetheless a brilliant cover version. Lauren's vivacious vocals really bring a new dimension to Fleetwood Mac's kiss-off classic.

And that, readers, is that. Happy listening!

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Two unnecessary pop singles by artists we've largely ceased to care about

After 2012's underwhelming No Doubt comeback, a new Gwen Stefani solo album was basically guaranteed. And so here we are in 2014, with Baby Don't Lie, the first single from the star's third record.

The speaker-rattling intro immediately wrongfoots you, suggesting a pounding club track before it disappointingly gives way to a meandering midtempo blancmange. Gwen comes across as weirdly aggressive, hectoring her boyfriend to confess some wrongdoing or other. "What you hiding boy?" she repeats with increasing fury over the middle 8. I bet she started the conversation in a restaurant for maximum squirm factor.

Still, with co-writing credits from Benny Blanco, Ryan Tedder and Noel Zancanella the song was never going to be an absolute stinker - and the Sophie Muller-directed video, which premieres tomorrow, is bound to be a visual treat.

On balance, then, 6/10.

Gwen Stefani - Baby Don't Lie

Also on the comeback trail this week is Fergie Whatshername out of the Black Eyed Peas, who's taken a mere eight years to record the follow-up to her debut solo album The Dutchess.

The first single, LA Love, basically picks up where she left off in 2006. It's a half-rapped, half-sung, call-and-response earworm in the vein of London Bridge. It's also one of those singles which appears to believe that singing a big list countries makes you seem (a) international and (b) a talented lyricist, when it just makes you sound like a geography teacher.

This one's more instant than the Gwen Stefani song, but more likely to diminish with repeat plays. And, curiously, Fergies's vocal cords seem to have been possessed by Iggy Azaelea.

It'll be interesting to see whether "the kids", who only know Fergie from that song off the Great Gatsby soundtrack, will give a damn about it. 5/10.

Gwen Stefani - Baby Don't Lie

Fans of unnecessary pop singles by artists long past their sell-by date will be pleased to know there's a Madonna album in the works.

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Avril Lavigne irony overload

At the beginning of this video, Fergie out of the Black Eyed Peas Disaster Zone Pop Destruction Club says the following words: "She grows and changes with every album she releases. Now she's ready to take another bold step. With the world premiere of her new single, What The Hell, here's Avril Lavigne."

Avril Lavigne then appears on stage and performs a song that sounds exactly like her previous hits Sk8r Boi and Girlfriend, only with different words. Haha, the scriptwriter has made Fergie unintentionally sarcastic. "LOL".

Avril Lavigne - What The Hell

Still, if stroppy teenage angst-pop sung by a 26-year-old divorcee is your bag, then this is a Radley. It's a Max Martin production, which means it'll stick in your head like an axe, whether you like it or not. According to Avril's official website, you can download it for FREE by submitting to some sort of Facebook-related dignity theft. Thanks, but no thanks.

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New Music Monday

Some of the better video clips of the last few days:

Regina Spektor - Better

Regina's Begin To Hope album is two year's old now but she's still plugging away at the singles. Which is a good thing, because there's barely a duff track on her record. This single, which features him out of the Strokes on guitar, has been polished up to make it more radio friendly (i.e. slightly more bland) but it still rocks our socks.


Modest Mouse - Little Calm

The third single from their patchy, nautically-themed album We Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank, which features former Smiths guitarist Johnny "not Andrew" Marr. One of the most thoroughly depressing videos you will see all year.

The Killers feat Lou Reed - Tranquilizer

The first single from the band's outtakes and rarities album Sawdust, which comes out later this year. No proper video yet, sadly, but the song is packed full of meaty goodness like a rock sausage.

Alicia Keys - No-one

I still love this single and this storming live performance from Jay Leno's chat show is awe-inspiring. No-One stands a good chance of being my top R&B song of the year - beating Amerie and Rihanna into a cocked hat. Indeed they could be knocked into any type of hat, penis-related or otherwise.

Fergie - Clumsy

A bag of old pants. And that's just Fergie's face! (guffaw).

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The Grammys: In pictures

I really have very little to say about the Grammys. I watched the 2-hour synopsis of the ceremony last night, and even that seemed like extended aural torture.

U2 clearly had to restrain themselves from killing Mary J Blige as she systematically ruined their one decent song.

There was general confusion, and the air of a ramshackle last-day-of-term show, for the the 'tribute' to Sly and the Family Stone. Sly himself looked particularly discombobulated, probably because of the industrial amounts of coke he's shoved up his nose over the last 35 years.

Stevie Wonder did his joke about taking his glasses off, the better to see a pretty lady (again(. And Madonna displayed her gusset for the all world to see (again).

As is par for the course at these ceremonies, mediocrity was heavily rewarded. Green Day's "Boulevard of Broken Dreams", for instance, was clearly not the record of 2005. Nor was U2's "Sometime You Can't Make It On Your Own" the song of the year. And what is the difference between those two awards, anyway?

I could ramble on about this for days, but in the end the awards make little or no difference. Especially 'Best Polka Album'. What we're really here for are the frocks - so let's take a look:



Stefani: Hollabump girl



Kanye: Tells it like it is
(In all seriousness, this man needs taken down a peg or two. We used to beat up the cocky kids like him at school. And we were the nerds.)



Sting: "I'll fight you for that mushroom vol au vent"



Madonna: GUSSET!



Joss Stone: "Does anyone know how to get superglue off your chin?"



Jamie Foxx: Pa-rum-pa-pum-pum



Mariah: She's got the horn(s)



Fergie: Face or fish? You decide.
(Oh, alright, it is a fish. Sturgeon, I think.)



Missy: Cool as ice-cream, and the only deserving award-winner of the night (best video for Lose Control)



Beyoncé: Prom queen (again)



Macca: "Help! I've dislocated my hip."

Grammy Nominees: Full list of winners

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Celebrity cherry picking

Unashamedly stolen from the PJ messageboards, who pilfered it from US Weekly, here's a list of when and how your favourite popstrels lost their virginity.

What's surprising is how many of them waited for "the one", which kinda ruins the illusion of those Hollywood sex parties we'd always imagined.

Ho hum.

Jessica Simpson:
At 22: "Something about our wedding night was so magical! He pulled me out of my dress, and the dress was just standing there on its own because it was a Vera Wang masterpiece."

Justin Timberlake:
"I've been doing this since I was 15...I enjoy it, and I praise it."
("I praise it"??? What kind of person speaks like this? Is he talking about his penis? Sheesh)

Britney Spears:
At 18: "It was 2 years into my relationship with Justin [Timberlake], and I thought he was the one...but I was wrong! I didn't think he was gonna go on Barbara Walters and sell me out."

Jessica Alba:
At 18: "I was told I was nasty or dirty if I was sexual in any way."

Fergie:
At 18: "I've always been a very sexual person, I've always had to hold myself back...I lost my virginity at 18. But that took a lot of willpower."
(In what way did it take a lot of willpower? Did she have to force herself on some reluctant dweeb? Somehow, we don't think so.)

Pharrell Williams:
At 16: "We worked at McDonald's...She was an older lady, 28 or 29."
(Romantic, non?)

Tommy Lee:
At 13: "It was the girl next door--my sister's best friend."

Tara Reid:
At 17: "It was down at my Jersey Shore beach house...on the sand. It was disgusting. Four hundred mosquitoes. I had hives everywhere."

Carmen Electra:
At 16: "It was in Cincinnati in the back seat of a car. It wasn't glamorous...I actually felt bad I didn't wait longer."
(Well, exactly. Five more minutes and she could have done it in the comfort of her own home.)

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Oh, for shame

Splosh! Did Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas wet herself on stage?

More pics of pisspants stains here




Phwoar! Charlize Theron joins the Pussycat Dolls burlesque revue.

More pics at Justjared.com

More on the Pussycat Dolls at this Carmen Electra website




Ewwww! Craig David slips the tongue in on Friday, chills on Sunday.

Elsewhere:

Smooth Criminal: Michael Jackson sells his story to OK! Magazine for $2m. (nb - Michael Jackson has been cleared of any criminal activity - smooth, crunchy, or any other variety - by a court of law.)

Leave Right Now: Will Young has lost his pants.

Come Towards Us: Nellie McKay will release the follow-up to her debut album, Get Away From Me, in October. You should pre-order it now.

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