Twelve songs you may have missed

It's been a long time. I shouldn't have left you. Without a dope beat to step to.

So, yeah. With apologies (yet again) for an unplanned break in service, here are the songs I should have been writing about over the last seven days.

1) Robyn & La Bagatelle Magique - Love Is Free
Arriving a brisk five months after the single, the video for Love Is Free is actually worth the wait. It sees Robyn and Dominican rapper Maluca breaking the fourth wall in a video-about-a-video with some stunning, Technicolor set-ups. VG.



2) Fleur East - Sax
My eyes! My eyes!




3) Honne - Gone Are The Days
When the Sound of 2016 longlist came out on Monday, lots of people were surprised that London duo Honne hadn't made the cut. James Hatcher and Andy Clutterbuck (great name) met on the first day of university and have been making smooth, romantic electronic pop. Their new single comes from a 7-track EP that's due out in January.




4) Foxes - If You Leave Me Now
A bit of a tear-jerker this one - and undoubtedly the best vocal performance of Foxes' career so far.

She says: "This is a really personal song to me so I wanted the video to reflect that. I took a camera on the road with me for a couple of days, check it out."




5) Tinie Tempah - We Don't Play No Games
Interesting to hear Tinie going for a harder, bass-heavy track after the breezy summer anthem, Not Letting Go. This is the first track from his much-anticipated Uunk Food mixtape, which features cameos from Wretch 32, JME, J Hus and, essentially, everyone you've ever heard of in Grime.




6) A Tribe Called Quest - Can I Kick It (live on Fallon)
Back together to promote the newly-reissued People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm. This song never gets old.

7) The Staves - Make It Holy
Brrrrrrr....





8) The Palms - Push Off
Two of the members of Terraplane Sun are now performing as The Palms (I'm assuming this might mean something to somebody). Their debut single, Push Off, is a subtly groovy indie jangle that sounds like Jake Bugg and Foster The People slammed into each other.




9) Sofia de la Torres - Colorblind Cruisin'
Spanish songstress Sofia de la Torres has been on the verge of major success for a couple of years. Will this song be the one to push her over the top? Who knows - but it's a pop song so steamy it's de-crease your dungarees.





10) Selena Gomez - Hands To Myself
This is a weird video-advertorial, in which Selena and various Victoria's Secret models lip-sync to one of her songs. Everyone looks lovely, but the video is a bit of a dud. Still, nice song.




11) Dave Grohl vs Animal - Drum Battle
YES! YES! YES!



12) Jones - Hoops
Fans of Jessie Ware: Here is your new favourite artist.

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Tinashe "up the duff" and 11 other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of songs I wanted to blog about until life got in the way.

This week's superstars include.

1) Tinashe - Player (ft Chris Brown)
Her early EPs were a major influence on the dark, brooding lasciviousness of Beyonce's Beyonce album. Now Tinashe is going for Queen B's crown with a straight-up, chrome-plated pop classic.

The first single from her forthcoming second album, Joyride, it suggests a major push for mainstream success. But one thing is niggling at me: The lyric websites all say she's singing "you got me all fucked up" in the chorus - but surely I'm not the only one who hears "you got me up the duff"?




2) Ellie Goulding - Something In The Way You Move
Simmering electropop from pop's huskiest songstress. Another indication that Delirious will be an album full of solid gold bangers.





3) Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson - Say Say Say (2015 remix)
A souped-up version of the 1983 duet, this swaps around Macca and Jacko's vocals, and is generally a funkier, more upbeat take on the original. Part of a reissue of McCartney's Pipes of Peace album, it has even been blessed with a new video.

Sadly, the single's b-side, Ode to a Koala Bear, has been left untouched.

4) KDA - Turn The Music Louder (ft Tinie Tempah & Katy B)
The backing track feels a little "my first sequencer" but Tinie and Katy lift this track way above the average. Fantastic video, too.




5) Eliza and the Bear - Lion's Heart
A spoonful of Mumford, a sprinkle of Coldplay, and a pinch of The Libertines. Mix it all together, throw in a trumpet and you have Eliza and the Bear's anthemic new single.

Just to reiterate every article that's ever been written about them: Eliza and the Bear are all boys, and none of them is called Eliza.



6) Foxes - Better Love
Windswept, widescreen pop. But even Rihanna would think twice about a music video where the star sits on a toilet (even if she's just painting her toenails).




7) Dua Lipa - New Love
Jessie Ware's silky melodies crossed with the percussive dissonance of Bjork - New Love is an epic introduction to 19-year-old Londoner Dua Lipa. It was produced by Emile Haynie (Lana Del Rey, FKA Twigs), and Andrew Wyatt (Miike Snow), in case that sort of thing matters to you.






8) Frances - Let It Out
Quiet, intense, fragile, beautiful. Frances is a shoo-in for next year's "ones to watch" lists.



9) Jones - Indulge
I missed this song when it came out in April, but it's become a firm favourite after London-born R&B singer Jones performed it on Jools Holland earlier this week. A dramatic, luxurious song about surrendering to love - I present both acoustic and studio versions, because I can't decide which I love most.







10) Bloc Party - The Love Within
Back from their second "hiatus" with a renewed energy, this song is a perfect balance between the shouty whirligig of Bloc Party's indie thrash and the throbbing electronica of Kele Okereke's solo material.



Petite Miller - Barbaric
This lolita-ish French singer is being talked about in all the right places - but I'm just not getting it. Can anyone enlighten me?



11) Olly Murs - Kiss Me
An interesting diversion into "not hateful" territory from pop's perennial hat-botherer and X Factor acolyte.



12) Janet Jackson - BurnItUp! (Ft Missy Elliot)
A lyric video, shot by the cast and crew of Janet's Unbreakable World Tour, this makes life on the road look like an absolute blast.

The tour pulls into the UK next March, fact fans.

And that's your lot... Enjoy the weekend!

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Foxes dancing in a forecourt

Foxes, everyone's favorite pop star with Bambi eyes, has put out the video to her brand new single, Body Talk - of which we mightily approve.

The clip sees the star dancing (not very successfully) in a petrol station and looking pensive in a car wash. It's all very moody but goodness knows what it has to do with the song.

Foxes - Body Talk

Here are some sentences that appeared in a press release about Foxes' forthcoming "sophomore" (second) album.

"Southampton-born Foxes, who eschews the lure of the full-on glitzy pop star life in favour of taking the bus around east London and working on her mum's vintage clothing market stall, is ready for the world to hear what she's been working on, 'I knew immediately what I wanted with this album, and I was at the reins of it this time,' she says."

The album will also feature a children's choir, as the singer revealed on Facebook a fortnight ago.

kids choir in the studio today #makingthealbum

Posted by Foxes on Friday, 12 June 2015

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New from Foxes - Body Talk

Foxes isn't wasting any time following up last year's excellent debut album, Glorious.

The milkshake enthhusiast, Let Go For Tonight singer, Guinness world-record holder and part-time Doctor Who actress has just popped into Radio 1 to premiere a new single, Body Talk.

"I like it," she told Nick Grimshaw hubristically. "I was in Wales and I had disco on the mind, I don't really know why. It's kind of a break-up song but it's got a positive view on it."

The single mix is a very different (and much-improved) version of the demo that leaked earlier this week. If you liked Ladyhawke's first album, this is going to be right up your ear canal. And if you didn't like Ladyhawke's first album, what's wrong with you?

Foxes - Body Talk

Footnote: Here is something interesting from a press release for the single.

Southampton-born Foxes, who eschews the lure of the full-on glitzy pop star life in favour of taking the bus around east London and working on her mum's vintage clothing market stall, is ready for the world to hear what she's been working on, "I knew immediately what I wanted with this album, and I was at the reins of it this time” she says.

So there you go.

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Foxes is Glorious

Hello there!

I'm finally back from my post-Glastonbury hiatus. And what better way to kick things off with a new video from Disney Princess-eyed pop singer Foxes, whose next single is the title track to her debut album, Glorious.

A tinkly piano ballad with a stonking chorus, the video was shot in Barcelona earlier this month - but it nearly didn't happen.

"It's all a bit manic," she told me on the morning of the shoot. "We're rushing against time, trying to get the flight to Barcelona, but my passport's been delayed. We've gone to the passport office now, and I'm waiting in Victoria in a hotel lobby."

Luckily, the document was rushed through, and now you have this sumptuous visual to feast your eyes upon.

Foxes - Glorious

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Katy Perry's birthday suit and seven other songs you may have missed

This week's groundbreaking installment of songs-you-may-have-missed contains several songs you may have missed. It's a revolution.

1) Katy Perry - Birthday (lyric video)
La Perry's lyric videos have a bigger budget than most artists get for their actual promos. And what does Katy do with all that extra cash? Spends it on cake. Amazing.




2) Calvin Harris - Summer
Calvin Harris has also been handed a sizeable promo budget, but he's spent it all on bikini girls and sports cars. Watch out, Harris, or you'll turn into Jamiroquai.




3) Jamie xx - Sleep Sound
Now, this is more like it: A dance video, starring 13 members of the Manchester Deaf Centre, set to a hypnotic new song by Jamie xx.

Director Sofia Mattioli says the video was inspired by a train journey: "I was listening to music, getting deep into it, and this girl started staring at me. After a while I took my headphones off and she came up to me, started signing and then wrote me a note to say that she was deaf but could almost feel the music by my movement."

Captivating and mesmerising.



4) Say Lou Lou - Everything We Touch (Yannis Foals mix)
Sexy, euphoric, Swedish pop. There's something special about Say Lou Lou and Yannis Philippakis from "intellectual" rock band Foals clearly agrees.

He's run his feather duster all over their new single Everything We Touch and given it a sparkling, heavenly sheen. Damned-near perfect.




5) Tove Lo - Stay High (Hippie Sabotage remix)
I prefer the original version of Tove Lo's Habits but Radio One have playlisted this trancey remix for complicated music 'biz' reasons we'll never fully understand. On the downside, the remix has bumped the superior Love Ballad off her Truth Serum EP (otherwise it wouldn't be chart eligible in the UK). On the plus side, Tove is now number seven in the iTunes chart.

A remix video has been hastily cobbled together and looks like this.


NB - my interview with Tove went up on the BBC News site today. You can read it here.


6) Foxes - Holding On To Heaven
Foxes is gradually turning into a genuine pop star. Photogenic, witty, fond of tempo changes, with a constant hint of melancholy in her voice.

Holding On To Heaven follows up the top 10 hits Youth and Let Go For Tonight (although it's also been a free download in the past which is very confusing). Taken from her forthcoming album Glorious, it's power ballad o'clock.



7) Nightbox - Burning
"Hi Mark, I'm Andrew Keyes, the bassist in Nightbox," said an email in my inbox earlier this week. "I'd appreciate if you'd lend me your ears for a moment to check out my band's upcoming release."

After a complex and painful surgical procedure, I did lend Andrew my ears and, contrary to expectations the "upcoming release" was 100% not shit.

Recorded in the band's living room ("we've got wooden floors", says Andrew, "far easier to clean up") but given the once over by MSTRKRFT and Sebastien Grainger of DFA 1979, their EP is propulsive, rhythmic indiepop.

The EP's out on 22 April, with Burning as the lead track - but you can check out their other material on Soundcloud.



8) Klaxons - There Is No Other Time
A return to form if ever there was one.

That's your lot. There's also a Kylie lyric video doing the rounds, but I couldn't think of anything to say about it.

See you again on Monday when apparently there'll be a new Lana Del Rey single to discuss. Exciting.

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Foxes pulls off an astonishing Live Lounge

Some performances just stop you dead in your tracks - and this is one of them.

Pop newcomer Foxes was in Radio 1's Live Lounge today and sang a version of Pharrell's Happy mixed up with the piano-drenched melancholoy of Massive Attack's Teardrop. It shouldn't have worked, but it really, really did.

It was so good that it made me agree with Fearne Cotton, who called the performance "sumptuous and delicious".

Foxes - Happy


Foxes also played her current top 10 smasheroo Let Go For Tonight, singing it so heartily you could see her actual tonsils. That's not on YouTube yet, so here's an acoustic version from something called "Vevo Lift" instead.

Foxes - Let Go For Tonight (acoustic)

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What is YouTube trying to tell us about Foxes?

Just now, I clicked on the new video from Foxes – the pop singer with Disney Princess eyes – and look at the advert YouTube placed beneath it:

As we all know, Google uses a complex system of algorithms and user profiling to serve adverts, so it's definitely aware I have a full head of hair (and thank God for that - because when I had childhood chicken pox I only picked at the scabs on my head, thanks to the naïve delusion I'd never go bald).

So that leaves three possible explanations:

1) Foxes is a man in a wig, and the advert is targeted at her
2) 92% of Foxes fans are middle-aged pervs with male-pattern baldness
3) Google is broken

Whatever the reason, it doesn't stop the song from being a smasher. Let Go For Tonight is mid of tempo, but lofty of chorus. Bung in a dramatic string section, thunderous percussion and an unexpected tempo change in the middle 8 and you have a pop classic in the making.

The video, on the other hand, features a terrible waste of flan.

Foxes - Let Go For Tonight

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Discopop Directory: Top 10 Singles of 2013

Right then: The best singles of the year. And what a year it's been. The singles chart was as vibrant and exciting as the albums one was disappointing and lacklustre. There was a lot of "mid-tempo" and a lot of twerking, but you won't see any of that here. As usual, the top 10 is compiled from my iTunes playcount because, otherwise, I simply can’t be trusted to tell the truth. So, here we go in reverse order:

10) Vampire Weekend – Diane Young

In which Ezra Koenig - a man whose name represents the worst Scrabble rack of all time - does his best Buddy Holly impression over a frenetic surf guitar line. With a vocoder. Fast, thrilling, and utterly, utterly undanceable, it is nonetheless a great song.

Koenig claimed the real Diane Young was "about 5 foot 10" and "fairly attractive". But she's really just a homonym for "dying young", which was the song's original title until the band decided it was too gloomy.

9) Demi Lovato – Heart Attack

It takes a brave composer to write lyrics in 72-point bold type capitals; and it takes an even braver singer to perform them that way. But Demi "Tomato" Lovato pulls it off – conveying a sense of frailty at the same time as she bellows out the chorus with the sort of force that could capsize a battleship.

Yes, it might be pop by numbers - but the maths is flawless.

8) Justin Timberlake – Mirrors

Great song, but I still don’t understand what he's doing with a pocket full of soap.

7) Arctic Monkeys – Do I Wanna Know?

Sleazier than Robin Thicke frantically rubbing himself through an overcoat, Alex Turner's ode to obsession marked a stunning return to form for the Arctics. Built around a swampy guitar riff Do I Wanna Know was lascivious, sordid and constantly on the cusp of... well, you get the picture.

6) Katy Perry – Roar

With a chorus two times bigger than an elephant (and thrice as nimble) Perry was the leopard-print victor of the year's biggest pop battle (turns out that obedient Applause is no match for a feral Roar). It's just a shame the rest of Katy's album was such a dreary therapy-speak borefest.

5) Little Mix – Move

All great pop songs should pull the rug out from under your feet and, on Move, Little Mix sent carpets flying like Aladdin [please stop – tortured metaphor ed].

It's all there: The stomach drop when the first bridge fails to resolve into a chorus; the "iknowthatyouwannastaycoolinthecorner" mid-section, the bum-rattling bass. A clever, brave single by a manufactured pop band that, for once, are in complete control of what they’re doing.

4) Haim – The Wire

Danielle Haim sings like she's got the hiccups and it's glorious. But on The Wire all three Haim sisters got the chance to shine. Each of them admits they bottled it when some guy told them "I love you". Poor some guy.

3) Zedd ft Foxes – Clarity

A tidal wave. A supernova. A bloody great pop song. Yeah, so the lyrics are mostly nonsense ("A clock ticks 'til it breaks your glass and I drown in you again??") but, oh my God, that chorus is a force of nature.

2) Lorde – Royals

They say a genius is just the first person who dares to say something everyone else is thinking. By that token, Lorde's decision to write a lyric that said: "Hold on, every single bloody recording artist on the planet, I've suddenly realised I don't care about how many diamond chains you own, ok bye" made her the biggest pop genius in 2013.

1) Duke Dumont ft A*M*E - Need U (100%)

It sounded like a classic the first time I heard it, and it still sounds like a classic now. An snappy, irresistible nugget of handbag house it was arguably responsible for a major 1990s revival in 2013, so we can hold Duke Dumont responsible for next year's inevitable Whigfield comeback. Until then, I defy you not to dance to this.

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Must listen: Foxes - Holding On To Heaven

With Youth going to number 12 earlier this month, professional Zooey Deschanel impersonator Foxes has cleared the "featured artist" hurdle and established herself as a fully-fledged solo artist.

This is good news, because her solo album has been sitting around for a while waiting for a good excuse to release it. The singer gave an enlightening interview on the subject to Fiasco in October, saying: "I'm really grateful I've been allowed to have this slow burn because it's made me so more prepared. If I'd put the album out last year I would have freaked out and shaved all my hair off."

She continued: "There was definitely a feeling at some point of people looking at it and thinking it should be a pop album, or go down that route because Clarity did so well, but I definitely stood my ground and said absolutely not."

"I do consider it a pop album," she clarified, "but it's not shamelessly mainstream."

So there you have it.

While we wait for the album to arrive in Q1 next year, Foxes has released a lyric video for her "baby, please don't go" power ballad Holding On To Heaven. Shot during a promo trip to New York City last month, it's got a stadium-sized chorus and an amazing arms-aloft breakdown in the middle 8. Surprisingly, for such a strong song, it's not even pencilled in to be her next single: That would be Let Go For Tonight, which is out on 23rd February.

If you're jettisoning this sort of material as a buzz track, imagine how great the album is going to be. IMAGINE.

Foxes - Holding On To Heaven

NB: Holding On To Heaven is now available as a free download on iTunes. Yippee!

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Songs you may have missed: The nude edition

Sorry for the lack of updates this week - the real world has been getting in the way (plus there wasn't much to write about, to be honest).

Anyway, here's a rundown of the songs that floated onto the internet this week, most of which seem to be stripped-back, denuded, unclothed and generally acoustic versions of original songs. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

1) David Bowie - Sound And Vision (2013)
You've probably heard this on an advert for a mobile phone and wondered where it came from. It's Sound And Vision, and it's definitely Bowie's voice, but the only backing is a naive piano that sounds like it was recorded in a school assembly.

In fact, the mix is the work of Sonjay Prabhakar, who was given the original master-tapes and pared away all the production to leave the lead vocals, Mary Hopkin's backing and Roy Young. Yep, that's really there on the album mix. Who knew?

It's proved so popular that Bowie has given an official release his blessing. It's out now on iTunes.




2) Miley Cyrus and The Roots - We Can't Stop
Presented like the opening titles of The Brady Bunch, this a capella rendition of Miley's FU anthem actually makes the song tolerable. Easy to forget there's a great set of vocal cords hidden behind that tongue.




3) MKS - No Regrets
As well as the near-perfect cover of Lorde's Royals, which I posted on Tuesday, MKS performed an acoustic version of their new song No Regrets at their recent Reload Sessions recording. A ballad that could be a love song, it could also be about the girls' split and reunion: "Enemies, I hope we clear the air".




4) Foxes - Youth
Precisely one million years after it first appeared online, Foxes' beautiful Youth is finally getting a proper release. Radio 1 put it on their C-List this week, which augurs well. Foxes celebrated the news by playing the song in bed, for some reason.




5) Robbie Williams - Go Gentle
I was lucky enough to go and see Robbie record an episode of Radio 4's Mastertapes last night. The premise of the show is that artists come in and discuss their defining album - in Robbie's case, Life Thru A Lens. He talked about being booted out of Take That ("I asked them if I could take a pineapple with me") and how Gary Barlow rejected his first ever song.

"I phoned Gaz up and I said 'I've got this song - it's about a prostitute, in Manchester' and he said, 'it'd be alright for a rock group, wouldn't it, lad?"

At the end of the night, he played a couple of tracks from his new album, Robbie Williams Swings Both Ways, including this - Go Gentle, a sincere, but goofy, declaration of love for his one-year-old daughter. He was in tears at the end of it.




6) VV Brown - The Apple (live on Later)
OK - so this Jools Holland performance is as far away from acoustic as it's possible to get, but WHAT A SONG.




7) TLC - Meant To Be
Written by Ne-Yo, Meant To Be is the only new song on TLC's 20th anniversary collection. T-Boz sounds like she's been smoking 40-a-day for the last decade, but this is quite lovely in a 90s throwback kind of way. More Red Light Special than Waterfalls, but I can live with that.

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Music video trends pt 245: Grumpystrolling

It's a good week for putting on a leather jacket and walking moodily towards a camera that's framing you to the right of shot.

Spookily, those are shots from three separate videos, all uploaded to YouTube yesterday. Why they've all adopted this trope, popularised in Bittersweet Symphony, is a mystery. Nearly as big a mystery as why leather jackets are a thing again.

But as well as grumpystrolling, the videos have one more unifying feature: A terrific song. In order, they are.

Arctic Monkeys - Why'd You Only Call Me When You're High?
Following up Do I Wanna Know, and sticking in the same vein, the Arctic Monkeys unveil this gnarly slab of rock sleaze. The video, in which a "refreshed" Alex Turner stumbles down the street sexting his lady friend, is largely NSFW.



Foxes - Youth
Foxes has had two top 20 hits this year as a featured artist (most notably on Zedd's barnstorming Clarity). Now it's time to ramp up the solo campaign with a re-release of her best song to date, Youth. If you fixate on women with Disney princess eyes, this video is for you.



Haim - The Wire
Haim take an unanticipated detour into comedy for their new video. We see Alana, Este and Alanis Morisette Danielle dumping their feckless boyfriends... with hilarious (emasculating) consequences.

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Rudimental + Tigers + Foxes = A great video

They might be a dynamite live act, but Rudimental have shied away from appearing in their own videos. Every single so far has had it's own international mini-movie - following slum kids, BMX bandits and and an urban horse community (yes, really).

For fifth single Right Here, we're off to Thailand's Tiger Temple. The video is an unusual, but exceptional, mixture of martial arts and nature documentary, revolving around the illegal international tiger trade. Sounds very worthy, but it's beautifully shot and totally kick-ass.

Rudimental ft Foxes - Right Here

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Justin's suit, Laura's garden and some other songs you may have missed

I'm popping off to Scotland for a week, so the blog will be as blank as Olly Murs' manuscript in a maths exam. To tide you over to the 4th of February, here are a few songs I would have blogged about if there'd been more time.

1) Justin Timberlake - Suit and Tie
This is the lyric video to the audio track that was teased in a Youtube clip spawned from a tweet. All this faffing about would be worth it if the song was slap-you-on-the-tits amazing, but sadly it's still just a 5/10. *sigh*




2) Laura Mvula - Green Garden
Of all the artists on this year's Sound Of 2013 predictapolls, Laura Mvula is the one with the most potential to do an Adele. Hip enough for Radio 1, edgy enough for 6 Music and soothing enough for Radio 2, she's got what I like to call "potential". She also has an incredible voice and amazing songs. Green Garden takes a while to get going, but you'll be swooning by the final, exuberant chorus.




3) Zedd ft Foxes - Clarity
Zedd is a German producer who's been working on Lady Gaga's new album.
Foxes is British songstress Louisa Rose Allen, who we like a lot.
Together they are "Zedd ft Foxes".
And this song is fucking great. Sand dunes ahoy!




4) Jessie Ware - If You're Never Gonna Move (Two Inch Punch remix)
This song used to be called 110% but, for some reason, it's been renamed If You're Never Gonna Move for the US release. Clearly, the new name is a line from the chorus, which is useful for the sort of person who goes into a record shop and says "I heard this song on the radio and it sort of went duh duh duh duh If You're Never something a-a-ah. Do you have it?" Except the only line anyone can ever remember from 110% is "Dancing On My Own" which is a completely different but equally brilliant song. And anyway, the record shops are all closed nowadays and you can just Shazam the song off the radio, so why bother changing the name in the first place? Gah!

The remix, by the way, is excellent: All ambient and spookified. And only available in the US. Double gah!





5) Lana Del Rey - Summertime Sadness (Monsieur Adi remix)
Do you think Lana approves of this? She spends ages cultivating her doe-eyed, pouty-lipped pop vixen persona, then someone waps her vocals on top of a honking bassline and makes her sound like the queen of the carnival. A carnival populated by the cast of Glee and 10,000 other people with the permanently startled expression of Scooby Doo with a jack-in-the-box.

But who cares what she thinks? It's big, dumb, mindless, and infuriatingly catchy.





6) REM - Losing My Religion
Major Scaled is a project whereby songs in a "sad" minor key are digitally tweaked so they're in a "cheerful" major key. The results are quite startling. You can recognise and follow the songs, but something's not quite right. They've posted a bunch of examples on their Facebook page - but REM's Losing My Religion (recast as Rediscovering My Religion) is the best of the bunch.


That's it - have a lovely snowy week. See you in a bit.
Mrdiscopop

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Cheryl Cole, Thom Yorke... and three other songs you may have missed

It's a run down of some songs that have been on put the internet this week, in no particular order. Roll on the tunes...


1) Cheryl - Screw You
Yes, Screw You a song about having your heart broken and coming back fighting but it is definitely not autobiographical. Even though all the lyrics have a direct parallel to Cheryl's life, she didn't write them and the whole thing is a merry coincidence. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar. HAVE I MADE MYSELF UNDERSTOOD?

OK, then. You can watch the video.




2) Atoms For Peace - Default
Atoms For Peace is the Thom Yorke's new project, featuring producer Nigel Godrich and Flea from Back To The Future III.

They came together as a live band a couple of years ago and, according to Yorke, "discovered loads of energy from transforming the music from electronic to live, and so afterwards, we carried on for a few days in the studio and decided to make it a loose, on-going thing - Immersed in the area between the two... electronic and live."

If comparisons are necessary, and they are, Default walks a similar path to Everything In It's Right Place from Kid A - a complicated, skittering song with a menacing swell of keyboard noise.





3) Ke$ha - Die Young
I don't hate this, and that alone makes it noteworthy in the cannon of Ke$ha. Best bit: "I hear your heart beat to the beat of the drums" [massive thump on the kick drum]. All songs should do this.




4) Night Engine - I'll Make It Worth Your While
A PR emailed me about brand new London quartet Night Engine earlier this week. Instead of exclaiming "Huw Stephens has tweeted about them!" or "they've played two sold out gigs in a shit pub in Shoreditch!", she explained in 100% ACCURATE terms what the band sounded like: "Talking Heads jitters, Bowie style ice cool and Funkadelic groove."

This is the song in question. A toe-tapper, as my Granny might say.




5) Foxes - Echo
The best video about the romance between a grown woman and a crash test dummy you will see this week, and that's a guarantee.

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Wolves and Foxes: An apology

It has come to my attention that previous articles about ice-cool electropop artists Foxes (left) and Wolfette (right) have revolved around a series of childish and tedious animal puns. I would like to take this opportunity to apologise without reservation for this lapse in judgement.

In the future, any music by Foxes or Wolfette will be presented without suggesting that the artists in question habitually raid bins and tear sheep apart with their bare teeth. Nor do they howl at the moon, except when artistically appropriate.

Here are their new videos, both of which are aarrrrrooooooooooeally good.

(Sorry)

Wolfette (Canidae Canini)- Risk For You



Foxes (Candidae Vulpini) - White Coats


Out of interest: Which do you prefer? Which is the Katy Perry and which is the Jessie J? And are predatory carnivores this year's dubstep?

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Foxes on the prowl

Hello!

Here is a song you might like by a lady called Foxes. She's not really called Foxes, of course. Her real name is Louisa Rose Allen. But we already have one L Rose Allen in pop and it's best not to confuse the children.

Foxes - White Coats


That's pretty good isn't it? Especially the bit that goes: "If the men in white coats are coming / I know you'll still be there for me". It's not often that pop music references the mental health act in a love song. But, as you can see at the top of this article, Foxes is a little excitable around lampshades, so maybe there's a dark, untold story behind the lyric (NB there isn't).

Coming up next week on Discopop Directory: A Jennifer Lopez ballad about the Greek financial crisis.

PS - If you click through to soundcloud, White Coats is available as a free download. And if you want to know more about Foxes, there is a very good interview on the Swide website.

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FOX QUIZ... IT'S A FOX QUIZ!!

Competition time: There are nine foxes illustrated below, but only one of them is amazing new synthpop artist Foxes. Which is which? Only you can decide.

Clicking on the correct picture will take you to a free download of Foxes' new single, Youth. One of the others will take you to a video of a penguin attacking a human man.

Every picture hides a prize. Everyone's a winner, "etc".



Foxes is 22-year-old Louisa Rose Allen (no relation to Lily but you can see why she's ditched the name) and she's just been signed up to very-good-at-spotting-female-talent record label Neon Gold. Youth comes out as a 7" vinyl in January - and if you can't be bothered with clicking on all those images, here's the video for the b-side Home.

Foxes - Home

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