Songs you may have missed

Back once again like a renegade master. Here are 12 songs you might have missed if this blog is your only source of new music in the universe.

1) Father John Misty - Real Love Baby
Harmonies abound on this one-off single from Father John Misty, which includes the unforgettable couplet: "I've got real love baby / Wait until you taste me."




2) Major Lazer - Cold Water (feat. Justin Bieber & MØ)
Apparently this will be number one on Friday, making Justin Bieber the Whigfield to Drake's Wet Wet Wet.




3) Blossoms - Charlemagne
The best indie-pop single of 2016 is actually a re-release, but that's the sorry state of guitar music in the second decade of the 21st Century.





4) Regina Spektor - Bleeding Heart
After a few years off to start a family, Regina Spektor is back... and it was worth the wait. Bleeding Heart reflects on an awkward childhood, sitting at the back of the bus and avoiding the school dance - and how, even as a confident, successful adult, those feelings are never far from the surface.

By turns a bubbly pop song, a raucous rock banger and a plaintive piano ballad, it's an expectedly unexpected pleasure.




5) Britney Spears - Make Me (feat. G-Eazy)
Pedestrian verses, beatific choruses. Not too shabby.




6) Katy Perry - Rise
Pedestrian verses, pedestrian choruses. Pretty shabby. (Although the "oh ye of little faith" line is a masterstroke).




7) SG Lewis - Holding Back (feat. Gallant)
Smooth, funky house from Liverpool's SG Lewis - endorsed by Pharrell as a "white boy with soul". The vocals from R&B wunderkind Gallant are the icing on this particularly sticky cake. Yum.





8) The Divine Comedy - Catherine The Great
Any song that includes the lyric "she looked so bloody good on a horse" is alright with me.





9) Glass Animals - Youth
A quietly political song, about a family torn apart by war - sung from the perspective of a mother who sent her child away in the hope of a happier life.

Frontman Dave Bayley says the track was inspired by a conversation with a stranger. "It was one of the saddest things I'd ever heard, and she was on the verge of crying," he told NPR, "but she also had a sense of optimism and calm. Something in her face said she'd found a way to be happy again."





10) Opia - Shadow Dances
Staccato guitar lines and shimmering harmonies propel this smart, summery pop song from Yale University students Jacob and Cole, aka Opia. Reminds me of Friendly Fires and Passion Pit, back from the golden era of music blogs.




11) Jagwar Ma - OB1
A swirling, psychedelic masterpiece - which the band describe as being "designed for nocturnal road trips and foraging through forests for morning fresh champignons." Er, ok then.




12) Enrique Iglesias - Duele El Corazon (feat. Tinashe, Javada)
Every so often, Enrique Iglesias appears out of nowhere with an above-average pop smash (I'm not talking about Hero). This is one of those occasions. Just try to ignore the lecherous lyrical content.

That's your lot. I didn't include the new 5SOS single. Apols.

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New Music Friday: Timberlake, Dua Lipa and the rest...

THERE'S SOME NEW MUSIC. AND IT'S FRIDAY. IT MUST BE NEW MUSIC FRIDAY.

Here are a few brand new "jams" to spread on your musical toast.

1) Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop The Feeling
Perfectly acceptable stop-gap between "proper" albums. Not his finest work.

Also, anyone who's ever sat awkwardly in a room while an artist cues up their new material will know how unrealistic the video is.




2) Dua Lipa - Hotter Than Hell
This is a song about "a really horrible relationship - one that went off the rails," Dua told me earlier this year. Don't worry, though, this isn't a gruelling trudge through her emotional wreckage. No, it's a total banger.

Note the "unusual choice for the YouTube "hero image".




3) Jake Bugg - Love, Hope and Misery
This is really good. Like a Paolo Nutini ballad, only more nasal.




4) James Blake - Radio Silence
After appearing on Beyonce's Lemonade, James Blake has Beyonced his own album, and this is my favourite track (initially, at least).

Meanwhile, there's a big interview with James over on The Guardian today, which features one of the most name-dropping paragraphs in pop history.

It reads: "Madonna called his music 'the kind of thing that makes me jealous', and told him so over the phone while he was in the studio with Kanye West, who has publicly called him 'Kanye’s favourite artist'. Joni Mitchell, one of his heroes, gave him career advice after a show. He has been covered by Lorde and sampled by Drake. Listen to artists including Jack Garratt, Låpsley and FKA twigs, or the melancholy, nocturnal end of hip-hop, and you hear echoes of Blake everywhere."

James's response to all of this? "That's nice."




5) Gallant - Bourbon
"I love in cold blood," is a fantastic lyric. The whole song is fantastic, to be honest.




6) Ariana Grande - Into You
Ariana's new album is shaping up to be very good indeed.




7) Charli XCX - Explode
This is taken from the Angry Birds movie, but don't hold that against it. Charli's best work often comes on movie soundtracks - Boom Clap, Kingdom, etc, etc.




8) Red Hot Chili Peppers - Dark Necessities
This has a really dramatic slow building intro, then Flea jumps in with a trademark slap-thonk bassline and it's business as usual.

Anthony Kiedis' most ridiculous lyric this time round: "You're like ice cream for an astronaut".




9) Skepta - Man
"Upset because your wife is a fan / She done with the little boy / Now she wants to be with a man."

Skepta is on show-stopping form right across his new album, Konnichiwa. Not for the faint-hearted.

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Seven Songs You May Have Missed

Like it says above... Here are seven songs you may have missed over the last seven days (and one for luck).

Gorge yourself silly on half an hour of quality pop.

1) Zara Larsson - Lush Life (live)
The song Rihanna should have released as her comeback single gets the Live Lounge treatment.



2) Cassius - Action (ft Mike D and Cat Power)
Daft Punk take a long time between albums but it's nothing compared to their contemporaries, Cassius, who return from a 10-year break with this fiesty firecracker, featuring a real-life Beastie Boy.





3) Zayn - Like I Would
"Talking about it's not my style," declares Zayn, who proceeds to spend the next three minutes talking about it. "It" being "sex", in case that wasn't clear. He's very good at the sex, apparently, but is his assessment really objective?

Still, nice to see his debut album raises the tempo above "moribund" every so often.






4) Kygo - Carry Me
This track by Norwegian DJ and producer Kygo leaked a couple of weeks ago, but now we finally get an HQ version, trailing the release of his debut album Cloud Nine. It continues in the vein of his previous, tropically-flavoured house tracks, confirming him the as the Lilt of dance music.





5) Denzel Curry - Knotty Head (ft Rick Ross)
Florida's Denzel Curry released his "sophomore" (second) album, Imperial, this week describing it as an attempt "to reach my ultimate form", like he's a character from Street Fighter. Still, you can't argue with his ferocious, hardcore raps - and this track is one of the album's stand-outs.




6) Ladyhawke - Sweet Fascination
Remember 2008, when every other post on this blog was about Ladyhawke? Well, on the basis of this new single, prepare for a second onslaught. Superlative synthpop. And the best lyric video of the year.




7) Gallant - Weight In Gold (ft Seal)
As previously noted on these pages, Gallant is a major new talent; and Weight In Gold is a stunning calling card. It now comes with added Seal (and a saxophone solo). How can you resist?




Hidden Bonus Track) Iris Gold - Steve McQueen
Raised on a commune and inspired by 70s psychedelia, Iris Gold turned heads with last year's gauzy R&B jam Goldmine. Some of those heads included Taylor Swift, Robbie Williams and Blur - all of whom have booked her as a support act. Her debut album is shaping up for a summer release, and the latest single should be saved up for your first picnic of 2016.

So there you go... Have a nice weekend.

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New discovery: Gallant - Weight In Gold

LA soul singer Gallant is building up a serious head of steam* thanks to a slew of sweeping, symphonic R&B songs, inspired by everyone from D'Angelo to Janet.

Blessed with a celestial voice, he sets himself apart by shoving dirty great synth lines all over his music. The result will make your stomach plunge. But in a pleasurable way, like going over a speedbump.

His new single Weight in Gold was Zane Lowe's first ever "Future Exclusive" (a tautology if ever I've heard one) the other night. Since then, it's racked up 214,000 Soundcloud streams, suggesting the switch from Radio 1 hasn't diminished Lowe's status as a kingmaker.

Listen below.



If you like that, you should check out Gallant's previous singles, Talking in Your Sleep, Open Up, and his cover of Foo Fighters' Learn to Fly.







* Not literally, that would be painful.

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Songs you may have missed: Glastonbury edition

So, a few new tunes cropped up during Glastonbury - which means that at least two music industry PRs weren't in Somerset over the weekend. Or maybe that the interns got left in charge of the YouTube password for a couple of days. Either way, here's what we missed.

1) Franz Ferdinand - Right Action
Franz Ferdinand are a band who seem chronically incapable of finding a new sound. Right Action has the same scratchy riffs and laconic lyrics of Holiday from the band's first album. But, after four years away, it sounds fresh again. Expect to see them relegated from Radio 1 to 6 Music, though.




2) Robin Thicke - Give It 2 U
Hey, ladies, here's the follow-up to the sex pest anthem of the summer. Robin is no more enlightened than last time round. "Girl, I got a big dick for you," he sings. What a charmer.




3) AlunaGeorge - Bad Idea
At the end of this radio rip, Lauren Laverne says of AlunaGeorge: "I remember we had them in for a session after just releasing one single. I was like, 'how hard can it be? Just do that 10 times and then you've got your album'. I said it ironically, but they sort of have just done that".

Well, that's massively uncharitable, given how adventurous the band have been with their R&B template. This song, a b-side to the re-released I Know You Like It, ups the tempo and goes for a more frothy vibe than the band have pursued in the past. I really like it.




4) Britney Spears - Ooh La La
A song from the Smurfs 2 soundtrack. Every bit as terrible as you'd imagine.




5) The Staves - Icarus
Look, I'm not going to stop droning on about how brilliant The Staves are until you all agree with me. So why not just submit to their charms now and get it over with? Icarus is taken from the special edition of their album Dead And Born And Grown, which comes out on 15th July. And this video finds the Stavely-Taylor sisters traipsing around the world with an acoustic guitar and a lot of hair, doing singing and stuff. Gorgeous.




6) Duke Dumont ft MNEK - Hold On
The follow-up to chart-bothering club classic 100% is an altogether darker affair. Guest vocalist MNEK drowns in echo as he pleads "don't let go of what we had" over a late-night house groove with spooky "WooOOOooOOooh it's a ghost" backing vocals. It's absolutely gorgeous.





7) Gallant - If It Hurts
NYC Newcomer Gallant has the sugar-sweet vocals of D'Angelo, but backs them up with muted indie guitars and scrunched up drum loops. He's been working with William Orbit and Felix Snow - who handles production duties on his new single, If It Hurts. If you like this, you should also check out his magnificent cover of Ke$ha's Die Young on Youtube.

Phew! That's quite the run-down. Stay tuned for more.

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