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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Must listen: Glass Animals - This Life

"There's definitely some weird lines, there's a line about mayonnaise in one of the tracks, we're slowly getting through all the condiments."
If Dave Bayley was trying to win me over to his band, it worked. He's the frontman of Oxford quartet Glass Animals, the first band signed to Wolf Tone, the label set up by Adele's partner-in-crime, Paul Epworth,

Their debut album, Zaba, prompted exuberant swirls of purple prose from critics - The Line Of Best Fit called them "one of the most exciting British bands for a long time" - but an indifferent public ignored it. The album spent one week in the chart, at number 92.

Things look set to change on the follow-up, How To Be A Human Being, thanks in no small part to its recipe-based format, which makes it an ideal substitute for the imperiled BBC Food website.

First single Life Itself premiered on Annie Mac's show last night, interrupting final sessions for the record ("we're finishing it tonight," said Dave.)

Lyrically, the song looks back at Dave's childhood, when his dad said "he loved each of my two million freckles" and told him he'd "be a superstar" when he grew up. In reality, the song reveals, he's fat, depressed and living with his mum. But it's no novelty song - thanks to the tribal drums, stonewashed synths and a killer chorus.

The stronger, strident sound was prompted by the band's experience of touring Zaba, Dave explained: "We started playing the songs similar to how they were recorded. Then we realised that people wanted something dancier and bigger. So we started remixing them live, putting the kick up and the bass up, making them really raw and heavy. And that definitely affected this record. We had that in our mind, how people would react live."

Listen below.

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