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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Songs you may have missed: The comeback edition

Woah - where did the last three weeks go?

Well, mostly I was in bed fighting off an horrific viral infection. Then it was the Brits (Adele won a few, you may have heard) and now I finally have some time to write my poor old neglected blog.

To make up for lost time, here's a mega "songs you may have missed" post, with six word synopses for every song. Buckle up and get ready.

1) Beyonce - Formation
Impressive visuals. Impressive lyrics. Underwhelming song.




2) Lorde - Life On Mars
Dignified and understated. A perfect tribute.





3) Rihanna ft Drake - Work
Rihanna's BOGOF offer. Warning: contains nipple.





4) Tinie Tempah - Girls Like (ft Zara Larsson)
"Tell JK that I'm still Rowling."




5) Dua Lipa - Last Dance
Is Dua Lipa Kosovan for "two lips"?




6) All Saints - One Strike
A genuinely perfect comeback single: 9/10





7) Pet Shop Boys - The Pop Kids
Nostalgia never sounded more contemporary.




8) Halsey - Colors
Stay tuned for the shock twist.





9) The 1975 - The Sound
Desperate, shallow, cringeworthy. Trying too hard.






10) Lissie - I Will Always Love You
Stop you in your tracks amazing.




11) Little May - Remind Me
Melodic indie direct from Sydney, Australia.




12) Little Mix - Black Magic (Brits performance)
They deserved to win best single.




13) Katy B, Craig David, Major Lazer - Who Am I
A ballad. A big, ballbusting ballad.




14) FKA Twigs - Good To Love
Rick-Nowels co-write. Possible breakthrough single?



15) Usher - Chains (ft Nas and Bibi Bourelly)
Unflinching, powerful call for police reform.





16) Charli XCX - Vroom Vroom EP
Harder, darker, dirtier. Welcome back, XCX.





17) Jake Bugg - On My One
Scratchy bluegrass from, er, Nottingham.





18) Icona Pop - I Want Someone Who Can Dance
"Not someone I can talk to."

Phew. Well done if you made it this far. And do let me know if there's anything I missed.

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Here's that BBC Music thing "in full"

Lorde, One Direction and Alison Balsom - together at last!

That's the pitch for the BBC's spectacularly lavish, star-studded music video / charity single / promotional campaign, which was unveiled a couple of hours ago on every BBC channel except Radio Three and BBC Parliament, which are much too posh to entertain this sort of hoi polloi.

Ostensibly, it's this year's Children In Need single - a cover of The Beach Boys' God Only Knows, performed en masse by an ensemble of en vogue superstars, from Pharrell to Dave Grohl and, somewhat inevitably, Emeli Sande. But it's also a huge flag in the sand for the new "BBC Music" brand, which aims to give the corporation's musical output equal footing to BBC News and BBC Sport. And that is the reason you get pianist (and BBC Young Musician of the Year) Martin James Bartlett rubbing shoulders with the A-list pop stars.

You might be asking why the BBC needs a brand to promote its musical endeavours? Surely everyone knows the Beeb does music exceptionally well from The Proms, to BBC Introducing to Glastonbury and even creaky old Jools Holland and his boogie woogie pianola. But no, politicians don't.

Even in an era when David Cameron loves The Smiths and Gordon Brown plays air guitar to Arctic Monkeys, MPs are endearingly clueless about "how music works" - and why Britain's pivotal role in the worlds of classical, jazz and pop can often be traced back to BBC music champions like (deep breath) Zane Lowe, Huw Stephens, Lauren Laverne, Alison Howe, Max Reinhardt and Roger Wright.

Now, it just so happens that "BBC Music" in general, and this advert in particular, are being launched as the broadcaster heads into what's rather grandly called Charter Renewal - which is basically the government telling the corporation what it can and can't do for the next decade. In previous negotiations, BBC music has often been seen as an easy target compared to news and sport. There's always someone, from any of the major parties, willing to declare, "you don't need Radio 1 when we have Magic FM," despite never listening to either.

So this sort of branding exercise is a way of neutering that message before the starting pistol is fired. And funnily enough the BBC have done it once before, with this song:


God Only Knows has a much higher budget than Perfect Day. In fact, the three-minute promo was shot over two years at Alexandra Palace (there's a great behind-the-scenes report in Creative Review, which reveals the original song choice was Iron Maiden's Phantom Of The Opera).

But where Perfect Day succeeds, and God Only Knows falters, is that it gave the singers space to put their stamp on the song.

Bono's "you just keep me hanging on" was full of Catholic remorse; Heather Small brought the gospel; and Ronan Keating's reading of "It's just a perfect day" was so deadened and bleak it completely nailed the song's underlying sarcasm (by accident, presumably). Even more satisfying were the jarring juxtapositions - in particular Tammy Wynette handing over to wizened old Shane McGowan.

The 2014 version doesn't take pleasure in those moments. Chrissie Hynde and Paloma Faith trade lines, but they're over so briefly you'd be hard pressed to tell which was which without the video. Lorde and Chris Martin both shine, but their voices are surprisingly similar side-by-side. Jake Bugg, meanwhile, gets handed a couple of desultory "la las", stretching his charisma beyond breaking point.

It's still brilliant and audacious (and the BBC employee in me wants the lobbying to work) but imagine what it could have been.

Especially if they'd done the Iron Maiden track.


PS: Some of the observations on Perfect Day are indebted to Tom Ewing's excellent review on his Popular blog - possibly the best music site on the internet.

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