New music from Dua Lipa, Jamiroquai and Ed Sheeran

It's almost as if everyone is clearing the decks before the Brits send Katy Perry and Bruno Mars roaring back up the charts...

Dua Lipa - Thinking About You
A funky little ballad, powered by a finger-plucked guitar and (later on) a chunky hammond organ. It's an "instant grat" track for anyone who pre-orders Dua's debut album - and if all the album tracks are this quality, we're in for a treat.

For those of you who are interested in how pop artists get launched in the post-iTunes era, this interview with Dua's record label boss is a fascinating read.




Ed Sheeran - Touch (Little Mix cover)
Cheeky chappie and all-round pop overlord Ed Sheeran popped into Radio 1 yesterday, where he revealed he's dropping another double single this Friday. Disappointingly, it won't be his cover of Little Mix's Touch, which remains a total banger, even on an acoustic guitar.



Jamiroquai - Cloud 9
Starring Penelope Cruz's sister, Monica, this is described as a "playful, Tarantino-inspired homage to the iconic visuals for the band's smash single Cosmic Girl". In other words, Jay Kay gets to drive a sports car around a winding clifftop road like a better-dressed Jeremy Clarkson. After the excitement of Jamiroquai's comeback song, Automaton, this is very much back to the old template.



Bonus track: Spoon - Can I Sit Next To You
One for the 6 Music listeners, this is jibbering, jittering slice of indie-funk from a band who always deserved to be bigger.

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Welcome back to the Jamie Oliver of pop

You know how, in your kitchen, you have maybe 15 mugs? Five or six of those mugs are the good ones. The ones that don't have any chips or blemishes. The ones you use when your parents pop in unexpectedly on Sunday afternoon.

Then there are the everyday mugs. You don't wash them very often, because they're almost constantly full. They're comforting and familiar and coffee somehow tastes darker and more satisfying gulped from inside them.

Then, right at the back of the cupboard, there are two spares. They have some sort of jokey slogan like "I went to Blackpool and all I got was sexually assaulted". You've never quite got round to throwing them out, but that's only because you're too lazy to read the council's recycling leaflet and, anyway, they could come in handy as an ashtray one day.

Jamiroquai albums are my music library's equivalent to those mugs.

So when Jay Kay announced his return to music I was hardly jumping for joy. As expected, his comeback single, White Knuckle Ride, is an over-ripe cheese wheel of disco funk. And guess what? The video features a sports car.


Jamiroquai - White Knuckle Ride


But wait! Listen to what happens when White Knuckle Ride is reswizzled and beaten into shape by pop provocateur Penguin Prison (he went to school with Alicia Keys, fact fans). Suddenly, it's totally fantastic.



Hands up who thinks Penguin Prison should have produced the entire album?

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Sam Sparro looks into the future

Those of you unfortunate enough to have bought the Sam Sparro album will by now have realised that - the amazing Black & Gold aside - he is nothing more than a camp US version of Jamiroquai.

As if to ram that point home, he is now releasing 21st Century Life as a single - which is nothing more than a camp US version of Virtual Insanity... Except Sam Sparro isn't as eloquent as Jay Kay. (Take a look at that sentence again and allow some time for the true horror to sink in).

You see, in his funky diatribe about the bleak future of our planet, Jamiroquai addressed the very real issues of genetically modified crops and humanity's inherent selfishness rendering global warming an inevitablity. Samuel, however, is "confounded" by the future that is "all around him" because he has "21,000 things to do today" and his phone is "not just a phone - it's a stereo".

Well, boo fucking hoo, you pampered buffoon.

Mr Sparro (real name Falson) has done a video for this song. It does not involve him dancing around a sofa, but it's actually quite good if you can see past the trite lyrics.

Sam Sparro - 21st Century Life


Note to Sam: Those glasses make you look like a twat.

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Video of the week: Virtual Insanity

More often than not, the best music videos are made for incredibly bad songs.

The reason is quite simple: Artists traditionally make their biggest impact with their first few singles, at a time when the record company isn't prepared to spend wads of cash on a promo clip that might never be seen. Consequently, a breakthrough video is often a poorly-shot, grainy performance of a band styled by their aunt who works on the Debenhams make-up counter.

A couple of years later the video budget skyrockets at roughly the same time as the band's music leaves orbit and crashes back to earth. Hence: amazing videos for songs you wouldn't play to prisoners in Guantanamo.

Luckily, however, some bands manage to strike gold on their second or third album, and get a big-name director for a stunning single - which is exactly what happened to Jamiroquai with Virtual Insanity.

It's directed by Jonathan Glazer, who was also responsible for the Guinness surfer adverts and nearly drowning Thom Yorke in the video for No Surprises. The concept is amazingly simple - Jay Kay dances in a mental asylum.

The clever part is how it's filmed. There is one, locked-off, camera attached to a couple of walls and a ceiling which are suspended slightly above the floor. The "set" is then swung around on a set of castors while Jay Kay stands inside it - giving the impression he's floating across the floor. It's one of the most visually arresting things you'll ever see.

The whole thing looks like one continuous shot, but every so often the camera pans up or down to the roof of the floor -- if you look carefully, you'll see a cut when that happens (often the set has changed when the camera swings back into position).

According to wikipedia - so it may not be true - the couches that form part of the set are hooked to the walls so they will move along with the "room", detaching themselves when Jay Kay presses on them.

The singer likens his performance to "Fred Astaire on acid," which isn't a bad description at all. It certainly cuaght the attention of the public, who sent the song to number 3, and the industry, who awarded the video four MTV awards in 1997.

By the way, keep your eye Look out for a 'blooper' towards the end. Blood that was previously dripping from the wall suddenly gushes out as though they've just accidentally severed a very important artery. It's probably just someone squeezing too hard on the ketchup bottle, though.

Buy a DVD of Jonathan Glazer's best bits, inlcuding this video, here

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