A tiny Jessie Ware concert, and other songs you may have missed.

A semi-regular round-up of all the music I couldn't squeeze onto the blog in the last seven days.

Here's this week's selection...

1) Jessie Ware - Tiny Desk Concert
The brilliant Tiny Desk series on US radio network NPR requires musicians to play a no bells and even fewer whistles acoustic set in their offices.

Jessie Ware is the perfect artist for this sort of thing. Her gorgeous, complex alto is enough to keep you captivated, even when the backing track disappears.

She performs Say You Love Me, Wildest Moments and Champagne Kisses. The best 15 minutes you'll spend all week.





2) Rihanna - James Joint
Released in celebration of cannabis enthusiasm day 20 April (420 in American calendar-speak) this is a brief interlude from Rihanna's forthcoming LP.

Suitably laid back and hazy, it's easily the best thing she's released this year.






3) Raury - Fly
Written immediately after news broke that police officer Darren Wilson was not being indicted for murdering unarmed teenager Mike Brown, Raury's heartfelt, complicated plea for a peaceful revolution was a sucker punch to the gut when it premiered in January.

It's even more powerful now that it has a video, which takes an animated trip through the highs and lows of black history in America.





4) Wolf Alice - Bros
Sadly not a tribute to Matt, Luke and Ken, the new single by Wolf Alice is instead a sentimental ode to childhood best friends.

It's been re-recorded since the 2013 original, much to the anger of fans, who seethed on Soundcloud: "Another great song completly ruined by the record business".

I think both versions approach perfection.







5) Natalie Imbruglia - Instant Crush
A Mad Men-inspired video for Imbruglia's acoustic take on the Daft Punk / Julian Casablancas track. What's not to love?





6) Hudson Mohawke - Ryderz
Hudson Mohawke sounds like a Hoxton clothing brand, but actually it's Scottish producer Ross Birchard. He's the backroom boffin behind many of Kanye West's more sonically adventurous productions. In fact, it was to his studio that West fled after this year's Brits to finish off All Day.

He's got his own album, Latern, coming out very soon and this song - which samples D.J. Rogers' Watch Out For The Riders - is one of its many highlights.







7) Chemical Brothers - Sometimes I Feel So Deserted
Back after a break of five years and sounding exactly the same as they did in 1998, here are the Chemical Brothers doing a song that goes bleep and bloop with the sort of computer generated visuals that make stoned people think they're in hyperspace.

Their eighth album, Born In The Echoes, will feature vocals from St Vincent (hooray!), Q-Tip (huzzah!) and Beck (Beck!).




8) The Go Team! - Ya Ya Yamaha
This Record Store Day exclusive is described as "a French girl on a motorcycle song," whatever that means.

All I know is that it's bloody racket, and all the better for it.





9) Sia - Fire Meet Gasoline
Starring Heidi Klum and Game of Thrones' star Pedro Pascal, this video tells an age-old story: Boy meets girl, boy falls in love, boy murders someone with a rock, boy shows girl the murder weapon, boy and girl have sex, boy and girl burn a house down.

Don't say it hasn't happened to you, too.




10) Tove Lo - Elastic Heart
Earlier year, Tove Lo had to cancel a bunch of performances to have vocal surgery - and doctors warned her she may never sing again.

After coming round from the anaesthetic she "couldn't say anything for five days," the singer told Billboard. "I almost choked on a spring roll because I wasn't supposed to cough! My voice started coming back a little; it sounded very different at first, which is scary."

But judging by this Sia cover, her voice is better than ever. Welcome back, Tove!





11) Young Wonder - Sweet Dreaming
Irish electro-pop duo Young Wonder have been biding their time while they piece together their debut LP. Rather than rush out a half-finished record to capitalise on the success of their eponymous 2013 EP, they've spent 24 months getting it just right.

The delicate production buoys Rachel Koeman's overlapping vocals to create something people are going to be very, very fond of.






12) Jones - Indluge
A gentle love song that's as wickedly indulgent as clotted cream.






13) Adam Lambert - Ghost Town
I've never warmed to Adam Lambert's music - whose lack of originality runs in direct proportion to the intensity of his eyeliner.

But teaming up with Max Martin seems to have solved all of that. Ghost Town is unexpected and unusual, combining guitar-pop and house beats with a surprisingly catchy whistled hook.





14) K Stewart - Keeping You Up
KStewart says she's influenced by Mariah, Whitney and Christina - but thankfully it's only the restrained, pop-centric moments she's interested in, as evidenced on this bubbly, 90s-style slice of harmonic pop.

Self-released on her own imprint Cherry Jam Records, it is one amazing remix away from being the sound of the summer.

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Video: Jessie Ware - Champagne Kisses

Jessie Ware's second album topped my year-end poll in 2014, and for good reason: It's brilliant.

Sultry and smoldering, it's a divine collection of electro-soul - which makes its poor sales particularly disappointing (it hasn't even gone silver in the UK yet).

Still, if any song is going to turn Ware's fortunes around, it's Champagne Kisses. The blissed out ballad is one of the sexiest songs she's ever recorded - although, as she's keen to point, out it's not about "expensive blowies".

The abstract, surerealist video is one of Ware's best, too, suggesting that better-informed people than me think it's a potential smash.

I do hope so.

Jessie Ware - Champagne Kisses

PS - If you ever fancy one of those "press here for champagne" buttons that's featured in the video, there's a London restaurant called Bob Bob Ricard that provides them. It's expensive - but good for lunches if you're prepared to splash out.

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Eleven songs you may have missed (and one you definitely haven't)

This is the first "songs you may have missed" post since Christmas so in all likelihood these are songs you may not have missed. But there's always time for a good music megapost so let's begin, with...

1) Rihanna - FourFiveSeconds
About bloody time, pop's most elusive pop star is back, collaborating with Kanye West and Sir Fab Macca Wacky Thumbs Aloft on a surprisingly attitude-free, stripped back acoustic pop "number".

It's good. So good, in fact, that it's going to appear on both Kanye and Rihanna's new album. Which is going to cause havoc with my iTunes library. HAVOC.




2) Sia - Salted Wound
The 50 Shades of Grey soundtrack is shaping up to be superb, even if the film looks like a turkey. We've already heard Ellie Goulding's saucy Love Me Like You Do and The Weeknd's even saucier Earned It, now it's the turn of Sia - who takes a different tack altogether.

Her harp-assisted ballad Salted Wound is full of remorse and doubt. "Give your heart, and say come take it," sings Sia, "and she will see you're a good man." It should be a fitting accompaniment to Christian Grey's more introspective scenes.






3) Kelly Clarkson - Heartbeat Song
Is it me, or does this sound like Shania Twain?





4) Shura - Indecision
Feather-light synth pop from London's hotly tipped Aleksandra Denton. This would make a perfect Track 7, Side B on an "I like you" mixtape.






5) Prince & 3rdEyeGirl - Marz
Prince apparently thinks this throwaway rock track is dynamite. He's following up an SNL performance of the song with this YouTube video - which appeared days after he deleted his YouTube account. Strange chap.





6) Alex Winston - We Got Nothing
Alex Winston's wonky pop curio Sister Wife is one of my all-time favourite under-rated tracks. Catchy as all heck, with a killer lyric about polygamy and jealousy, I have played it to death over the last four years.

She's been in limbo for a while, but this sumptuous new single - on the influential Neon Gold label - hints at a slightly more mainstream, but no less hook-laden direction.







7) Jessie Ware - Jealous (Labrinth cover)
Stick around for the bit where she chucks in the chorus to Chaka Khan's Through The Fire. Beautiful.





8) Bearson - Pink Medicine
Bearson is a Norwegian producer who works in the "tropical house" genre (no, me neither). This hypnotic little song is a little too glitchy to be chill-out and a little too chilled out to be danceable. But I like it, for some reason. There's a free download available here if you like it, too.







9) Lana Del Rey - Brooklyn Baby (Yuksek remix)
WARNING: If you or your family are sensitive to the effects of synthesized saxophones, please seek advice before streaming this song.





10) U2 - Every Breaking Wave (single remix)
I wonder if anyone actually listened to Songs of Innocence when it gatecrashed our phones last year? I certainly couldn't be bothered... but it turns out that at least one of the songs is worth four minutes of your time.

Ranking it as the third best song of 2014 (!!) Rolling Stone called Every Breaking Wave the "emotional centrepiece" of U2's 13th album, saying it's "stark, shimmering" melody recalled With Or Without You.

To be honest, Joey Tribiani's not going to be staring out a fake window to this one any time soon... But this stripped-back radio remix of the song is surprisingly affecting.






11) Tobias Jesso Jr - How Could You Babe?
Officially endorsed by Adele, this is about as old-school as pop gets in 2015. Tailor made for Radio 2 and fans of sweaters, it recalls Elton John back in the Yellow Brick Road days.





12) Rae Morris - Love Again
As previously noted on these pages, Rae Morris is rather brilliant - with a husky voice like Ellie Goulding and a percussive thump worthy of Florence and the Machine. I interviewed her last week and, pleasingly, she let slip that her first ever gig was S Club 7.

If that's not enough to recommend her, try out this song: Love Again, one of the standout tracks from her debut album, Unguarded, which came out on Monday.

And that's a wrap. What an oddly diverse bunch of songs, eh?

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Discopop Directory: Top 10 Albums of 2014

2014 wasn't a great year for albums, truth be told. Or maybe I bought the wrong ones. Anyway, here are the 10 best CDs that found their way onto my iTunes library, sorted by the number of times they were played (with my trademarked Excel formula to weight the albums by release date).

10) The Black Keys - Turn Blue

Neither as sleazy nor as catchy as 2011's El Camino, Turn Blue saw The Black Keys take a long, dark road-trip of the soul after Dan Auerbach's very messy, very public divorce. Along the way, they delved into psychedelia, 60s beat music, 70s disco funk and - on the pleasingly daft closing track - solid gold drivetime pop hooks.

The Black Keys - Gotta Get Away



9) Banks - Goddess

Oh, but this album is so gloriously, deliciously IN PAIN. Banks uses music like primal scream therapy, howling her distress over an array of sawbuzz synths.

As an album, Goddess is as dark and foreboding as a graveyard, but her melodies beguile and her honesty disarms: When she disses a boyfriend by reminding him she's "the girl who made you soup," it's so awkwardly specific it can only be drawn from real life.

Then, just when you think she's getting too miserable, she pulls out a filthy sexballad like Warm Water. This is what a femme fatale with a broken heart sounds like.

Banks - Drowning




8) Jack White - Lazaretto

It sounds like every other Jack White album, but it sounds better than every other Jack White album.

Jack White - Would You Fight For My Love




7) The Pierces - Creation

After achieving commercial success with the glossy soft rock of 2011's You & I, The Pierces smudged their mascara, consulted a shaman and revisited the backwood gothicism of their earlier records. The result is an album that retains You & I's soaring choruses while sending shivers down your spine.

Allison and Catherine's sisterly harmonies are worthy of Agnetha and Frida - but can you imagine Abba ever singing a lyric as sinister as: "Held down by the devil's hand / Dressed up like a gentleman"?

Luminous, grown-up pop.


The Pierces - The Devil Is A Lonely Night





6) Tove Lo - Queen of the Clouds

Not out in the UK until this month because Tove's UK label hate us, but available on import since September. SEPTEMBER.

It's worth the wait, though. Tove Lo plays pop like her life hangs in the balance. "I've always wanted my music to have that desperation," she told me last April, "where you just want to strip your clothes off and run down the highway".

I haven't quite gone that far, but it's been close. Timebomb, Not on Drugs and Moments ("on my good days I am charming as fuck") have hooks so thunderously bombastic I have literally started air drumming on the bus. There is no higher praise.


Tove Lo - Moments




5) Katy B - Little Red

Dance music doesn't produce solo artists of longevity or substance, but Katy's astute combination of underground sonics and pop structures made the "difficult second album" seem effortless. Best of all, she knew it. The opening track painted her as Queen B, easing a newcomer into the rituals of the night: "Keep your jacket on my friend, don't sit down / There's so many things to do round here, let me show you around".

But while her debut was so in thrall to clubland it should have come with a complimentary strobe light, Little Red offered a few glimpses of what happened off the dancefloor: Katy nervously waiting for a date to arrive on All My Lovin'; or succumbing to guilt on the magnificent Crying For No Reason.

The result is a rare thing: A club record that sounds just as good at home.

Katy B - 5AM





4) Ed Sheeran - X

Ed Sheeran spends most of x singing about getting his leg over but, incredibly, you never recoil in horror or throw up in your mouth. Not even once.

Maybe it's his sincerity, maybe his humility, maybe it's just that these are bloody great pop songs. Gossipy, confessional and instantly memorable, the upbeat ones bounce and the weepy ones are suitably blubsome.

Occasionally he turns out a lyrical clunker ("put your faith in my stomach" is the year's least romantic come-on) but even those makes him more relatable. No wonder x became the biggest album of the year.

Ed Sheeran - Don't




3) Taylor Swift - 1989

Right, let me get a few things off my chest here.

First of all, Bad Blood is the most horribly misjudged song of the year. A diss track, supposedly about Katy Perry, it's pathetically petulant and paints a particularly unflattering portrait of its author. It has been excised from my library, otherwise this album would be languishing at number 10.

Secondly, why all the shouting? Almost every chorus is emphasised by T-Swift screaming the hook: "We never go OUT OF STYLE"; "Are we in the clear yet, IN THE CLEAR YET? GOOD." All you had to do was STAY (STAY) STAY (STAY)". It's almost as if she's worried the songs won't stand on their own merits.

But, of course, they stand 50 feet tall. The lyrics are funny and knowing, the production is enthusiastically bright, the hooks are harder to dislodge than a tapeworm.

1989 sounds nothing like the year it was named after, but Taylor Swift defined pop music in 2014.

Taylor Swift - Out of the Woods





2) The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part One - Various Artists

Asked to contribute to the last Hunger Games soundtrack, Lorde handed in a diverting cover of Tears For Fears' Everybody Wants To Rule The World. For Mockingjay, Part 1, she was given complete creative control of the whole album.

The result is surprisingly cohesive, the nailbiting intensity of the film mirrored perfectly in the grungy, brooding music. Meltdown - by Lorde and Pusha-T and Haim and Q-Tip (!) - is a gothic call to arms; Chvrches' Dead Air chillingly depicts a disappeared population; Tove Lo's Scream My Name reflects the heroine's steely torment: "I'm dirt, I'm ice... I can take bullets to the heart".

The quality and the tension rarely dip - although Jennifer Lawrence's spellbinding The Hanging Tree should really have been on the track list.

Chvrches - Dead Air




1) Jessie Ware - Tough Love

Jessie Ware's second album is pinch yourself dreamy. A slow-burner, but one that goes from tugging at your heartstrings to snapping them in two.

Listen to the restraint with which Ware sings, "Say you love me to my face / I need it more than your embrace", then imagine how it would have sounded if pop music's other Jessie had wrapped her acrobatic tonsils around it. Horrible, that's how.

In fact, Ware's instincts are flawless throughout. She references Sade, Prince and The xx, and is never afraid to make unexpected choices. She favours subtle, unfolding grooves over obvious pop arrangements. And every song is structured around the ebb and flow of those flawless vocals. Or, to use her own words, "I thought it would be great to show people what it's like when I attempt to sing like a dolphin."

It's not the most exciting or original, album on this list. But it's by far and away the best.

Jessie Ware - Say You Love Me

And that's another year wrapped up, except for the honourable mentions: Paolo Nutini - Caustic Love; St Vincent - St Vincent; Royal Blood - Royal Blood; George Ezra - Wanted On Voyage; Prince - selected tracks from Art Official Age and PlectrumElectrum; Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence; Lykke Li - I Never Learn. I heard U2 had an album out, as well, but for some reason I couldn't find a copy in the shops...

See also: Top 10 Singles of 2014

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Discopop Directory: Top 10 singles of 2014

When I sat down and totted up my iTunes play counts for this year's Top 10, I had to double check my numbers. I had fully expected Clean Bandit's Rather Be and Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud to be among my most-listened-to songs of 2014 and, while both came close, the data doesn't lie.

So, the following singles are the ones I've compulsively added to iTunes playlists over the last 12 months and they represent the soundtrack to my year, free of self-censorship, editorialising and Sam Smith.

10) Charli XCX - Boom Clap
It's safe to say Charli XCX had low expectations for Boom Clap. She sent it to Hilary Duff. She bunged it onto a film soundtrack. She wrote the lyric "the beat goes on and on and on" and couldn't be arsed to change it.

But the track sparkles - partly because, for once, Charli isn't trying so hard to come across as a teen rebel. From the masterfully concise intro to the honey-drop "la la las" in the final chorus, it's a great big hug of a song.

Oh, and the lyric "you're the glitter and the darkness in my world" couldn't be a better fit for The Fault In Our Stars and its skewered tale of young love.




9) SBTRKT ft Ezra Koenig - New Dorp, New York
The best-sounding single of the year, throbbing with mystery and possibility - even though it's just a bass drum, an elemental bassline and a few sound effects.

Ezra Koenig delivers a dream-state vocal, listing the sights of Staten Island and "flag slappin' Manhattan", although what he's actually on about is anyone's guess.

It's just a shame the rest of SBTRKT's album didn't live up to this promise.



8) Katy B - Crying For No Reason
AKA Katy B's secret weapon. A Guy Chambers co-write, Crying For No Reason is a "proper" ballad about the damage caused by buried emotions, with a hat-tip to Madonna's Frozen in its clattering drum fills.

Katy's delivery makes the song indispensable. "I never faced all the pain I caused," she sings with tangible anguish. "Now that pain is hitting me full force".



7) Prince - Breakdown
Twelve months ago, I would never have expected a Prince single to feature in this Top 10. But here he is, reinvigorated by those hit-and-run London concerts, delivering his most devastating ballad since The Beautiful Ones.

Apparently an autobiographical account of his former excesses - "I used to throw the party every New Year's Eve / First one intoxicated, last one to leave" - it's also a love letter to the person (higher power?) who set him free.

If Frank Ocean had released this, it would have been everywhere. But Frank Ocean could never have hit those high notes in the coda.



6) Mark Ronson ft Bruno Mars - Uptown Funk
Speaking of Prince, here's a tribute act.




5) Lorde - Yellow Flicker Beat
By Lorde's standards, Yellow Flicker Beat is a minor single but there's something about her performance that draws me in. Maybe it's the killer hook, maybe I'm hypnotised by the frail hum that runs through the entire song - either way, it's murderously addictive.

As with Boom Clap, Lorde's song is a perfect marriage between lyric and source material (in this case, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay). If you can't imagine Katniss Everdeen singing "I made a little prison and I'm locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me," then you're doing it wrong.




4) The Staves - Blood I Bled
The Staves really raise their game on this Bon Iver-produced song, the immaculate layering of their harmonies matched by the steady build of instrumentation from a single, hand-picked guitar to the soaring, astral strings of the closing moments.

Truly exceptional.




3) Jessie Ware - Tough Love
"Sophisticated" and "tasteful" are dirty words in pop but Jessie Ware proves they don't have to be. Tough Love has a surface layer of calm, but listen closer and you'll hear the strain in Jessie's voice as she confronts a no-good lover - "so you want to be a man about it, do you?" We never find out exactly what he's done, but the cheeky lift from Prince's Little Red Corvette suggests it's not just his eye that's been wandering.

Repressed anger has never sounded so beautiful.



2) Tove Lo - Truth Serum EP
Rarely does a pop act arrive as fully-formed as Tove Lo, whose dispatches from the front line of love are catastrophically honest.

The Truth Serum EP is an X-rated Mills and Boon potboiler, chronicling a relationship from the first heady rush of love to a devastated, drug-fuelled break-up.

Every track hits you like a hurricane - the pop hooks deployed like rock riffs as Tove excavates her darkest secrets. No wonder her mother was worried about her when she heard it.



1) Taylor Swift - Shake It Off
Let's face it, Shake It Off was more calculated than Fermat's Last Theorem. Co-written with not one, but two of Sweden's biggest hitmakers, it was stuffed with heard-it-before hooks, yawnsome self-empowerment clichés ("haters gonna hate") and employed the phrase "this sick beat" without any apparent irony.

But if Taylor's ambition was to write a stone-cold pop classic, she hit the nail on the head. Squarely. With a fucking jackhammer.

The melody is indelible, and the urge to dance like a dork is irresistible, thanks to that infectious drumbeat. Oh, sick beat. I get it now.

PS: The song would still be better if she sang "bakers gonna bake, bake, bake, bake, bake". And that's a fact.

And, because it's been a great year for singles, the next 11 would have been:

11) Banks - Beggin' For Thread
12) Tove Stryke - Even If I'm Loud It Doesn't Mean I'm Talking To You
13) Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence
14) Gorgon City ft MNEK - Ready For Your Love
15) Clean Bandit - Rather Be
16) Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud
17) Beyonce - Partition
18) Kelis - Rumble
19) Ed Sheeran - Sing
20) Katy Perry - Dark Horse
21) The Veronicas - You Ruin Me

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Jessie Ware: You and I (Forever)

Jessie Ware's Tough Love album is a slow burner - one of those glorious records that keeps its distance, slowly insinuating itself into your life until, one day, you realise you've listened to it 600 times.

The third single - You & I (Forever) - has just been announced, and it comes with a touching little video, in which Jessie's fans were invited to sit in a photo booth with someone they care about - from lovers to mothers, babies to old friends and even pet dogs. "It was the sweetest day," Jessie told the participants. "It was overwhelming hearing your stories and meet[ing] you."

The result is hardly original, but surprisingly effective.

Jessie Ware - You & I (Forever)

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Songs you may have missed: Christmas release schedule special

This is the part where a dozen songs are gathered into a list and presented for your listening pleasure.

With Q4 in full swing, this week's selection is jam-packed with songs from major artists hoping to make you part ways with your Christmas pay packet. Starting with...

1) Taylor Swift - Out Of The Woods
"To all my wonderful UK fans, I realize that you are not able to get Out of the Woods due to a new strategy my record label is working on in the UK," said Taylor Swift on Tumblr, after her single was released in every other country except Britain.

Britain, coincidentally, was where she'd spent the previous week on a huge promotional tour, talking animatedly about the single she was releasing next week, suggesting the label hadn't bothered to explain their new strategy to her, and had simultaneously failed to mention that the new strategy was pulled from a big red folder called "how to entirely balls up your biggest artist's release schedule and piss everyone off in the process".

Still, thanks to the internet, you can hear it anyway. Well done, everyone.





2) Take That - These Days
The newly slimmed down Take That take a detour back to their boyband roots with this discoriffic Get Lucky tribute.

The best bit of this release was a knife-twisting Radio 2 interview where Howard brushed off the "tragic" loss of Jason Orange, saying: "Jason is the better break dancer, he's always been fantastic, but if I was gay I could never be his boyfriend because he's a bit annoying, and a bit too deep for me."

Ouch.





3) Calvin Harris - Slow Acid
A worrying sign that Calvin wants to be taken seriously. Luckily, this is only a pre-order wish fulfilment track and not an actual single. About as exciting as a damp flannel.




4) McBusted - Air Guitar
It's hard to hate a song that so clearly states: "Don't take me seriously, I'm just having a laugh" - but it's equally hard to love it.

That said, McBusted have turned in a solid fanbase pleaser that tips its hat to Crazy In Love (yay) and Brian May (hmm). Destined to enter the charts at number one and drop to 23 the next week, but in the best possible way.





5) David Bowie - Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime)
Indebted somewhat to Scott Walker, this seven minute epic is the first track (!) on Bowie's 89th greatest hits collection, which comes out in time for Christmas. If James Bond caught Ebola, this would play over the title sequence.





6) Alesso ft Tove Lo - Heroes (We Could Be)
It feels cruel to put a song called Heroes under the previous entry. Nothing is going to fare well by comparison to Zavid Bowie's masterpiece, but that's pop for you.

This song, an entirely perfunctory EDM track, is presumably the reason why Tove Lo's debut album has been delayed in the UK. Which is fair enough, I suppose. In all likelihood, this'll creep onto the Radio 1 playlist and give her profile a boost while she's off in the US doing promo.

But if 2015 isn't Tove Lo's year in the UK I am going miffed. Miffed, I tell you.





7) Mary J Blige and Disclosure - Right Here
As previously raved about on these very pages, this collaboration is an absolute belter.

It now comes with a video that makes a huge deal about Mary J Blige actually deigning to visit London. Come on, Mary, it's hardly Aleppo.





8) Jess Glynne - Real Love
While we're on the topic of Mary J Blige, Rather Be hitmaker covered one of Mary's oldest and best songs in the Live Lounge earlier this week. She's really giving it some welly in the YouTube player freeze-frame, isn't she?





9) Jessie Ware - 12
To celebrate the release of her brilliant, downbeat, second album this week, Jessie Ware gave everyone the gift of a free download. 12 is a demo, recorded with Rhye's Robin Hannibal, that didn't make Tough Love's final tracklisting.

"This is a song for my [husband] Sam and I hope you like it," she wrote. "Play it late and go kiss someone x"





10) Embody ft A*M*E - Give Me Your Love
Everybody's favourite asterisked artist pops up on this topical deep house track. OK, it's not as slap-you-in-the-face terrific as Need U (100%) but if you can't dance to this your soul is dead. Oh, and it's a free download.





11) Paperwhite - Pieces
Naming yourself after one of Amazon's Kindle devices isn't going to help your search engine results, but you really should delve deep into Google to hear more from this Brooklyn dream-pop act.

Brother and sister Katie and Ben Marshall sound like they've digested the first 20 volumes of Now... That's What I Call Music to conjure up this blissful 80s throwback anthem. That bubbling marimba line is lifted directly from Lionel Richie's All Night Long, and the chord changes and the harmonies sound like vintage Scritti Politti.

If you only listen to one of the songs on this list, make it this one.





12) Will.i.am and Jimmy Fallon - Ew!
There's a recurring segment on Jimmy Fallon's US chat show, in which he and a guest dress up as teenage girls and lists the things that make them sick. Fallon plays Sara ("and if you're wondering, that's S-A-R-A, with no H, because H's are ew!") while guest stars have included Michelle Obama, Taylor Swift and Lindsay Lohan.

It's ridiculously silly - the sort of thing Trev and Simon would have done on Going Live 20 years ago - but it's gained a Wayne's World-esque cult following. And so there is now a novelty single, produced by Mir.i.am, the teenage alter-ego of will.i.am. Naturally, it's the best thing he's done for years.

BLIMEY - that was quite a list. Hope you found one new favourite in amongst there. More again next week.

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Nicki Minaj erased from history and 10 other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of songs that slipped through the cracks. The late September collection sounds a lot like this.

1) Jessie J and Ariana Grande - Bang Bang
Amazingly, there are still radio stations that won't play pop songs with a rap breakdown in case it "alienates" their listeners. Never mind that Jay-Z is 44, and Grandmaster Flash is pushing 60 - apparently there are people who cannot comprehend a musical genre that originated five decades ago. It's like a 1970s radio station refusing to play Born To Run because the saxophone solo might remind people of the jazz era.

It doesn't help that the record labels pander to this nonsense, which is why a Nicki Minaj-free version of Bang Bang exists, despite her verse being the only respite from three minutes of sub-Aguilera screeching.






2) Queen + Michael Jackson - There Must Be More To Life Than This
Started in 1981, finished a couple of weeks ago, this track will feature on the upcoming compilation Queen Forever.

Queen's sessions with Jackson allegedly faltered when the King of Pop objected to Freddie Mercury inhaling vast amounts of cocaine in his living room. On the basis of this track, it does sound like Jackson was a little overwhelmed by the moustachioed rock legend, with his fragile, quivering vocals no match for Mercury's bravura performance.

A Jackson-free version of There Must Be More To Life Than This surfaced on Mercury's 1985 solo album Mr Bad Guy. This re-dub has been produced by William Orbit who adds strings, guitars and a bombastic coda that recalls The Beatles' Hello Goodbye.






3) Brika - Options
"Sometimes love isn't enough to stop trains and planes like in the cinemas".

This stripped-back, tabla-powered song is pop at it's most elegant and groovesome. I love it to bits.






4) Hozier - Do I Wanna Know (Live Lounge cover)
A real stand-out moment from Radio One's More Music Month, transforming Arctic Monkeys' rollicking rock stomper into a lachrymose lament. Soul-stirring.





5) Mary J Blige - Whole Damn Year
The second track to emerge from Mary J's London Sessions album is an Emeli Sande / Naughty Boy collaboration, and sounds almost exactly like you'd expect - a break-up ballad in the classic soul template, with a killer vocal and an sucker-punch lyric.

"It took a whole damn year to repair my body," groans Mary J Blige. Ouch.






6) Hugh - One Of These DaysA lolloping, laid-back, smooth-as-peanut-butter groove from London newcomers Hugh.

Apart from being impossible to Google, the four-piece take pride in their melting pot of influences - Soul II Soul, Grizzly Bear, Beach House, Young Disciples. You can hear them all in this track, the opening number from their forthcoming EP.





7) Prides - Out Of The Blue
Hardcore synths, pop melodies and a vowel-chewing Scottish accent? No, it's not Chvrches, but hotly-tipped newcomers Prides. You may have seen them at the closing ceremony of the Commonwealth Games while you were waiting for Kylie. They were impressive then and they're impressive now - with the 18-months-in-the-making video for Out Of The Blue, one of the tracks that got them noticed last year.




8) The Knocks - Classic (feat. Powers)
The Knocks are great. Powers are great. Together they are classic (do you see what I did there?)

The video, for reasons that are never explained, is a tribute to Machiavellian time-sink computer game The Sims.




9) Jessie Ware - Kind Of, Sometimes, Maybe
I'll be honest. I haven't listened to this, in the hope that there'll be a few surprises on Jessie Ware's album when it finally comes out next month.

But if you're the impatient sort, this Miguel-assisted duet is bound to be a beauty.





10) FKA Twigs - Two Weeks (Live on Later)
FKA Twigs delivered a brilliant, blistering rant about being labelled "alt R&B" in The Guardian last month.

"When I first released music and no one knew what I looked like, I would read comments like: 'I've never heard anything like this before, it's not in a genre,'" said Tahliah Barnett. "And then my picture came out six months later, now she's an R&B singer. I share certain sonic threads with classical music; my song Preface is like a hymn. So let's talk about that. If I was white and blonde and said I went to church all the time, you'd be talking about the 'choral aspect'. But you're not talking about that because I'm a mixed-race girl from south London."

It's an excellent point. This sounds nothing like R&B. It sounds like the future. And, now that she's been on Jools, I finally know how to dance to it.





11) Breach - The Key (ft Kelis)
Speaking of mis-labelling, Kelis's new album, Food, has been labelled "Alt R&B" - I think on the basis it was produced by a white man from an indie band. Rubbish - it's classic soul with a modern twist, and one of my favourite records of the year so far.

The Key began life as a reworking of Rumble, one of the first singles from the album. But Kelis liked it so much, she jumped into the studio with Breach (aka Ben Westbeech) and re-recorded the vocals. It takes me back to the singer's ahead-of-its-time dance album Fleshtone. In other words, it is excellent.

And that's all for this week. Thanks for tuning in!

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Video: Jessie Ware - Say You Love Me

The idea of spending a fortune on Jessie Ware's new video must have been more tempting than that snake in the Garden of Eden. Say You Love Me is a career-making, crossover ballad with a gospel choir propping up the coda, and a lesser artist would have overwhelmed the song with fireworks and ticker-tape; allowing themselves to be shot in "tasteful" slow motion as the heavens exploded around them.

Instead, Jessie hired directors Luke White and Remi Weekes (aka Tell No One) whose pitch was simply this: Zero in on the vocal.

The camera never lets Jessie out of its sight, leaning in for the intimate moments and panning back when she needs space to breathe. For the first 60 seconds there are next to no cuts. And the climax is heralded by a single lighting change.

It's classy and engrossing and entirely befitting of the material. But it could do without the CGI sparrow.

Jessie Ware - Say You Love Me

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Soporific R&B special

Some days, all you want to hear is music that makes you go arms akimbo la la bananas; other days you'd rather have music that wraps you up like a warm blanket. Today is one of the latter days.

So, without any fuss, let's get on with a short playlist of new R&B slow jams. The sort of music you'd expect to hear at the end of a Janet Jackson album, but one of the early good ones before she started singing about her moist lady parts.

1) Tiann - Oh My
Australian born, LA-based singer Tiann is currently doing one of those "new song every month" things and September's track is a beauty. Muted but melodic, subtle but seductive, I need a third example to go here.





2) Jhene Aiko - The Pressure
Directed by Childish Gambino, this video finds Jhene experiencing situations that make her feel pressured (raising a child, attending red carpet events, having a right old barney in front of a coffee table) over one of the most relaxing grooves ever committed to tape, or whatever it is YouTube videos are made out of.




3) Jessie Ware - Want Your Feeling
This is a little more uptempo - but uptempo for Jessie Ware is what most musicians would call "funereal". That's not a criticism, mind you. Like Tough Love and Say You Love me before it, Want Your Feeling indicates that Jessie's second album is going to be hard to beat when it comes to the end-of-year polls.

Happily, it's also a free download if you pre-order that album today (it's not out in the UK til 6 October). "I swear you will have half the record before it's even out with these instant grat things," notes Jessie, in a slightly narked message to her mailing list.





4) Prince - U Know
Supple, lean and sexy as hell - and the song's not bad either.

A surprisingly modern-sounding groove from Mr Rogers Nelson, lifted from his forthcoming solo album Art Official Age, which is coming out on the same day as the long-awaited 3rdEyeGirl record, Plectrum Electrum. For the first time in a long time, I'm excited by a new Prince record. Fingers crossed!!

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Just in: Jessie Ware - Say You Love Me

Jessie Ware's new single, Say You Love Me, has just had a simultaneous premiere on Radio One and 1Xtra - where Mistajam played it three times in a row.

And, yes, it's that good. If Tough Love tugged at your heartstrings, this is going to snap them in two.

"I don't want to fall in love / If you don't want to try," sings our heroine. "But all I've been thinking of / Is maybe that you might."

Simply beautiful.

Jessie Ware - Say You Love Me

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More new music from Jessie Ware

With Tough Love firmly ensconced on the playlists at Radio 1 and Radio 2, the prospects are looking good for Jessie Ware's new album (also called Tough Love).

The picture gets even rosier when you hear the next song off the album. Called Share It All, it's co-written by the xx's Romy Madley-Croft and produced by Julio Bashmore. With Jessie's dreamy vocals dripping over softly padded drums and a distant plucked guitar, it's a beautifully sultry love ballad.

Bear in mind that this is just a bonus track on the deluxe edition of the album, and the anticipation levels go through the roof.



Meanwhile, Jessie has just opened a ballot for tickets to her autumn tour. Get your name down here.

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Jessie Ware and Haim get the remix treatment

Remixes, eh? It's like they've taken a song and recontextualised it using new instrumentation and arrangements.

Take, for example, this Cyril Hahn mix of Jessie Ware's Tough Love. Now, instead of swooning to Jessie's slow-motion soul, you can "cut a rug" in "the club". Imagine that.



And what about this new version of Haim's My Song 5. It's got A$AP Ferg on it, rapping over the instrumental mid-section, for that all-important urban airplay.

It's probably the first and last time A$AP will appear on the same song as a tuba.


And while we're on the subject, here's a completely superfluous but utterly smashing house remix of Ace Of Base's All She Wants. It's a free download, so you can put it on your next mixtape.

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Good news - Jessie Ware is back

She's the Larynx of London, the Sultan of Sultry, the Nefertiti of NuSoul, the Dubstep Sade, the Ware in "Tell me where on earth that voice comes from".

She is Jessie Ware, and she's got a new song to tell you about.

"I had just finished a run of shows in the States and went to NY to work with BenZel for a couple weeks, mainly as a different focus to touring," she says in a press release. "I didn't have any expectations or pressures with what would come out of those two weeks, and think 'Tough Love' sums this up.

"It was me experimenting with my voice and having fun with it. It just felt right and kind of dictated the route of the next album, much like Devotion did on my first album."

Anyway, without further nonsense, here is the song. It's called Tough Love and it's everything you could have wanted.

Jessie Ware - Tough Love

If you think the name BenZel rings a bell, you're not mistaken. Shrouded in mystery, they launched their career about 18 months ago, with this anonymous but sublime cover of the R&B classic If You Love Me. Coincidentally, it had Jessie Ware on vocals.



The production duo were later revealed to be a side project of Benny Blanco (Katy Perry's Teenage Dream, Maroon 5's Moves Like Jagger) and Two Inch Punch (Sam Smith's Money On My Mind). Now they're executive producing Ware's new album.

According to Pitchfork, she's also worked with Miguel, Ed Sheeran, Julio Bashmore, Dave Okumu, AntMusik, Kid Harpoon, Robin "Oblong" Randall, James Ford, Arvind Nue5mith, Tim Burton, Helena Bonham Carter, Roland Poland, Red Setter and Nineteen85 on the new album

OK, I made half of those up.

But what you can be sure of is that Tough Love is out on 4 August. Here's the pre-order link - and while you wait for it to come out, here's Jessie performing Wildest Moments with the winner of Poland's X Factor. Because why not?

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Songs you may have missed: New Year hangover edition

Like the rest of us, Planet Pop has taken most of the last two weeks off, so there isn't much to catch up on. But the few videos that did trickle onto the internet all herald VERY EXCITING THINGS for 2014. Here they are, in all their multifaceted glory.

1) Katy B - Crying For No Reason
FACT: Katy B's new album is going to be excellent.

FACT: Her red jumper is very festive.

FACT: This video contains more lasers than a Bond Villain's toolshed.



2) Foster The People - Feels Like Coming Of Age
FACT: Foster The People have been working with Paul Epworth of "good music (and Adele)" fame.

FACT: Their song Pumped Up Kicks is the "sixth-largest selling alternative digital song of all time" whatever that means.

FACT: Feels Like Coming Of Age already sounds like an indie disco classic, based on this 45 second preview.


BONUS FACT: Here's a video of the full song in a live environment. It's pretty damned good.



3) Sky Ferreira and Ariel Pink - My Molly
FACT: Sky Ferreira's debut album Night Time, My Time is getting a proper release in the UK later this year.

FACT: It's been four years in the making. FOUR YEARS! "You have to go through a lot of hardship before you get what you want," she noted presciently on these very pages back in 2010.

FACT: This song, a cover of Ariel Pink's My Molly, isn't on it. But it should be.



4) SBTRKT ft Sampha and Jessie Ware - Runaway
FACT: All three of these artists are releasing new music in 2014.

FACT: SBTRKT played this at the end of his set at a New Years' Eve party in Mexico.

FACT: It only lasts a minute which, after all the self-indulgent eighteen-minute "jams" of 2014 (I'm looking at you, Justin Timberlake), would be a welcome new trend for 2014.




5) Boots - Haunted
FACT: Boots is the mysterious writer/producer who cropped up on the credits to Beyonce's album, contributing to 8 of the 14 tracks.

FACT: He signed to Jay-Z's Roc Nation label last June.

FACT: The reference tracks for Beyoncé's album used to appear on his Soundcloud (including his guide vocals).

FACT: All that's there now is this gorgeous, minor key ballad. I wonder if he'll keep it for himself?





6) Bounce - New Year's Eve Fireworks mix
FACT: OK, this isn't really about an exciting artist to look out for in 2014.

FACT: But the Fireworks mix was superb... Even the bit where they mixed Another One Bites The Dust and Blurred Lines.

FACT: You can listen to it "sans explosions" below, or go over to YouTube to see the pretty lights.

And that's not a bad haul so early in the year. Let's just hope Coldplay and U2 don't turn the year into one great yawnfest, eh?

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Britney Spears is surprised by a smurf and other songs you may havemissed

It's time for the semi-regular round-up of songs that appeared on the internet this week, but didn't warrant a blog post of their own because I am lazy.

1) Britney Spears - Ooh La La
A not-particularly-good video for a not-particularly-good song from the Smurfs 2 Soundtrack. Britney's kids are cute, though, and her "surprised face" is priceless.



2) Justin Timberlake - Take Back The Night
Earlier this week, Justin's 20/20 Experience broke 2m sales in the US - so now it's time to launch phase II.  Take Back The Night is the first single from 20/20 Volume 2, which is due in September. Sounding like an Off The Wall bonus track, it's light on it's feet and heavy on the brass. 



3) Miguel ft Jessie Ware - Adorn (Remix)
Miguel's Adorn is the slow jam of the year. And now it has added Jessie Ware. What's not to love?

It was a total pleasure working with @MiguelUnlimited on his already perfect 'Adorn'. Feel like the luckiest girl in the world x

— Jessie Ware (@Jessie_Ware) July 10, 2013

4) The xx - Sunset (Jamie xx edit)
Jamie xx's remix of his own single is a masterpiece in (you guessed it) pared-down sadtronica. The video's cheap but lovely, syncing the song to an old French TV show. Anyone know who the artist in the original video is?


5) Regina Spektor - You've Got Time
Regina has recorded the theme song for the TV show Orange Is The New Black, which is the latest series from the team behind Weeds. Based on Piper Kerman's prison memoirs, the first 13-episode season was dumped onto Netflix yesterday. Creator Jenji Kohan says she "listened to Regina's albums obsessively while writing the series" and asked her to compose the theme tune. She did, and here it is.



6) Mr Hudson - Fred Astaire
After his Big Kids project failed to take off, Mr Hudson is back as a solo act, and his voice is as captivating as ever. Fred Astaire is a classic, stylish soul groove but, irritatingly, video director Rankin keeps interrupting it for snatches of dialogue. NB: Contains bottoms.


7) Rhye - The Fall (live on Jimmy Kimmel)
This is simply beautiful.

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Disclosure - can we have a bonus disc, please?

Disclosure's debut album Settle is currently sitting pretty at number one and, even though I found it slightly underwhelming, I'd still be up for a deluxe edition later this year. The band have been out on the promotional trail over the last week, building up a catalogue of potential bonus tracks that could eventually overshadow the album itself. FOR EXAMPLE:

1) An incredible live performance with Jessie Ware



2) A wobblesome remix by Australian boy genius Flume




3) The Ria Ritchie song they "accidentally" left off the album




4) A relatively faithful cover of Duke Dumont's 100%




5) This Artful Dodger remix that's been knocking about for months but I only just discovered on Sunday when I idly typed 'Disclosure' into the Soundcloud search page.



6) This b-side from their first EP that sounds like James Blake suddenly discovered he has a pulse.

That should be enough to be getting on with. If we could have this bonus disc by "close of play" on 30 October, I'd be very grateful. It should be called Unsettled and have a picture of a giraffe on the front. Thanks.

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Jessie Ware: Imagine It Was Us

As the headline suggests, this is the video for the song formerly known as Pom Pom Pom Special Delivery, Jessie Ware's new single Imagine It Was Us.

Whereas the previous version had a man from Radio One shouting all over the top, this is unadulterated, sophisticated soul. If someone invites you into their flat for a coffee and puts this on the stereo, you should prepare yourself for "the lunge": They are trying to seduce you.

Video-wise, we’re in a moody nightclub, and Jessie is putting chapters 1-6 of her choreography-for-beginners book to good use.

Jessie Ware - Imagine It Was Us

Imagine It Was Us is from the Gold Edition of Jessie's debut album, Devotion, which is out next week.

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