19-year-old rapper Desiigner was signed to Kanye West's G.O.O.D. Music label after meeting him in a car outside LAX. West then sampled his song Panda, on the track Pt 2. The original subsequently shot to number one on the US Billboard charts, where it resided for two weeks.
Described as "a catchy trap song" (?) and "an ode to the BMW X6" (??) it's been ubiquitous in the States all year. If you haven't heard it yet, don't worry. It was added to Radio 1's C-list last week, and looks set to make the same impact on this side of the Atlantic as it did at home.
Desiigner finally got around to releasing a video for the track last night. It follows the Brooklyn-born rapper on a rambunctious night out... chauffeured by Yeezy himself.
Just in case this is the only music website you see today, I thought you should know there's a new Kanye West song on the internet. No More Parties in LA features Kendrick Lamar, who gets a whole verse before Ye elbows him aside and goes on a four-minute rant about his life, his wife and the cousin who stole his laptop.
He also talks about re-discovering his muse (lost in the aforementioned Lauryn Hill incident), boasting: "I know some fans said I'd never rap like this again / But the writer's block is over / MCs cancel your plans / A 38-year-old ate your role."
True to his word, it's a return to form, with West sounding relaxed and engaged over an old-soul sample that recalls the vibe of his Late Registration material.
The track was released today as part of West's inaccurately named GOOD FRIDAYS campaign, which trails West's new album SWISH, next month.
Writing on Twitter, West's wife Kim Kardashian explained the track had been delayed by the rapper travelling to Italy to oversee work on his fashion line.
"I soooo didn't mean to lie to you guys about GOOD FRIDAYS coming back. Kanye flew to Italy for a Yeezy Season 3 fitting," she tweeted on Saturday after the track failed to materialise. "He flew Noah [Shebib, producer] out with him so he could finish 'No More Parties In L.A.' & wrote 90 bars on the plane there!!!"
Last year, Kanye West signed Kacy Hill to his G.O.O.D Music imprint, based on the strength of one single - Experience.
Featuring a dreamy, fractured vocal over a deep electric beat, it was an impressive introduction - and one that extolled the virtues of a stimulant-free life ("drink is a soft kind prison," she trilled).
The song was a comment "on society's inability to function without mind-altering substances," she explained to BlahBlahBlahScience. "I think there's something really lovely in being able to be a human and be nervous and weird and be okay with it. Everyone wants to be sold a lifestyle but no one wants to honestly feel what it is to be consciously alive."
In another interview, with Pigeons and Planes, the singer said it was one of the first songs she had written, after being encouraged by a photographer who discovered Kacy singing to herself on a shoot.
As someone whose first song was about a two-headed robot, colour me impressed.
Kacy grew up in Phoenix, Arizona, and began modelling as a teenager. She moved to LA aged 16 after graduating from High School and was cast in a string of commercials for American Apparel. Perhaps more importantly for her future career, she landed the job of backing dancer on Kanye's Yeezus tour last year.
But the 21-year-old has been silent since signing her deal last December... until now.
Foreign Fields - a gorgeous, swelling electronic epic - is her G.O.O.D. Music debut; calling to mind the minimalism of James Blake and the melodies of Little Dragon's Yukimi Nagano. Others have compared Kacy to Jamie Woon and FKA Twigs - so you get the picture.
Lyrically, the song is about "finding people in your life that help you progress and move you forward," Kacy told Hunger TV. It exemplifies the "sweet spot between classic pop and 'cool' music," that she's trying to capture on her forthcoming debut album.
Watch the unsettling, Rankin-directed video below.
Deranged quote machine Kanye West has just unveiled the studio version of his new single, All Day - aka the one that had The Brits playing whack-a-mole with the mute button.
Unsurprisingly, it comes across a lot better when you actually get to hear the words (and the bass, and the lyrics). What's more surprising is how long it took the song to come together.
West first mentioned it in a GQ interview last July, saying it had the sort of lyrics "Jay would normally say". But speaking to Radio 1 last week, Sam Smith said: "You know he hasn't even finished that song?"
"I said to him [at The Brits], 'what are you guys doing after?' and he said, 'I've got to go to the studio and finish that song I just performed.' I thought that was amazing."
Perhaps the extra work went into sampling Paul McCartney whistling, which is how the song ends. According to Rolling Stone, the section appears to be a re-recording of a song McCartney wrote in 1969 that was inspired by a Pablo Picasso painting of a guitarist. I kid you not.
Hello, and apologies for the temporary hiatus - which was mostly self-enforced due to half term and the Oscars, and partly actually enforced by nasty bout of Norovirus.
BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME HERE IS SOME MUSIC.
1) Rihanna - Towards The Sun
Nice to hear a more optimistic Rihanna on this track - taken from the soundtrack to the DreamWorks animation Home (which seems like it might be Jim Parson's Aladdin).
Turn your face towards the sun," she sings. "Let the shadows fall behind you." It's a midtempo banger that's crying out for a dreamy Penguin Prison remix.
2) Ed Sheeran - Dirrrty (live lounge cover)
I will personally give Ed Sheeran £500 if he plays this at tomorrow night's Brits wearing Christina Aguilera's ass chaps.
3) George The Poet - Cat D
George The Poet has noticed something. Certain people are damaged - but you don't notice because they project an aura of confidence.
He's noticed something else, too. Some second hand cars aren't as good as they're made out to be. AND THAT'S A BIT LIKE PEOPLE, ISN'T IT?
At first, you think he's going to stretch this tortured metaphor to breaking point. Then he goes way beyond that. And then, somehow, it comes full circle and becomes rather touching. Odd, but brilliant.
4) Calvin Harris ft Haim - Pray To God
I am firmly of the belief that Haim can do no wrong.
5) Clare Maguire - Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?
I naturally recoil from anything recorded "especially for Burberry" - but, oh hell, Clare's voice on this could melt the icecaps. Astonishing work on the Carole King / Gerry Goffin classic.
And note that this is a live vocal. Fucking hell.
6) Blur - Go Out
Oh, I do wish Damon Albarn would stop singing in that "won't someone please just give me a hug" whine. But, hey, it's nice to hear his increasingly polite melodies being scuzzed up by Graham Coxon's deliberately atonal guitar lines, even if it's just for old times' sake.
This is from the band's first new album in 12 years, The Magic Whip, which is a great title.
7) Kanye West - Wolves (ft Sia and Vic Mensa)
Imagine if Kanye just turned up at the Brits, played this, then dropped a new album on iTunes. It won't happen. But imagine if it did. (It won't).
(But imagine).
8) Jess Glynne - Hold My Hand
I'm as much a fan of the handbag house revival as the next man, but it's nice to hear Jess Glynne drawing inspiration from Shanice's I Love Your Smile, too.
9) U2 - Every Breaking Wave
The one Noel Gallagher called "a fucking tune". The one you shouldn't have deleted from iTunes in a fit of pique because Bono is a twerp. The one that's about "the troubles".
The video is awesome, too: Shot by Belfast-born director Aoife McArdle, it video depicts a Catholic boy who falls in love with a Protestant girl at a punk show in 1980s Northern Ireland until (you guessed it) their burgeoning romance is torn apart by the realities of the troubles.
10) Hozier - Problem (Ariana Grande cover)
It's a cover that makes you realise how astonishing Ariana Grande's tonsils are... Nice switch into Warren G's Regulate at the end, too.
11) Lennon and Maisy - Boom Clap
Lennon and Maisy are the singing siblings who play Maddie and Daphne in country music soap opera Nashville. Their Charli XCX cover was uploaded to YouTube just before the show returned from a mid-season hiatus in the US - and the lush, folky harmonies give the song new life.
12) Ariana Grande - One Last Time
We're definitely in fourth single from a hit album territory here, but the apocalyptic video is something of a surprise.
13) Chvrches - Cry Me A River (live lounge cover)
Taking a break from recording their second album, Chvrches popped into Radio 1's Live Lounge to play their Drive: Rescored track "Get Away" and this masterful take on Justin Timberlake's breakout ballad. It somehow manages to be vulnerable and menacing at the same time - like one of those terrifying dolls in Toy Story.
Incidentally, an album of Chvrches cover versions would be a welcome thing. Remember this version of The Arctics' Do I Wanna Know last year?
Phew! Well done if you stuck around to the end (the Chvrches thing was your reward for not closing the tab as soon as I mentioned U2).
Normal service should return to the blog in the next couple of days once awards season dies down. I've missed you guys. All eight of you.
5) Katy Perry - By The Grace of God
Katy Perry's performance was preceded by a speech about domestic abuse by Brooke Axtell, from Austin, Texas (sadly clipped out of this video).
She spoke about her "romance with a handsome, charismatic man".
"I was stunned when he began to abuse me," she continued. "Authentic love does not devalue another human being. Authentic love does not silence, shame or abuse."
Brooke Axtell's is the most important voice we're gonna hear tonight. #GRAMMYs
Paul McCartney, Rihanna and Kanye West - or Paurihanye, as literally no-one is calling them, have just unveiled the video for their acoustibanger FourFiveSeconds.
It has been shot in black and white so that we know what a SERIOUS ARTISTIC ENTERPRISE this is. You can also tell this because no-one smiles or looks at each other because they are LOST in the MUSE.
Rihanna has also forgotten her underwear again. It's a bit of a mess, frankly, but the song is great so all is forgiven.
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?
Normally, I'm not a fan of the medley but this Kanye West performance, in recognition of World Aids Day, is a reminder of how amazing his Greatest Hits album is going to be.
The full set-list is the unassailable quintet of Power, Jesus Walks, Black Skinhead, Stronger and Touch The Sky. Sadly, West suffers from microphone issues throughout, which results in him shouting his lyrics (he's normally a much more controlled live performer).
It doesn't help that his DJ messes up, either. Halfway through the set, he forgets to turn off the backing track to Stronger, causing West to admonish him on live television: "Next song. You're supposed to cut. We on TV."
Meanwhile, a Kanye fan has pieced together a two-hour concert video of the rapper's recent Yeezus Tour, using a mixture of professional and "guerilla" (ie shit) footage.
"Detail was crucial and over seven months of work went into this project," reads the video's YouTube description. Watch it below - or, if the lawyers haven't forced it off the internet, wait for the official Hype Williams-directed version next year.
Standing under a flickering light-bulb, Kanye West performed a medley of his biggest hits (and Mercy) on Seth Meyers freshly-minted US chat show last night. The a capella verse of Stronger is the obvious highlight, but the whole thing is exceptional.
It makes you imagine how good a Kanye Hits album would be. He could call it Yeezus Talks. Or The Kanye Westboro Baptist Church Hymnal and Psalmery. Or maybe even "Your Apartment Is Too Nice To Listen To Rap In."
Here's the performance in full, plus a couple of interview clips, in which Kanye talks about having synaesthesia, writing a sketch for SNL, and wanting to make marble sculptures (because why not?). Despite your expectations and preconceptions, he actually comes across as funny and personable and definitely not daft as a brush.
I'm about to wrap up the blog for 2013, with just the annual Top 10s to come between now and New Year (unless something ridiculous happens like, say, Adele suddenly releasing a 24-track video album recorded on the moon with a backing band of hamsters on Boxing Day). So, for one last time, here's a round-up of songs you may have missed, interspersed with a few festive favourites.
2) Busta Rhymes - Thank You ft. Q-Tip, Kanye West, Lil Wayne
Q-Tip and Busta have a long history of top-drawer collaborations, starting way back with A Tribe Called Quest's Scenario in 1992. Their latest, from Busta's forthcoming album E.L.E. 2 (Extinction Level Event 2), is no exception.
Based around a sample from Alicia Meyer's I Want To Thank You, it also features verses from Kanye and Lil Wayne who, frankly, sound a little intimidated by the competition.
And if you want more of the same, Busta and Q-Tip have just put out a free, collaborative mixtape, The Abstract and the Dragon, which is available here.
3) Disclosure - Help Me Lose My Mind (SOHN Remix)
If you thought Disclosure's Help Me Lose My Mind was minimalist before, wait til you hear what London-Austrian producer SOHN has done with it.
His hushed, stripped-back production makes a virtue of Hannah Reid's choral vocals, drawing you deeper and deeper inside the song as it unfurls like ink in water.
5) Grouplove - Ways To Go
Grouplove are basically the indie-pop Scissor Sisters and this song, which has featured in an advert for GoPro cameras, looks like it'll be their breakthrough hit.
The video, in which a young Kim Yong-Un becomes a fan of the band and starts wearing Hawaiian shirts around Pyongyang, is a must-see:
6) Blood Orange - You're Not Good Enough (Holy Ghost bootleg)
Poor Dev Hynes (aka Blood Orange, aka Lightspeed Champion) lost everything - even his pet dog Cupid - in a New York apartment fire this week. The letter he published about the devastation ("It's my life. It's everything I've ever owned... loved... it's all gone") will break your heart.
At one point, he talks about going back on tour to give his life a sense of normality. I'm not sure that's wise - but whatever works...
In the meantime, handing over some cash for the music he's made could help him get back on his feet. Thankfully, that includes such classics as Solange's True EP, MKS's Flatlines and Sky Ferreira's Eveything Is Embarrassing and this, his new single, remixed by DFA's Holy Ghost. It's terrific.
7) Mariah Carey - All I Want For Christmas Is You
Next time someone tells you "well, of course, objectively speaking Fairytale Of New York is the best Christmas song ever written" put this on at full blast and tell them to get a grip.
9) Vance Joy - Riptide
This was a huge hit in Australia earlier in the year, and I can see it doing the same in the UK in 2014.
Jammed full of pop culture references (Midnight Cowboy and Michelle Pfeiffer to name a few) it also carries a shrewd lyrical observation in the chorus: "I love you when you're singing that song - and I get a lump in my throat cause you're gonna sing the words wrong."
Warning: Riptide is a little bit like the Lumineers' Ho Hey played on a ukelele, so steer clear if that's the sort of thing to make you want to rip apart a cushion.
10) Otis Redding - Merry Christmas Baby
"Santa came down the chimney
Half past three y'all
Left only my good old present
For my baby and for me
HA HA HA"
The sound of a man in the recording studio after one too many sherries.
Hmm, looking back at it, that's quite an eclectic mix of styles and genres. Well done for getting to the end. And have wonderful Christmas, one and all, wherever you are.
2) Haim - Forever (Patrick Hagenaar Remix)
One of Haim's best singles, Forever is getting a re-release to give their album a Christmas push. That means a new set of emixes, of which this is the most suitable for a "crazy party" montage in Hollyoaks.
4) Kanye West - Bound 2 (Solidisco Remix)
With shades of Daft Punk, New York's Solidisco turn Bound 2 into a sparkling house track. Bravely, they completely erase Kanye from the mix, leaving only Charlie Wilson's amazing hook and the "uh-huh honey" sample from Brenda Lee's country classic Sweet Nothings.
5) Chvrches - Lies (Tourist Remix)
This is fascinating, if only to hear what Chvrches sound like when you lock up their synthesizers. The answer? Still magnificent.
A semi-regular round-up of The Music Of The Internet, which may otherwise have escaped your attention over the last seven days.
1) R Kelly - Genius
"Tonight you're lying with a sex genius," purrs the ever-classy R Kelly from beneath the silken sheets of his circular waterbed. "We're both so freakin' hot, we don't wanna freakin' stop." Damn.
Things to ponder while you listen to this: :: More than 10,000 people have signed a petition to have Ignition (Remix) made the US National Anthem :: R Kelly's new album is called Black Panties.
2) Katy B - 5am
Katy is back where Katy should be: On the dancefloor, where "that beat's so sick, that tune's so ill". Also, the melody has a temperature and the bassline has a hurty elbow.
3) Kanye West - Bound 2 (live on Jools Holland)
The absolute best YouTube comment on this performance came in the form of a response to a cretin who accused Kanye of having "no talent" and "just speaking into a microphone whilst doing silly moves".
"You do it then," spat the reply. "I'm fucking serious... What's so good about speaking into a microphone? All that F1 drivers do is drive in circles. All that footballers do is kick a ball around. All that surgeons do is cut people open and remove stuff... It's not though, is it?"
I think Kanye might have written that himself. Presumably while a BBC employee ironed his carpet.
4) Prides - Out Of The Blue
Angular synth-pop, endorsed by CHVRCHES, with whom they share some DNA. Of course, we all share some DNA with CHVRCHES. We share 50% of our DNA with a banana. That's just science.
5) Katy Perry - Roar (Rock remix)
It's not clear if this is an official reworking or a clever bootleg, but Perry's Roar sounds surprisingly awesome with additional plank spanking. The best Blink 182 song you've never heard.
6) James Arthur - You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You
Helpfully abbreviated to YNTSLY by his record label, this is X Factor winner James Arthur's first "proper single" after last year's number one Impossible. With brittle horn stabs and a dustbins-in-a-hurricane drum track, it's a good effort in a post-Rudimental sort of way.
The only problem is his vocal - he starts off with such an almighty "I'm a proper singer" roar that there's nowhere left to go for the next four minutes. The result is a track that blusters instead of blowing you away.
7) Justin Timberlake - TKO
Bring the beatbox back! Posted late last night, this Timbaland-heavy single is the second release from JT's much-anticipated 20/20 Experience Volume Two.
If you think the scratchy, sinister groove is a little heavier than the singles from Volume One, you'd be right. "The songs that I released in March just reminded me of summertime," he told On Air with Ryan Seacrest. "The songs that are coming out this month felt a little darker so they made me feel like... the fall/winter collection."
And that's all for now... Have a great weekend, and send any tips for next week's roundup to the address at the bottom of the page!
Hello there! Hope you all had a good Christmas. I certainly did, if the number of bottles in the recycling bin are any indication.
Anyway, with the New Year rapidly approaching, it's time for the big TOP TEN of the year. As usual, I've based mine on iTunes play counts (with a little arithmetic to make sure songs released later in the year don't suffer). It's by no means definitive - I seem to have completely ignored some of the year's biggest hits - but if you don't like at least three of the following songs, you're dead in the soul.
10) Cheryl - Call My Name
Old swan dive herself, giving it some welly on a Calvin Harris-produced bum-rattler. "How do you think I feel when you call my name?" she asked. If we used her marital surname, the answer was "very stroppy indeed".
9) Gotye - Somebody That I Used To Know
Gangnam Style aside, this is the best pop lyric of the year. Over a plinky-plonky xylophone Gotye spends two minutes whining about being dumped when, all of a sudden, his ex pops up and says: "Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over". Ouch!
They'll be teaching this one at the Brit School for years to come.
8) Kanye West and Jay-Z - N****s In Paris
There's a reason why Jay-Z and Kanye performed this seven times a night on their Watch The Throne tour: They're egomaniacs. But this time, they're forgiven. "Paris", as the radio edit was called, is the sound of two mega-stars goofing off and accidentally creating a hit single. That shit cray, indeed.
7) The Staves - Mexico
The Staves beguiling harmonies are a honey trap. They sound like three chaste handmaidens but take a listen to the lyrics of Mexico, and they're asking to be rogered on their lover's bed. Well, I never.
6) Girls Aloud - Something New
I suspect this made the Top 10 out of sheer relief. That Girls Aloud came back and didn't fumble the first single was a miracle. Sure, Something New has clunky bits (the uninspired rap in the first verse) but it's essentially a distillation of everything that made the band great. Sexy, shouty, stylish, skinny and ginger.
5) Marina & The Diamonds - Primadonna
This isn't a pop song, it just sounds like one. Or so Marina would have you believe. But if we paid attention to every pretentious ambition a pop star had for their "oeuvre" we'd never listen to anything.
Primadonna makes this list for one reason: The bit where Marina's voice drops an entire octave as she sings "I know I've got a big ego / I really don't know why it's such a big deal, though." A moment of melodic genius that stops the song being just another Katy Perry knock-off. The remixes were great too.
4) Little Mix - Wings
A fanfare. Some handclaps. Someone says "shhh" when they really mean "shit". Then it all goes a bit Aguilera. There's an almighty bridge, an astounding chorus. And, what's this? A second chorus. Incredible.
Admittedly, the lyrics aren't perfect. Girl Bands have been peddling the whole "you're beautiful on the inside" line since TLC's Unpretty with diminishing returns. But Wings is saved by that almighty military breakdown in the outro. Best pop moment of the year.
3) Alunageorge - Your Drums, Your Love
If anyone is going to save R&B from drowsy bore kings The Weeknd and Drake, it's AlunaGeorge. Mixing spaceship sound effects with the palatable bits of dubstep and chuffing great pop hooks, they should be getting a call from Beyonce's "people" any day now. This reached a wholly unimpressive number 50 in the charts last October. Seriously, what is wrong with you people?
2) Lana Del Rey - National Anthem
A cautionary tale about a wealthy man who seduces a young ingénue ("you tell me to 'be cool' but I don’t know how yet"), only for her to turn the tables in the second verse ("You said to 'be cool'... I said to 'get real'"). A love story for the new age, it should be the theme to Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby.
1) Jessie Ware - Wildest Moments
Wildest Moments is about a girl who threw a cake in Jessie Ware's face at a wedding.Honestly.
"My nightmare of a best friend," Ware called her in this interview, explaining: "I never fight with people, but me and her fight. That's my girl, Sarah, and that’s what Wildest Moments is about."
A ballad with drums the size of boulders, and a heart that's even bigger, Wildest Moments is neither the most obvious, nor the most original, song on this list. But it is absolutely the best.
Good news for fans of ostentatious rap brigands Jay-Z and Kanye West – the artists sometimes known as Hove and Yeezy are recording a sequel to last year's Watch The Throne album. So says recording engineer Mike Dean, who told Quiet Lunch: "Watch The Throne 2 – it’s not started yet, but it’s coming."
That confirms Jay-Z's comments to MTV earlier this year, when he said: "You might see a Jay, then Kanye, and a Throne album next year... We really found our zone".
In case you haven't heard what the combined weight of the planet's two biggest egos sounds like, they have helpfully "dropped" a new video for the album's opening track - the ominous, guitar-led No Church In The Wild.
Featuring one moronic tautology ("What's a god to a non-believer, who don't believe in anything?") and one sublime metaphor ("your love is my scripture") the song dances around the contradictions between religious belief and personal opulence, without ever drawing any real conclusions.
The video spins off in a different direction – featuring spectacular, violent scenes from a riot. It was shot by MIA's director-of-choice Romain Gavras, so you know it’s not going to pull any punches. Watch below.
Monster is, for me, the standout track on Wests's latest album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. A sparse, schizoid earworm with cameos from Jay-Z, Nicki Minaj and Rick Ross, it's one of the few tracks that doesn't suffer from the record's grandiose production excesses. Clips from the video surfaced back in December, so it's not entirely certain why it's taken so long for the finished product to arrive - although there were rumours that MTV wouldn't show it in its original form.
Featuring a grisly parade of ghouls, vampires, decapitations and deformed bodies, the new edit hardly seems suited for daytime TV, either. Here are a few of the most memorable moments... They're not recommended for the squeamish.
Notably, the video is preceded by a petulant disclaimer "THIS IS AN ART PIECE AND IT SHALL BE TAKEN AS SUCH" which anticipates the inevitable attacks from the conservative media. It also provides a neat echo of Michael Jackson's pre-roll statement in the Thriller video ("this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult") to which Monster owes a considerable stylistic debt.
As regular readers might know, I grew up in Northern Ireland in the 1980s. It was an era when Christianity was a fact of life and Religious Education was a compulsory subject at GCSE. Although I'm not a regular church-goer now, I remain fond of those Bible teachings that haven't been distorted into a demented manifesto for small-minded intolerance.
At it's best, religion taught me to look at the world with a sense of awe and gratitude and compassion. That is perfectly alright by me.
I could never get to grips with the music, though. Hymns were tolerable - the bad ones have been filtered out over hundreds of years, after all. It was all that drippy "Jesus is a sunbeam" bollocks that made me want to impale myself on a candelabra like a macabre Marilyn Manson wannabe.
So, just in time for Easter, here are five songs with a religious theme that are 100% not rubbish. I bet they wouldn't play any of them in St Paul's Cathedral, mind.
Because you can't get Prince's back catalogue on YouTube. if you could, this video would either be The Cross (from Sign O'The Times) or Eye Know (from Lovesexy). They're both amazing.
In which Bono plays the character of Judas, betraying Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Alternatively, it's about fighting with your wife at a party thrown by The Great Gastby. From the brief "good period" in U2's career.
I particularly like the lyrics of this one. Nerina has doubts about God's existence, but has a few ideas of what her "ideal" creator would be like. In honesty, most church-goers are exactly like this, and I prefer them to the staunch, immovable fundamentalists. To quote Kevin Smith's film, Dogma: "Having belief is a bad thing. It's better to have ideas... You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier."
It is Friday afternoon, and you certainly don't want to hear me wittering on with my "theories" and "jokes" about pop music. Here instead is a huge collection of videos for forthcoming singles and "jukebox classics".
I have arranged them by category. Select the one that suits your mood and press play. Or press play on them all at once for a groundbreaking mini-mixtape mash-up.
STONE COLD FUNK
The James Brown-produced, devilishly saucy Sweet Charles.
ANYTHING WITH KANYE WEST IN IT
Hooray! It's Katy Perry's expensive video for her underwhelming new song, ET. The CGI hooves are particularly unconvincing.
ONE OF THE BEST SONGS OF ALL TIME
This was recorded at the first ever MTV Awards. It'd be fair to say they've upped their game in the intervening 20 years.
SUPERLATIVE HIP-HOP SPIN-OFF VANITY PROJECT
This is Gnarls Barkley supremo Danger Mouse, with Jack White and Sergio Leone's spaghetti western orchestra. From a new project called Rome, which hits the shops later this month. Genuinely terrific.
The video for Kanye West's genuinely superb All Of The Lights has just popped up on YouTube and it features two of my favourite video tropes of all time: Typography and sideboobs.
The typography section (where the text of the chorus appears on screen in a blur of eye-blinding colours) seems ripe for parody. I made an attempt, but all I could manage was a mirthless message about getting a pop star to appear on a BBC2 comedy panel game show.
Oh dear.
In the end, I was much more taken with the montage of typefaces I'd built up in Photoshop than the "joke" itself. I've reproduced it below. Maybe you can use it for any ransom notes you intend to write.
And, if you're really keen, there's a zip file with all the images at the end of this link [right-click and select "save as"]. And, let's not forget, there's a video left to watch at the end of all this frivolity. Here it is.
