AlunaGeorge play The Jungle Book and four other songs you may have missed

Some party music for the weekend? Don't mind if I do.

1) AlunaGeorge - I Wanna Be Like You
After Bruno Mars covered The Little Mermaid in the Live Lounge last year, AlunaGeorge have plundered the Jungle Book to record the scat jazz classic I Wan'na Be Like You. Unexpectedly, it's a perfect fit for Aluna's supple, slightly nasal voice. And, as it was originally a duet between King Louie and Baloo, can we temporarily rechristen the band BaloonaGeorge? No? Oh, alright then.





2) Justin Timberlake - Let The Groove In
The loose, unhurried grooves of JT's comeback singles lack focus. But, having read a few reviews, it sounds like the 20/20 Experience makes more sense as a suite of songs. Music for making out to, but not necessarily falling in with. It's up on Spotify today, so you can judge for yourself. My favourite so far is Let The Groove In, which Timberlake performed with The Roots on Jimmy Fallon's chat show earlier this week.




3) The Strokes - All The Time
They don't really get on any more, so why force them into a TV studio for a promo video? Here's 10 years of archive footage from The Strokes (and Lou Reed), to accompany their new song. Doesn't it look like fun being in The Strokes? Anyone?




4) Lauren Aquilina - Wanderlust
A piano! On an ice rink! What will they think of next?

I introduced you to promising young singer-songwriter Lauren Aquilina last month. Wanderlust, a desolate piano ballad, is her latest single - and it's raising money for Comic Relief. If you don't buy it, all the children will die.




5) Little Boots - Motorway
Little Boots first played this track two years ago... God knows what happened in the meantime. Maybe the motorway in question was the one Cheryl Baker and Rizzle Kicks got stranded on earlier this week. Anyway, it's arrived now, and it's rather beautiful in an ambient St Etienne kind of way. Motorway is a free download, and a new Little Boots album follows in May. Welcome back, Victoria!

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Five tracks you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of the videos and songs I didn't get time to write about during in the last seven days. This week's stars are...

1) Maverick Sabre - These Days
While Plan B is off being "gritty" and "real", Maverick Sabre is your next best bet for blue-eyed British soul. Based around a sample from The Turtles' You Showed Me, These Days is best single so far from his debut album Lonely Are The Brave. Interesting fact: Maverick Sabre writes all of his songs in the dark.







2) Paloma Faith - 30 Minute Love Affair
You know when you get dumped by your boyfriend, and the only thing you can do to ease the pain is go and sing about it in a seedy burlesque club? So does Paloma Faith.






3) Little Boots - Headphones (remix by Ronika)
The whole slowed-down / speeded-up vocal motif in this remix is a little bit disturbing, but I like the idea of Little Boots duetting with a male Little Boots impersonator. Can someone make this happen, please?




4) Josephine - What A Day
I fell head over heels in love with Josephine's single A Freak A two years ago. She's been a bit quiet since then, sorting out a record deal and putting together her debut album. Born to African parents and raised in Manchester, she has the soul of Dusty Springfield and the intricate guitar flicks of Baaba Maal. What A Day is the first single from her forthcoming debut album, due in October.




5) Aiden Grimshaw - Curtain Call
I have literally no idea what's going on here. Nice tune, though.






Oh, and don't forget Azaelia Banks's mixtape came out this week. Patchy but promising, it's a free download via this link.

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Here's a new video by Little Boots

We've been living with the new Little Boots single for about two weeks now. Every Night I Say A Prayer does several amazing things in the space of four minutes, the key points of which we have outlined below.

1) It reminds you that Little Boots exists and that, contrary to some unnecessarily snipey articles in the press, that she is very good at writing pop songs.

2) It reminds you that Saint Etienne exist and that, contrary to their rather lacklustre 21st century output, their 1990s heyday produced about 30 premium-quality tunes.

3) It reminds you that sometimes pop artists shouldn't spend all their time trying to be flashy, hyper-real disco queens sitting upon a chart throne and working with RedOne because subtle, slow-burning pop songs are just as important as the ones that snog your face off then run away screaming "sorry, you're not my target demographic" leaving you feel empty and hopeless.

4) It reminds you that the Korg M1 house piano sample is one of the best keyboard presets of all time.

5) It reminds you to tap your toes, thereby maintaining a healthy circulation and reducing the likelihood of deep-vein thrombosis.

This is clearly a laudable set of achievements, and I haven't even mentioned that the whole thing is AVAILABLE FOR FREE, like a copy of the Metro newspaper, only it's not shit.

A video has just premiered. Little Boots says it was a "little bit inspired by Paris is Burning (the film, not the Ladyhawke song, although that is good too)". For context, Paris Is Burning was a documentary about the New York club scene in its 1990 heyday. Which is why Little Boots's video looks like a slightly cheaper version of Vogue. This is not a bad thing.

Little Boots - Every Night I Say A Prayer

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You want updates? We got updates

My, my - this weekend has been a veritable goldmine of brilliant music. None of it on our televisions, of course. That would be too much to ask. Still, here's what's happening with some of the biggest Discopop Directory all-stars...


1) Nicola Roberts is still allowed to release singles

Which is a good thing because Yo-Yo, the third release from her album Cinderella's Eyes is the best so far.

It's not out until January - but here's Nicola performing it, all acoustic and spooky, at something called the "BT Digital Music Awards".

Nicola Roberts - Yo Yo




2) Beyoncé plays with the Roots on US TV.
This performance of Countdown is worth watching just for ?uestloves hi-hat paradiddles. If you prefer pretty women to watching drummers, I suppose Beyonce is reasonably attractive.





3) Little Boots lets us hear her new single
There was a sneak preview of Shake (Until Your Heart Breaks) on the Little Boots mixtape I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. The full track got its first radio play on Annie Mac's Radio One show the other night and it sounds incredible - like St Etienne covering La Isla Bonita, remixed by Inner City. A return to Little Boots club origins, this is much more in the vein of Stuck On Repeat than Remedy. Hooray!

Little Boots - Shake




4) Yasmin revives a late 1980s hip-hop drum sample
Yasmin is back with a Ms Dynamite duet called Light Up (The World). The drum loop will be familiar to anyone who's heard King Bee's Back By Dope Demand. And crate-diggers will know the sample originally comes from the Lyn Collins track Think. To be honest, the Yasmin song makes it too prominent, overpowering what is at heart quite a sweet reggae melody. Still, the video is a sumptuous feast of Cuban loveliness.

Yasmin - Light Up (The World)




5) War Of Words get a very good remix
Up-and-coming girl band War Of Words have had their album written by Ben off of La Roux, so it's not entirely surprising that he's been in the studio making a remix of their first single that sounds slightly more like La Roux. It goes like this.

War Of Words - Panic (Ben's Panic Street Beaters Remix)


Now, what am I going to write about for the rest of the week?

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New music from Little Boots

This won't be a long post as I'm at death's door today, coughing and spluttering like a dying duck.

So here, without further ado, is a new mixtape from Little Boots (remember her?) Amongst the goodies on offer are a fantastic remix of Metronomy's The Bay, Oh Land's Son Of A Gun, Madonna's Into The Groove, Desire by Eli Escobar and Classix's Into The Valley. One of the best Saturday night, electro-disco, pre-party mixes I've heard in a while.

Best of all, if you stick around to the end you get a new Little Boots track - Shake Until Your Heart Breaks. Victoria's breathy, waifish vocals make me think of St Etienne's Sarah Cracknell - albeit a rather bedraggled Sarah Cracknell staggering across a muddy festival campsite with a vintage drum machine clutched to her busom, as dusk slowly turns to dawn.

The fun kicks off at around 38'40" and the whole thing is downloadable for your listening / running / dancing pleasure.

SHAKE UNTIL YOUR HEART BREAKS MIXTAPE by LittleBoots


On her blog, Little Boots promises more new material soon. Hooray!

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Little Boots updates us on her mental status

Victoria Christina Hesketh has been disappointingly quiet on the releasing singles front, but it's good to know that she's still dipping her Little Boots into the sparkly waters of pop. For, at the end of that tweet is a link to the new video from Joe Goddard of Hot Chip "fame" that is, quite simply, house music at its most beautiful. It sounds like this.

Gabriel (featuring Valentina) - Joe Goddard


Now get on with the new record, Hesketh.

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Top 10 albums of 2009

Hello again!

Hope you had a great Christmas and new year. There's been plenty of new music round here at Discopop Towers, but that can wait til next week. Until then, here's our summary of the best 10 records of the last 12 months. 2009 wasn't a vintage year, to be perfectlly honest. But the top 3 make up for all of that.


1) Florence and the Machine - Lungs

Like all the best records, this is a slow-burner. For me, the epiphany came the first time I played the CD over real speakers, and Florence's epic, gothic drums punched me right in the heart. There's plenty to admire here: Attitude as firey as the 23-year-old's big red barnet, shockingly visceral lyrics, and, on Kiss With A Fist, a healthy obsession with the White Stripes' Hotel Yorba. Ironically for an album called Lungs, it will take your breath away.

2) Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz

Everyone says this is the Yeah Yeah Yeahs' disco album, but that does it a grave disservice. It's Blitz isn't about the carefree hedonism of Sister Sledge - it's about a seedy night out at the wrong end of town, ripped stockings, smudged mascara and all. Singles Zero and Heads Will Roll snog your face off on the dancefloor, while Dull Life breaks out the guitars for a brief opportunity to mosh or pogo or any of the other grandiose terms you use to describe "jumping up and down". The end of the record captures the comedown, too, with Runaway and Hysteric the perfect soundtrack to the guilty regret of a rainy Sunday morning. If you can stand Karen O's voice through the hangover, that is.

3) A Camp Colonia

A cheery record about rape, pillage, divorce and war in the Belgian Congo. The work of former Cardigan Nina Persson, her husband Nathan Larson and Atomic Swing's Niclas Frisk, Colonia was inspired by 60s girl-pop and the works of Adam Ant. Brilliantly, it manages to sound nothing like either of them. Instead, it's a sumptuous, orchestral, alt-rock album, encompassing bittersweet ballads (Stronger Than Jesus), regal waltzes (The Crowning) and glam rock stomps (My America). A towering achievement.

4) Temper Trap - Conditions

For my money, the only decent guitar album of the year. Aussie quartet Temper Trap are essentially Coldplay with a decent rhythm section. That means (a) their songs aren't hopelessly twee and (b) they occasionally have songs you would consider dancing to. Both of these are good things, of course, especially when combined with haunting falsetto vocals and chiming, spacious guitar lines. I wish I'd written more about them over the last 12 months, to be honest.

5) Lady GaGa - The Fame / Fame Monster

In 2009, the best singles, the most deranged outfits, the stupidest videos, the unlikeliest rumour, the most ridiculously censor-baiting awards performance, the highest heels, the tallest piano, and the best overarching artistic-visual concept all belonged to New York's Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta. Sadly, her album was a bit hit and miss after all that - but there's a great 10-track "The Fame - Redux" playlist on my iPod, ready to be depolyed any time I fancied a 40-minute dose of demonic space age artnoise. The addition of Bad Romance and Alejandro from The Fame Monster created the year's most note-perfect pop record. It's all in the quality control.

6) Passion Pit - Manners

Yes, the lead singer bears a resemblance to Rory McGrath (look him up) and yes, they rely a little too often on the kids' choir from the Sesame Street theme tune - but this record is one big bundle of happy, poppy fun. Sadly, you're more likely to have heard Passion Pit's colourful electronica on advertisements than on the radio, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't check it out.

7) Regina Spektor - Far

Like a lot of fans, I was initially disappointed with Regina's follow-up to Begin To Hope. The Jeff Lynne-produced tracks, in paticular, lackied the fanged bite of her earlier, spikier songs. Once I got over the lack of yelping and lo-fi tin shack recordings, however, there was a rewarding, multi-textured album waiting to be discovered. Laughing With has a beautifully observed lyric about how athiests suddenly start praying when things go wrong. The hip-hop tinged Dance Athem Of The 80s is the dippy story of a night "Walking through the city / Like a drunk, but not". In the end, the addition of string sections and radio-friendly production didn't ruin Regina at all - they grounded her eccentric musings in the real world, making this album all the more potent.

8) Little Boots - Hands

Little Boots has a tendency to let a creative writing exercise get in the way of a decent lyric - shoe-horning references to Fibonacci and Pythagoras into the pun-o-rific Mathematics, for example. On the other hand, New In Town - Amazing; Earthquake - Amazing; Meddle - Amazing; No Brakes - A-ma-zing; Remedy - Amazing x5,000,000; Stuck On Repeat - Amazing^{10000000000000000}.
In summary, then: Not bad.

9) La Roux - La Roux

Elly Jackson's voice is so shrill they use it to cut diamonds. Ben Langmaid's synthesizer has two sound settings "80s synth" and "80s steel drum". Yet, together, they made an album of surprising depth and emotional power. Jackson's expressions of heartbreak and emotional fragility gave the dayglo pop some much needed light and shade - particularly on the weepy bedsheet ballad Cover My Eyes. Yes, the 12 tracks kind of blended into one another - but sometimes, just sometimes, a pop album should sound homogenous. Otherwise, it could be any old vocalist belting out any old nonsense over a faceless producer's meaningless beats (we're looking at you, The Saturdays).

10) Nelly Furtado - Mi Plan

Because Nelly Furtado makes better Spanish albums than Shakira does English ones.

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Little Boots & Ellie Goulding's pop challenge

Hello!

Today, you are invited to compare and contrast two pop videos with similar propositions, but wildly different different outcomes.

They are both by waifish blonde electropop vocalists, and both feature quirky special effects that mess with your mind. Both performers have their mouths gaping open gormlessly in the "key frame" YouTube has selected as the pre-roll image. And both singers seems slightly uncomfortable in front of the camera. One overcomes this and makes a decent stab at portraying charisma, conviction and attitude while the other looks awkward and lost.

But which is which?

Little Boots - Earthquake


Ellie Goulding - Under The Sheets



Answers on a postcard, e-card, birthday card, house of cards, or cardigan to the usual address.

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Little Boots covers JLS

"Anything that has the line 'If I died, would you come to my funeral?' deserves to be covered," said little Victoria Hesketh, after she finished playing JLS's Beat Again on Radio One's Live Lounge.

Her version demonstrates what a great song Beat Again actually is - once you strip away the cheesy 1990s production and replace it with cheesy 1980s cheesy synth production.

Harold Faltermeyer would be proud.

A clip follows and, if you're enticed, you can hear the whole thing on the Radio One website.



You may also want to check out these links.

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Haven't we heard this somewhere before?

Aussie pop twins The Veronicas have created a unique time-travelling PR campaign for the UK release of their album, Hook Me Up.

The record - including recent top 10 single Untouchable - is two years old. But the next single, 4Ever, dates back to 2005. In fact, it's been lifted from an entirely different album, which doesn't say much for the record company's faith in the new material...

Despite its vintage, 4Ever hits you like a laser blast, full of juicy harmonies and wayward rock riffage. If you don't believe me, believe Little Boots:



Try it out for yourself with this newly-filmed British video.

The Veronicas - 4Ever

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IT'S A RUBBISH VIDEO BY LITTLE BOOTS

"It was very easy to film," Victoria Hesketh told the BBC.

You don't say.

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A mixed bag of internet goodies

It's like a 10p mix for your PC.

:: Jordin Sparks' new single is officially "a bit of a belter". It's from the pen of Ryan Tedder, him of Bleeding Love and Halo (halo, halo, halo, HALO) fame. In an unlikely tribute to Pat Benatar, it has been called Battlefield. The MP3 is over here.

:: Terrible online waste of time pt 1: Play Scrabble against yourself, against the clock. The very definition of "okay, maybe just one more turn"... Go to Deepleap.org.

:: Overlooked synth-pop genii Dragonette have put a free MP3 of their new single on Myspace. The chorus is astounding, the rest is a bit of a mess.

:: There is a certain degree of pant-wetting about the new Sophie Ellis Bextor / Freemasons single from the sort of people who like Sophie Ellis Bextor and the Freemasons. I'm guessing a low top 10 chart placing when it comes out on 15th June.



:: Watch Little Boots play Stuck On Repeat for an embarassing uncle who's desperate to prove he's trendy, and his wife, who believes she is "in touch" with "the kids" because she's heard of Tetris. Cringeworthy.

:: Terrible online waste of time pt 2: Broken Picture Telephone. It's like Chinese whispers, on the internet, with pictures. In this game, for example, the phrase "Everyone gets punched in the face at the same time" became "an upset robot trapped on the train tracks breaks free", via a circuitous route involving the following picture:




:: Cat plays peek-a-boo.




:: Robert Downey Jr is back in his big red romper suit on the set of Iron Man 2...

:: Are these the Top 10 hidden album tracks of all time?? (Personally, I'd have put Janet Jackson's Strong Enough from The Velvet Rope in there, but what does my opinion count for??)

:: Have a quick peek at Where It's At - an online map that shows you famous locations from pop culture, from the real Hotel California to the parking lot that inspired Big Yellow Taxi. Needs a bit of work to add locations outside the US (Abbey Road isn't even on there!).

:: Rejoice! Flight Of The Conchords is back for its second series - starting on BBC Four tonight at 10:30pm. Set your Sky+ thing, cause it won't be on iPlayer.

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Little Boots - New In Town video

The video for Little Bootses first "proper" single has leaked - and it's a good old fashioned romp through 80s video cliché land: Lots of choreography, lots of colour, lots of daft vignettes where tough gang members suddenly start dancing.

In many ways, it's a recreation of Janet Jackson's Nasty video - only where Janet can't dance and just walks through the streets lip-syncing. This is the Leona Lewis "single threat" school of pop stardom.

It's bound to be yanked off Youtube (youtube) as soon as the lawyers get in tomorrow morning, so here are some screenshots to tide you over 'til it premieres exclusively on Channel 4 at two in the morning, or whatever.















Little Boots - New In Town

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Little Boots vs... herself

Little Boots released two videos yesterday: One was a home demo of her new single, New In Town, the other was a cover of Sugababes' debut single, Overload.

But which is best?

Little Boots - New In Town


Little Boots - Overload

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New music roundup

It's been a while since I've trawled the blogs to bring you some new music that other people have stolen and uploaded. Let me correct the error forthwith.

:: Little Boots - New In Town (Fred Falke Remix). Little Victoria Hesketh has been unusually quiet since she was named the "Sound of 2009" back in January (although the Guardian's interactive graph of new bands suggests she's still outperforming her rivals), but here is her first proper single of the year in slammin' remix form.

:: Fiona Apple - Why Try To Change Me Now? . Exquisite jazzy cover version of the old Cy Coleman track. Delicious.

:: Eels - Fresh Blood. Werewolf-themed potboiler from Mark Oliver Everett's first new album in four years.

:: Coldplay - Viva La Vida (DiscoTech Mix). Terrible indie bollocks rescued by ridonculous acid house synths.

:: Fischerspooner - Supply & Demand. Moody electronic noodling direct from a 1980s Pet Shop Boys b-side. Not entirely unpleasant.

:: Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero (NASA remix). Completely inessential compared to the original, yet oddly compelling when cycling into work.

:: Peter Bjorn & John - Nothing To Worry About. A hybrid of Royksopp and Go Team this will frighten fans of Young Folks but delight people who like Lykke Li.

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Back from bed

Yuck!

I've spent the last week hacking my lungs up like a niccotine-addled granddad, hence the lack of updates. Not that there was much to blog about anyway. Little Boots won the BBC's Sound of 2009 Poll, and put up a free single on iTunes - both of which are great, although I'm still not convinced she's doing anything particularly original. And Lady GaGa deservedly went to number one - I'll have an interview with her on the site later this week.

The only new music I came across from my sick bed was a song called Glitter by production duo N.A.S.A. It features vocals by three of the zeitgeistiest artists of 2008 - Kanye, Santogold and Lykke Li, and is surprisingly funktastic. Kanye even remembers to rap, rather than singing love songs to an electrical appliance. Listen below:



By far the worst thing I heard during my week off was by folk-punk nitwit Frank Turner. His single, Reasons Not To Be An Idiot is insufferably smug, but his appearance on Radio One's Live Lounge - in which he plays a skiffle version of Take That's Greatest Day - extended my sick leave by at least a day.

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Little Boots - really rather good

Attention! You have approximately three weeks to familiarise yourself with Little Boots before everybody and their grandmother's fishmonger names her the most promising new act of 2009.

In fact, it's already started: MTV and the BBC have got her down as one to watch in the new year. Plus, "bloggers" (what are they?) have been writing about for months, which is a sure sign of success. Just ask Tapes 'N Tapes.

In brief, Little Boots is a new-wave Blondie type with a pancake stack of pop tunes and a critical head of steam. Like Ladyhawke, then, but with better PR.

Here she is on Jools Holland playing a piano, a stylophone and a tenori-on [flashing synthesiser thing we wrote about in 2006] all at the same time! Amazing.

Little Boots - Meddle


If you want to get closer to the artist formerly known as (poshness alert!) Victoria Hesketh, go and check out her website, where she films herself playing cover versions in a tiny little flat. The current one is Wham's Last Christmas and it's guaranteed to warm your cockles. Or twatles if you're that way "inclined".

Little Boots - Last Christmas

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