Songs you may have missed: A double Madonna edition

I took a mini-break from the blog last week to help the kids survive the school holidays. OK, to help my wife survive the school holidays.

But plenty of great music found its way into the world in my absence. Here is a 15-track summary of that music.

1) Madonna - Ghosttown
The best video Madonna's made in over a decade, for her best single since Sorry.

Co-starring Terence Howard (Iron Man, Empire), it depicts the Queen of Pop one of the last survivors of a nuclear apocalypse. Which finally explains why she has the face of a 30-year-old Drew Barrymore.





2) Florence + The Machine - Ship To Wreck
More mellifluous than the previous releases from Florence's upcoming third album, this still finds the singer wracked with doubt. "Did I drink too much? Am I losing touch? Did I build this ship to wreck?" she hollers over the deceptively upbeat, glockenspielly backing.

The video, directed Vincent Haycock, follows the narratively-driven clips for St. Jude and What Kind of Man, and was filmed at Florence's house.





3) Brandon Flowers - Still Want You
It seems like Brandon's having a lot of fun with his new solo album.

I mean, A LOT of fun.

The second single from The Desired Effect is a wonky rock/gospel hybrid that hammers home its chorus with a bejangled mallet; while the video finds Brandon in a playful, flirty mood - looking eerily similar to Bryan Ferry doing David Bowie on Stars In Their Eyes.






4) Shura - 2 Shy
I championed this Janet Jackson sound-alike a couple of weeks ago, and now it has a moody and windswept (and largely unnecessary) video to accompany it.





5) Michael Calfan - Treasured Soul
This has been bubbling around on specialist dance shows since the start of the year, but it's getting a proper release in time for the summer. A soulful, uplifting dance anthem, it's powered by steel drum hook that owes a huge debt to Duke Dumont's I Got U. Which is no bad thing.





6) Chloe Black - Cruel Intentions
I wasn't a big fan of Chloe Black's last single, 27 Club, in which she revealed an ambition to die young, at the same age as Kurt Cobain and Janis Joplin. It was a terrible, attention-seeking lyric with a casual disregard for those tragically curtailed lives.

Her new single seeks to make amends ("I won't try to defend all of my crazy") and suggests the London-based singer-songwriter could be this year's Lana Del Rey. Distinctive and dramatic.






7) Clean Bandit ft Marina and the Diamonds - Disconnect
Premiered live at Coachella, this is apparently from Clean Bandit's "eagerly anticipated" second album, which is coming out later this year.

As Marina later noted on Twitter, her stage outfit made her look like Ali G.





8) Ty Dolla $ign - Drop That Kitty (ft Charli XCX)
Aggressively mediocre.





9) Kiesza - Sound of a Woman
It's ballad time in Kiesza world, which means less dancing, and more emoting. Bah.




10) Mark Ronson ft Mystikal - Feel Right
Live on the Ellen Show, this is a peach of a performance.




11) Snoop Dogg - So Many Pros
Produced by Pharrell, this creamy-smooth jam finds Snoop drawl-singing an ode to the "pretty people". Progressive it isn't, but the funkadelic chorus (featuring vocals from The Gap Band's Charlie Wilson) is delicious.






12) MO - Preach
Like SWV combined with Little Mix, while never reaching the peaks of either. Now on the Radio 1 playlist, where it's a refreshing change from James bloody Bay.





13) Lykke Li, Kanye West and Lil Wayne - Never Gonna Love Again
Eminem's producer has mashed up Lykke Li's Never Gonna Love Again with Lil Wayne and Kanye' Lollipop remix, for no reason other than he could.

It works surprisingly well.







14) Charles Hamilton - New York Raining (ft Rita Ora)
Here's a stunning, Selma-esque video to accompany New York Raining, Charles Hamilton's collaboration with Oscar nominee Rita Ora.

Set in a monochromatic 1960s New York, we see Charles amongst a group of civil rights protestors, joining arms as they square off with police. Rita stays clear of the politics, preferring to gaze wistfully through a rainy window.





15) Madonna - Bitch, I'm Madonna
We finish back where we started - with Madonna back on form, despite the creative disarray of her Rebel Heart album.

This is how you do a chat show performance in the YouTube age - playful and self-deprecating while cramming in tons of "content" and some killer dance moves. It's just a shame the song is so cringeworthy.

So there you go. Seems like I was the only one who had a quiet Easter. So spare a moment to remember the PR people who had to manage the YouTube uploads and email out the links. Let's hope they had tons of chocolate to compensate.

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Lykke Li riddled with bullets and 10 other songs you may have missed

Here you go: A semi-regular round-up of songs I didn't have time to write about during the week, including tasty morsels by this load of reprobates.

1) Lykke Li - Gunshot
Let's start with the most disturbing video of the week, in which Lykke "laugh-a-minute" Li stumbles round the world's oddest car park, being shot by invisible bullets. A lighthearted romp.





2) Cam'Ron ft Nicki Minaj - So Bad
The video is hilariously low-budget (hello, green screen!) but the doo-wop indebted duet is damned catchy. Plus, Cam'ron makes the world's worst Angry Birds pun, so well done on that front.





3) Haim - Oh Well (live at T In The Park)
Always a highlight of their live shows, this Fleetwood Mac cover lets Danielle Haim let fly with her crazy axe skills. One of the highlights of the TV coverage of T in the Park.





4) DJ Fresh ft Ellie Goulding - Flashlight
Originally a bonus track on Ellie's Halcyon Days re-release last year, this has been given a fresh lick of paint and turned into DJ Fresh's new single. As they said in the 70s: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.





5) Moko - Your Love
Produced by Chase & Status (for whom Moko sang Count On Me last year) this chiming soul-house track is a guaranteed floor-filler. Nice pigtails, too.





6) Alt-J - Hunger of the Pine
A simply stunning video.





7) Pharrell - Get Lucky (live at T In The Park)
Great performance from Pharrell on last year's song of the summer. I'm not sure "make it rain" means the same in Scotland as it does in his native Virginia, though.





8) Marina and the Diamonds - Untitled new song
This brief snippet, posted on Instagram during the week, is the first taster of Marina's forthcoming third album.

A simple piano/vocal, with shades of Lana Del Rey (or anyone else who sings over a piano, to be honest) it sounds extremely promising: "There's no rush anymore, time's on my side," sings Marina, "All my worries are gone, I'm enjoying the ride."





9) Mike Mago & Dragonette - Outlines
Pop's best kept secret (that's Dragonette) team up with some Dutch guy (that's Mike Mago) for this dreamy dance track. Too deep to match the chart success of Dragonette's previous collaboration - Martin Solveig's Hello - this is a welcome addition to my summer playlist nonetheless.






10) Indiana - Heart on Fire
I meant to post this two weeks ago when it came out, then my brain went fzzrt.

Better late than never, though, here's Nottingham-born newcomer Indiana (aka Lauren Henson) with a great big "sobbing over a drum machine" popballad. Fans of Robyn will like this quite a lot.




11) Sigma ft Paloma Faith - Changing
As fresh and exciting today as it was on Monday, when I first wrote about it - even though, as Don't Falter hitmaker Mint Royale pointed out, it's "obviously based on a Lana sample which they've then replaced with 'something similar'".

Interesting choice of outfit from Paloma, as ever.

And that's that. Enjoy the sunny weekend!

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Lykke Li releases No Rest For The Wicked video

Stately and melancholy, Lykke Li's new single No Rest For The Wicked now has a stately, melancholy video to call its very own.

Like the song, the Tarik Saleh-directed clip is a tale of betrayal. "I let my true love down," sings Lykke, who stands aside while her lover is hunted down by some dodgy-looking ne'er-do-wells.

None of it is particularly cheery but, on the plus side, you get to see Lykke Li in a hairnet.

See it "in full" below...

Lykke Li - No Rest For The Wicked

PS: Here's an interview with Lykke Li, courtesy of my old 6 Music colleague Georgie Rogers. It's pretty intense.

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Lykke Li: No Rest For The Wicked

Swedish pop miserablist Lykke Li unveiled (played) her new single No Rest For The Wicked on 6 Music this morning. The Guardian has already called it a "chest-clencher", which makes it sound like a dramatic, arrhythmic cardiac episode - but if you must employ a death metaphor, I'd say it was like suffocating slowly under a pillow.

Here's Lykke's explanation of the song, ripped direct from the record company press release: "I wrote it in Sweden when I was packing up my shit (she means stuff) and I'd just gotten out of a relationship and it was a horrible time. I just had the hurt, shame, sadness, guilt, longing. The vocal track, the take, is the demo. In the verse, I'm referring to myself pleading guilty but I'm referring to all of us."

Best avoid it if you're down in the dumps, then.

Lykke Li - No Rest For The Wicked

PS: It's nice to see the video was inspired by a 1972 BBC TV ident. More of this, please.

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New music from Lykke Li

Carefree pop jester Lykke Li has just released a new single, and it's a right barrel of laughs.

Called Love Me Like I'm Not Made Of Stone, it comes with a video in which a be-stricken Lykke rotates slowly on a turntable, like a broken vase in the saddest window display of all time.

See for yourself.

Lykke Li - Love Me Like I'm Not Made Of Stone

Lykke has also posted a typed copy of the lyrics online, so you can sing along at your next family knees-up.

Sarcasm aside, the song is rather beautiful in its desolation. And if strikes a chord, there'll be more of that sort of thing on Lykke's third album, I Never Learn.

Co-produced by Bjorn Yttling and Greg 'I do the good bits in the Lily Allen singles' Kurstin, it is described by its creator as follows: "Every song on the album is a power ballad. Like one of those old radio stations. This is a slow dance; a slow burner". You can hear previews of some of the songs on the singer's set at the 6 Music Festival last weekend.

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Songs you may have missed: Dutch edition

Sorry for the lack of updates this week - I was off in Amsterdam working on the BBC's coverage of the Rijksmuseum relaunch (here's an example), which turned out to be a lot busier than I anticipated. Still, the music industry took an extended Easter break, so there wasn't much to catch up with on my return. Apart from these:

1) Chris Malinchak - So Good To Me
The press release calls Chris Malinchak a "legendary New York deep house producer" but I've never heard of him. Have you? No matter, because his new single is a hazy summer daydream that sent ripples through the Miami Winter Music Conference. A warm, casual groove with a nimble Marvin Gaye sample, maybe it can convince the sun to come out of hiding when it's released on 5th May.




2) Little Mix ft Missy Elliot - How Ya Doin?
Little Mix have been sponsored by something called "Live Colour XXL", which explains the ridiculous hair colours in this video.

Nothing can explain, however, this godawful single, which manages to tarnish the legacy of De La Soul* and Missy Elliot in a single, three-minute burst of crap.

*Yes, I'm aware the original was by Curiosity Killed The Cat



3) Wretch 32 - Blackout
It's not every day a rapper declares: "my vocabulary is shit", but Wretch 32 is not an every day rap star. Featuring vocals from Shakka, and truck-load of marimbas, Blackout is practically guaranteed for the Top 10 when it comes out next month.

If you like the studio version, you should also check out the super-cute acoustic version on SBTV, where Wretch can't hide his ever-increasing smile.




4) Florrie - Live A Little
Florrie is a graduate of songwriting powerhouse Xenomania, who played drums on Girls Aloud's The Promise. She's been self-releasing music - tons of it - ever since, to almost universal indifference (except in Spain, where one of her EPs went to number three).

But last year she took a couple of months off, signed to a major label and started work on a proper album. It's not clear whether this new track - a promo for Sony earphones - is part of that project, but it's a real step up from her earlier material - catchy, compact and swollen with attitude. The intro could do with an edit, though.




5) Snoop Lion ft Miley Cyrus - Ashtrays and Heartbreaks
This reggae-tinged new track from the artists formerly known as Snoop Dogg and Hannah Montana is simultaneously better and worse than you'd expect. With time, I think it'll become a guilty pleasure. Or maybe we'll pretend it never happened. History, as always, will be the judge.





6) Tussilago - Farewell
This is new from Lykke Li's little brother. Like Sigur Ros without the histrionics, it'll sound amazing with a cup of cocoa.




7) Rudimental ft Ella Eyre - Waiting All Night
All of Rudimental's videos seem to come with the tag "The following events are based on a true story". They're like the Channel 5 of riotous dance music.

Last time, we followed the career of B-Boy Mouse, who rose from the slums to become a dance champion. For the new single, Waiting All Night, the video chronicles the life and rehabilitation of BMX champion Kurt Yaeger, who lost a limb after a motorcycle collision in 2006. It's both thrilling and uplifting - if you only watch one video on this page, make it this one.

And that's your lot. Normal service will be resumed next week.

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Lykke Li gets deported

She may be a gloomy old sod, but we love Lykke Li and her tearsome brand of sadpop. The Swedish star is in between albums right now, but she popped up on Facebook yesterday to post a new track - recorded with sibling pop group Deportees.

A New Name To Go By is a twilight lullaby, where Lykke Li's layered vocals swirl around a drowsy steel drum loop. If this was the 80s, she'd perform it on Top Of The Pops in a sea of dry ice while two backing dancers rotated slowly behind her in white silk sheets.

But it's not the 80s. So here is a Soundcloud link. How disappointing.

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Discopop Directory Top 10 albums of 2011

Let's get this out of the way now: PJ Harvey does not feature in this Top 10 (which is actually a top 11, because I miscounted). Let England Shake topped everyone else's polls and is, on an intellectual level, a brilliant treatise on war and history. But I never woke up singing lyrics like "What if I take my problems to the United Nations?".

So these are the albums that embedded earworms in my brain. The ones I cued up on every car journey. The ones I actually listened to...

11) Lady Gaga - Born This Way

On the face of it, Born This Way is a deeply unlovable album. The production is harsh, the artwork is horrible and the tunes simply aren't there. But if you carefully select the highlights (Edge Of Glory's sax solo, Sheiße's pomposity-pricking humour and the title track's towering chorus) it's a hell of a lot of fun.


10) The Pierces - You & I

The cover of The Pierces' fourth album is designed to look like an care-worn old record, with a ghostly imprint of the vinyl visible on the sleeve. The music is a similarly faithful recreation of a bygone era - lush with harmony and classic, timeless melodies. When the polished perfection threatens to become too winsome, the band flash a glimpse of their darker side, as on the possessive growl of Love You More. Tailor-made for radio, this didn't do as well as it deserved.


9) Katy B - On A Mission

Kathleen Brien wrote songs about going to the club, her plans to go to the club, picking up boys at the club and the aftermath of having been to the club. Thankfully, it wasn't as soul-sappingly tedious as that sounds. A night out with Ms B sounds thrilling and magical, everyone clamouring for one more dance before catching the night bus home. One reviewer described On A Mission as "a glowstick Alice in Wonderland" and, frankly, I can't do better than that.


8) Noah And The Whale - Last Night On Earth

A big old FM rock album, directly inspired by Tom Petty, with choruses bigger than mountains. It's almost as if Noah and the Whale were bored of pining after Laura Marling and wanted to have some fun...


7) Beyoncé - 4

"Apparently", Beyoncé is a secret math nerd. Her album was called 4, it featured one song called 1+1 and another, Countdown, which was a tribute to Carol Vorderman's mental arithmetic skills [subs - please check].

Less edgy than her previous albums, 4 is steeped in classic soul - from the Randy Crawford-isms of Love On Top, to the Purple Rain grandstanding of 1+1's guitar solo. It all adds up (ha!) to become Beyoncé's most consistent album to date, even though it was apparently sequenced by a monkey stabbing pins into a dartboard.

6) Foster The People - Torches

You might have noticed that this top 10 is a bit oestrogen-y. Well, this is the antidote: A trio of California dudes who aren't shy of a pop hook. They may have been fêted by the indie kids because of their disturbing lyrics and quirky production techniques (he's singing through a megaphone, LOL) - but Foster The People were as shamelessly mainstream as Russell Grant being fired out of a cannon.

5) Metronomy - The English Riviera

The English Riviera opens with the sound of seagulls and a string quartet and ends with a woozy techno ode to Jill Scott. In between, it references Serge Gainsbourg, Ace Of Bass and end-of-pier Wurlitzers. It sounds bonkers - it is bonkers - but it's also a superbly-crafted record, with more musical twists and turns than a bowl of spaghetti.

4) Lykke Li - Wounded Rhymes

She's a cheery sort, Lykke Li, declaring "sadness is my boyfriend" and singing wistfully of being "kicked 'til I drown". You have to hope she's seeking professional help... but would a happy, well-adjusted Lykke Li make music as mesmerising as this? From the depraved sexual pounding of Get Some, to the echo-drenched Sadness Is A Blessing, this is the most exciting album about loneliness and depression ever made.

3) Florence and the Machine - Ceremonials

Listening to Florence and the Machine is a bit like standing in a wind tunnel full of kettles - invigorating but painful. Once you get past the bluster and chaos of this over-produced album, however, you might notice that it's rammed full of tunes. Shake It Out is the best song about a horse since Father Ted, while Spectrum showcases Florence's surprisingly versatile vocal range. If there had been a few extra moments of levity - like the frothy Breaking Down - this would have been a contender for number one.

2) Nicola Roberts - Cinderella's Eyes

"I had to call the fireman, my hair was burning bridges.
I'm shooting bullets from my chest. I'm Superwoman, bitches.
And if my balls of steel have got stuck half-way down your pipe,
I brought some KY, time to open, open, open wide."

Dear all other pop stars, you have been served your notice.

Nicola Roberts - Gladiator



1) Adele - 21

Yes, that's right: It's a team ginger triumph in the top three...

She turned up out of the blue, univited, and conquered the planet. 21 is not cool, it is not original, it is not remotely contemporary - but Adele Laurie Blue Adkins' 11 tales of heartbreak, revenge, and more heartbreak and revenge touched millions. It's inspired by soul, gospel and country, but the album is defined by that voice. Adele has a clarity of tone so pure you suspect that, somewhere in the fiery depths of hell, the devil has a tiny leather box with her soul in it. Good album, though.

Adele - Set Fire To The Rain

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Discopop Directory top 10 singles of 2011

It's that time of year again... As usual, the top 10 is dictated by my iTunes play count so I can't pretend I was cool and listening to Gil Scott-Heron all year, because I wasn't. It was this instead.

10)Nicola Roberts - Beat Of My Drum

One thing we learned this year is that, if you want the lead single from your album to be a gargantuan chart hit, you shouldn't get Diplo to produce it. Beyoncé flopped with Run The World (Girls), but turned things around with her mega-spectacular Glastonbury performance. Nicola Roberts had to make do with T4 On The Beach - where someone hit her on the head with a beach ball. Poor Nicola





9) Britney Spears - 'Til The World Ends

In which the lyrics of an REM song were set to the refrain of Baltimore's Tarzan Boy. Apocalypse Wow.





8) Adele - Someone Like You

A lady, a piano, a broken heart, a televised tear, a sales phenomenon, a modern classic. Of all the songs in the top 10, Someone Like You has the most passionate, believable vocal. Why isn't it higher? Because I can't shake the feeling that the key line: "I had hoped you'd see my face and that you'd be reminded that for me it isn't over" simply doesn't scan.





7) Chase & Status ft Liam Bailey - Blind Faith

You simply can't go wrong by sampling Loleatta Holloway's Love Sensation and, in the year that she died, Chase And Status brought her disco classic bang up to date. Liam Bailey must have two-ton balls of steel, though. A total newcomer, he does all the vocal heavy lifting, ramping up the tension in the bridge so that Holloway's lines work as a pressure-release, arms-in-the-sky, hugging-complete-strangers moment. An absolute corker.





6)The Pierces - Glorious

I'm a sucker for a sun-kissed harmony, and this song is buckling under the weight of them. The middle 8 section - "I felt his hand today / Across my shoulder, I kneeled down to pray" - where the Pierce sisters go all coquettish and ethereal makes my spine tingle. A vain attempt to work out the intricacies of their pitching is what propelled this song into the top 10.

But I hadn't realised until recently that Glorious is a cover of an obscure 2007 single by US band The Levy. The original is a bit mopey, this is almost perfect.





5)SBTRKT ft Little Dragon - Wildfire

If Wildfire doesn't make your bottom move, then your bottom is malfunctioning.





4) Metronomy - The Bay

I swear that The Bay's synth riff intro is a tribute to Abba's Money Money Money (distressingly, if you type Money Money Money into YouTube, the second result is Jessie J's Price Tag, a song that wasn't even within sniffing distance of this list).

The track is probably the most explicit of the "I LOVE TORQUAY" songs on Metronomy's album about how much they love Torquay, which is really quite a lot. Crammed full of hooks and a strutting, sinewy bassline, it was also the best single they released in 2011. Even the remixes were superb: In particular Erol Alkan's extended version and the Cloud Control reworking, which took Joseph Mount's London-Paris-Tokyo lyrics and turned them into an existential techno travel advert.

The video, the band admitted, was a parody of Will Smith's Miami, filmed in England's sunny Torbay. Is there anything about this song that isn't incredible?





3) Lana Del Rey - Video Games

Gloomy and sexy like a David Lynch film, this song is simply beautiful.





2) Lykke Li - Sadness Is A Blessing

Gloomy and sexy like a David Lynch film, this song is simply beautiful.





1) Adele - Rolling In The Deep

Adele's producer Paul Epworth was interviewed on posh-nobs radio show Front Row last week, and talked about the making of Rolling In The Deep... Adele came to him with the opening line "There's a fire, starting in my heart" and they knocked out the song in an afternoon. It's an amazing piece of work - at once elemental, powerful and vulnerable.

Epworth deserves as much credit as Adele. There's a breath-stopping moment in the interview where he picks up the guitar he used on the track and chops out those muted opening chords. Even on a tinny broadcast microphone, it sounds almost like the recorded version, which goes to show how simple and clean his recordings are. Adele's writing and singing on 21 is fantastic, but its the production makes them leap out of your speakers like a panther. A big ginger panther with a filthy laugh. Song of the year.



Honourable mentions (aka "why didn't I listen to this as much as I thought I did?"): Robyn - Call Your Girlfriend / Florence & The Machine - Shake It Out / Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers / Michael Kiwanuka - Tell Me A Tale / Ronika - Forget Yourself / Kanye West - All The Lights / Emeli Sandé - Heaven / Beyoncé - 1+1 / Aloe Blacc - I Need A Dollar / Sleigh Bells - Rill Rill / Rizzle Kicks - Down With The Trumpets / Foster The People - Call It What You Want / Bombay Bicycle Club - Shuffle

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Lykke Li - Jerome (video)

We've been watching Danish crime drama The Killing over the last couple of weeks. A 20-part series, focussing on a solitary murder investigation, it's both gripping and macabre. But we tend to spoil the lugubrious tension by shouting "turn the fucking lights on" at the TV every five minutes. Even the daytime scenes are shot in locations where, seemingly, light cannot penetrate. On the odd occasion chief inspector Sarah Lund finds herself in a room with a window, the set designers have covered it up with newspaper. On the plus side, the dark, shadowy setting makes it really easy to read the subtitles.

I'm beginning to think this aversion to daylight might be some sort of Scandanavian affliction. Here's the latest video from Lykke Li - an acoustic take of album track Jerome, shot in black and white in a room with no discernible illumination. Oddly unsettling.

Lykke Li - Jerome

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Distressing images from Lykke Li

Poor old Lykke Li isn't having a great time of it.

Last week, she cancelled concerts and radio appearances after throwing her back out. A posting on her official blog yesterday revealed she'd had some sort of raspberry-related panic attack in the Glasgow branch of Marks and Spencer (which begs the question: why don't gorgeous Scandinavian alt-pop stars shop in my local branch of M&S? I'd be perfectly happy to help out when they spill their raspberries.)

Perhaps the strain of touring the country and repeatedly singing about the bleak dissolution of her last relationship is starting to take a mental toll on Lykke Li? It's a theory backed up by the, frankly upsetting, video for her new single Sadness Is A Blessing, in which she has some sort of "episode" in a posh restaurant.

The singer introduced the video on her website with a short poem.

Father,
I know I Broke
Your heart, it was never
My intention, all I
Ever wanted was to
Dance...

Yikes.


Lykke Li - Sadness Is A Blessing


In happier news, Lykke was off her sick bed on Tuesday night to record a few tracks for Jools Holland. They'll be shown on BBC Two tomorrow night - and this lithsome version of Get Some went out on Tuesday's live show.


Lykke Li - Get Some (Live)

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Lykke Li is sad :(

The beautiful Lykke Li was on 6 Music this morning doing a few tracks on Huey Morgan's show. One of them was a new track, Sadness Is A Blessing, from her imminent second album Wounded Rhymes.

Five word review: This song will cause tears.

It would be improper of me to post the song here, because of that pesky copyright law thing, but here's a YouTube clip of it from last year.



And you can listen back to her performance on 6 Music by clicking this link (expires on 23rd Feb).

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Lykke Li's new video, a scholarly analysis

Hello Lykke Li, and thank you for submitting your new video I Follow Rivers to Youtube. We have some feedback that you may be interested in.

PROS
:: The song is excellent. Congratulations.
:: Is that a djembe you're playing in the verses? We love a djembe, you see.
:: You look like Michelle Pfeiffer in Witches Of Eastwick. "Mi" and, indeed, "aow".

CONS
:: The two-minute wait for the chorus. That's an eternity on radio.
:: Put your shoes back on. You'll catch a chill.
:: It's all a bit Seventh Seal, isn't it?
:: You're going to get a rash if you keep snogging that beardy man so vigorously.

Thank you for time.

Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers


PS: If you enjoyed that, there is also a fantastic remix by indie lynchpin Dave Sitek. It sounds a little something like this.

Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers (Dave Sitek Remix) by LykkeLi

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Superlative "indie pop"

Today's featured tracks, from Lykke Li and Foster The People keep getting described as "indie pop" or "alternative pop". This seems to be hipster code for "songs with big choruses that it's ok to like without being laughed out of the common room". Previous exponents of the genre include MGMT and Peter, Bjorn and John.

I hate this sort of pseudo-scientific categorisation of music into cool and uncool. It's the sort of approach that explains why rock music has just suffered its worst year on the top 40 since 1960. The Beatles, The Kinks, The Smiths, Oasis, Blur - none of them were afraid of a gallumphing great hook. Even venerable indie band template The Velvet Underground had their sights set on the charts (it's just that their aim was a bit wonky).

Looking cool is no subsitute for a great tune. The Kings Of Leon admitted as much recently, when Caleb said the band had nearly erased Use Somebody after realising the chord progression was the same as Joe Cocker's Up Where We Belong. Eventually, they decided the song was too good to lose and - hey presto! - world domination.

In their defence, the current crop of rock bands are probably a direct reaction to the cheeky chappy indie landfill "scene" of 2005-8. No-one wants to be the next Scouting For Girls (and I don't know many people who'd volunteer to be the first). But with new records on the horizon from Franz Ferdinand and the Arctic Monkeys, I'm sure rock will sort itself out by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, we have two new singles to discuss, regardless of their classification.

Swedish popstrudel Lykke Li previews her second album, Wounded Rhymes, with the excellent I Follow Rivers. Already available on iTunes in some countries, it ramps up the percussion of the lascivious Get Some, released as a free download last year. It also adds MASSIVE HANDCLAPS. Have I mentioned before that every song in the history of song would benefit from massive handclaps? Even Candle In The Wind.

Lykke Li - I Follow Rivers


Next we have Foster The People, a quartet from LA who impressed us last year with their catchy summer groove Pumped Up Kicks. This new single, Helena Beat, has a similarly carefree chorus, aligned to a sinister lyric about drinking poison. You may be surprised to learn that the vocals are sung by a man. Do they put oestrogen in California's water supply, or what?

Helena Beat // Foster The People

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Curricular activities

Sometimes, my job is just too good to be true. In the last week, I've interviewed three of my favourite singers - Alison Goldfrapp, Nelly Furtado and Lykke Li. Although I'm the world's worst inquisitor, asking banal questions that drag on for minutes at a time, all three were polite and professional enough to provide interesting answers.

First up, here's Ms Goldfrapp, talking about the band's recent tour and why she and Will Gregory let their deal with EMI Records lapse.



The Nelly Furtado interview went up on the BBC News Website today. It's probably the one I'm most proud of - because it took a simple idea (tell me about the songs on your greatest hits album) and provoked half-an-hour of thoughtful reminiscing from the artist. It wasn't supposed to, but that's what happened. You can click this link to read it. Or you can just look at this picture of Nelly Furtado's midriff instead.


Finally we come to Lykke Li, who was an absolute sweetheart, wrapped up against the biting London chill in what can only be described as a leather duffel coat. The interview won't be broadcast for a couple of weeks - but here's a sneak preview, where she talks about her plans to bring a huge percussion section on the road with her next year.


If you want to hear more from Lykke, she was on 6 Music's Nemone show earlier today, where she revealed her new album will be called Wounded Rhymes. The listen again page is here, and Lykke appears about 95 minutes into the programme.

And here ends the biggest name-dropping session of all time.

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"My honey loving arms"

Hello the internet. I have been rather busy today cutting all the swearing and innuendo out of an interview with Alison Goldfrapp. For example:



In the meantime, Lykke Li uploaded the video for Get Some to Youtube (Youtube). It's not as smutty as Alison Goldfrapp, but it's still rather suggestive. I haven't seen an outfit with this many cock rings sewn into it since that Janet Jackson video with Busta Rhymes 11 years ago.

...Er, except for that one time I "accidentally" mistyped the title of a movie into my Lovefilm wanted list. For the record, I give Schindler's Fist three out of 10.

Lykke Li - Get Some

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Gig review: Lykke Li in Heaven

Swedish wonderkid Lykke Li had several potential hit singles on her quirky debut album, Youth Novels. Commercial and cool at the same time, her songs would have worked just as well on Top 40 radio as they did amidst the doomy emo of the Twilight soundtrack, which featured her spooksome ballad Possibility. But the singer's slow-burning, word-of-mouth success largely ruled her out of the pop charts - something she intends to rectify with her next record.

Li popped up in London's Heaven nightclub last night to road-test some of her new material. It largely fell into two categories: Scorching, percussive chants (such as her latest single Get Some) and, somewhat unexpectedly, big country ballads. One of them was even called Jerome.

The 24-year-old's fluttering, faltering vocals actually lent a huge emotional heft to the Nashville numbers. Take the encore, a drunken waltz with the heartrending chorus: "Once again, it's happening / All my love is unrequited". When Li held her palms out to the audience and sighed: "It's really true", I actually heard hearts melt.

The lyrical theme of love lost was echoed on the Phil Spector-ish Sadness Is A Blessing, and a tender, acoustic cover of The Big Pink's Velvet - but it wasn't all doom and gloom.

Any time there was a chance to pound a drum or thrash a tambourine to within an inch of its life, Li was there, weilding a bloody great big stick. Even the weedier songs from Youth Novels - Dance, Dance, Dance, for example - were given a muscular, percussive makeover. And new tracks like Rich Kid Blues have been expressly built around the rumbling, primal rhythms of an Amazonian tribe offering a human sacrifice to the volcano gods.

Li's vocals aren't the strongest in the pop pantheon. Dannii Minogue might describe the singing as " occasionally pitchy". Or, in other words, flat. But I didn't care. I'd rather watch an imperfect performance by an impassioned, flawed vocalist than a hundred X Factor bland-o-ballads. It may also have helped that Li, dressed in a Dracula cape with her Rapunzel hair tied up in bunches, was a surprisingly supple mover. A Sexy Feline Machine, as Basement Jaxx once put it.

As with any gig largely based on unheard material, the audience's attention wavered occasionally. I'd say the uptempo tracks fared better, but I was more drawn in by the lovelorn ballads. It'll be interesting to see which of the tracks make the cut when she releases her album next year.

(Yes, that is a Fugees cover in the middle of the serlist)

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Lykke Li-bido

According to The Independent, Lykke Li is the most-blogged about artist of the last 24 hours, so you're probably already aware of the free download on her website. But seeing as it's fantastic, I'm going to add my voice to the chorus of approval.

The two-track EP is a teaser for the Swede's new album, which is due out next year. Judging by the lead track, Get Some, she's become a filthy saucebucket since we last heard from her. Instead of the breathy love songs of Youth Novels, Lykke is instructing a man to take off his pants while declaring "I'm a prostitue, you're gonna get some" over a lusty, tribal drumbeat.

Well I never.

Lykke Li - Get Some

You can download the track and the slightly more sedate b-side, Paris Blue, by signing up for the mailing list on Lykke Li's official website.

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New discovery: Sarah Blasko

Do you like that Lykke Li? Australian musican Sarah Blasko does. She likes her so much that, when she had written enough songs for her third album, she phoned up Lykke Li's producer and asked him to rub his magic fingers all over her mixing desk.

He said "yes", and the rest is a happy, haunting, fragile, sexy, smoky, jazzy, acousticy(?), hummable history.

Sarah called the record Day Follows Night (we've checked, and she's right about this) and it became a critical and commercial hit in her home country.

Buoyed by that success, she's paying a visit to Britain, which she wants to break. Not in the boring political "family values are disappearing and immigration is destroying our culture" way, but in the exciting "having a hit single and playing a concert and maybe one day meeting Miquita Oliver" way.

"I’ve wanted to have my music out here for a long time," she says in a press release. "I’ve always known it was possible, but I’m a big believer in things happening at the right time. With this album, everything seems to have slotted in to place and the timing feels perfect."

With that in mind, Sarah is doing a small gig in former Soho strip club Madame JoJo's next Monday, and releasing her single, We Won't Run, on March 22nd.

I actually prefer one of the singles that came out last year in Australia, No Turning Back, which has a charming Mr Benn-style felt-tip video - so here are both to whet your appetite.

Sarah Blasko - We Won't Run


Sarah Blasko - No Turning Back

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A whole bunch of stuff from the web

Hello and welcome to Monday! There's a few things to get excited about today, so here they are in a time-saving handy list.

:: Kanye West + Santigold + Lykke Li have an amazing song called Gifted, which they recorded with uber-producers N.A.S.A. We mentioned it before. They've done a video now, but Kanye, Santi and Lykke must have been "in bed" when the director called, as they are completely absent. Result: Awful animated claptrap.

N.A.S.A. - Gifted

:: One of my favourite music magazines, Blender, has been shut down. The US publication always looked a bit like a jazz mag when it landed on my doorstep, but it always contained a good selection of new bands and waspish commentary alongside the semi-naked pop stars. A couple of the former writers have been lamenting its demise online. Read about it on idolator

:: Here is another Annie single to get excited about before it flops / is cancelled / sets the world on fire (delete as appropriate in eight weeks).

Annie - Anthonio


:: Kate Bush is possibly the last great eccentric British pop star. Need proof? Blogger Rich Juzwiak has gathered an astonishing collection of footage from her music videos and TV appearances - which eventually begs the question: "How on earth did social services allow her to escape into the community?". Click here for the lot, or just marvel at this one...



:: I did my first ever red carpet reporting shift at last night's Empire Awards. It was utterly terrifying - from the moment they pushed a completely unknown extra from RockNRolla into my face and expected me to have an intelligent question to ask ("who are you... er, ah, looking forward to meeting" was my best effort) to the end of the night when we were drawing straws to decide who would get to ask Guy Ritchie about Madonna's new baby (luckily, he bailed). Anyway, Empire Magazine were so impressed with my efforts that they put up a picture of me "interviewing" (staring at the magnificent cleavage of) Helena Bonham Carter.

:: Akon and Cassie have teamed up for a new song, Let's Go Crazy, produced by Red One - the team Lady GaGa references at the start of Just Dance. If there is a God, he will ensure a Freemasons remix of this.

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