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

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

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



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



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

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

— Jessie Ware (@Jessie_Ware) July 10, 2013

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


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



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


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

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Two videos, two budgets, two outcomes

There's a temptation at the minute to feed all music writing through some sort of Michael Jackson filter - and I am about to succumb to it like a nymphomaniac in a massage parlour.

Despite what you think of the final years of bloated self-glorification, Jackson was a visionary artist in the way he married music and visuals, and essentially invented the modern music video.

This was both a blessing and a curse. The Thriller video was such an landmark that it was released as a standalone VHS tape (in the days before MTV, we used to rent it out every six months or so). But, while it was genuinely revolutionary and exciting, it also encouraged the record industry to view music as a commodity - which is the ultimate root of all the buisness's current problems.

Nowadays, a big-budget video is de rigeur if you want to announce your arrival as an "important" artist. It tells the programmers at Radio 1 and MTV to sit up and take notice. And it makes us, the consumers fans, feel good for supporting a shiny, attractive brand pop phenomenon.

What everyone seems to have missed is that the budget doesn't matter. Jackson's biggest video moments were, largely, about his genius as a performer. The bit everyone remembers in Thriller is one long, 40-second, single camera, locked-off shot of the choreography. Scream may be the most expensive video ever made at £7m, but the best moment is simplicity itself - the two Jackson siblings dancing in perfect unison (Janet is better, by the way. Mike lacks her fluidity by this point, his moves an exaggerated parody of that early nimble genuis).



The shopping list of megastar video must-haves - multiple sets, grand locations, designer clothes, designer sunglasses, pyrotechnics, CGI sequences - are essentially crutches. They can prop up a weak performer, but they're no subsitute for charisma and talent. That's why Beyoncé's ultra-cheap Single Ladies video became a cultural phenomenon, while the Black Eyed Peas frenzied CGI-fest on Boom Boom Pow is just so much fodder for MTV Hits.

Which, in an extremely roundabout way, brings me to the two videos at the bottom of this post, which serve as a miniature example of all that's been said above.

The first, for Mr Hudson's excellent Supernova single, is high on production values but ultimately soulless and throwaway. The second, by French DJ Martin Solveig and Dragonette, is charmingly camp and endlessly watchable, despite its obvious budgetary limitations (Jean Paul Gaultier costumes not withstanding) and a so-so song.

Neither is going to topple Jackson from iTunes video chart any time soon, but at least one of them has been paying attention to his legacy.

Mr Hudson ft Kanye West - Supernova

Martin Solveig & Dragonette - Boys and Girls

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New music: Mr Hudson - Supernova.

When we last saw Mr Hudson, he was writing sepia-tinged musical postcards about suburban British life. Songs like Picture Of You and Ask The DJ marked him out as a talented singer-songwriter in the vein of Aqualung.

But then, somehow, Kanye West "discovered" him and has groomed him into being a 21st Century robot superstar. Out goes the band's idiosyncratic "and the library" suffix, in comes autotune and bling.

It should be a recipe for disaster, a hideous clash of brash American braggadocio and subtle British sensitivity, but Kanye proved on 808s and Heartbreaks that he has a cuddly, sensitive side - and, it turns out, a lot of that was down to Ben Hudson's influence.

"I thought he had a great voice and his melodies. He just had a cool sensibility for hip-hop," West told Zane Lowe last night.

On Mr Hudson's new single, Supernova, West returns the favour - giving some much-needed oomph to the plaintive warbling. "It’s kick them in the nuts time," he jokes. He's not wrong. The song is huge.

Have a listen to the whole thing on the BBC iPlayer or check out this clip. Stick around to the very end. It just gets better and better.

The song is taken from Mr Hudson's second album, Straight No Chaser, which is out in August. Until then, there's a free mixtape up on his official website.

Update: Kanye West just posted a free MP3 of the song on his blog. How generous.

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