Katy Perry - Bon Appetit (Muna Remix)

Not so much a remix as an entirely new Muna song with Katy Perry on vocals.

10/10 everyone.

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Here is a remix of Chained To The Rhythm

Ever wanted to hear Katy Perry's Chained To The Rhythm slowed down with a drowsy, vocodered rap "section". Well, you're in luck because Lil Yachty and Lil Boat (but, sadly, not Lil Dinghy or Lil Canoe) have made a remix for you.

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Songs you may have missed: Mini midweek edition

Here's a round-up of some of the better tracks you / I may have overlooked recently.

1) Beck - Wow
Sadly not a cover of the Kylie "classic", but very good nonetheless.




2) Years & Years - Meteorite
I'm including this single, taken from the Bridget Jones soundtrack, mainly (but not solely) because of Olly's quote on the press release:

"If there's anyone I'd like to be it's Bridget - a wanton sex goddess with a very bad man between her thighs."




3) LOOP - Losing My Mind
Very, very accessible pop from this London newcomer, who rather brilliantly stylises her name as "L∞P".






4) Tove Lo - Under The Influence (ft Wiz Khalifa)
The opening track from Tove Lo's second album, Lady Wood, is a textbook subtlebanger. Gone are Tove's sweeping dramatics, in comes a smooth and sleek house beat. Is this a good thing? I'll get back to you.




5) CAPPA - Next Ex
A song that wouldn't feel out of place on Carly Rae Jepsen's Emotions B Side album. Yes, it is that good.





6) Christine and the Queens - Sorry (Beyonce cover)
One of the absolute highlights of Radio 1's Live Lounge month.




7) Robyn - Dancing On My Own (Paul Andrews Streetlight Mix)
Calum Scott's miserable cover of Dancing On My Own is proof you can't destroy a good melody. But what if you took that melody and put it over the backing track to Journey's Don't Stop Believing? It would become invincible, that's what.

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Good Times with Jamie xx

I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times) is one of the more surprising tracks on Jamie xx's solo album, In Colour. Featuring US rapper Young Thug and Jamaican dancehall artist Popcaan, it feels like a contemporary, if laid back, hip-hop track compared to the soulful nostalgia that permeates the rest of the record.

That's not a criticism, though. The song is a joyous, arms-aloft tribute to US rap; which originated during The xx's residency at the Armory in New York in late 2013. As Jamie told Grantland, it was inspired by his nightly drive over the bridge to Manhattan, when he’d listen to cutting-edge radio station Hot 97. Eventually, he decided to make a rap track of his own. One that would fit seamlessly on US hip-hop radio.

He quickly whizzed up a backing track, sampling The Persuasions' Good Times. Then he started scouting for rappers to contribute on the track. Many tried, but only two made the final cut, Jamie explained to Annie Mac.

"They both really liked the track when I sent it to them - and they sent it back within days, which was very suprising. I'd been working on the track for such a long time, and listening to lots of people do their versions. But when I got that one, I knew it was the one."

Here it is then, with a colourful video courtesy of Rollo Jackson (Angel Haze, Chase and Status, et al).


There's also a fantastic Skepta remix of the song, which premiered last night. Here it is.

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Good song updates, pts I, II & III

Pt I - I Bet

Ciara has released a proper video for her superlative R&B jam, I Bet - which is essentially a protracted "fuck you" to her former flame, Future ("I bet you start loving me when I find someone better than you," she scolds).

The clip starts off with the "Goodies" hitmaker pretending to be a music box ballerina (albeit one doing some very questionable robot dancing). But, before long, she's dressed in a figure-hugging leotard, showing off the sort of sensual moves that got her previous videos banned in the States. It all ends with that shot you see above, making the video an even more stinging rebuke than the song itself.

(You should also check out the acoustic version I wrote about last month).
Ciara - I Bet



Pt II - Froot

The title track of Marina & The Diamonds' imminent album has been given a shimmering seeing-to by New York hipsters St Lucia.

It's more strident and immediate than the original, teasing out some of Marina's ad libs for an extended, bubbling coda.

Nice work.






Pt III - Uptown Funk

Multi-headed funk beast Jungle stopped by Radio 1 to perform this cover of Bruno / Ronson's inescapable chart smash earlier today.

How they crammed all those people into the station's tiny Live Lounge cupboard is a mystery - but it's great to hear the song performed with a full, live brass section.

And stick around for the fantastic break at 4'20"

Jungle - Uptown Funk

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Monsieur Adi remixes Lana Del Rey's Brooklyn Baby

And the results are spectacular.

That is all.

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Jax Jones + Janet Jackson = Jubilaton

Go Deep is not one of the best-loved singles from Janet Jackson's vast back catalogue - in fact, it was a zero-score answer in the final round of Pointless a fortnight ago - but it is something of a corker. A flirty, flyweight funk track that makes ample use of the Flexatone (a percussion instrument more frequently employed to make the oooooh, spooky sound effect on Playschool).

Janet Jackson - Go Deep

The song stalled at number 13 back in 1998, but it must have made an impression on a young Jax Jones who has reswizzled Go Deep for his debut single, also called Go Deep. The dance remake re-contextualises Janet's vocals over a dark house beat, in a much the same way that Duke Dumont reworked Whitney's My Love Is Your Love earlier this year.

Not coincidentally, Jax Jones was a featured artist on that single, too. So Jax, if you're reading, can you do Toni Braxton's He Wasn't Man Enough next? Thanks.


PS: As something of a Janet remix afficionado, I wonder if Jax Jones ever heard the Masters At Work versions of Go Deep? They took a broadly similar approach to her vocals over a nine-minute, saxophone-fuelled late-night jam. It's quite something.

Janet Jackson - Go Deep (Thunder Mix)

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Kiesza dances with Chewbacca, and nine other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular series, rounding up the most interesting and striking new songs, videos and remixes doing the rounds on the internet. This week's top 10 are:

1) Kiesza - Hideaway (live on the street)
This sequence, filmed live for the Jimmy Kimmel show, is a masterpiece of choreography - both in the dancing and the camerawork. I wonder if the Chewbacca moment was planned?




2) Nicki Minaj - Anaconda
Fans of buttocks rejoice. Not only has Nicki Minaj sampled Sir-Mix-A-Lot's Baby Got Back, but she has posed for the artwork in the popular supermodel pose: "doing a poo".



3) Sir-Mix-A-Lot - Baby Got Back (with the Seattle Symphony)
Speaking of Baby Got Back, here's a surprisingly funky orchestral version. Kudos to the bespectacled dancer. She's clearly been waiting for this moment all her life.



4) Katy Perry - This Is How We Do
Nice video, shame about the song.



5) Katy Perry - Roar (at the White House)
This, on the other hand, is lovely: A stripped-down, semi-acoustic version of Roar, performed during a Special Olympics reception at the White House.

"I love Katy Perry," said President Obama, introducing the pop star on stage. "She is just a wonderful person. I just met her mom, now I know why she's such a wonderful person."

Oh, get a room you two.



6) Tove Styrke - Even If I'm Loud... (White Sea Remix)
The jitterbug groove of Tove Styrke's comeback single is currently my default "blast the speakers" song in the car, but this remix throws the pop hooks into a cinematic abyss. Unsettling but wonderful.




7) Stevie Nicks - The Dealer
Not quite a new song from Stevie Nicks - this was originally written for Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album in 1979, and a demo version has surfaced on bootlegs for a number of years.

In fact, it was those bootlegs that inspired Nicks to polish off the song and re-record it with Dave Stewart (urgh) for a new album, 24 Karat Gold — Songs From the Vault, featuring a ton of "lost tracks" from her recording career.



8) Ben Howard - End Of The Affair
How do you announce your comeback after your debut won two Brits and a Mercury Prize nomination? Why, with a pensive eight-minute ballad that frequently lapses into complete silence, but ultimately climaxes with two minutes of howling muso nonsense.

Daytime radio gold.



9) Tkay Maidza - Uh-Huh
This technicolor jam from Adelaide's Tkay Maidza isn't the first rap track to reference Chitty Chitty Bang Bang - Fabolous got there first - but it is the best.



10) The Chainsmokers - Kanye (ft Sirens)
After the abomination cultural phenomenon that was #Selfie, The Chainsmokers are back with another zeitgeisty dance track.

This one, at least, has a neat lyrical conceit: "One day I’ll stand with a crown on my head like a god," sings the sweet-voiced Sirens. "I wanna be like Kanye".

Will be inescapable within a week.

That's plenty to be getting on with, I'm sure you'll agree. But if you're hungry for more - check out the links to the rest of this week's posts on the left hand side.

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Sam Smith gets dragged screaming onto the dancefloor

I was sceptical when I heard Sam Smith's latest gospel-tinged weepy I'm Not The Only One was getting a club mix from Armand Van Helden (of Professional Widow fame). But this is brilliant - as Armand chopps and splices Sam's falsetto like a particularly skilled Sushi chef.

If you thought Sam's album was lacking the spark of his Disclosure collaborations, this should redress the balance nicely.

10/10

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Surprise - there's a new Janelle Monae video

It's over a year since Janelle Monae released her fun-packed Electric Lady album, and nine months since she last released a single, so it's a welcome surprise to discover a new video for the title track on her YouTube channel this morning.

Eschewing all the high-concept "fembot revolutionary" shenanigans of her previous videos, this one's just a straight-up technicolor dance clip.

And it's a blast.

Janelle Monawe - Electric Lady

Nice to see the return of the Human Skull Turntable from the Q.U.E.E.N. video, which I would be more than happy to look after once the record label has finished with it.

Oh, and while we're here, here's an all-star remix of the song, featuring Cee-Lo, Solange and Big Boi. Only available on the US deluxe edition of the album, unfortunately.

Janelle Monae - Electric Lady (Dungeon-Wondamix)

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Beyonce goes 50 Shades of Grey and nine other songs you may have missed

It's that time again. Ten songs from the last seven days, all worth a click if you have 30 minutes to spare.

This week's bumper crop includes.

1) Beyonce - Crazy In Love (Fifty Shades version)
For a film about BDSM, the trailer for Fifty Shades of Grey is pretty tame. In fact, Beyonce's throaty,



2) Charli XCX - Boom Clap (live)
HUGE congratulations to Charli XCX, whose new single is number three in the midweek chart, meaning she's all but guaranteed at top 10 hit this Sunday - and about bloody time, too.

I managed to catch her set at Glastonbury earlier this month and it was genuinely one of my highlights - with an all-female band that were essentially a punka-pop Josie and the Pussycats. Here's the proof, via an MTV thingummy.




3) SBTRKT - New Drop, New York
"It's a funny tune in a way, but it's quite exciting," said SBTRKT as he handed Annie Mac his new single for its first ever radio play earlier this week.

Featuring a pitch-shifted Ezra Koenig rapping about gargoyles, it's not exactly your standard pop banger. But it's a superb, dark groove - like an elastic dub reworking Felix Da Housecat's Silver Screen.




4) The Pierces - Ordinary World
Allison and Catherine Pierce have suffered a few delays in the release of their fifth album, Creation. In fact, I interviewed them about it back in March, when it was due in June... but now it's been pushed back to September.

The band have been filling the spare time by learning a few cover versions. You can hear them doing Lorde's Team by pressing this blue text, but I prefer this acoustic rendering of Duran Duran's Ordinary World. Such exquisite harmonies.




5) SVE - Riot
Unsigned Brooklyn artist SVE somehow manages to turn Riot into a seven-syllable word in the chorus to this moody synthpop masterpiece. Expect a record contract to be waved in her face any second now...





6) Teleman - Skeleton Dance
Scrummy retro indie janglefest. That is all.




7) Clear Soul Forces - Solar Heat
When Radio 1's head of music posts a song on twitter and asks "Future of hip hop?" you can guarantee you'll be hearing more from the band in question.

In this case, it's Detroit quartet Clear Soul Forces, who style themselves as "the answer to everything that you ever questioned about hip hop". In other words, they're a jazzy antidote to the aggressive posturing of 21st Century rap - and an obvious throwback to the jazzy grooves of the Jungle Brothers, Stetsasonic and Tribe Called Quest.




8) Katy Perry - This Is How We Do (lyric video)
Inventive lyric video for below par album track.




9) Royal Blood - Figure It Out
A terrific video, despite the unnecessary red/blue filter stuff. Really looking forward to Royal Blood's debut album in three weeks' time.




10) Janet Jackson - Escapade (remix by Nick*)
It's 25 years since Janet released this song - inspired equally by Nowhere To Run and Raspberry Beret, but sounding like neither.

Still one of the best summer anthems ever committed to tape, this bleepy-bloopy remix should be played loud in the park to annoy sunbathers.

And that, as they say, is a wrap. Have a smashing weekend.

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Jessie Ware and Haim get the remix treatment

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

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



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

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


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

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Remix ahoy: Coldplay's Sky Full of Stars

It's a solid gold fact that Coldplay songs instantly become 20 times better when someone shoves a drum machine, two rave synths and a stick of dynamite up their backside, strikes a match, lights the fuse, retreats to a safe distance, records the results and hands them over to Dave Pearce.

It's another solid gold fact that putting crowd noise underneath a song makes it more exciting by a factor of a million (conservative estimate). The KLF never mentioned it in "The Manual (How To Have A Number One The Easy Way)" but they did it on every single one of their songs. Look at the liner notes to The White Room, and it's right there: They sampled crowd noise from live albums by U2, The Doors and - if you can believe it - Haircut 100. It works. Every time.

So imagine a Coldplay song that's been given an explosive rave enema AND had the sound of an enthusiastic audience slapped all over the top of it. Well, you don't have to imagine it, because someone has done it for you. Here's the Hardwell Remix of Sky Full of Stars:


Disappointingly, this turns out to be a live recording of a DJ playing the song to a crowd of tanked-up holiday revellers. The studio version of the remix is precisely 25% less brilliant, but an improvement on the original, nonetheless.

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Cheryl gets remixed and 10 other songs you may have missed

A round-up of the songs that slipped through the cracks over the last seven days. This week's selection starts right here.

1) Cheryl Cole - Crazy Stupid Love (Handbag House bootleg)
Scottish remixer Iain Macleod, aka Handbag House, was impressively quick off the mark with this one, uploading his remix of Cheryl's comeback single about 15 hours after it got it's first radio play. He hasn't done a bad job, either.

The image at the top of the page, by the way, is from Cheryl's video shoot earlier this week. The promo is due to "hit the streets" (be uploaded by a record label intern) on Monday.




2) Lana Del Rey - Ultraviolence
The Ellie Goulding to Kimye's Wills & Kate, here's Lana Del Rey with the title track to her second album. The usual adjectives apply: haunting, gauzy, hazy, woozy, ethereal, dreamy, etc, etc.





3) OneRepublic - Love Runs Out
"Love Runs Out was originally going to be the first single on our album but I couldn't crack the chorus" Ryan Tedder told me earlier this year. "It gutted me because I had it marked on the board as 'first single' for six months."

It's a good thing he kept working on it, as it would have been a shame to lose this gospel-pop gem.

"I'll be your light, your match, your burning sun," he sings over an insistent piano rhythm, that harks back to Moby's Bessie Wright sampling hit Honey.

4) Ella Eyre - If I Go
Ella's trying out the old Lionel Richie "Dancing On The Ceiling" trick for this video - but she's overlooked one crucial detail. While Lionel had a tightly controlled afro, her shaggy lion's mane always falls in the direction of gravity, giving away the secret of the optical illusion (it's a rotating box).

Amazing song, though. What. A. Voice.




5) Klaxons - Show Me A Miracle
A cross between an ITV Chart Show ident and one of those internet cat videos. In other words, awesome.





6) Sam Smith ft Mary J Blige - Stay With Me
There's a mutual love affair going on here. "Working with Mary J. Blige is one of the biggest highlights of my career so far," said Sam Smith after recording this live band duet.

"I remember holding her album in my hands in the car when I was a young boy. To meet your idols is a magical thing, but to work with them is truly a dream come true."

Blige was no less gushing, saying: "Sam's true soulful voice is the first of this kind I have heard since Luther Vandross, Freddie Jackson and all great soul male voices."

Oh, Get a room, you two.




7) Banks - Drowning
Banks sings her latest ballbreaking R&B ballad in a room full of mirrors. No wonder she's got a tortured mind - it must be a nightmare cleaning off all the fingerprints.

8) Kylie - Sexy Love
I can't really recommend the song, which is so bland and generic it might as well be a Tesco own-brand Rich Tea biscuit. But the video features Kylie doing the hoovering, and you can't argue with that.





9) Jack White - Lazaretto
The blues in black and white.




10) Neon Jungle - Louder
With two bona-fide top 10 hits under their belts, Girlband-with-attitude Neon Jungle have taken the shock decision to release a ballad. "It's still got energy and power," they insist, "but in a more subtle way".




11) The Ting Tings - Wrong Club
No, wait... Come back. This is a return to form, although it never reaches the heady heights of Great DJ or That's Not My Name.

As Fraser McAlpine noted on Twitter, they're up all night to get Lucky-y.

And that's it for another week... Stay tuned for more on Monday.

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M.I.A. remixes Beyonce's ***Flawless

"It's for the women and, of course, Beyoncé," says M.I.A. at the top of this remix, which is more accurately described as an entirely new song "inspired by the characters and events depicted in Beyonce's ***Flawless".

In fact, the sole element M.I.A. has retained is the lyric "I woke up like this", while the latter half of the song samples vocals from Beyonce's inferior song Diva, from 2008.

The whole thing is, of course, a complete racket.



Here's the original, in case you haven't seen it a million times already.

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Songs you may have missed: Ocho de Mayo edition

Here it is, then: A semi-regular round-up of songs that I didn't have space or time (mostly time) to write about over the last seven days. This week's selection includes...

1) Katy Perry - Birthday (Cash Cash remix)
Katy Perry kicked off her world tour in former terrorism hotspot Belfast last night and the setlist, which she posted on Instagram afterwards, looks pretty spectacular. She even includes an acoustic section so you can pop out to the loo without feeling guilty.

The tour helpfully coincides with the promotional "window" for her new single, Birthday, and here is a remix of that single by New Jersey dancemeisters Cash Cash.





2) Kelis - Rumble (live on Conan)
One of my favourite tracks on Kelis's grits-and-beans new album Food, is performed live and gains a saxophone solo. What's not to love?




3) Leon Else - River Full of Liquor
The title makes it sound like an awful US hip-hop track, but this is actually a gorgeous, understated ballad from 24-year-old Londoner Leon Else. With shades of SOHN and Mikky Ekko, this R&B potboiler is the title track of his new EP, which hits the streets in July.





4) The Horrors - So Now You Know
If I didn't know The Breakfast Club soundtrack back to front, I would swear this was on it. From the windswept chorus to Faris Badwan's tiny leather jacket, this is a pair of aviator shades away from being a Simple Minds A-side. And that, in case you're wondering, is a good thing.




5) Sia - Chandelier
A rare instance where the lyric video is preferable to the real thing - this clip for Sia's stunning new single is one of the creepiest things you'll see all month. According to the press release it features "an incredibly compelling dance performance by Maddie Zeigler (age 11) of the Lifetime Television show Dance Moms" (no, me neither).

Accomplished as Maddie undoubtedly is, there's something about the way the video is shot (the lighting? the oversized wig?) that makes it constantly seem on the cusp of turning into The Exorcist's infamous "spider walk" scene.





6) Bronagh & The Boys - Lovefool
Here's one that came into my inbox - from Belfast-born, Glasgow-based singer Bronagh Monaghan and her dismissively-titled band, "The Boys". With support slots for Oh Land, Newton Faulkner and Rae Morris under their belt, they're clearly doing something right - and the proof comes from the lead track on their new EP, Lovefool.

A slow-building jazz-pop number, it sits in a similar orbit to Radio 2 mainstay Caro Emerald. The production is slightly flat - but imagine this re-recorded with Paul Epworth and you can hear the band's undeniable potential.





7) MØ - Slow Love
Swirling, seductive Scandipop courtesy of Denmark's Karen Marie Ørsted. Her fluttering falsetto is what makes this track - but the found footage music video is weirdly hypnotic in its own way.




8) Metronomy - Reservoir
"I heard you made the hull of a boat downtown" is one of the worst opening lyrics of all time, but Metronomy's new single rises above it on a sea of woozy Jean Michelle Jarre synth nonsense. Lovely animated video, too.




9) AG Cook - Keri Baby ft Hannah Diamond
I can't decide if this is unspeakably awful or the future of pop music. It's a kind of glitchy offshoot of j-pop, with a parping tuba and a knowing rap ("I don't want to be an mp3") apparently delivered by a sex-change Speak and Spell. Confusing.





10) Black Keys - Fever
The Black Keys' eighth album Turn Blue is out next week - but you can stream it now over here. A more expansive, psychedelic affair than the power-pop of El Camino, it's a solid 8/10.

The best track is the seemingly throwaway album closer Gotta Getaway ("I went from San Berdoo to Kalamazoo, just to get away from you") - but the current single, Fever, is also a gem. Powered along by a reedy Farsifa organ, the video sees Dan Auerbach sweating buckets as he impersonates a pay-TV Faith Healer.

So there you go: A bumper crop of big tunes. More like this next week...

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Haim go disco and nine other songs you may have missed

The latest in a semi-regular round-up from pop's bargain bins. This week's overlooked classics include:

1) Haim - If I Could Change Your Mind (Cerrone Mix)
A couple of months ago Haim got Giorgio Moroder to remix Forever. Now they've roped in French disco lynchpin Cerrone (the inspiration for Goldfrapp's Supernature) to overhaul If I Could Change Your Mind.

He keeps nothing but the vocals, laying them over a smooth Chic groove, thus transforming Haim into a shaggy-haired Sister Sledge.

Roller skates at the ready...





2) Shakira - Empire
Always at her best when she goes full bananas, Shakira holds nothing back on this furniture-chewing torch ballad. As usual, her metaphors go awry in translation ("And the stars make love to the universe??") but she sings it with such demented conviction you let her get away with it.

If you fancy more Empire, Shakira's performance on last week's The Voice UK was a masterclass in stagecraft.




3) Nick Mulvey - Meet Me There
Until 2011, Nick Mulvey was one of the members of Mercury-nominated jazz outfit Portico Quartet, where he played the Hang, a sort of steel drum invented in Switzerland 13 years ago.

These days, however, he's doing lots of clever, Latin-flecked finger picking on his acoustic guitar. You may have already come across his Jack Johnson-y single Cucurucu, which got to number 26 last year.

Meet Me There is even better - elevated above the usual "wispy boy with a guitar" fare by a beguiling bowed cello counter-melody. You don't get a degree in music from the School of Oriental and African Studies for nothing, you know.






4) Tourist (ft Will Heard) - I Can't Keep Up
Signed to Disclosure's Method Records, Tourist is the alter-ego of DJ William Phillips. Like the Lawrence Brothers, he's been building a profile with a bunch of influential instrumentals, before hiring in a few vocalists to send his career chartwise.

Lifted from his forthcoming Patterns EP (which also features Lianne LaHavas) I Can't Keep Up features the soulful crooning of Ireland's Will Heard, and builds steadily for three minutes before, whoosh, soaring off into the stratosphere.

In the week when Frankie Knuckles sadly passed away, this is just one of a dozen new releases that's utterly indebted to his music.




5) Rita Ora - I Will Never Let You Down (Westfunk mix)
I wasn't sure about Rita Ora's comeback single when it premiered on Monday but, with every listen, it sounds more like a hit. Calvin Harris's production is a little subtle, though, so here's a ridiculous rave remix. Air punch o'clock.






6) Sex On Toast - Hold My Love
Of course there's a band called Sex On Toast, and of course they make retro 80s lurve ballads. This is essentially trying to cover Prince's Scandalous, all slap bass and vocoder solos and sticky-fingered fumbling under your sweater.

At least the band don't take themselves too seriously, as the video demonstrates.




7) Drake - Draft Day
New material from "Drizzy" who's always better when he's rapping. This samples Lauryn Hill's Doo-Wop (That Thing), which should go some way towards paying her legal bills.




8) Chloe Howl - Rumour (acoustic)
Chloe Howl deserves a break. Rumour only got to number 84 when it came out earlier this year - but somehow #Selfie goes Top 10? The world is an unjust place.

Especially when you can make a terrible bit of "online content" work so well in your favour. Would you catch Beyonce delivering a flawless performance on a freezing cold rooftop with her hands shoved in her pockets to avoid chillblains? I think not.



9) Sam Smith - Stay With Me
An acceptable recovery after the godawful Money On My Mind, here is Sam Smith doing what Sam Smith does best - singing a lovelorn ballad with the voice of an angel.

"Hang on," you might say, "Surely warbling over the top of Disclosure songs is what Sam Smith does best?" And you would be right. So here is Sam Smith doing what Sam Smith does second best.




10)How To Dress Well - Repeat Pleasure
With touches of both Janet (breathy falsetto)and Michael Jackson (Human Nature synth line), this is seductive, forward-looking soul from American musician Tom Krell. The comparison isn't completely plucked out of thin air, by the way, he covered Janet's Again last year.

NB: You should stick with this one to the end - it grows and grows like a Wotsit in a glass of water.

The end.

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Songs you may have missed: Two weeks off edition

Hello... and also goodbye. We're heading off for a bit of summer sun, so unfortunately the blog will be out of action for a fortnight. (It's a one man show, and that man is quite tired). However, I have a bountiful spread of pop goodies to sustain you over the next 14 days. Try not to gorge yourself on them all at once.

1) Katy B - Crying For No Reason (live on Graham Norton)
People always get a little anxious when a record is pushed back but - hooray! - Katy B's Little Red is a triumph. (One song in particular, All My Lovin', sounds like it could have come from Neneh Cherry's Raw Like Sushi. It's that good.)

The album arrives on 10th February, so until then, here's a live performance of the current single Crying For No Reason. As Popjustice has already noted, "it's the best chatshow-based single performance in years". Katy doesn't move around much, but her vocals are mesmerising.

And when a song is this good, that's all you need.




2) NONONO - Hungry Eyes
Nonono, the Swedish band who aren't named after a Dawn Penn song, have released Hungry Eyes, a single that isn't named after the Dirty Dancing song. Ah well.




3) Lorde - Team (Panic City Remix)
I didn't think it'd be possible to dance to a Lorde single, unless you count that creepy Poltergeist thing she does on every TV performance. But San Franciscan DJ/Producer Panic City has taken Team's minimal, spidery beat, shot it with a tazer and dragged it onto the dancefloor.

You won't be able to resist (but if you can, could you keep an eye on my coat?)





4) Little Mix - Word Up!
I wrote about this last week when the audio wasn't available. Now the audio is available. Here is the audio.




5) Ibibio Sound Machine - Let's Dance
Mary Anne Hobbs played this on her peerless 6 Music show this weekend (there is literally no better way to wake up on a Saturday morning) and it gave me a greater jolt awake than the hot jug of coffee I was pouring down my throat.

Ibibio Sound Machine are an eight-piece London collective, fronted by British-Nigerian vocalist Eno Williams, who combine elements of West African highlife, disco, post-punk and psychedelic electro soul. This sprawling, funky single is their debut after signing to Soundway Records at the tail end of 2013. It sounds like The Tom Tom Club got swallowed by Botswana, and it is incredible.






6) Jhené Aiko - Bed Peace
2014 is shaping up to be the year R&B came back from the grave, with Solange, Banks, SOHN, Kwabs and Sampha among the artists hailed as saviours of the genre. Now you can add Jhené Aiko to that list, too.

Jhené's USP is her girlish falsetto - all playful and sensual compared to her contemporaries, who wither sound bored, depressed or stoned.

Her Sail Away EP came out last year, but is starting to get some mainstream pick-up (mostly on 1Xtra). The lead track is the woozy, sexy Bed Peace, which features Childish Gambino on co-lead vocals. The video sees them recreate John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "bed-in" protest against the Vietnam War because... oh, I don't know. You work it out.




7) iamamiwhoami - Fountain
I haven't really bought in to the whole iamamiwhoami "thing". The project, created by Swedish singer Jonna Lee, has consistently sent dozens of blogs spiralling into a frothing whirl of delight, mainly because Jonna wouldn't tell them who she was and everyone convinced themselves it was Christina Aguilera for some reason.

Anyway, now that we know it's not Christina Aguilera, the music suddenly seems more focused and tuneful. Fountain is a beautiful, icy pop ballad with a particularly arresting (ie pretentious) video.




8) Prince - U Got The Look
With his tiny royal purpleness making an impromptu visit to Britain on 3rd February, I will be spending my entire holiday listening to Purple Rain and Sign O The Times and Batman (yes, even Batman) and wishing I was back at home.

If you haven't seen him before, sell your kidneys on the black market to get a ticket. Because even when he doesn't play the hits, Prince is still the best performer alive today.

With the set-list changing every night, I really hope he hauls this one out of the vault. U Got The Look is one of the best-constructed pop duets of all time. Try and deny it.

Right, that's it... The out-of-office is on, and the sunglasses are packed.

If you see anything that should go into a "Songs I have missed" round-up when I get back, put the link in the comments, or send me a tweet @mrdiscopop. I'll put the best ones up here on 10th Feb.

Cheers,
mrdiscopop

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Giorgio Moroder remixes Haim's Forever

"I wanted to do a album with the sound of the '50s, the sound of the '60s, of the '70s and then have a sound of the future. And I said, 'Wait a second...I know the synthesizer – why don't I use the synthesizer which is the sound of the future?' And I didn't have any idea what to do, but I knew I needed a click so we put a click on the 24 track which then was synched to the Moog Modular. I knew that it could be a sound of the future but I didn't realise how much the impact it would be." - Giorgio Moroder

"Oh my God, Lionel Richie. I’m going to cry. If he fucking plays "Hello" I will cry. I will make a weird, clay head in the shape of Lionel Richie and throw it on stage." - Alana Haim

Four of the greatest musical minds of the early 21st Century have melded, via this remix, where Giorgio Moroder puts his sticky vocodered fingers all over Haim's old-but-new single Forever.

I don't think it could possibly have turned out any better than it has.

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A few good remixes

Apropos of nothing, here's a quintet of songs from the world of popular music in brand new remix fashion.

They may prove useful for your next work out / soul-crushing commute.

1) Britney Spears - Work Bitch (Monsieur Adi Remix)
Falling just on the right side of ludicrous, this reimagines Work Bitch as the score to a Michael Bay film. Must have cost a fortune.




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.




3) Destiny's Chils - Bills Bills Bills (James Blake / Harmonix mix)
This isn't so much a remix as an act of vandalism - but "the internet" seems to like it, so what do I know?




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.

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