The best and the rest of #NewMusicFriday

It's a fairly quiet week overall, but here are some songs that were released today (or maybe two days ago, depending on the stature of the artist and their willingness to adhere to record industry convention).

1) LCD Soundsystem - Call The Police
It's like NWA never happened.




2) Loote - High Without Your Love
Hailing from New York, Loote are Emma Lov and Jackson Foote (so you can see how they got that name). Their new single is reminiscent of The Chainsmokers, with all traces of douche removed. A lovely little pop song.




3) J Hus - Common Sense
Love, love, love this.




4) Niall Horan - Slow Hand
The Pointer Sisters' prayers have been answered.




5) Sigrid - Fake Friends
Norway's Sigrid Raabe only started writing songs four years ago, when her brother (also a musician) told her he needed a new track for a gig that was taking place 24 hours later. She's a quick learner, though. This caustic call out to two-faced friends is a hugely arresting piece of Scandipop.

FYI: Sigrid's debut EP is out today and you should buy it.




6) Emily Warren - Hurt By You
Emily Warren is The Chainsmokers' secret weapon - the voice behind some of their best hooks, and the writer behind several more. Her debut single is nothing like that, though - a slinky, soulful affair with a cunning twist in the chorus.




7) Hoops - Sun's Out
This is a song that appears to be a lost cassette demo by Echo and the Bunnymen, circa 1985 - but which turns out to be one of several shimmering indie gems on the debut EP by Indiana-based band Hoops. How queer.




8) Haim - Want You Back
Getting better with every listen...




9) TLC - Haters
Declaration of interest: I put £10 towards TLC's new album on Kickstarter, giving me a 0.003% stake in this song. Sounds a bit like Charli XCX at 33rpm, which is neither praise nor a criticism.




10) Halsey - Eyes Closed
Halsey manages to sound both menacing and drowsy at the same time on this track, a sort of "emos with synths" pop dirge. It came as no surprise to learn that The Weeknd was involved in some capacity.

And that's your lot. The Blondie album is out today, as well, and deserves a quick spin even if you have no recollection of Debbie Harry & co in their 1970s heyday.

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Anything you can do, I can do better

TLC's Waterfalls was one of the most pivotal music videos of the 1990s. Tackling drugs, urban violence and HIV/AIDS, it was shot at Universal studios on a budget of [Dr Evil voice] One Million Dollars, and went on to pick up four MTV Awards.

But for all the narrative shenanigans, it is most memorable for the shots of Chili, T-Box and Left Eye dancing on the water like a three hot R&B Jesus-es.

It's an iconic sequence. One that couldn't be bettered... Or could it?

Step forward Małgorzata Jamroży- aka Margaret - a Polish singer who narrowly missed out on representing her country at this year's Eurovision.

She sounds a bit (a lot) like Rihanna, and her soca-inspired banger Cool Me Down replicates TLC's infamous riverdance, with one crucial addition. A frickin' Orca Whale.

A.M.A.Z.I.N.G.

You can watch it below, while contemplating how a song this good could have been beaten in a public vote by a bad Johnny Depp lookalike.

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Songs you may have missed: The nude edition

Sorry for the lack of updates this week - the real world has been getting in the way (plus there wasn't much to write about, to be honest).

Anyway, here's a rundown of the songs that floated onto the internet this week, most of which seem to be stripped-back, denuded, unclothed and generally acoustic versions of original songs. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

1) David Bowie - Sound And Vision (2013)
You've probably heard this on an advert for a mobile phone and wondered where it came from. It's Sound And Vision, and it's definitely Bowie's voice, but the only backing is a naive piano that sounds like it was recorded in a school assembly.

In fact, the mix is the work of Sonjay Prabhakar, who was given the original master-tapes and pared away all the production to leave the lead vocals, Mary Hopkin's backing and Roy Young. Yep, that's really there on the album mix. Who knew?

It's proved so popular that Bowie has given an official release his blessing. It's out now on iTunes.




2) Miley Cyrus and The Roots - We Can't Stop
Presented like the opening titles of The Brady Bunch, this a capella rendition of Miley's FU anthem actually makes the song tolerable. Easy to forget there's a great set of vocal cords hidden behind that tongue.




3) MKS - No Regrets
As well as the near-perfect cover of Lorde's Royals, which I posted on Tuesday, MKS performed an acoustic version of their new song No Regrets at their recent Reload Sessions recording. A ballad that could be a love song, it could also be about the girls' split and reunion: "Enemies, I hope we clear the air".




4) Foxes - Youth
Precisely one million years after it first appeared online, Foxes' beautiful Youth is finally getting a proper release. Radio 1 put it on their C-List this week, which augurs well. Foxes celebrated the news by playing the song in bed, for some reason.




5) Robbie Williams - Go Gentle
I was lucky enough to go and see Robbie record an episode of Radio 4's Mastertapes last night. The premise of the show is that artists come in and discuss their defining album - in Robbie's case, Life Thru A Lens. He talked about being booted out of Take That ("I asked them if I could take a pineapple with me") and how Gary Barlow rejected his first ever song.

"I phoned Gaz up and I said 'I've got this song - it's about a prostitute, in Manchester' and he said, 'it'd be alright for a rock group, wouldn't it, lad?"

At the end of the night, he played a couple of tracks from his new album, Robbie Williams Swings Both Ways, including this - Go Gentle, a sincere, but goofy, declaration of love for his one-year-old daughter. He was in tears at the end of it.




6) VV Brown - The Apple (live on Later)
OK - so this Jools Holland performance is as far away from acoustic as it's possible to get, but WHAT A SONG.




7) TLC - Meant To Be
Written by Ne-Yo, Meant To Be is the only new song on TLC's 20th anniversary collection. T-Boz sounds like she's been smoking 40-a-day for the last decade, but this is quite lovely in a 90s throwback kind of way. More Red Light Special than Waterfalls, but I can live with that.

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Alert: There is new music from TLC!

As if to atone for the debacle that was Stooshe's Waterfalls, the song's original vocalists TLC have dragged themselves out of retirement to appear on J Cole's new single.

For those of you who don't remember, TLC were briefly the most successful all-female act in the history of recorded music, before they went bankrupt and mental. They were called exotic things like T-Boz, Chilli and Left Eye (RIP). They won four Grammys and wore condoms on their faces. And they made this song.


And they made this song.


And they made this song.


And they made this song (which is responsible for a million other tedious girlband "anthems" about loving the way you look and not taking any nonsense from anyone, least of all "your man").


In case you don't get how awesome and groundbreaking TLC were at the height of their powers, here is a list of things TLC are better than:

:: En Vogue
:: Destiny's Child
:: The Supremes
:: The Spice Girls
:: B*Witched
:: The Beatles
:: Any other band whose name is a mnemonic for the members' names
:: Yes, that includes ABBA
:: Tigers

So, it's decided, then: TLC rule.

This new song is called Crooked Smile and it has the band's gorgeous, croaky harmonies all over it, supplemented by a Benny-and-the-Jets piano and (hooray!) a fulsome gospel choir. It's from a new J Cole album or something but, let's face it, this post isn't about him at all.

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Left Eye reprise

Former TLC star Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes is getting a Tupac-style posthumous tribute album, full of studio off-cuts worked into proper songs by the likes of Missy Elliot and Chamillionaire.

Eye Legacy (terrible name) is something of an oddity, considering that when she was alive, producers took every effort to erase Left Eye's contributions to TLC's records (her rap was excised from all but the video version of No Scrubs, for example).

Odder still, though, is the project's first single, Let's Just Do It. A so-so electronic rap workout, it is credited to "Lisa Lopes featuring Missy Elliot and TLC". Considering that Left Eye is the "L" in TLC, this must mark the first time an artist has made a record by themselves, featuring themselves. Amazing.

Lisa Left Eye Lopes ft Missy Elliot and TLC - Let's Do It

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Noo choons

Hello there. I'm still a bit ill, so sorry about the infrequent posts of late.

In the meantime, here's some new music that other blogs have posted - thus saving me all the effort.

The Fray do an oh-so-amusing live version of Shakira's Hips Don't Lie. Listen once, then destroy. [MP3 on Chris' Pix]

New Beyoncé material never seems to stop coming. Here's her new duet with Jay-Z [Fetch Me Some Music], and her new duet with Shakira [Ali's Blog]. Yummy.

Rozonda Thomas (aka Chili out of TLC) has got a new single. It's called Straight Jack, it features Missy Elliot and it is so-so. [MP3] [via Hops Mp3 Thing]

Popjustice has a 45-second clip of ex-Sugababe Mutya Buena's collaboration with Groove Armada. It's not exactly I See You Baby, but it's a vast improvement on Buena's duet with George (spit) Michaels. [Popjustice]

Another leaked track from Mark Ronson's covers album, Version. This one is a funked up version of The Jam's Proper Green. Ace. [MP3 on Fluxblog]

Finally, here's the video for the Timbaland / Nelly Furtado / Justin Timberlake collaboration that's been going round for ages. It's lost some of it's lustre after repeated listens, but I'd still shake a leg to it if (a) I went to clubs any more and (b) I wasn't about to collapse into a pitiful heap of wheezing and phlegm.

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Video of the week: No Scrubs

I'm not a big fan of Hype Williams' work. His videos for the bad and bling of hip-hop (Busta Rhymes, Jay-Z) exemplify everything that's wrong with post-gangsta rap. They're gaudy, self-aggrandising exercises in style over substance - or money over taste, to be more accurate.

This video, for TLC's "No Scrubs", stays true to the genre but manages to shake off the chains of formula and run, arms akimbo, for the door marked 'pop'. It does so for the same reason the song surpasses its nursery-rhyme melody: the irresistable force of the band's personality. The girls just don't take themselves seriously - rubbing their rumps, pulling faces and, finally, falling about in hysterics as the song fades out.

Interestingly, the only other Hype video I've ever enjoyed pulls off the same trick. Will Smith's "Getting Jiggy With It" is jaw-droppingly good not because of the ridiculous amount of cash it must have cost, but because of Smith's big cheeky grin. And that bizarre dance, where he rubs two hamsters together in the hope of generating enough static electricity to stick them to a nearby wall.

Perhaps we'll come back to that one another time...

Buy Hype Williams' video collection at Amazon

Buy TLC's Greatest Hits on CD+DVD at Amazon

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Could you be a silly ho?

Ever wanted to be the spare part in a top-selling R&B trio?

Well, TLC are holding open auditions for a new member, starting in New York this Saturday.

Job requirements: squeaky voice, inability to turn up for interviews, tendency to set fire to things.

Hip-hop elements: TLC to hold auditions

Sun-Sentinel: TLC look for a triple-threat in Miami

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