Justin's suit, Laura's garden and some other songs you may have missed

I'm popping off to Scotland for a week, so the blog will be as blank as Olly Murs' manuscript in a maths exam. To tide you over to the 4th of February, here are a few songs I would have blogged about if there'd been more time.

1) Justin Timberlake - Suit and Tie
This is the lyric video to the audio track that was teased in a Youtube clip spawned from a tweet. All this faffing about would be worth it if the song was slap-you-on-the-tits amazing, but sadly it's still just a 5/10. *sigh*




2) Laura Mvula - Green Garden
Of all the artists on this year's Sound Of 2013 predictapolls, Laura Mvula is the one with the most potential to do an Adele. Hip enough for Radio 1, edgy enough for 6 Music and soothing enough for Radio 2, she's got what I like to call "potential". She also has an incredible voice and amazing songs. Green Garden takes a while to get going, but you'll be swooning by the final, exuberant chorus.




3) Zedd ft Foxes - Clarity
Zedd is a German producer who's been working on Lady Gaga's new album.
Foxes is British songstress Louisa Rose Allen, who we like a lot.
Together they are "Zedd ft Foxes".
And this song is fucking great. Sand dunes ahoy!




4) Jessie Ware - If You're Never Gonna Move (Two Inch Punch remix)
This song used to be called 110% but, for some reason, it's been renamed If You're Never Gonna Move for the US release. Clearly, the new name is a line from the chorus, which is useful for the sort of person who goes into a record shop and says "I heard this song on the radio and it sort of went duh duh duh duh If You're Never something a-a-ah. Do you have it?" Except the only line anyone can ever remember from 110% is "Dancing On My Own" which is a completely different but equally brilliant song. And anyway, the record shops are all closed nowadays and you can just Shazam the song off the radio, so why bother changing the name in the first place? Gah!

The remix, by the way, is excellent: All ambient and spookified. And only available in the US. Double gah!





5) Lana Del Rey - Summertime Sadness (Monsieur Adi remix)
Do you think Lana approves of this? She spends ages cultivating her doe-eyed, pouty-lipped pop vixen persona, then someone waps her vocals on top of a honking bassline and makes her sound like the queen of the carnival. A carnival populated by the cast of Glee and 10,000 other people with the permanently startled expression of Scooby Doo with a jack-in-the-box.

But who cares what she thinks? It's big, dumb, mindless, and infuriatingly catchy.





6) REM - Losing My Religion
Major Scaled is a project whereby songs in a "sad" minor key are digitally tweaked so they're in a "cheerful" major key. The results are quite startling. You can recognise and follow the songs, but something's not quite right. They've posted a bunch of examples on their Facebook page - but REM's Losing My Religion (recast as Rediscovering My Religion) is the best of the bunch.


That's it - have a lovely snowy week. See you in a bit.
Mrdiscopop

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Arlissa bit of this, Arlissa bit of that

You may have heard of Arlissa late last year, when she gave the ultimate two fingers to her ex-boyfriend - by recording a song about their break-up with his favourite artist, Nas. Hard To Love Somebody was good enough to get Arlissa (pronounced Ar-Leesa) onto the BBC Sound of 2013 longlist, and the New Year episode of Top Of The Pops, where she premiered her follow-up single Sticks and Stones.

It's a great song. Shivering on the misty battle lines of a torrid relationship, Arlissa pleads with a lover, whose "bullets shoot down my faith and my body". It's a lazy comparison to says she sounds like Kate Bush - but Arlissa actively encourages it: "Kate Bush is my biggest influence. I'd like a career like hers," she told the Guardian last year.

The video has a curiously unsettling tone - lots of shots of warthogs and shetland ponies and what appears to be a goat brothel - but it also reminds me of Wes Anderson's excellent Moonrise Kingdom, which is no bad thing.

NB: It may have come to your attention that Arlissa is quite gorgeous. If so, you will be pleased to hear that the video makes no attempt to disguise it.

Arlissa - Sticks and Stones

Sticks and Stones is out on London Records in March.

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Nicole Scherzinger is a boomerang

The video for Nicole Scherzinger's Boomerang has just "dropped", which sounds awfully careless if you ask me.

As the opening salvo of an album campaign, the will.i-am production is a little underwhelming - not awful, you understand, just bland. You do begin to wonder whether poor Nicole will ever get to release a solo album in her home country (debut album Her Name Is Nicole was binned, while the US release of Killer Love was cancelled).

Directed by fashion photographer Nathalie Canguilhem, the video has a few beautiful moments, particularly the ultra-slow-motion filming during the middle 8. Here's a couple of screengrabs.

Nicole uses an invisible urinal.

This is what it will look like when they sequence Nicole's DNA.

I call this one "combustible hair product disaster movie".

Someone's been overdoing it with the layering tool in Adobe Aftereffects.

And here are all of those images in motion and context. Enjoy. Nicole Scherzinger - Boomerang

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Foals: My Number video

Reverb enthusiasts Foals have been chatting away to Digital Spy about their new album and "the state of music" (urgh).

It turns out Yannis Philippakis is not a fan of club music kingpin David "Dave" Guetta: "David Guetta is basically... it's not even something that really makes my blood boil because it is just bullshit," he seethes. "It is an abomination but there needs to be bad music around."

You might disagree with his taste, but I like the point he's making. What are Solange and Jessie Ware and AlunaGeorge, if not a kickback against the dancification of R&B?

People (and by people I mean the NME and Pitchfork) keep hoping for a comparable indie insurrection - but Yannis gives that idea short shrift, too. "The most exciting moments in guitar music are when there's no attention on it," he reckons. "When people say, 'It's the reign of the guitar band', that's when the worst records get put out."

The current shortage of decent guitar music certainly means Foals are large horses in a small paddock - but their new single would deserve attention in the midst of a full-on indie revival. My Number is constructed from nimble, interlocking guitar lines and - heavens above - a proper chorus.

Video-wise, we're in "live performance" territory. But, in a neat twist, the director shows what's going on around the venue - snogging in the toilets, breakdancing at the fire escape, and some heroic moshing (although not as heroic as this).

Foals - My Number

Foasl' new album, Holy Fire, is out on 11 February.

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Oh hello there, new Prince songs

Prince is clearly gearing up for something special this year. A handful of new and rare tracks have appeared online via a Twitter account called 3rdeyegirl and, despite the fact Prince flounced off the internet in a huff about five years ago, he hasn't ordered their removal. Then there were a handful of surprise concerts in Minneapolis. And now he's put a new song up on his official website.

It's called Screwdriver and, like many of the recently-unearthed tracks, it sees Prince going back to simple rock riffs and goofing off with his all-female new band. It's not jaw-droppingly "oh my god, he's back" awesome - but it is a return to form after the barren wastelands of the late 2000s.

Here's a YouTube version - if it won't load, the original is on www.20pr1nc3.com.

Prince - Screwdriver

An interview with his new band also cropped up on The Current, in which we learn Prince is "ridiculous at ping-pong" and that - YES! - there are some "promo dates overseas" on the horizon.

The other track to appear online today is a live jam, called Chapter & Verse. It's a little loose and silly - but it's always interesting to hear Prince boss around his young charges (and to hear him dissing rappers like a silly old man.)

Fingers crossed for that tour, then. Eeeeek.

Prince - Chapter and Verse

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Disclosure make some more scribbles

Disclosure dropped a duo of dreamy dub-pop singles last year, by the names of Control (ft Ria Ritchie) and Latch (ft Sam Smith). The latter even propelled the dance act into the top 20, much to everyone's surprise and delight.

The band are, in fact, brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence, from Surrey. Aged 21 and 18, they spend their spare time defacing promo pictures with a Tipp-Ex pen, and describing their sound as "house, garage, chords, singing, drums", which at least saves me the effort of thinking up something better.

New single White Noise features Aluna Francis (sounding curiously like she's been sped up, Alvin and the Chipmunks style) and is quite simply gorgeous. It's out in March, which is AGES.

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