John Mayer covers Beyonce's XO and 10 other songs you may have missed

This is the bit where I round up all the songs I didn't have time to write about over the last week (and it's been a busy week - with trips to Leeds and Bradford and Manchester - so I didn't have time to write about much).

So, without any further ado, our cover stars are...

1) John Mayer - XO
XO is the most songy song on Beyonce's Beyonce, so this strummed acoustic cover was guaranteed to work from the off. Beautifully understated, with none of the bombastic grandstanding of the original.





2) Sam Smith (or is it?) - Stay With Me
My erstwhile colleague, Radio 1's Sinead Garvan, had a shocker while interviewing Sam Smith at Radio 1's Big Weekend last week. If you haven't seen it already - here's the video. Sam's face is priceless.


Maybe that's why he's smiling from ear-to-ear when he takes to the stage. Or maybe it's the incredible reaction. Either way, it's a lovely, inclusive performance.




3) Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud (Live on Later...)
"Playing a brand new never before heard song on jools tonight," tweeted Ed Sheeran last Friday. "It's my favourite track on the album."

It's easy to see why. This is a superbly-crafted, heart-on-sleeve love song. The sort of thing you'd have expected from Tracy Chapman or Paul McCartney at the peak of their powers.

Yes, it's really that good. Even Jools's boogie-woogie piano can't ruin it.





4) Broods - Bridges

Not-entirely-unattractive pop duo Broods (see above) first released this single as a free download in 2013. But now that the New Zealanders have got a "proper" record deal in the States, the song's been given an expensively hazy Instagram-style video.

Shot around the Castaic Lake in the Sierra Pelona Mountains, it's a perfect fit for the song's moody electronic swoosh.




5) La Roux - Uptight Downtown
So, basically, the La Roux song that came out a fortnight ago was a "hey, we're back" kind of thing and this is the proper single that you'll hear on your radiogram this summer.

As many people have already noted, it sounds a lot like David Bowie's Let's Dance. But while Bowie was all "heyyy, let's party," Ellie Jackson is having really deep thoughts about her generation and stuff.

"It's kind of very loosely based on the London Riots," she told Triple J radio. "I grew up in Brixton where the first riots happened... It was interesting to see people of my generation try to at least get up and stand up for what they believed in.

"I think it's just the energy people would have liked to have seen from those riots and I kind of tried to turn a negative into a positive."







6) Foster The People - Best Friend
Foster The People's second album, Supermodel, hasn't exactly set the charts on fire in the UK, but they made the Top 10 in the US. Which is good news, because it means the band keep getting to make their excellent videos.

Directors Ben and Alex Brewer helm the latest clip, which takes a B-Movie look at fashion week. The models may be stick thin, but they have a voracious appetite... FOR HUMAN FLESH!





7) Miguel - Simplethings
Displaying the expert timing of a blacmange, Miguel has just released a video for a song he debuted in January.

But we can forgive his tardiness when the song, originally featured in Series 3 of Lena Dunham's Girls, is so gorgeous. "Laugh with me baby," he croons over an indistinct, sawtooth bassline, "I just want the simple things."





8) Katy Perry - Dark Horse (live at Radio 1's Big Weekend)
What does she sphinx she's playing at, etcetera...




9) The Pierces - Kings

The Pierces' new album, Creation, has just been given a highly-justified four-star review in Q Magazine, while the lead single, Kings, is on Radio 2's A-list... So things are looking up for the Alabama sisters.

The video, shot in the Los Angeles desert, has a tribal theme with Allison and Catherine slapping on the warpaint and going to battle. But this is no Braveheart - no-one's head gets chopped off and everyone stops fighting at sundown to have a nice bonfire.



10) Lana Del Rey - Shades of Cool
A little teaser for Lana's Ultraviolence album, which arrives in a fortnight.

All twangy steel guitars and brushed drums it shows more clearly than West Coast how she's moved away from the trip-hop trappings of her debut. The mid-point guitar solo (!) is hair-raising.



11) Prince - The Breakdown (teaser)
I finally got to see Prince play one of his Hit and Run shows in Leeds last week - and was utterly blown away. Thanks to his muscular, compact new band 3rdEyeGirl, he's ditched the Vegas vamp that's characterised his live shows since the Musicology tour ten years ago.

"If you haven't noticed there's been a turn towards the guitar these days," he said, as his fingers blurred over the neck of his Telecaster. He even nabbed Ida Nielsen's bass for an impromptu bass solo during a rendition of Alphabet Street - just one of half-a-dozen songs I've never heard him play before (I nearly died when he played the opening chords to Sometimes It Snows In April).

My official review is on the BBC site, and here's the peerless setlist. Surprisingly, one of the highlights was his newest song, The Breakdown.

Still no word on a UK release, but the song just got a teaser video on the 3rdEyeGirl Youtube channel.

And that's a wrap. Have a great weekend!

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Video - Seinabo Sey: Hard Times

I mentioned Swedish/Gambian singer Seinabo Sey's stunning single Hard Times in last week's "songs you may have missed" splurge.

But in case you missed the songs you may have missed, here is one of the songs you may have missed. Again.

And this time it has a video.

Seinabo Sey - Hard Times


According to the press release, Hard Times "combines the ultra-modern feel of downtempo R&B and glacial Swedish electronica with the melodrama of Lauryn Hill and classic cult American blues singer Vera Hall."

Vera Hall, of course, is the woman who sang Trouble So Hard in 1937. The anti-slavery protest song was later sampled by Moby on Natural Blues in 2000. You can certainly hear the inspiration.

Vera Hall - Trouble So Hard

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The seven best bits of the new Nicole Scherzinger single, Your Love

This is something of an unexpected delight. Produced The-Dream and Tricky Stewart, Nicole Scherzinger's new single Your Love is a bona fide earworm, in the J-Lo-does-a-summer-anthem mould.

Like all good pop singles, it has a smattering of memorable moments. Here's s selection of the seven stand-outs:

7) Rhymes "enticing" with "Michael Tyson"

6) "I need you in the daytime, especially in the night-time" (???)

5) Minimalist spanish guitar outro - precision engineered for a big dance moment in the video

4) "When we hugging, MC Hammer: Girls can't touch this - I got everything they don't" (??? x2)

3) Wooh. A-woo doo doo do-dooo

2) Woo doo doo do-do-do-doooo

1) A-woo doo doo d-d-doo

It's out on 13 July, which is aaaaages away.


Your Love is the first song from Nicole's new album, of which she recently said: "It's a very personal album for me. It is a reflection of the woman I am, the woman I am not, and the woman I want to be." (Translation: "It's an album about me").

She shot the video while wearing her undergarments on a beach in Malibu last month. You can witness the excitement on her Instagram page.

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Review: Little Mix in Manchester

Thirlwall, Pinnock, Nelson and Edwards, it says on a big banner at Manchester's Phones 4U Arena. It looks like an advert for an upmarket chartered accountants but no! It's the UK's premiere girl band, Little Mix. 

And here they are, dropping from the ceiling in parkas. "A-ten-shun," they sing unnecessarily, as 14,000 glowsticks are waved frantically in their direction. 

Yes, this is the Salute Tour and it is quite a spectacle. The three-tiered set, festooned with gigantic fans and pyrotechnic devices, is like a post-apocalypse West Side Story. The choreography has a Rice Krispie crackle and pop. And the singing is way above the girl band standard. Early on, Perrie hits a note that has the parents turning to each other and remarking, "ooh, she's good."

So it's a shame the sound designer has let them down so badly. For Little Mix are warbling and wailing over a pre-recorded backing track, and it can't match their powerhouse performances. There are moments where the band ad-lib or (gasp) mime to backing vocals and the song's energy drains away completely. Whoever is responsible should be fired. 

It's not a complete disaster, though. When the girls break out live, four-part harmonies on Boy, it's a treat - even though poor old Jesy's clearly suffering from a chest infection. 

And the extended, Rhythm Nation-style dance breakdown on DNA is worthy of its inspiration. It's also nice to see such a dance-heavy concert completely devoid of sexually suggestive choreography. The band apparently take their "girls together" message seriously. 

Interestingly, their X Factor winner's single, Canonball, has been airbrushed out of history. At the encore, Wings is introduced as "the first single we ever released" - but there's a sweet moment when the entire arena sings it back to the band, a capella. 

"We know for a fact we're in for a good night when we're in Manchester," says Jade. 

Well, quite. 

SETLIST 

Salute

Nothing Feels Like You

About The Boy

Change Your Life 

Dark Horse (Katy Perry cover)

A Different Beat

How Ya Doin'

Mr Loverboy

Boy

Towers

Competition

Word Up

DNA

Stand Down

Dance Medley: Talk Dirty / N***as In Paris / Run The World (Girls) / Can't Hold Us

Little Me 

Move

ENCORE:

Good Enough

Wings

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Jurassic 5 return and nine other songs you may have missed

A semi-regular round-up of notable new music, presented in a handy list format that will crash your browser due to the sheer volume of YouTube widgets. Yes, it's time for another edition of "songs you may have missed".

1) Jurassic 5 - The Way We Do It
Jurassic 5 are truly the Kate Bushes of hip-hop. It's been eight years since their last album, Feedback, and their "comeback" single is so old it was produced by Heavy D - who died in 2011.

Still - what a single. Sampling The White Stripes My Doorbell, it's jellybean waterfall of witty old-school rhymes.




2) La Roux - Let Me Down Gently
I wrote about this brooding, sax-o-phonic pop behemoth last week, and now it has a video accompaniment.

Watch! Ellie sitting upon a chair.
Marvel! As she runs across a misty moor.
Gasp! As next to nothing occurs.




3) Sam Smith - Leave Your Lover
When I interviewed Sam Smith earlier this year, he told me he wanted "to write an album about unrequited love" for people who were lonely. He'd even recorded a song "about being in love with someone who is married. I want people in those positions to have something to listen to - because I've been in that position too."

I'm going to guess this was that song.




4) Tove Styrke - Even If I'm Loud It Doesn't Mean I'm Talking To You
A coiled spring of energy, this bouncy, ballsy track from Stockholm's Tove Styrke could be a whole new genre: Thrash Pop.

For fans of Robyn's Konichiwa Bitches; Icona Pop's I Love It and the Dixie Cups Iko-Iko.





5) Kelis - Friday Fish Fry (Live on Later)
There's a pleasing unpredictability to the songs on Kelis's new album, Food. Sure, they all start out as tributes to the classic soul of Otis and Aretha, but Dave Sitek's production teases out the weird and the off-kilter to put a new spin on old sounds.

Case in point: The "Ice Cold Water" chant in the middle of Friday Fish Fry, which seems to have been beamed in from Blue Swede's Hooked On A Feeling. It shouldn't work, but it works.




6) Seinabo Sey - Hard Times
Recently signed to Universal Music, Sweden's Seinabo Sey showcases her stunning voice in this staccato soul single.

The melody is as simple and repetitive as a playground chant, but the tribal backing vocals and volcanic percussion will stop you in your tracks.






7) Jungle - Time
Hot damn, this is funky.




8) Sinead Harnett - No Other Way (ft Snakehips)
You may know Sinead Harnett from her collaborations with Rudimental - and if you've seen them on tour, you've almost certainly marvelled at her vocals. But now she's cast off from their safe harbours and set sail in search of her own musical treasure [sorry - tortured metaphor ed].

You might be surprised at the results: Sinead's debut EP is more akin to the smooth soul of Jessie Ware than Rudimental's helter skelter dance vibes.




9) Alistair Griffin featuring Kimberley Walsh - The Road
This is the official song of Yorkshire's Grand Depart - aka the first stage of this year's of the Tour De France. Apparently individual legs of cycling events need their own "anthem" now, after somebody incorrectly decided that Queen's Bicycle Race wasn't good enough.

Still, it's nice to hear Kimberly get a chance to stretch her vocal cords, and this uplifting, empowering power ballad could have been a lot worse.



10) Jetta - Crescendo
My idle observation that Pharrell Williams has a "magic formula" for writing intros seems to have gone viral this week, after being picked upon Gawker and a couple of other US sites.

Right on cue, then, here's Paloma Faith's former backing singer Jetta with a spritely, chart-bound, Pharrell-produced new single.

Guess how it starts?

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Ed Sheeran goes 100% Muppet

Ed Sheeran's Sing is apparently stuck in a CD player at Radio 1, given the frequency with which it comes around on rotation these days.

Not that I'm complaining, the Pharrell-produced track is his best to date. A funky little reminder of what Justin Timberlake used to sound like before he started making, like, freaky psychedelic 20-minute jams, y'all dig?

The video has just "gone live on Facebook" and it stars a hard-drinking, stripper-lovin' Ed Sheeran puppet that's bound to be a must-have gift come Christmas time. It even comes with life-like tattoos and designer stubble. So cute.

Post by Ed Sheeran.

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