So the wonderful Blog-zine that is Here Comes Everyone have asked me to make a regular feature of my best and worst singles of the week. However, over the past few weeks I have become very tired of trying to find some source of interest in the charts for this feature - seriously, the top 40 can be a bloody wasteland of dull urban pop and questionable impulse downloads. It has actually become quite depressing to find something "good" in the charts, so here, with HCE, I have chosen to take a different tack with these weekly capsule reviews. At work I deal with the coming week’s key singles releases – stuff that that record companies are pushing to be bought (or expecting to be bought) in droves. So I’ll preview the best and worst of the new releases for the following week so you know what to check out, and what to avoid. It's like a public service really.
Good Stuff released June 7th
Field Music – “Lets Write a Book”
By far the best track of the week, this is a cracking new single by the Sunderland band, from their new album Measure. The song is direct and punchy, with harsh and jagged yet diverse timbres. The repetitive bass-driven main hook is not unlike that of Kraftwerk, and the track also exhibits some interesting cameos from electric guitars and eerie skeleton like marimbas. Rhythmically it plods along in a slow yet blunt fashion, which contrasts interesting with the thin falsetto vocals. The video too is an interesting collage that seems to be a visual homage to Terry Gilliam. A cracking song, I urge you to check out the link below…
Pony Pony Run Run – “Walking on a Line”
Cool song from a cool French band. I love the way they enunciate when they sing, (and the fact that they sing in English!), the cute retro synth timbres, and the main synth hook. But what I especially love is this fantastic video below – not to be missed.
Bad Stuff released 7th June
Reece – “Party ‘til Lights Out”
Ah, glorification of a culture that that truly is the worst of everything that England has to offer. What’s there not to love?! If you couldn’t tell already, I was being sarcastic. Gormless, inbred looking chav boy makes aspiration (read depressing) rhymes for thick cheap tarts and hard-up, minging boys who seem to still think skinheads and earrings are a good look. This track is awful musically as well, seeming to take influence from the worst pop cum techno dregs of turn of the century nothingness. If you genuinely like this then you are not my friend.
Chico – “It’s England Time”
Well duh. This was obviously going to be a complete disaster. I doubt it’ll do well, as it is just embarrassing, but there are enough Z list celebrities to impress idiots enough to buy it. For shame.
