Devo – “Fresh”
This song should be fairly recognisable; I’m sure its on an advert from E4 or something, but my god how I love it! “Fresh” is such a feat, because whilst it still sounds essentially like Devo, with vocal styling’s that could only have evolved in the 1970s, the music, the production, the general way they pull off this song, is purely rooted within the teenies. This track sounds so modern it could have been performed by a bunch of cool 22 year olds with a penchant for hip indie pop. The hook is great; repetitive, but not in a bad way, and the song generally has a really upbeat, vibrant feel to it. This is no small undertaking – this song sounds experienced without sounding old, tired and passé. Hot stuff!
Kaki King – “Close to Me”
The combination of fantastically talented acoustic guitarist Kaki King and a truly beautiful and subtle Cure song couldn’t really go wrong, could it? Recently featured on a lot a Nivea adverts, this track originally emerged from a charity album called Perfect for Cats, which was filled purely with Cure covers. King’s cover was one of the best on the album, and gives the track a new dimension of feminine delicacy, whilst highlighting the track’s dynamic instrumentation. She makes the track her own whilst respecting and nurturing the original.
Bad Stuff released 14th June
Fatboy Slim versus Herve – “Machines can do the Work”
Ah, this is not a good track. Fatboy Slim hasn’t release any new material in forever, and then he comes back with this, for shame. I quite like the premise of the sample, but the actual music of the track is just too aggressive and heavy, a bit too techno for my liking. It doesn’t really have enough of a hook either, and just generally lacks any commerciality, and there really isn’t anything worse than non-commercial, hard-core dance music. Its just completely inaccessible for anyone that isn’t on Speed. In all honesty it sounds a bit like Norman Cook is just fucking about with this track. He really must try harder.
