Most of these reviews first appeared in Stylus magazine's weekly UK Singles Jukebox feature.

New reviews are highlighted in bold type.

50 cent · antony & the johnsons · athlete · basement jaxx · battle · beck · natasha bedingfield · the bees · black eyed peas · black rock ft debra andrew · bodyrockers · british sea power · the caesars · chemical brothers · tony christie · clor · the dears · destiny's child · dizzee rascal · doves · editors · the faders · feeder · the futureheads · g4 · gadjo · the game ft 50 cent · garbage · gorillaz · max graham vs yes · daryl hall & john oates · hard-fi · helen love · hot hot heat · natalie imbruglia · ja rule · javine · jem · elton john · juliette & the licks · kelis ft nas · the killers · john legend · lemon jelly · le tigre · kim lian · jennifer lopez ft fat joe · ludacris · mario · mars volta · million dead · mortiis · mylo · new order ft ana matronic · nine inch nails · oasis · kelly osbourne · the others · praise cats ft andrea love · queens of the stone age · the rakes · raw bud ft roni size · cliff richard · rooster · roots manuva · shapeshifters · lucie silvas · snoop dogg ft justin timberlake · gwen stefani ft eve · system of a down · the tears · tegan & sara · rob thomas · t.i. · tom vek · trick daddy · kt tunstall · turin brakes · vitalic · stevie wonder

"I'm trying to explain, baby, the best way I can; I'll melt in your mouth girl, not in your hand, ha ha!" YES YES OK WE GET THE POINT. IT'S A METAPHOR. YOU'RE NOT REALLY TALKING ABOUT LICKING LOLLIPOPS. And did no-one tell you it's bad form to laugh at your own jokes? Smacks of desperation, don't you know. Much like the rest of this thigh-rubbing "knickers knackers knockers" claptrap, which displays a half-assed puerility that even the likes of Roy "Chubby" Brown would have baulked at. Worse still, Fiddy sounds as bored as the rest of us; and ultimately, it's this lifeless lack of enthusiasm (for both the quality of the music and the sexual favour in question) that offends most of all.

(21/03/05) index

A brave but bewildering choice of single from the I Am A Bird Now album, as it would have made more commercial sense to have gone with the deep Southern soul of "Fistful Of Love", rather than this challenging performance piece for solo piano and voice. Starting out as a tenderly yearning, relatively conventional bedtime prayer, this departs from any recognisable song structure about halfway through, as Antony pounds out repeated and intensifying block chords on the piano, while ghostly layers of echoed vocals emerge in the background. The effect is unsettling, and will irritate as least as many as it enchants. The same applies for Antony's unmistakable alto warble, which evokes comparisons with both Nina Simone and early 1970s Bryan Ferry, whilst simultaneously sounding like no other singer on this earth. There's no doubt that you have to cross a line with this music - but it's a line which should be crossed.

(16/05/05) index

Oh, Athlete: I came not to praise but to bury you, with your shining-eyed Christian-rock sincerity, and your I-can’t-believe-it’s-not-Coldplay one-chord guitar chops, and your corporate-indie latter-day-Travis don’t-rock-the-boat nice-to-be-niceness, and your encapsulation of everything I thought I opposed with every fibre of my being... but then, BUT THEN, you have the bare-faced TEMERITY to come out with this thoughtfully crafted, deftly honed little gem of a single, with all sorts of pleasing little twists and turns and counterpoints and dissonances and smile-inducing moments along the way, and before you know it I’ve crossed this sort of invisible line and I find myself LOVING it, quite despite myself, and I can ABSOLUTELY picture this as soundtracking this year’s six-in-the-evening second-stage-at-Glastonbury defining moment that will see your album in the Top Five within the week, and... well... do NOT let this happen again, or there will be CONSEQUENCES, do you hear?

(25/04/05) index

“Based on Wordy Rappinghood”, they told me. Damned if I can hear it, though. Which is no great loss, considering that ‘Oh My Gosh’ is my favourite single of 2005 thus far. Like all the best Jaxx singles, this feels like it's sitting right at the centre of something, with 50 different ideas all going on at once; so much so, that it's almost impossible to cram them onto one track, but - like 50 rag week students squeezing themselves into a phone box - they somehow manage to pull it off.

(14/03/05) index

“Isabelle, you know me Isabelle, please don’t te-e-e-ell, on me.” Sorry, but that’s such a risibly crap way of starting a song that I can’t get very far beyond it. Lads! Have you ever had one of those auto-erotic episodes where you realise too late that you’re not actually in the mood at all, but you’re not going to give up either, and so you screw your eyes together and speed the action right up, in the hope that by simulating the frenzy of passion you’ll somehow fool your nervous system into thinking it’s genuine? No, me neither. But listening to this over-wrought but under-thought indie-boy bluster, I am at least afforded some sort of insight as to what it might feel like.

(25/04/05) index

Having wasted the opportunity of having a Gary Jules-esque slow-burning crossover cover version "cult" [sic] movie smash with "Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime", Beck - always at his least convincing when attempting to Rock Out - instead serves up a tepid, grungey, downright BORING din, of no discernable purpose.

(14/03/05) index

A glass of Jacobs Creek, a chick-lit paperback, an IKEA settee and thou: this explicit claim to the Dido demographic is staked out with undeniable care and attention. Sure, it’s all a bit of a beige wash, but in amongst the usual gentle acoustic strumming and ultra-lite trippity-hoppity pitter-pattering, there are some reasonably deft touches; I particularly like the soft squelching noise which runs all the way through, and the “ethereal” strings which lift the whole track up a notch or two for the last couple of minutes. However, there’s too much preening self-regard in Natasha’s performance for this ever to truly convince.

(04/04/05) index

Sounding exactly like the sort of rare Sixties soul cut that was routinely sampled by Big Beat acts in the late Nineties, this ludicrously infectious piece of animal-based call-and-response bubblegum could well be the best Kids’ Birthday Party floor-filler since “19/2000” by the Gorillaz. (Is there a dance routine? There has to be a dance routine. If not, then someone needs to invent one, quick.) My only concern is for the future welfare of The Bees; this is so far removed from their usual stoner-shuffle-blues repertoire that the assembled menagerie of chickens, camels and monkeys could morph into albatrosses overnight.

(04/04/05) index

Just as Jamiroquai has achieved massive success by playing jazz-funk to people who don't like jazz-funk, so the Black Eyed Peas have pulled off the same trick with their all-conquering brand of hollowed out, de-funked, slickly ornamented, stadium-friendly hip-hop lite. It's difficult to put my finger on what irritates me the most. Maybe it's the constant boggle-eyed mugging to camera; maybe it's the gruesomely euphemistic deployment of the word "phunk"; maybe it's the wholesale desecration of Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam's 1985 classic "I Wonder If I Take You Home". All I know for certain is that I am actively looking forward to never having to hear this again.

(16/05/05) index

I know the weather’s been picking up a bit recently, but isn’t it still a bit early to be releasing sun-drenched Ibiza Anthems? Or maybe this is just designed to get you in a suitably anticipatory frame of mind, before you make that trip to the travel agents. Going anywhere nice this year?

(25/04/05) index

Sporting a central rock guitar riff that is doubtless as close to Deep Dish’s “Flashdance” as highly paid teams of international copyright lawyers will allow, “I Like To Move” has all of the workmanlike insistence of “So Much Love To Give” by The Freeloaders, without any of the latter’s redeeming sense of breezy joy. Indeed, its brutal effectiveness as a motivational blunt instrument for those who have been denied the benefits of a broader musical diet suggests to me that the Bodyrockers are nothing less than the Turkey Twizzlers of dance. (It’s no use trying to wean them onto nice, healthy, organic “microhouse” either; there’ll be rioting in the streets before chucking-out time.)

(18/04/05) index

John Cleese once observed that the main aim of the English was to successfully conduct themselves from cradle to grave without ever encountering any serious embarrassment along the way. In which case, British Sea Power—whose live show sticks in the memory for having successfully extinguished any emotional response whatsoever, positive or negative—might just be the most quintessentially English band of all time.

(21/03/05) index

“The song you’ve heard everywhere”, according to the press advert – and indeed, there is something here which makes you feel as if it has been around forever. Every Friday and Saturday night over the next couple of months or so, student DJs across the country will be cueing this up next to The Bees’ “Chicken Payback”, against which it sits perfectly: there’s the same uncannily accurate 1960s retro feelgood vibe (augmented here with a nagging organ refrain), combined with the same late 1990s Big Beat sensibility (I’m guessing this is particularly big in Brighton). With no supporting album to promote, this looks set to hang around the singles chart for yonks - particularly once the nostalgic Dad download demographic gets hold of it.

(18/04/05) index

Everything else in this week’s list is Product; this alone qualifies as Art. I’m a particular sucker for the agreeably deranged bloops and blarps that sit above the rest of the music: melodically and sonically separate, but oddly complementary, in much the same way as on the comparatively restrained “Negotiate With Love”. A thundering juggernaut of a track, this plays to the Chemical Brothers’ traditional strengths. It therefore succeeds where the brave-yet-flawed attempt at mould-breaking that was “Galvanize” fails.

(18/04/05) index

A long, long time ago, I found something powerfully sexy about this, particularly the almighty pelvic thrust of the bridge section: "Sha la la, la la, la la la, THWACK! BOOSH!" [Hey, I was too young for Elvis.] However, any residual erotic charge has now been thoroughly defused by Peter Kay’s Comic Relief video: admittedly delightful, but distinctly detumescent. I hope all of this makes Christie a bob or two, though; he deserves to be remembered as more than a chicken-in-a-basket Tom Jones.

(14/03/05) index

“Wide-eyed and open-mouthed, you look a little lost and found.” Oh, this will do nicely. Warmly inviting, readily accessible, with the sort of XTC/Futureheads/Dogs Die In Hot Cars skinny-tied quirky-modern power-pop angularity that has yet to ossify into cliché (although I can feel that particular drawbridge being pulled up even as I type), this does its darndest to prompt me into saying “file under: promising” for the second week running. Resist! Resist!

(25/04/05) index

A well orchestrated dramatic duet between two unhappy lovers—desperately clinging onto the wreckage of their relationship, fatally locked into a kind of shared conspiracy of denial—the likes of which (in stylistic terms at least) haven’t been heard in the charts since “The Ballad Of Tom Jones”. Although both singers stretch themselves slightly beyond their natural limits, this has the effect of lending a roughly hewn authenticity to the performance, which only serves to increase its power.

(02/05/05) index

After two distressingly shit singles in a row, DC stage a welcome and spectacular return to form with this deliciously melodic, eminently believable, sisters-stand-together, take-it-from-me-he’s-a-bastard, you-KNOW-you-deserve-better, have-another-bite-of-cheesecake-and-let-it-all-out-girlfriend co-counselling session. Yes, of COURSE they’re all sitting round a lunch table in a swishy metropolitan eaterie in the video, in an overt homage to Sex And The City. What did you expect? Burger King?

(25/04/05) index

Happy talk, keep talking happy talk. Here's to you, raise a glass for everyone. Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work I go. The transformation of Dizzee "Proper Bow" Rascal from iconoclastic eminence noir to the Timmy Mallett of grime is now complete. No flow. No show. No go.

(21/03/05) index

As someone who normally runs a mile from anything so avowedly Big and Important, I am at a loss to articulate exactly why the widescreen, windswept cragginess of the Doves gets through to me, where all the others fall by the wayside. I suppose it must be something to do with their intuitive grasp of dynamics, and the particular ways they find to shape their sound, and I suppose that this might have something to do with their background in studio-based dance music, as opposed to the usual gigging circuit. Whatever it is, this is as gloriously sweeping and epic as ever, with a swooshing synth motif that puts me in mind of late 1970s Genesis. But in a good way.

(09/05/05) index

My old English teacher always maintained that the best way to form a picture of the cultural pre-occupations of any age was to study its second-rate art – for just as first-rate art transcends its age, predicting movements which are yet to come, so second-rate art remains firmly mired in its own times, mirroring the predominant influences of the day. In which case, might I suggest that space be cleared in the 2005 time capsule for the Editors: a band with such a seemingly foreshortened sense of history that it wouldn’t surprise me if Bloc Party and The Bravery were cited as major formative figures. Having said that, there’s a nice piece of chiming, high-register, almost bouzouki-like guitar work accompanying the choruses, which lifts this marginally above the quotidian. In a disappointingly thin week such as this, such small mercies are to be gratefully seized upon.

(18/04/05) index

This all pivots around one glorious focal point: the thousand-yard-deep double-thumping head-rush which launches its chorus. "You can't stop this DOOMPH DOOMPH fee-ling..." WA-HEY! WALLOP! God hits world! World hits back! Entire solar system shudders from the aftershock! That aside, "No Sleep Tonight" is a worthy addition to the Quatro-Nena-Republica-Portobella canon of plastic trashbeat teenpop. Recreation is indeed its destination. So don't wait up.

(21/03/05) index

About twenty-five years ago, the NME ran a major feature on bands whose names ended in the letters “er”, noting with amusement that (with the sole exception of Foreigner) none of them ever achieved any commercial or critical success, and thus establishing a clear link between the “-er” suffix and a particular kind of drearily under-achieving derivativeness. All of which leads me to conclude that, with their inexplicably popular brand of freeze-dried, vacuum-packed shopping-mall stadium-rock, Feeder must be the new Foreigner. It’s an achievement of sorts, right?

(04/04/05) index

Having originally found their debut album a little hard to take in one sitting, I’m now loving The Futureheads as a singles act. Separated from its slightly too samey surroundings, this takes on a whole new potency, making me wish that I’d come to all of the band’s material in the same way. Best of all – and just when you thought that the mathematical combinations had all been exhausted for good – there’s the return of our old friend, the Two Chord Killer Riff. Add this to an naggingly catchy tune and some fetching call-and-response harmonies, and you have yourself a dinky little slice of skinny-tied, knotty-browed, twitchy-kneed, punky-pop perfection.

(09/05/05) index

If Frasier and Niles Crane had ever attempted to form a pop group, with Gil Chesterton the restaurant critic and Noel the trekkie dragged in to make up the numbers, then this extravagantly baroque folly is probably what it would have sounded like. ["Ooh! Ooh! I know! Let's replace those vulgar electric guitars with the Seattle Symphony Orchestra!"] With a shining-eyed sincerity of purpose and an innocence of its own ridiculousness which borders on the heroic, what could so easily have been unlistenable dreck is instead elevated to the realms of High Camp.

(14/03/05) index

Summery, uplifting vocal house for the smart-casual set, with Latin-influenced piano and percussion, that will probably find its way onto one of those Hed Kandi compilations before too long. Pleasant enough, but nothing that Masters At Work weren't doing ten times better ten years ago.

(16/05/05) index

Oh Gawd, don’t tell me I’ve got to unravel another of those Big Hip Hop Feud back-stories, before I can begin to form a proper appreciation of the track? Because my head’s still hurting from having to deconstruct “Like Toy Soldiers”, and I just can’t go through all of that again. So, yeah, I dare say that this reconciliation between the two formerly warring parties (have I at least got that bit right?) is all immensely Significant and stuff – but to me it just sounds like routine biggin-up-me-dick braggadocio, set over a rather fetching Stax-style sample whose easy melodicism sits rather at odds with all the wearisome aggression on display.

(09/05/05) index

“I’m no Barbie doll / I’m not your baby girl”... no Shirley, you’re a GROWN WOMAN OF THIRTY-EIGHT, and all the kohl, slap and mini-dresses in the world aren’t going to change the fact. So instead of trying to pass yourself off as a petulant foot-stamping teen, why not try to nurture a little age-appropriate grace and dignity? Because some of us are still waiting for the proper follow-up to that wonderful debut album, before you were all replaced by the dead-eyed replicants who have been masquerading as you ever since. Nevertheless, there’s no doubt that these are state-of-the-art, top-of-the-range replicants; there’s a brutal efficiency at work here, which comes tantalisingly close to being convincing.

(04/04/05) index

Tell me, have you ever met anyone who actually gets the Gorillaz? Who is charmed by the concept, and enthralled by the genre-defying blend of styles, signs and signifiers? Who can barely wait for the new album to drop? No, me neither. I fundamentally do not get them, on any level. One reasonably jolly single a few years ago, that seven-year olds liked to jump and down to, and that was it for me. As for everything else, it just sounds like loads of bits and pieces all shoved together, that were never meant to be shoved together. Like snail porridge. Or bacon and egg ice-cream. (Does this make Damon Albarn the Heston Blumenthal of post-modernist pop?)

(09/05/05) index

Mmph, I'm calming down about this a bit now. Not quite the sacrilege which it first seemed to be, this is a reasonably sympathetic grafting of a rhythm track onto Yes's Trevor Horn-produced 1983 hit, which you sense has been done by someone with some modicum of respect for the original. (Indeed, Graham has been quoted as saying that "Owner Of A Lonely Heart" is his favourite track of all time, hence this "tribute".) There's not much more to it other than some looping of the main guitar riff, which fits right into the Deep Dish/Bodyrockers idiom of the day, and a couple of extended bridge/breakdown sections. Actually, it's the first of these two breakdowns which I take exception to: building the tension up and up and up, leading you to think that something really exciting is going to happen, and then... oh, it's the second verse. Bit of a waste, really.

(16/05/05) index

Critical objectivity be damned: the long dormant flick-wedge white-socks-n-loafers soul boy within me is fucking digging on this, mate. Taken from a covers album of mainly early 1970s soul classics which is supposed to “shed light on their formative influences” (if you say so, boys), this beautifully sung, sumptuously constructed, painstakingly respectful re-working of the old Detroit Spinners hit adds/subtracts precisely zero to/from our appreciation of the original, and could therefore easily be dismissed as high-class cabaret, but, you know, so bloody what? It entertains me, and even moves me a little, and sometimes that’s all you need.

(09/05/05) index

The latest adherents to the age-old English tradition of disaffected petit-bourgeois youths from the suburbs (in this case, Staines in Middlesex) casting beady, aspirational eyes over at the glamour, grit and grime of the big city, Hard-Fi have – almost inevitably – caused the requisite “buzz” at this year’s SXSW festival, and now stand poised with studied faux-ennui at the threshold of success and excess, veneration and ruin. There’s an anthemic quality to this which puts me in mind of 1993-era Blur in their 1966-era Kinks phase, as well as a tantalising snatch of piano towards the end which would have evoked the glories of Jools Holland on The The’s “Uncertain Smile”, had it been mixed a little higher and allowed to go on for a little longer. I think everybody should be allowed to say this once, without fear of redress: file under “promising”. Ooh, proper rock criticism!

(18/04/05) index

“She was Debbie Harry, and he was Joey Ramone.” Ah, bless. An irrepressibly jaunty, irresistibly catchy retro-punky-poppy novelty ditty (suspiciously well enunciated, it has to be said), to which only the dourest anti-fun curmudgeon could form any meaningful objection.

(25/04/05) index

The best defence you can make of Hot Hot Heat's take on late 1970s skinny-tied power pop revivalism (oh, stifle those yawns) is that, having staked their claim a couple of years ahead of the pack, there is at least some vague sense of entitlement. Godfathers of the genre, or something. So let's try and be nice. This is cheeky and snappy and snotty and radio-friendly, with a winning melody and a nice organ sound, and it's all over quite quickly. Let it never be said that the Stylus UK Singles Jukebox hive-mind would ever discriminate against melodic guitar-based pop.

(16/05/05) index

Some rubbish singles are such fun to hate that they end up being vaguely enjoyable, in a twisted sort of way. In this respect, Natalie Imbruglia still has some way to go. A clear case of Could Do Worse, then.

(21/03/05) index

There’s something of the post-Kanye West about this stab at giving gruff ole Ja Rule a commercial crossover hit, by setting his guttural mutters against some sweet Eighties Groove soul stylings. Unfortunately, no-one seems to have been able to stir up must interest from Ja himself; almost relegated to a guest spot on his own record, he sounds distracted and disinterested. A couple of minutes in, and all the ideas have been used up; the rest is merely crank-it-out repetition. Nevertheless, by the end of the song – with all the vocalists having packed up and knocked off early to beat the traffic – there’s something of a reprieve, as the backing track is given some space to gently unwind, in an almost dub-wise style. It’s the best bit by far. (But shush, no-one tell Ja. He has probably never listened that far. What he doesn’t know can’t hurt him.)

(18/04/05) index

With the strongest British Eurovision entry since Imaani's "Where Are You" in 1998, only two obstacles stand in the way of Our Javine (formerly Poor Javine) and total victory in Kiev on Saturday night. Firstly: ancient Eurovision Anorak Lore dictates that no song drawn in second position on the night will ever go on to win the contest. (The "position of doom", they call it.) Secondly: with at least four (if not five) other entries all rocking the exact same Fusion Of Eastern And Western Influences vibe, there is the distinct danger that Poor Javine (for it is her) may well get buried in the rush. Can only another Nipplegate incident save her now?

(16/05/05) index

Great choice of sample: a jaunty, Swingle-ing Sixties affair. So great, that it all but carries the rest of the song along in its slipstream. Take the sample away, and you're left with a slight, disposable piece, with just about enough residual breezy charm to get away with it this time.

(14/03/05) index

A deliciously defiant, venomous kiss-off to a no-good ex, served up with an easily rolling pedal-steel-and-honky-tonk saloon-bar swagger, that will unite newly jilted lovers everywhere in squiffily swaying, finger-pointing, ‘see-you-in-court-yer-bashtard’ solidarity. My only quibble is with the gender-restricting reference to the “lacy little dress”—as in every other respect, this song’s natural constituency is a female one.

(04/04/05) index

Now listen up, Missy Lewis, and listen good. So we think we’re channelling the spirit of Courtney Love, do we? Extending the franchise and building the brand, are we? Well, I’ve got a little list for you. Bruce Willis. Keanu Reeves. Minnie Driver. Robert Downey Junior. It never works, does it? Never. Not ever. So what makes you think you’re going to buck the trend all of a sudden? You might want to take that thought back to your “people”. Yes, run along now. No, give me the mike. We’ve suffered enough.

(09/05/05) index

“We can do it over there by all the trees,” breathes Kelis to her husband of almost three months’ standing, in an urgently insistent paean to al fresco jiggery-pokery which is sure to go down well with the steamed-up-windows-in-car-parks brigade. (But all within the context of a mutually supportive relationship based on openness and trust, naturally.) There has always been a fine line between the erotic and the ridiculous—but while the lumbering likes of 50 Cent blunder straight through it, Kelis (“sexy beast”) and “nasty Nas” straddle it with assured ease and control. (Dontcha just love it when married couples give each other pet names? My father used to call my mother “moo-cow”. How times have changed.)

(04/04/05) index

Not unless you sing it like you mean it, mate. We’re into umpteenth-single-off-the-album diminishing-returns territory here, aren’t we? Difficult to imagine Killers fans going “OH MY GOD IT’S THIS ONE!” at gigs, and punching their fists in the air in recognition, and doing whatever else it is that Killers fans do in such situations (as you can probably tell, I’m having difficulty entering the mindset). It’s too much of a droopy plodder, cautious and conservative in construction, hemmed in by self-imposed limitations, and with a slight but telling weariness in its overly brief chorus, which falls a few steps short of the poignancy that the song half-heartedly seeks to evoke.

(02/05/05) index

Nice jazz piano, nice Stevie Wonder-style massed choral wailings, nice dinner-party R&B vibe. All very Paying Due Homage To Classic Soul Roots, all very Guest Spot On All Star Quincy Jones Project, all very Rebirth Of The Cool/Jazz Café/Straight No Chaser/Trevor Nelson inna 1994 style. If this WAS 1994, this would have been my single of the week, no question. But we move on, don't we?

(14/03/05) index

This is the aural equivalent of stepping out of a nice warm bath, wrapping yourself in a big white fluffy bath towel (freshly laundered, with proper fabric conditioner and everything, straight from your mother’s airing cupboard), and hugging yourself tightly, while a reassuring voice inside your head tells you that yes, everything really is going to be OK. Except, that is, for an unexpected section towards the end, where all the steadily accumulated, softly undulating layers of bliss drop sharply away, exposing a dark pit of anxiety beneath. The way that you are gently steered away from this pit, and led back into the sunlit uplands above, makes the final restatement of the central melodic motifs all the more life-affirming. (And you thought Lemon Jelly were just a clever-clever chill-out turn for the post-clubbing urban bourgeoisie?)

(09/05/05) index

Never mind all this talk of early 1980s revivalism – more and more, I’m picking up strains of early Britpop in the air. Specifically Blur – and in this case, specifically “Girls And Boys”, whose chugging electro-pop dynamic is inescapably evoked throughout. This is slighter and poppier than the shouty didacticism which I know and like the best – and if its a stab at cracking the charts, then it’s doomed to failure – but having seen them play possibly the best small club gig I have ever witnessed, I can still forgive Le Tigre just about anything.

(25/04/05) index

Just as the title of Just Seventeen magazine indicated a readership with an average age of thirteen, so we can infer that any pop song with the word “teenage” in its title is being explicitly marketed to an audience of eleven and under. In this respect, the flame-haired Dutch-Indonesian popstrel and her Swedish production team have done a commendably efficient job; it is easy to imagine Kim Lian being daubed onto the backs of thousands of exercise books in multi-coloured “glitter effect” gel pen lettering between now and mid-July. An intoxicatingly cheerful playground-rebel anthem in the Joan Jett/Go-Go’s tradition, for those who still find The Faders a little too grown-up and threatening.

(18/04/05) index

Any tune which has the discerning good taste to sample Roger "Zapp" Troutman's composition/production for Shirley Murdoch, the sublime "As We Lay", gets an automatic bye from me. With both J-Lo and Mariah Carey putting out solid material this year, the old certainties are tumbling around us like fragments of the old Berlin Wall. Oh happy dawn! That we should live to see the day!

(16/05/05) index

Yes! That’s much more like it! In stark contrast to the half-hearted mumblers of the last few weeks, there’s a refreshing vigour on display here, as Ludacris declaims with bombastic good humour over an inventive, jerkily staccato cut-up rhythm which will wrong-foot all but the slickest of movers.

(25/04/05) index

Mid-Eighties Eugene/Luther/Alexander seduction-job corniness, redeemed by a touching hesitancy and vulnerability. Once Mario has set out his pitch (he's a bastard, drop him, I'll treat you right), you're left with a certain ambivalence as to the likely outcome. If he's even addressing her directly in the first place, that is; for it is difficult to say whether this is a public entreaty or a private prayer.

(21/03/05) index

Last time I ran across this lot, they were all squiddly-widdly neo-prog-metal eight-minute workouts of overweening extravagance and excess. Not for me, but admirable for its aspirations. On the strength of this disappointingly straightforward clod-hop, they seem to have settled for being Muse, albeit leavened with a smidgeon of Rush. Admittedly, there is a small soupcon of squiddly-widdliness towards the end, but it's still too little, too late.

(14/03/05) index

Now look here, all you retro-rock "proper music" Luddites: for all its admittedly off-putting nu-metal trappings, there's more craftsmanship, dexterity and range in this (not to mention those other dread rockist qualities: sincerity, authenticity and passion) than in all your Razorlights, Kasabians and Killers put together. I'm particularly taken by the way that the full-tilt shoutiness of the chorus is offset by the softly tumbling Johnny Marr-ish guitar runs of the verses, and by the self-questioning "meta" qualities of the lyric.

(21/03/05) index

Huh? But I didn’t think they allowed proper card-carrying Death Metallers to use synths and drum machines? I dunno, first Nine Inch Nails go pop, and now this. Is nothing sacred? HERETICS! BURN THEM! BURN THEM FOR THEIR EVIL LIMP-WRISTED PRODIGY-INFLUENCED REVISIONISM! WE MUST STOP THIS CANCER!

(25/04/05) index

On my way back from lunch not long ago, this popped up on my iPod just as I was crossing the big public square in the middle of the city. The sun was out, the people looked happy, and all felt right with the world. As my steps fell into synch with the track, so my eyes started jump-cutting between buildings and passers-by, doing one of those little personalised location shoots that you sometimes do when you're out on your own. Then, as the familiar Kim Carnes sample kicked in, and fresh memories of the heart-warming boy-meets-girl Groundhog Day video started to superimpose themselves over my own visuals, a surging feeling of all-consuming bliss welled up inside me, sending cold shivers to my spine and hot tears to my eyes. Mugged by the unexpected, I allowed myself a broad, beaming smile and kept on walking up the pedestrianised alleyway back to the office, silently ecstatic, as both my inner and outer realities fused into one moment of luminous transcendence. So, ten points then. Bland my arse.

(16/05/05) index

Did you ever invent imaginary groups when you were little? 'Cos I had loads - including The Poppy Band, and their debut hit "Nefertiti (So Good To Me)". Quite how New Order have managed to rip off the chorus of this song so thoroughly, I will never know - but rip it off they have, the evil telepathic memory-sucking bastards. Tempo, melody, rhyming structure, everything. Compare and contrast the following, if you will. Female backing vocals are in brackets.

The Poppy Band: "Nefertiti (Nefertiti), so good to me (so good to me)."
New Order: "J.E.T (J.E.T), you are so good for me (you are so good for me)."

Spooked? Too bloody right I'm spooked. I reckon it's all that Ms. Matronic's doing. I met her just before the Scissor Sisters became famous, and she seemed so nice. Little did I know that she was illegally downloading from my subsconscious into hers, even as I was complementing her on her band's demo MP3s. Guess it cuts both ways, then.

(16/05/05) index

For all of their mock-outraged accusations, Trent Reznor and the boys seem considerably less likely to “bite the hand the feeds you” than they are to seize it in both hands and cover it in a thousand eager smooches, so manifest is their desire to score a fratjock-pleasing MTV2-friendly hit with this piece of witless, desperate froth. Once upon a time, they wanted to be Jim Morrison fronting Ministry. Now they’ll just settle for being Fred Durst fronting Garbage.

(18/04/05) index

Scoff all you like, but Oasis are one of my guilty pleasures. Impossible to explain why, but there's something about the sheer brass-necked obviousness of their musical thievery, and their brazen "best rock band in the world" arrogance, which I actually find quite endearing. Thus every few years, when Noel gives his statutory "best album since Definitely Maybe" interview, I always find myself longing for it to be true, and making every possible allowance in the process. And so it is with "Lyla", whose thrilling musical innovation stems from a) a mildly diverting rhythmic twist in the chorus, which they then proceed to repeat as often as they can get away with, and b) ripping off the Stones rather than the Beatles for a change. Specifically "Street Fighting Man". Yes, that's Disc 1, Track 1 of the 40 Licks compilation, about 15 seconds in. Hey, why waste time looking any further? That's for pretentious tossers, that is. Blur would do that. (Oh, and the title! Genius or what? What's next: Glora? Jula? Ange?) Anyway, I fully expect to see a sea of zeroes from the rest of the panel, but I DON'T FOOKIN CARE, because this is going to be FOOKIN NUMBER ONE ANYWAY, so WHO GIVES A FOOK WHAT YOU THINK?

(16/05/05) index

An almost note-for-note rewrite of Visage’s “Fade To Grey” – complete with an impenetrably po-faced new lyric, and lashings of suitably “arty” (if equally incomprehensible) mutterings in yer actual French – which, rather like pouty-faced strop-pot Miss Osbourne herself, manages to be both utterly preposterous and strangely captivating at the same time. (But Kelly, all those synths! And not a guitar in sight! We thought you wuz a Rebel Rockah! Are you trying to break your poor father’s heart?)

(09/05/05) index

If I were thirteen years old, and not yet possessed of much in the way of historical context, then I would no doubt be immensely invigorated by the gleefully rough-and-ready snotty-brattishness contained herein. So just because I’m over three times that age, and have heard it all before, and can reel off influences and reference points until I’m blue in the face, that should in no way detract from what’s on offer. (They tried to pull the same superior trick on me with my Slade and T.Rex records; I wouldn’t have it then, so I won’t have it now.) In this spirit of cross-generational generosity, I must therefore concede that – precisely because it irritates me to distraction, the “ba ba ba-ba-ba baa, POWWW!” refrain is actually the best part of the whole record.

(04/04/05) index

What, this old thing? Really, hasn’t it been out before? I mean, I barely even go out clubbing any more, and even I know this one. And I bet you do too. Yes you do – it’s the happy-clappy gospelly one, with the early 1990s hollering disco diva, which goes “I’ve got peace, deep in my soul, I’ve got lurrrrve, making me whole, since you opened up your heart and shined (sic) on me”, over and over and over again. Yeah, right, that one. I know! Whiskers on it or what! Anyway, it’s a pleasant if slight confection, more of a steady repeated groove than anything else, with no melodic or rhythmic development to speak of, but with some nifty bass runs and jazzy organ licks along the way to stop boredom from setting in. (Is it time for the fluffy bras/silver trousers handbag house revival yet, by the way? Oh come on, why not?)

(09/05/05) index

Boring generic plod is redeemed firstly by an attractive incidental "NEE-NA NEE-NA" guitar figure, and secondly by a pleasurably intense-yet-musicianly guitar freakout climax thing.

(14/03/05) index

WARNING: NME GUITAR BAND MEMORY BUFFER EXCEEDED. PLEASE REMOVE ONE OR MORE FROM DATABASE BEFORE PROCEEDING WITH REVIEW. (OK, so I’ll drag-and-drop The Others and The Subways to the recycling bin; that should clear some space.) ERROR: MAXIMUM NUMBER OF RECYCLING ATTEMPTS EXCEEDED. PLEASE SELECT SOMETHING LESS DERIVATIVE. Bah, got me there. Sorry, readers!

(18/04/05) index

Raw ragga toasting (from Sweetie Irie) PLUS clattering junglist drum patterns PLUS squalling rock guitar thrash EQUALS – well, one unholy racket if I’m being honest. “Ten out of ten for sheer exuberance and energy”, as my jolly old music teacher might have said in one of his more charitable moods - but I’m deducting five points for the recuperative Nurofen afterwards. One question remains: who exactly is this being aimed at? The thrash-rockers will take against the ragga; the junglists and ragga-heads will take against the thrash-rock; so who’s left standing?

(25/04/05) index

Suffering Stratocasters, what fresh folly is this? Recorded in Nashville for added “authenticity”, this bizarre country-rockin’ attempt to connect with the Uncut-reading Sounds Of The New West constituency has cheeky Sir Cliff regaling us with a story (dragged out to the point of tedium) of “borrowing” his Daddy’s car behind his back in order to impress a girl, wrecking the car by crashing it into a tree, absconding from the scene of the accident, and then cheerfully denying all knowledge of it – all delivered with an extended “haven’t I been a naughty boy?” wink to the audience. But oh, Cliff! What kind of example are you setting today’s impressionable Saga generation? Stealing? From your own dear, sweet silver-haired father? Showing off, presumably for nefarious purposes? Driving without due care and attention? Being the cause of a serious road incident, and failing to report it to the proper authorities? Then, worst of all, lying about it? And getting away with it? And then boasting to us about it? Whatever happened to “Honour thy Father and Mother”, Cliff? If we can’t look to you for moral guidance any more, then truly we are lost as a nation. Repent! Repent!

(09/05/05) index

Clean-cut boyband pop in 1974 hairy boogie-rock drag, and about as convincing as Melanie C in a Motorhead T-shirt - but proficiently done, and not without a certain redeeming sense of spirit and purpose. (Warning to well-meaning dads everywhere: this is NOT a cue for you to get your Thin Lizzy albums down from the attic. Your kids still won’t thank you for it.)

(25/04/05) index

Humility? Self-doubt? A questioning attitude to materialism? Oh my dears, how frightfully un-hip-hop! Throw him to the Guardian readers!

(21/03/05) index

In which the Shapeshifters resort to the time-honoured ploy of following up a major dance crossover hit by jiggling its constituent parts around a bit, putting them back together again in a diferent order, and attempting to pass them off as a brand new song. Such timidity inevitably leads to diminishing returns. Have we learnt nothing from Rednex?

(14/03/05) index

Regardless of which reality TV pop contest is commissioned next, one thing is certain. At some point during one of the early audition shows, Ant or Dec will introduce a cleverly spliced VT montage, in which a whole sequence of female contestants will be shown remorselessly belting out strained, over-cooked, nearly identical versions of “The Game Is Won”. There will be cuts to shots of Simon Cowell burying his head in his hands, or of Pete Waterman groaning “God, not this one AGAIN.” Because not only is this one of those songs which are all about striving, and being poised on the brink of a breakthrough, and struggling against self-doubt, and believing in your dream and stuff, it is also performed in that particular style—heavy on technique, crammed with ornate embellishments—which so many reality TV hopefuls try so very hard to emulate. Taken on its own terms, this more than adequately fulfils its brief. Taken on the terms which you or I might prefer to employ, it’s little more than a tolerable irrelevance.

(02/05/05) index

Ooh, Justin says “fuck”! Every single time I hear the opening bars of this sharp, sassy, slinky, sexy, immaculately funky piece of star-spangled disco-pop heaven, the sun comes out and the world instantly feels like a better place. Having been all over everywhere for the past God knows how many weeks, this already feels like a huge hit – and if it doesn’t dislodge Tony Christie after six weeks at Number One, then nothing else will.

(25/04/05) index

The namechecks for haute couture designers. The wholesale vampiric appropriation of a semi-digested sub-cultural youth phemomenon type thingy, but hey, it's JAPANESE! and hence unimpeachable mm-KAY? Big wigs, big gowns, fit dancers, The Gays All ADORE ME You Know. Little smidge of a Jew-cool sensibility tossed into the Pan-Eurasian stew. Big fuckoff production job, to mask that tinny little Minnie Mouse helium squeak of yours. All lingering memories of those naff old AOR power ballads firmly snuffed out, because now you're so achingly Zeitgeist that it HURTS, missy. Gwen Stefani is the continuation of Madonna by other means. Discuss.

(14/03/05) index

Difficult as it is to offer meaningful commentary on a genre from which I feel so culturally and generationally disconnected (are we even supposed to be calling this stuff “nu-metal” these days?), repeated listens find me swiftly progressing from lughole-covering bafflement, to a fond respect which teeters on the brink of outright pleasure. One of the major barriers to be crossed with stuff like this is the need to adjust to an altogether different level of musical/emotional intensity. As with hardcore techno, what initially sounds like an unsustainably full-tilt extreme is in fact the norm. If you relax and accept it as such, and let it welcome rather than intimidate you, then there is plenty to observe, admire and ultimately enjoy. Just don’t make me sit through a whole album of it, that’s all. (I am old. It wouldn’t be right.)

(09/05/05) index

One of the great qualities of those early Suede singles was a sense of necessity – that somehow, they had to be made. There’s a sense of necessity here, too – but it stems not from youthful urgency, but from a tangible sense of mid-life desperation. For what else is there left for Anderson and Butler to do, other than stage that longed-for reunion, with its attendant promise of a return (for all concerned) to the glory days of 1993? Thus it is that “Refugees” dutifully reprises all the key elements of the classic Suede sound, in a proficient, workmanlike manner. And yes: Anderson hits the usual notes, and Butler trots out some of his characteristically tasty licks, and there’s a suitably anthemic quality to the proceedings – but I just don’t buy any of it, not for one moment. This is a pragmatic re-marriage of convenience, between two people who have merely swallowed hard and formed an acceptable working accommodation with each other – but without that crucial synergy, borne out of tension and friction, that has fuelled some of this country’s greatest songwriting partnerships, The Tears are doomed merely to create elegant but hollow facsimiles of their shared past.

(25/04/05) index

A potentially attractive Police-style loping rhythm is spoilt by a stiff, restrictive execution that begs for some fluidity and development. Meanwhile, several flights upstairs, there’s an aggravatingly strident and disconnected quality to the vocals, which doesn’t bode well for the future.

(18/04/05) index

American readers might be surprised to learn that, like Modest Mouse and the Dave Matthews Band, Rob Thomas's Matchbox 20 are virtually unknown in the UK, with the only real recognition factor coming from his collaboration with Carlos Santana on "Smooth". Nevertheless, there is some serious promotional push behind this, as Thomas is given the full Priority Marketing treatment in a concerted attempt to catapult him into our hearts. I can't see it happening, though. There hasn't been much call for this type of amiably blokey sports-bar blues/rock since Men At Work split up and the Knopfler brothers went their separate ways, and while this might pass muster at low volume during Happy Hour at Hooters, I can't see it making any further inroads than that. I'm going to be proved so wrong, aren't I?

(16/05/05) index

There's a fantastic sense of momentum to this big dumb booty-shaking bits-wiggling beer-blasting juggernaut of a monster monster party tune. Is this what the youngsters are calling ‘crunk’, or does this bear as much resemblance to the genre as the Boomtown Rats did to punk? Rather than risk betraying my ignorance, I'll simply dub this a ‘Jump Around’ for the 2000s, and move swiftly on.

(14/03/05) index

As with Bloc Party, there's a strained histrionic stridency to the vocals that will either thrill or grate; and as with Bloc Party, I'm in the latter camp. Like so many of its ilk, this strives to emulate The Cure and the Gang Of Four, but ends up falling somewhere between Modern English, The Comsat Angels, and one of those regional compilation albums that were all the rage in 1980-81. "The Sound Of Rotherham: 20 Urgent Urban Dispatches From The New South Yorkshire Underground." Older readers will know of what I speak.

(21/03/05) index

They gave us seventeen singles to review this week, you know. Seventeen! I do think they could safely have omitted this witless slop, though. After all, "Candy Shop" is still in the charts, and the Black Eyed Peas are already on this week's list. Stick the knickers-knackers-knockers slobbering of the former over the fake jollity of the latter, and you're pretty much all the way there. Gerroff! Rubbish!

(16/05/05) index

There’s some convoluted metaphor going on here about icebergs, and water, and melting, and distance, and... well, I’m fucked if I can make any sense out of it, to be honest. Take the meaning away, and you’re left with a rather insipid piece of soft-rocking AOR balladry, that would doubtless fit in nicely between Shawn Colvin and Dido on Radio 2’s “drivetime” slot. (Corks, it’s all a bit Adult Contemporary this week, isn’t it? Has the supply of post-punk influenced NME guitar bands finally run dry?)

(09/05/05) index

Winsome, wistful, suffocatingly agreeable folksy acoustic strumalong, of no particular consequence. Not that I'm averse to folksy acoustic strumalongs in any way, but Kings Of Convenience do this sort of thing so much better. (And so did Ben & Jason, for that matter. Anyone remember them?)

(16/05/05) index

This is so achingly trendy that I scarcely dare to venture an opinion, lest I misinterpret a sub-nuance along the way and fall flat on my newly unfashionable low-slung arse. (High waists are back; haven’t you heard?) However, the word “motorik” does keep dancing before my eyes for some strange reason. It’s not a word we hear too often these days, is it? Well, let that be my contribution to the group. Dazed and Sleaze, please take note.

(04/04/05) index

A return to form in so many ways, as Stevie evokes the glories of his mid-1970s peak with a satisfyingly taut, gritty funk workout. With guests including a reunited En Vogue doo-doo-doo-ing away in the background, and no less a figure than Prince on guitar, contributing what can only be described as (forgive me) Tasty Licks, everything about this spells Major Artistic Comeback - and not before time, either. Unfortunately, this largely successful referencing of Wonder's "message" era does not extend to the finger-wagging lyrics, which take preachy pot-shots at a fairly random shopping list of targets, linked only by the phrase "shame on you". Without any kind of unifying principle to link these complaints together, the effect encroaches dangerously upon Grumpy Old Men territory. Musically hot but lyrically not, this is still Wonder's best work in many years.

(16/05/05) index

Home.