in at number 1!

Frankmusik: until maxxie from skins releaese a pop single a la adam rickett the person i truly think shouldve been bigged up as the only thing to matter this year in terms of artist breakthru's is mr frankmusik.
can't believ id almost forgot about him. buy his ep now online so like me you can pretend you knew him all along like a long lost friend.
heres his new single 3 little words (fan made video) (real video via popjustice)

innnn 2!

Dont Panic, my favourite all male rock band as in proper band with pretentions to be the next radiohead is back! yay!




Panic at the Disco, Nine in the Afternoon, Pretty. Odd
i loved their first album so i hope this change in sound suits me, so far the catchyness of this single is infected my entire bus journey home from work each day, it really suits those 5.30 sunsets over lancaster.

innnnnn 3!

3) Janet Jackson, Discipline


Mariah came back with a whimper this week with a limp invitiation to Touch her Body, but Janet succinctly slides amongst the timbaland sound dominating the charts producing lots of positve Feedback.

It's a great lead single with some lovely synthetic vocals although the lyrics are perhaps best left undeciphered, yet scarily the phrase 'heavy like a first day period' perhaps lacks any metaphor.

This video cemented her return to form:



So far i am loving the slinky sound of Rock with You which seems to steal from Kylie/Uffie, but possibly even takes back what was rightfully Janets to begin with. A playful sexiness and an elctro beat.

yet saving the best to last, here is LUV yay:

Emerging From Hibernation:
After the bleak january popscene here comes a belated valentines to sort things out...

All the hype is paying off for the Adele's, Duffy's and David Jordan's of this world...but none of them could get a hit at any other time of year.
Basshunter gives us 2008's biggest selling song of the year so far... with a measley 200,000 sales.
Nickelback reach a new peak of number 2 with a song that charted first way back in october '07...

...and so while pop seemingly slumbers on here is my rundown of the small stirrings going on that give me hope that pop wil soon bloom again:

10) NZ band Cut Off Your Arms: Oh Girl, stealing the building blocks from with every heartbeat to provide the type of indie boys pop that might make some people think pop is newly credible and others think that indie boys are newly hot or something... anyway there it is for you:

9) Two sweet singles should encourage anyone to find out this album: here is the cover so you know what to look for when u enter a record shop or when u want to paste into itunes to add to your illegally downloaded copy.

8) Black and Gold: Sam Sparro : hotpants : hit single

7) she dont rush the bus: snoop / robyn / sexual eruption

6) im a lyckle bit in love with her: lykke li, little bit

5) Kylie, do it again, cherry bomb, carried away: three new b-sides that add to that whole nintendo/kawaii/mecha/candy thing she almost had goin on with her album. The album is still good but hopefully some of these tracks get merged into the tour setlist to make things a bit more cohesive and thereby resembling artisitc integrity rather than capitalising upon a mix of potential singles.

4) simon curtis remains lodged on my album and hopefully this year you will have heard of him hear him here see him here:

my favourite

Maybe



I'm strong, But I break
I'm stubborn, And I make plenty of mistakes
Yeah I'm hard, And life with me is never easy
To figure out, to love I'm jaded but oh so lovely
All you have to do is hold me
And you'll know and you'll see just how sweet it can beIf you'll trust me, love me, let me
Maybe, maybe

Someday, When we're at the same place
When we're on the same road
When it's OK to hold my hand Without feeling lost Without all the excuses
When it's just because you love me, you let me, you need meThen maybe, maybe
All you have to do is hold me
And you'll know and you'll see just how sweet it can beIf you'll trust me, love me, let me
Maybe, maybe

I'm confusing as hell
I'm north and south
And I'll probably never have it all figured out
But what I know is I wasn't meant to walk this world without you
And I promise I'll try
Yeah I'm gonna try to give you every little part of me Every single detail you missed with your eyes
Then maybe, Maybe yeah maybe, yeh maybe and maybe maybe

One day we'll meet again and you'll need me, you'll see me completelyEvery little bit
Oh yeah maybe you'll love me, you'll love me then

I don't want to be tough

And I don't want to be proud
I don't need to be fixed and I certainly don't need to be found
I'm not lost
I just need to be in love
I just need to be loved
I just want to be loved by you and I won't stop 'cause I believe that maybe, yeah maybe
Maybe, yeah maybe

I should know better than to touch the fire twice
But I'm thinking maybe, yeah maybe you're mine
Maybe, love maybe

***

while everyones racing to claim the best song/album/artwork/meltdown of the passing pop year, i only wanna draw your attention to my favourite recording, from my favourite album by a woman slowly becoming my favourite vocalist and lyricist. she thinks this is her 'december' but its really her jagged little pill. its epic in its ambitous scale as it delves ever deeper into the painful numbness caused by kellys evident loss, until that numbness is reworked thru vocals and arrangements that add emotion to lyris which self referentially seem to come from a person thats emoitonless, this is like an emo's wetdream, reminds me of a dennis cooper novel and plays out like a masochistic alanis with each track hurting more than the last.

subliminal

Ashlee Simpson - Outta my Head (Ay ya ya)

i hated it on first listen now i love it kinda song that may well mark a turn in Asshlee's career the video is all a little too kooky but its a nice little risk taker reminds me of Billie Piper for some reason? but it most certainly reminds everyone else of the beat from Maneater, the throb of blackout, and the yelps of cyndi's oeuvre.

subliminal

listen to it

Amy Studt, Furniture

Hopefully this is just the raise-awareness-before-kickass-album-launch-next-year-kinda-single-out-dec-3rd type song, becuase this haunting little ditty isnt getting the love it deserves.

play it. tell ppl about it. send it to your old friend mark who loved her in high school when she sung different songs. x

wowowowow

Kylie, X

Set the scene: i've never listened to an entire kylie album before. i have Ultimate Kylie which is basically a singles collection. my favorite tracks are, 'breathe' / 'did it again' from the deconstruction era, and the singles from Body Language (perhaps cos they were written with my heroines Emiliana Torrini and Karen Poole).

The journey: I wasn't really expecting much from X. Judging from afar as a non-fan I feel like deconstruction showed promise, light years went retrograde, and since then shes been clawing slowly back up to credibility. fever gave good singles but most importnantly gave us iconic images courtesy of will baker and Body language tightrope walked image was flawless, singles a little quirky for the mainstream. bring in xenomania and scissor sisters for two new greatest hits releases and who know which direction she would head next.

2 hearts: not knowing what to expect or indeed expecting much to like from kylie's latest, made me feel kinda unecessarily deflated that 2 hearts wasnt more amazing. but what did i want it to be? im not sure? i saw a lazy goldfrappian song replacing elector blips with guitars and it left me and the charts cold.

x: so entering X is unsignposted territory who knew where it would take us... and the verdict is: i really really like it. im stil surprised by that myself.

'i wanted to write a song called cosmic' is almost a microcosm of the entire album. she has taken that step back and evaluated what worked, what didnt, what she is admired for, the electro dance, the quirky pop expermients the heartfelt ballads, so that X seems to echo so much of her past that it feels truly like it wraps up all those strange falsestarts and misdirections of this huge pop career and points full focus on kylie.

'Like a drug' and 'In your arms' (and later 'Im the one') are to my ear, full of that specific fever dance style that Kylie perfected herself, but as potential singles they are kinda light and sub 'i believe in you' tracks that as the kylie show deomstrated would make lovely ballads as well as dance tracks but here seem to be a bit likefever rejects, fan pleasers maybe? (im the one , yes michaelangelo saves it, but i find the chorus to be weak and needy love me love me...)

'Speakerphone' is the bloodshy and avant track which channels so much of Uffies 'pop the glock' that its practically an illegal homage. kylie does it better. its less harsh more listenable and a nice quirky track that my subconcious, apparently, had been hoping for. i love this track anyway.

'Sensistised' is another ace track, chocolateesque its has a nice hook and breathy backing, its sexual kylie.

Checking the album credits its nice to see my quirky miss poole providing some nice co-writes with minogue herself. i feel like karen poole truly gets the dark erotic pop that i think kylie wants to create. i hear karen all over 'chocolate' and 'red blooded woman' and i always imagined she demo'd them for kylie and it was like she held a mirror up to kylie herself, and karen was both left huming in the backing track and aped in the lead vocals. here they give us some sublime tracks. 'heart beat rock' is solid filler, its another Uffie style track; probably written to make speakerphone less of a standout, but also a nice lead into Nu-Di-Ty later) 'Nu-di-ty' is probaly the dividing track i like it but its experimental nature can make it feel a bit too try hard. but i like my kylie avant garde i have now decided. also this dynamic duo provide 'no more rain' kylies new over the rainbow unapologetically hopeful cure-all, a little bit like pink elephants and lemonade... mm?

Most importantly they give us 'WoW' the best song on the album, its just huge. i hear B*witched echos for me early on i so have to find the track it reminds me of to prove it. (i think its rev it up?! or maybe 'never giving up') regardless this should be the big single from this album?

'all i see' and 'stars' are perhaps filler for me, but they are solid tracks and echo so much of kylies past that u suddenly find yourself having spent a pleasent 45minutes in the presence of kylie herself in all her incarnations. i think no matter what type of kylie fan you are there must be so much to love on here that shes really pulled it off. this is a perfect album and for those future generations, to whom kylie will once again mean boomerang and not much else, asking with wondering eyes what kylie was, what did she sound like, and why was she so revered, X will, for me, be the only response.

Girls Aloud: Tangled Up






link removed :)

clcik this and review it yourself....

i love close to love

girl overboard favourite at the moment

black jack has a great intro and is pipettes like/lyte

next single control of the kinfe i dont like until the daft punk robo voice kicks in

its one of the best albums of the year well worth the wait...even if we did have to have it the moment it leaked.

NB

leona lewis album review pending possibly indefinatly while this album is played on constant loop