And this week’s token T-Pain guest spot goes to…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.67]
Al Shipley: Last year, rap’s least radio-friendly super producer, Just Blaze, came out of the woodwork to score his first #1 with T.I.’s “Life Your Life,” a shameless pop smash that actually retained his boom bap sensibility. But the problem with an artist coming off of a successful reinvention is that they’re all too happy to keeping riding that high with a virtually identical follow-up.
[2]

Alex Macpherson: I always suspected that there was a great song somewhere in T.I.’s ‘Live Your Life’, smothered in ear-bleedingly terrible MAIIAHIIII samples and unwanted, over-Autotuned Rihanna. And this is it! Similarly triumphalist, but with space for the ingredients to breathe as well as surge irresistibly forward. T-Pain’s chorus is one of the biggest he’s done recently and the introduction of the treated guitar in the closing half minute is a touch of genius; unlikely as it may seem, the hitherto unremarkable Maino may have just delivered his second unstoppable anthem in a row.
[8]

Ian Mathers: This, this is why T-Pain has a career – the smooth, thundering hook practically oozes triumphalism and between that hook, Maino’s ingratiatingly hungry verses and the surprisingly compelling production (pizzicato strings on a rap song are almost always good, especially when paired with thickly buzzing synths), “All the Above” is one of the few “look at me, I’m awesome and I’m going to be rich and also you can’t judge me” songs that actually kind of makes you root for the guy.
[8]

Jordan Sargent: Maino had a hit last year, the great “Hi Hater”, that by all accounts dominated summer in New York City. It never really popped off nationally though, so it’s pretty rich to see this grimey, archetypal NY rapper coming back with a T-Pain chorusingle co-produced by the Atlanta duo Nard & B. The other producer is Just Blaze, which makes sense seeing that “All the Above” sounds like a “Live Your Life” demo. Even T-Pain’s chorus is lazy and uninventive, which makes Maino’s stock verses about perseverance and triumph even funnier.
[4]

Rodney J. Greene: Epic doesn’t work for Maino. Despite styling himself as closely to an ornery Southern rapper as is possible for a Brooklynite, fellow stylistic carpetbagger Just Blaze’s giant trap-rap synths and busy Runners drums do him no favors. Whereas “Hi Hater”‘s sparse NY beat allowed plenty of room for Maino to get straight up goonish, he sounds trapped inside the production here.
[5]

Martin Kavka: Hip-hop is essentially about posturing; when it’s successful, there’s evidence that there’s substance behind the posture. Maino claims that he deserves wealth, which is a bit cheeky for a track so soft and string-laden that it seems to be modeling for Victoria’s Secret. But there’s one good reason to believe him: the line “the new Benz is all white, call it John McCain.”
[7]

Hillary Brown: See, he gets a 6 because he’s a survivor and deserves something for all the pain he’s been through. That’s how this works, right?
[6]

Additional Scores

John M. Cunningham: [4]
Martin Skidmore: [7]

Possibly the weakest web presence of anyone we’ve reviewed thus far – her official site still has a “MAKE POVERTY HISTORY” banner on it…

[Fanmade video][Fanmade site]
[7.29]

Ian Mathers: I don’t remember Ms. Dynamite being quite this patois-heavy, but it suits her. “Bad Gyal” doesn’t seem as socially concerned (or as heavy-handed) as parts of A Little Deeper were, but with that slow-burning chorus it’s hard to care too much. “Bad Gyal” also features a surprisingly apt use of strings, and the rough/smooth feel of those strings with her voice elevates this above just another fiyah-spitting single.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: The first time I listened to it, it was pretty much just a disorientating, overwhelming collection of sounds – “Toxic” string sweeps, folky Eastern strings, sirens, fierce beats. But these are all sounds I love – a succession of fantastic what the fuck? moments. The second time, I could see them all coming but it didn’t diminish the thrill one bit.
[9]

Hillary Brown: Clever samples, and she certainly has a near-auctioneer’s patter, but the song doesn’t push any of my buttons, perhaps because it’s got a distinct lack of melody. That said, it’d make quite the theme song for a Hot Cheetos commercial.
[4]

Alex Macpherson: Would that all comebacks from the pop grave sounded as vital as this! Eschewing the standard UK pop act tactic of playing their return as safely and conservatively as possible – Alesha Dixon, I’m looking at you – Ms Dynamite seizes the opportunity to re-hook up with Sticky, the producer on whose 2002 single “Booo!” she first came to prominence, to make the kind of track she should have been making all along. It’s a welcome return to MCing, for one thing, and as ever Ms D utterly slays the beat – witness how she repeatedly speeds up to a near-impossible pace before pulling back, switching the tempo, reminding us that no matter how bewilderingly frenetic she gets, she’s always in control. And then there’s the beat itself: a galloping rhythm which would fit neatly into any UK funky set without ever doing anything as vulgar as bandwagonning, constant switch-ups which pull the rug from under your feet again and again, sirens and smashing glass and completely insane, distorted violin motifs which go off in all directions like fireworks. It’s breathtaking stuff, both due to its audacity and the way it never lets you stop dancing, and it deserves to catapult Ms Dynamite firmly back into the limelight.
[10]

Hazel Robinson: The problem is, Ms. Dynamite’s so much better when she’s doing underground tracks like this (& whether it should be huge or not, there’s a certain snarl to Sticky’s stuff that would make it sound like an underdog if it was going triple-platinum) but at the same time, she’s so good at them you want her to get gigantic again. The sweep of the strings here, combined with that muffled bassline and her addictive, machine-gun rapping has “MASSIVE SUMMER ANTHEM” written all over it.
[9]

Additional Scores

Martin Kavka: [5]
Martin Skidmore: [8]

Video features horse racing, DJ Khaled…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.11]

Martin Skidmore: Lush music (produced by the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League), rather too smooth and laid back to suit Rick I think – our editor points out that it sounds kind of like PM Dawn, and that isn’t really the right backing for a tough gangsta, and John Legend’s slick blandness doesn’t help either. It sounds the kind of thing that could have been excellent with the right rapper, but it just highlights Rick’s ordinariness.
[5]

John M. Cunningham: The key line is “I can show you better than I can tell you,” because while Rick Ross as a rapper is not particularly charming or nimble, the opulent instrumentation and the classy John Legend’s creamy voice fit the subject perfectly. Another highball, please.
[7]

Martin Kavka: “When I decorate a home, marble flooring like the Nile.” I’m shocked to discover that Rick Ross does his own interior design. Perhaps, once this album flops – this ode to materialism is wildly out of place in the current recession – he should replace Ty Pennington as host of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition?
[4]

Dave Moore: Another surprisingly enjoyable track from Rick Ross, who glides through a Biggie-esque smooth jam with slick John Legend chorus. But his mind’s on his money to a fault (he’d rather do accounting than take pleasure in the company of his veritable ocean of women). He’d be better off as a CNBC analyst than a rapper: “I’m a CEO which means I profit offa me.” Just don’t tell your shareholders, or the government.
[6]

Jordan Sargent: Officer Ross obviously seems himself as a post-Biggie corner hustler cum kingpin superstar, and “Magnificent”, the lead single off of his positively buzzed about third album, flaunts a luxurious instrumental that wouldn’t sound out of place on Life After Death. But obviously Ross can’t even hold Biggie’s cigar box (even though the former will have much more of a lasting [non-cop fiasco] legacy than some think), and so “Magnificent” doesn’t do much to hold attention, especially considering that “Mafia Music”, the song that leaked before it, is one of the better rap songs of the year. And even on the chorus, which could be a small oasis, John Legend is swallowed by the monstrous beat – which is probably best for all involved, come to think of it.
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: He doesn’t actually expect us to take him seriously, does he? Apart from a “It’s the boss!” intro, this has the pungent whiff of a grab for respectability. It’s not just the delicate, almost tasteful, R&B instrumental from The Justice League. There’s also a bland hook from John Legend who, this time round, deserves all the charges of dullness with which he’s usually unfairly saddled. I’d even swear Rick Ross was trying a bit harder with his lyrics, though I can offer little in the way of direct evidence for that. Amazingly, Ross has suggested he can do this kind of grown man shit well, with another Deeper Than Rap leak, the surprisingly well-executed “Cigar Music (I Do It).” But if he truly is trying to class up his career, he’ll need to do better than “Magnificent.” My advice would have been to go in the other direction: call up Andy Samberg and see if it were possible to out-stupid “I’m On a Boat.”
[4]

Additional Scores

Hillary Brown: [3]
Alex Macpherson: [7]
Ian Mathers: [5]

We’ve heard they’re big in Spain. We don’t have any actual evidence for that, but we’ve heard it…

[Video][Website]
[6.50] 

Hillary Brown: Oh, goody, more of the same! An unconventional sentiment, no doubt, but a heartfelt one. I’m a big fan of this vein Camera Obscura’s been working in (sparkly, 70s-Nashville-influenced/Phil Spectory songs), and I won’t complain about a lack of variation.
[7]

M. H. Lo: What about this is not PERFECT, I ask you? Obviously not that dramatic beginning, BOOM BOOM! Certainly not the way Tracyanne sings “criticized” twice in rapid succession, or her wry intonation on the euphoric line, “You make me go oooh-ooh-ooh…” Just when you think you’ve got those drums sussed, they break away and open up into a more relentless, pounding Motowny rhythm, which paves the way for the melody to correspondingly BURST FORTH into its gorgeous chorus (“I wanted to control it! But love I couldn’t hold it!”). Which leaves me just enough uppercase letters to exclaim about the HORNS, and the STRINGS, oh my god the STRINGS! She may be “waiting to be struck by lightning,” but I’m totally electrified.
[10]

Ian Mathers: Their last album was essentially 8 depressive ballads and 2 burnished, invincible pop songs (about being depressed, but still!). It was and is brilliant. “French Navy” has shockingly bad lyrics, none of the locked-in-a-room intensity or languor of Let’s Get Out of This Country‘s slow songs and certainly doesn’t have anything approaching the hooks or melodies of the title track and “Lloyd, I’m Ready to Be Heartbroken.” A major, major disappointment and one severe enough I’m worried that My Maudlin Career is going to be as crap as its title.
[5]

Martin Skidmore: The big beats are looking for that Spector “Be My Baby” sound, which does go some way to disguise the band’s fundamental nature. The drums and lively strings on this make it far more palatable than most of its ilk, but the singing isn’t strong enough to stand comparison to Ronnie Spector or Darlene Love, so it falls kind of flat for me.
[4]

Iain Mew: Classic swooning romanticism very much in the vein of “Lloyd” gets undercut by an ill-fitting string arrangement, a rubbish fadeout and the fact that it sounds like they ‘met by a trick of feet’. Survives barely intact.
[5]

Martin Kavka: If you’re the type of person who wants a love song with a gorgeous string line and not too many guitars, and that contains the words “dietary restriction” and eloquently describes the topsy-turviness and ephemerality of passion, this is for you. If you’re not that type of person…what’s wrong with you?
[9]

Additional Scores

Edward Okulicz: [8]
Hazel Robinson: [4]

Difficult third album, difficult second single…

[Video][Website]
[5.00]

Alex Wisgard: As far as I’m concerned, the Comic Relief special edition of Top Of The Pops was the moment the charts died for good; obviously they’ve been rendered irrelevant at least since TOTP was taken off air, but this was the first moment it hit home quite how boring and safe the charts have become (see also: Lady GaGa’s two number one singles). And sadly, sandwiched between “Islands in the Stream” and the new Oasis single (probably) was this latest effort from Franz; while “Ulysses” swaggered and strutted with purpose (ie: we’ve been away for ages, and look what new and exciting developments we’ve come up with in our big pop lab!), “No You Girls” is more of an undetermined plod. For all the talk of shunning choruses, the hooks are in just the right places and the eyebrows are raised at the perfect level. “No You Girls” is the sound of Franz Ferdinand on autopilot, and thanks to TOTP, I can no longer listen to it without imagining a white-suited David Tennant twatting around with a guitar. Bugger.
[5]

Renato Pagnani: Alex Kapranos translates one of Lil Wayne’s recent go-to lyrical techniques to rock on “No You Girls”: Instead of purposefully mispronouncing words so he can correct himself in the next line, he retracts entire phrases. Love you? Pfft. He’d love to get to know you. Sometimes he says the stupid things that he thinks? Er, he thinks the stupidest things. When Kapranos comes full circle, admitting that he and his sex are (at least) equally to blame for the mixed signals, misinterpretations and dick moves, the song shifts from sexist to clever in one of those a-ha! moments that feels gloriously triumphant. And somehow the band manages to stuff all their previous hits into a blender and end up with something that avoids sounding like any of them. I mean, too much like any of them.
[8]

Ian Mathers: At 3:42 it actually feels a bit overstuffed – that louche intro, which they smartly replicate later on, and the surging chorus are both nice, but they should be able to hit the high points and get out after, say, roughly 2:15, instead of ploughing over the same old ground. Although I guess that length lets the track go from “you girls don’t know how you make us boys feel, with your pouting and breasts and such” to “you boys don’t care how crappy you make girls feel, with your objectification and not calling the next day and such.” Advertizing is killing our attention spans!
[7]

Iain Mew: Franz Ferdinand long tried to present themselves as something a little more unsual and ambitious than the ordinary, and as long as they were producing startlingly great singles it just about held water. Now they seem almost reduced to self-parody, choosing the most obvious option at every point on a retread song that never does anything to justify its existence.
[3]

Edward Okulicz: It’s as if the scruffy and dirty but oh so taut disco stylings of their earlier work has been rendered impotent. The bassline does not jump, the lyrics do not exhort to dance or delight and its sleek tidiness could less charitably be seen as a lack of depth. The song isn’t too bad but it demanded a nastier, fuller production rather than this empty gleaming which is hookless, safe and sterile.
[4]

Keane Tzong: I like to think that were it not for Apple’s helping hand, people would have noticed that Franz Ferdinand have been peddling this one song since 2004, and shut their wallets accordingly. After all, they most likely own Franz Ferdinand already- is there any real need to spend any sum of money on the “privilege” of owning this song? No. But here we are. Another pick as disastrous as this and I’ll buy a fuckin’ Zune.
[2]

Additional Scores

Hillary Brown: [7]
Martin Kavka: [7]
Martin Skidmore: [2]

We will cover other French songs, but they’ll have to go some to be as French as this ‘un…

[Video][Website]
[7.14] 

Martin Skidmore: Only the French sound like this: there’s something about the clearly enunciated chanson style of this that could be from nowhere else. I have a bad feeling that she might easily be aggravatingly quirky and too pleased with herself, but I’m suspending that suspicion on the basis of too minimal evidence, so this is currently okay and sort of cute.
[6]

Alex Wisgard: Sounds like France Gall being given the Mark Ronson treatment. Awful on paper, wonderful on headphones.
[8]

Ian Mathers: I liked “J’Traine Des Pieds” mostly for the digital twinkle underlying the song, which gave it “a starry, floaty feel it doesn’t really earn otherwise” (thanks, 2007 me!). Yes, Ruiz’s delivery was a crucial part of that song’s greatness, and it still sounds nice today, but without that kind of atmospheric backdrop she just sounds… well, like someone singing the words “elle panique” a lot, quite frankly.
[5]

Hillary Brown: Hark. An autoharp? Olivia Ruiz’s tune is almost twee as possible but not uninteresting, with her sweetly nasal Parisian vowels honking along cutely to a background of plucked and strummed strings that has enough backbeat in it to propel things along to the quickly arriving conclusion.
[7]

Martin Kavka: How lovely. An autoharp, horns, pizzicato strings, surf guitar, and handclaps. No, not all at the same time, silly. But there’s a lot of wonderful parts to this beautifully arranged song, which commands you to listen to it again and again, and to renew your awe at its accessibility and complexity. It’s also a beautiful narrative about a woman intervening on a friend’s behalf with Mr. Wrong, who is such a bad boyfriend that the friend is now afraid for many things…including her ass.
[9]

Dave Moore: A slight charmer that’s sweet, brief, then vanishes like a palate cleanser.
[7]

M. H. Lo: The magic of this track, endearingly, lies in all the moments in-between. The melody of the verses, for example, is a bit fussy and complicated, while the primary chorus is a tad too simple. But the instrumentation that conveys us from part to part is unceasingly fascinating – like how she sings “derriere,” and the horns go “blah rah blah rah blah lah BLAT!!!” in response while the plucked strings swoon along. If only that happened each time someone around me said “ass”.
[8]

We just cannot agree on anything these days, eh?…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.00]

Martin Kavka: The All Around The World label – which has released N-Trance, Cascada, and Dannii Minogue – tries to make money by butching it up, much as it did in 2007 with T2’s “Heartbroken.” This time, AATW’s claim to release the “biggest track of the year” is a song that seeks to start a dance craze. Doesn’t anyone remember previous dance crazes? Doop. Macarena! Eventually, they end up only being popular with pre-schoolers. As a result, AATW will soon have to put together a compilation entitled Kiddie Clubland, featuring its new stab at a hit, “Miss Muffet In the (Hokey) Pokey.”
[2]

Ian Mathers: Christ, when will rappers learn that jacking old nursery rhymes and childhood learning songs is just annoying, especially when accompanied by such a graceless synth and some enthusiastic jackass going “bubbley, bubbley”?
[3]

Dave Moore: This is probably as close as funky house is ever going to get to a bar mitzvah, somewhere between Crazy Cousinz “Bongo Jam” and the Hokey Pokey. Probably shouldn’t hold out for the Kidz Bop version, though.
[9]

Alex Macpherson: An object lesson in how hard it is to make a floorfiller based around a gimmicky dance craze which actually works – and also that when it does work, it may be the highest possible form of pop music. This works because as well as being hella catchy, the dancehall-inflected backing, with its trancey synth stabs and bubbling melody, is wild and frenetic in its own right. As for the dance, you couldn’t accuse KIG of over-complicating matters – the titular movements, plus “Ladies, lemme see you get down low!” are all you need to know- though it should be noted that it works the shit out of your thigh muscles, and a surprising degree of coordination is needed when it’s taken backwards. (Also: check out remixes from Crazy Cousinz and Donae’o, who rhymes “fire and brimstone” with “make the bed rock gyal like Flintstone”).
[10]

Doug Robertson: About a month or so there was a news report about this song on the telly. Admittedly it was on Channel 5, so this definition of news is about as loose as their definition of quality TV, but it still counts, and it’s always nice to see them try and engage with an audience who might be outside their usual “Hitler and Sharks” demographic. It’s just a shame that their brief flirtation with something more, and I put the quote marks here only because I’m sure they would too, ‘urban’ has to rest on something so childish and slight. It’s probably a YouTube phenomenon. These things normally are these days.
[4]

Additional Scores

Hillary Brown: [2]
Edward Okulicz: [4]
Martin Skidmore: [6]

Third solo single for the idiosyncratic Seeed frontman…

[Video][Website]
[5.71]

Edward Okulicz: German is often a poor language for rap just because of how it sounds – mechanical and with too many of those soft “ch” sounds that make it stick in the back of the throat a little much. But it’s hard to argue with the stalking backbeat and dark-alley-whistling here.
[7]

Martin Skidmore: I loved Adam F’s productions with US hip hop stars: the huge and dramatic orchestral combinations with potent beats. This German single is aiming at similar territory, I think, but seems a little underpowered, though the strings do give a moody atmosphere. It’s in German, so I have no idea if the sense of darkness fits whatever he is rasping at us – I want it to be something between “Ghost Town” and Skinnyman’s “Council Estate of Mind”, which would make this work well. The mark is based on my imagining that is the case…
[8]

Martin Kavka: Over minor-key horn chords and strings, Peter Fox raps about the skill that Berlin has to alienate its residents, as a result of its drug culture, uncleanlines and general ugliness. This isn’t exactly a new theme either for rap or for treatments of Berlin. But why is his answer to go to bed and wait for the sun to rise? Is social action that impossible? In other words, Bertolt Brecht this isn’t.
[4]

Hillary Brown: If you think “Gasolina” would have been much better if it were just a whole heck of a lot more Teutonic and less fun, Peter Fox has you covered.
[4]

Ian Mathers: It’s weird – the big stonking beat and those far-off, majestic horns both work tremendously well on their own terms, but they seem to be getting in each other’s way. I kind of want this either to go totally beat-crazy or else turn into something really imperious, but it’s stranded in the slightly awkward middle ground between the two. Still, German – what a great language to rap in, eh?
[6]

Additional Scores

Dave Moore: [4]
Hazel Robinson : [7]

New to FOX this fall: WHEN SEX IS NOT ON FIRE…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.20]

M. H. Lo: Dear Lily, remember how everyone crawled up my ass for misusing the word “ironic”? Yeah. You might want to be careful, because you have an odd understanding of “fairness.” Apparently, your boyfriend is smart, mature, loves you, does not beat you, “treats you with respect” – but sucks in bed, and, how you say, pulls his trigger a bit too quickly. But you realize that the universe does not owe you a perfect man, right? That, if it dealt you a man with one flaw, it’s not exactly an injustice worthy of a Nuremberg trial, or even a petulant lyric, yes? That you could try, oh, telling him what works for you, or maybe learn the squeeze technique? I’m just sayin’. Love, Alanis.
[6]

Edward Okulicz: Not fair? Not funny either. Suppose a man, say, Mike Skinner, put out a song that went “My bird is rubbish at sucking dick and halfway through us doing it pretends to have a headache, man, that’s a load of pants”, what score would you give it? Okay, swap the genders, keep that score intact. Lily Allen’s misandrous moaning shoots for witty but sinks under obvious rhymes, labored lines and a delivery that alternates between bored, boring and “can you believe I just said that?”. Yes, we can, we were trying to avoid listening to the atrociously dinky country pastiche you were inflicting on the world.
[0]

Iain Mew: At least when staying clear of politics, Lily has kept the easy humour of most of her debut, losing a bit of cheeky instancy but gaining some more lasting musical depth. She also seems to have acquired a habit of switching between ‘you’ and ‘he’ at random in lyrics, for instance throwing you out of the story at an inopportune time in this otherwise gently pleasing space-country number.
[6]

Martin Kavka: Some people might think that the two-step rhythm here is more evidence that Lily Allen has no sense of what kind of artist she is, but country music has always been the backing for the most moving of women’s complaints. So what’s more suitable than a banjo and harmonica to accompany her moaning about her lover’s premature ejaculation? I really want Miranda Lambert to cover this.
[8]

Hillary Brown: Say what you will about Allen’s focus on lyrics and vocal melody over the underlying structure of a song, this one has both done super-nicely, with a jaunty C&W bounce that pairs hilariously with her comical tale of bad sex.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: This could very easily become a clumsy whine or stridently irritating, but it’s sweetly and nimbly done, with an infectious skipalong tune and the odd burst of twanging guitar (which reminded me of “Ghost Riders in the Sky”). Another huge hit, undoubtedly, and rightly so – it’s lovely, and she’s found an obvious major relationship issue for millions of people that no one, as far as I know, has sung about before. I may be wrong there, but that’s still an achievement.
[9]

Jonathan Bradley: One of Lily Allen’s favorite, and, let’s be blunt, cheapest production tricks is to take supposedly naff genres and recontextualize them as part of the contemporary pop sphere she occupies. Importantly, she never does so by fully engaging with these genres; like her dilettante tourist in “LDN,” her genre-exploration is undertaken with as minimal an engagement on her behalf as possible. So she transformed ska, as on her first couple singles, into a brain-dead exercise in syncopation and sunshine, and she turned polka rhythms into a nauseating just-say-no lecture on “Alfie.” Her new single has her appropriating country, showing even more disdain for the musical traditions of the genre than she has with her previous influences. Over a rinky-dink “Rawhide” rhythm — deployed for no purpose greater than irony for the sake of irony, or, as the rest of the world knows it, abject stupidity —she complains about a sexually unsatisfying boyfriend, ever-mindful of the supposed daring of her subject matter, like a one-woman Family Guy episode. The entire point of the instrumental here is to demonstrate that Allen can adopt a genre as unfashionable as country and remain removed from its supposed cultural uncouthness; she clearly has no interest in developing a compelling tune out of these ideas, so let’s forget her indefensible musical choices and focus on the lyrics. Allen’s lyric is an exercise in merciless solipsism, and one so determined that she even makes her self-obsession an object of her self-obsession. Immediately after complaining that she has to sleep in the post-coital wet-spot after unsatisfying sex, she acknowledges “all the nice things” that her boyfriend has done for her. This is no exercise in humility, however. As with her entire career, Allen’s selfishness is mentioned only as a device to focus further attention on her own person. I don’t know whether Lily the woman is lovely or revolting, but Lily the recorded personality is a deeply unpleasant character. Worst of all, she is so unsympathetic that it is impossible to derive any joy from her own self-regard whatsoever.
[0]

Dave Moore: I initially disliked the way she automatically assumes the guy is somehow intentionally bad in bed, but then I figured out how to read the chorus more charitably – “it’s not fair and I think you’re really mean” is a childish thing to say to a person, but it’s an interesting thing to say to God: “why do you send me nice guys who can’t get me off?” Lily’s God is a strange fellow, after all – listens to Creedence, drives a car (sorry Joan Osborne, no public transit), possibly without insurance. Kind of a jerk, really.
[7]

Hazel Robinson : So he’s the nicest bloke you’ve ever gone out with but you haven’t alerted him to the fact you’re not enjoying the bedroom encounters all that much so he must be really mean? Maybe I’m just not a very modern woman, but personally I might just say something to him, rather than making a cutesy-cutesy little song with ‘royalties cheque due from GIRLS NIGHT IN VOL. 45’ written all over it.
[3]

Ian Mathers: Well, Lily, if he doesn’t care in bed and is thus shit (and the song does present him as actively bad, not just fumbling or suffering from bad chemistry), then he doesn’t respect you, does he? It’s sad, you’d think someone in Allen’s position could afford to be more choosy rather than settling for someone who’s a nice guy out of bed and a selfish prick in it. Interesting enough topic for a song, but Allen’s delivery is a little pallid and the random country flourishes are just distracting – like its subject matter, “Not Fair” seems nice enough but is a bit crap.
[5]

Basic by name…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.33] 

Dave Moore: Precisely choreographed good vibes via Alcazar and a bit of goofy rapping via…I dunno, Marky Mark (hm, more good vibes…)? A fairly unstoppable Europop number, but there’s also something oddly restrained about it.
[6]

Martin Kavka: The chorus goes “I’ve got to touch you right now; try to keep it down so nobody hears.” What the fuck does that mean? Is it “Don’t be alarmed, but I have to touch you”? Or is it “Please put that can of mace back in your purse”? Or even perhaps “You’re really hot, but my friend at the bar tells me that you’re extremely loud in bed. That’s a real turnoff for me, but I wonder whether we might be able to work out a compromise, because I’m exceptionally horny, before I do you right here in public”? ‘Tis a puzzlement.
[4]

Hillary Brown: Rather loud, considering the message of the song, which is more than a little creepy, but awfully catchy for a song that could be Uncle Ernie’s theme.
[5]

Jessica Popper:This is a pretty conventional 21st century Eurodance song, but it’s one of the catchiest I’ve heard lately. For once, someone remembered to put in a hook! They’ve released 6 albums and 19 singles in Sweden, yet still they’re utterly unknown in the UK and have never had a top 40 hit. I think this cheery, energetic song could break that trend, if it was given the chance. The singer may be rather ugly, but the song is much better than what some of the young Swedish boy popstars are doing right now. The only problem is the weird, mumbly rap.
[8]

Ian Mathers: This kind of very basic, pro forma Eurodance music that seems to crop up perennially over there can go one of two ways: like the best meat-and-potatoes rock, it can be a surprisingly satisfying reminder of why a genre and its tropes are so successful, nourishing for its straightforward simplicity as much as anything else; or it can seem braindead and derivative, another example of why the genre and its tropes are basically bankrupt. From the robotized female voice intoning the title at the start to the awkwardly gruff rapping to the same goddamn synth setting everyone and their mother has used, Basic Element falls into the latter camp.
[3]

Additional Scores

M. H. Lo: [5]
Edward Okulicz: [7]
Martin Skidmore: [4]
Alex Wisgard: [6]