Long-overdue return of the male vocalist from The Best Band In The World Ever…

[Video][Myspace]
[5.00]

Chuck Eddy: After my initial disappointment that Lord Cut-Glass is not the calypso poet his name suggests, I decided I really don’t mind his brogue, at least when he stays in jiggy uptempo music hall mode. It’s the useless show-tune slowdowns and fancy-pants filigrees I can’t stomach, and the minute-plus worth of Salvation Army band noodling at the end. Also, while I’m sure he’s providing me a marital lesson, I have no clue what any specifics are. He doesn’t want me to be a “Polly man”? What the hell is that?
[5]

Martin Skidmore: The supercilious lyrics only intermittently rhyme – I guess it was too much work if you have to include words like “polymath”.
[2]

Martin Kavka: To have a chamber-pop song about adultery is to have a slight clash of tonalities. Usually, this would make a song better. That’s not true in this case, though. The lyric affects a lecturing-hectoring tone, and gives an unrealistic view of marriage as a prison. (“Be a lover and companion as well/If she’s a hell-bat, a free-thinker, or an all-time bad drinker”? Really? Whatever for?) Add to this the sense that the narrator is taking a bit of glee in his friend’s marital strife, and the whole song appears to have landed in iTunes via time-travel from the eighteenth century, written by one of those vicars ridiculed in Jane Austen novels. Who needs this crap? Who would want it, besides right-wing Anglicans?
[3]

Edward Okulicz: Perhaps I’m guilty of boxing Alun Woodward into a tiny space defined by what I think he should be doing, but surely that thing is epic, grandiose, swelling masterpieces about death and doom and being miserable, rather than… jaunty folk songs? By the end of The Delgados’ lifespan, he was putting out more great songs per record than Emma, but it seems doubtful his solo record will be as good as hers on the basis of this.
[5]

Michaelangelo Matos: I never got the Delgados, but this is fairly pleasant, and I sort of liked the extended coda.
[5]

Anthony Easton: Muddy, with an overlong coda, and it does seem to be 8 minutes instead of a little over 3.
[5]

Anthony Miccio: If Graham Nash and the Decemberists got together over a case of vodka they still wouldn’t come up with a lyric so pandering or an instrumental coda so interminable. This sloppy-yet-synthetic whimsy, which isn’t worthy of a video game for pre-schoolers, could only get worse if it was longer.
[2]

Matt Cibula: You, sir, are no Martin Newell. Forced myself to get all the way through it but it made me feel a little sick to my stomach. I’m afraid I will be wrecking the curve by giving it such a high grade but I’m overcompensating for my natural hate of neo-Victorian whimsy.
[2]

Ian Mathers: Not only do I quite like this, but I feel obscurely protective of it… the Delgados never got their due when they were around, and as much as I find Alun’s solo effort charming both in terms of its sardonic lyrics and its lilting melody, I can imagine it getting hated or, worse, ignored at the Jukebox. But that ending section of sighing backing vocals (including, if I’m not mistaken, Emma from the Delgados) is so lovely – maybe I’m just getting paranoid.
[8]

Iain Mew: Between this and “Big Time Teddy”, Alun Woodward is clearly at his best as Lord Cut-Glass when doing sarcastic skiffle. There’s a fantastic energy and relish to its insults that strikes through the layers of pretty wrapping that wisp across. The taunting finale then fuses the two sides seamlessly before bringing in Emma Pollock, which is verging on unfair.
[8]

W.B. Swygart: OK, so giving a three-and-a-half-minute single a minute-and-a-half long outro chunk is a slightly dubious choice (though I quite like that bit), and the “all-time bad drinker” bit is rather clunky, and I can’t actually remember if Alun Woodward is even married or not, but that’s rather missing the point, which is that, before this blurb, a song by a former member of The Delgados was getting an average score under five.

Not on my watch.
[10]

The Kills, The White Stripes, The Raconteurs – all your favourites…

[Video][Website]
[5.20]

Ian Mathers: I really like Alison Mosshart but I kind of hate Jack White, and he’s no less annoying here than anywhere else. There are some good, weird moments (Baroque organ stomp! Meaningless but creepy lyrics!) but the whole thing is too disjointed — the structure of “Treat Me Like Your Mother” is a mess, and you wind up spending too much time with White and not nearly enough time with Mosshart.
[5]

Matt Cibula: Neither a hater of Jack White’s retro-futurism nor its biggest backer, I am always curious to see what he’s up to. But this seems to be the very point of diminishing returns, as this just sounds like the Off-White Stripes. In the Kills, Alison Mosshart punched her weight; here’s hoping she wants to go to there again someday.
[5]

Anthony Miccio: Pretty charming to hear Jack White play Mike Shinoda over serious distortion and clatter, but I wish his Chester Bennington wasn’t Alison from the Kills, a group whose only value appears to be looking good in black. Repeated listening makes the track seem less haphazard, but fails to increase its resonance.
[6]

Michaelangelo Matos: I don’t think Jack White is the most interesting dude of the ’00s or anything, but I’ve always admired him a lot and generally like his records fine; that’s how I feel about this one, at least until it turns into a bunch of chanting in the last minute, which isn’t as good as when they just sing.
[6]

Martin Kavka: A younger generation will see this as a full-bore return to the ethos of hard rock bands from the ’60s and ’70s. Those of us who grew up with those songs will correctly see this as a cold, calculated, pale imitation. Nice drumming, though.
[4]

Edward Okulicz: It’s not hard to appreciate the groove of this, as not that many straight-ahead Zep-aping underproduced rock music is this swaggering; well, for the first half, anyhow, after which the abrumpt dynamic change gives way to… well, a bit of repetition, and not a lot else. And the vocal melody is probably aiming for gritty, but is just the wrong side of ugly.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Grinding and swaggering in a deeply unfashionable way, reminiscent of nothing so much as the early days of grunge, and yet somehow it works — thrillingly. Grimy guitar squalls and classic rock howling haven’t sounded this great or this fresh in a long, long time; “Treat Me Like Your Mother” does an incredible amount to wipe away the memory of the plethora of straining, earnest balladeers keening over modern rock airwaves in the decade or so since Pearl Jam lost its relevance. But grunge, even at its best, rarely had this self-assurance or this rhythmic fluidity. Here, Jack White proves Meg isn’t even the best drummer in the White Stripes; I had almost forgotten how effortlessly rock songs can adopt funky rhythms, but this beat moves.
[9]

Chuck Eddy: “Tom Sawyer” via Zep-funk 16th notes and cowbell under bad-mama pseud-blooze vocal hysterics about (a husband?) missing curfew somehow too strained and/or cluttered to quite cut it. The expert rock groove loses something when Jack comes in to rhyme “straight” with “manipulate” — nonetheless a very rhythmic word as Rammellzee would surely tell you. Still more danceable than the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, as far as my feet can tell.
[7]

Additional Scores

Alex Ostroff: [2]
Martin Skidmore: [4]

A new entry for All Known Eminem Beefs…

[Video][Website]
[6.40]

Alex Macpherson: Eminem may be a soft target these days, but it’s still good to hear Mimi murk him with such panache. Like “Touch My Body”, “Obsessed” is an hors d’œuvre of a lead single: immediately catchy, a talking point, wearing Autotune casually enough that it serves Mariah rather than the other way round. The kind of song which you contentedly play on loop for three weeks, revelling in its summery horn stabs and quintessential Mariahisms – who else would cram a line like “Got you all fired up with your Napoleon complex/See right through you like you’re bathin’ in Windex” into a chorus, or belt out “He’s all up in my GEOOORRRGE FOOOREMAAAN!” like she’s taking a BBQ to church? When Memoirs Of An Imperfect Angel drops, “Obsessed” may well fade; but like the best appetisers, its delicious lightness is wonderfully satisfying for now.
[9]

Michaelangelo Matos: I imagine this will sound better with prolonged exposure, and I enjoy it now in a mild way: she embraces Autotune a damn sight more cannily than Jay-Z rejects it. I am also a big fan of the full-on robo-meme she throws in at 3:12. But I’ve never found her drama at all intriguing, and the slightly pallid feel of this indicates why.
[6]

Martin Kavka: The martial atmosphere created by those eighth-note chords does nothing but give rise to obscene ideas for video treatments, e.g. Mimi as goosestepping Nazi about to throw an Eminem lookalike into a gas chamber. This is even more boring and inessential than typical for a woman who’s released only two mildly interesting songs since separating from Tommy Mottola; it deserves one point, for some occasionally mildly cool AutoTune flutter.
[1]

Anthony Easton: Lots of things to love about this, and maybe this love comes from Carey no longer being satisfied with just being a virtuoso singer (though, frankly, as Carl Wilson tells us, being suspect of virtuosity suggests a educated privilege that should be noted).
[8]

Alfred Soto: Since Mariah Carey signifies to my ears as an affectless buoyancy, I take it as progress that she’s learned affected buoyancy. Of course she’s tickled pink by her stalker; to show even a hint of nervousness is beyond her. So thank The-Dream for their streamlined production, which makes Love v. Money sound like Imperial Bedroom by comparison, and Mariah herself. I love this kind of slightly creepy professionalism.
[7]

Jordan Sargent: “Obsessed” takes a bit too long to get to its pay-off, but that pay-off is worth it. In the song’s final 25 seconds, Tricky Stewart races Mariah’s voice up the scale with a series of increasingly pinging piano chords. It’s a climax that is understated and gutsy in the way it dares the pop listener to pay acute attention. If only the rest of the song had as hard a punch.
[7]

Al Shipley: I still think Mariah’s an odd muse for a songwriter like The-Dream, whose gift lies largely in crafting melodies for the pipes of mere mortals with just a couple lousy octaves at their disposal. But it doesn’t really matter who’s singing or who they’re taking thinly veiled shots at here, the massive hooks just keep coming, steamrolling over even dud lines like “lyin’ that you’re sexin’ me.”
[7]

Martin Skidmore: Mariah sings it with restraint, and despite the light use of autotune, it’s one of my favourite vocal performances by her. It’s also funny and sharp.
[8]

Anthony Miccio: Carey tries to give this put-down a streetwise, queenly smirk, but the track, from the beat to her choice of vocal effect, is so rote that the song would be better served by someone who could give it some angry, adolescent energy, like Jojo or Lindsay Lohan. Yes, Mariah Carey is now less commanding a vocal presence than Jojo.
[5]

Chuck Eddy: I prefer Mom-and-Pops to corporations, I prefer conversations to press conferences, my Napoleon Complex got me where I am today, Mariah jumped the shark ages before Eminem did, I have no interest in whatever relationship they may have had, and I wish she’d finally ditch the hip-hop attitude horseshit and get back to what she used to be good at. Given all that, I have to admit this is a halfway decent song — she even delivers the line “you’re losing your mind” with feeling. I’ll make a note of that, and move on.
[6]

If she’s that good, then why is Sheryl Crow the only one getting paid?…

[Video][Website]
[4.73]

Michaelangelo Matos: “I ain’t sayin’ I’m the best/But I’m the best.” Not anymore.
[3]

Al Shipley: Mary’s managed to keep up with almost two decades of rapidly changing production trends pretty well, all things considered. But lately she’s been on a really unfortunate string of tracks, like T.I.’s “Remember Me” and Jadakiss’s “Grind Harder”, where she’s never sounded more out of place, the queen of hip hop soul turning strangely prim and characterless over thumping synth beats. And at a time when even her much younger clone, Keyshia Cole, is going adult contempo, Mary straining to grab the of-the-moment sound and the guest rapper feels a little like seeing grandma in a tube top.
[2]

Anthony Easton: Mary J Blige is the last singer that needs the extending and abstracting, the fracturing and breaking apart of this kind of hip hop.
[5]

Martin Kavka: Why in the world would Mary J. Blige record a song that deprives her of all her uniqueness? This only gets any personality when Mary sings “I’m not sayin’ I’m the best, but I’m the best.” And the less said about Drake’s rap the better, as he forces “finger,” “bring her,” “thing for” and “Jenga” to rhyme.
[2]

Chuck Eddy: Not to be confused with “One” by Mary J Blige ft. U2 (primarily because Bono never rapped about the White Stripes, as far as I know).
[5]

Alex Ostroff: Average post-T-Pain production with some nice off-kilter drum fills ensures this will be at least a midlevel hit. Its existence is justified by Drake, who I might have written off unfairly as a Canadian, Jewish, actor-turnt-rapper. “While my brother Wayne rockin’ out like a White Stripe / Ima kill the game / I’m the Young Money white knight.” Indeed.
[8]

Martin Skidmore: She’s clearly one of the most talented singers of the last two decades, but although I’ve rarely cared deeply about her records, I am disappointed to see her using autotune, as it does remove much of her individuality. Drake is bright and lively, the beats are reasonably chunky, there’s a decent tune, and when she isn’t being ruined by the heavier momemnts of autotune, Mary still sounds great, so it’s still pretty good.
[7]

Anthony Miccio: Mary’s here, but thanks to unmemorable lyrics and a blur of vacuous autotune hooks, it’s distressingly easy to miss her. Docked a point for giving work to a sophomoric Yeezy-Weezy acolyte.
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: The production shimmers and glimmers, flickering on and off and, at particularly intense moments, short-circuiting Blige’s voice entirely. It’s quite dazzling, and for a singer as reliant on raw emoting as Mary J., the Autotune does not actually disrupt her performance as much you may expect. But it doesn’t do much to improve it either; where someone more suited to melting into an instrumental, such as Ciara, may have produced something astonishing from this, Blige’s take is merely good. OK, that “good” does come with a caveat: in the last minute, when producer Rodney Jerkins fricassees Blige’s singing and begins doubling it back upon itself in a disorienting ice storm of diva and disco, things get quite stunning indeed.
[7]

Alfred Soto: Another showcase for the latest promising newcomer undone by the blahs. In this context Blige’s megalomania sounds particularly repellent; when she crows about being the best, I wondered what the hell she’s so worried about. She’s more conversant with hip-hop swag, flow, and intonations than the Latest Promising Newcomer.
[5]

Alex Macpherson: Mary, girl, no. You’re Mary J. Effing Blige. You don’t need to do anything you don’t want to do any more.
[3]

Cos Mexican girls can quirk too, y’know…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.44]

Chuck Eddy: As with many of her fellow Mexican art-songstresses teenaged and otherwise (Ely Guerra, Julieta Venegas, Ximena Sarinana), I’ve always appreciated the idea of Natalia Lafourcade more than I appreciate her actual music. Here, I appreciate the oompahs behind her more than I appreciate the disjointed melody and singing. Maybe I just don’t get art-songstresses, period.
[5]

Martin Kavka: Typical little-girl wouldn’t-ever-want-to-threaten-male-hegemony yuckiness, with an even thinner voice than usual.
[2]

Andrew Casillas: At first listen, this seems like a nice, dainty little pop song. Over time, though, it reveals very intricate, beautiful colors. Whether it’s Lafourcade’s masterful arrangement, her delightful phrasing, the fact that the opening horns sound like the bassline of Ben E. King’s “Stand by Me,” etc. Not to mention the delightful juxtaposition between the lyrics and the precocious melody. It’s hard to pinpoint EXACTLY what makes “Ella es Bonita” work so well. But the entire piece is simply charming. This girl is a remarkable talent.
[10]

Michaelangelo Matos: I will admit that her singing in Spanish helps; I don’t have translations and will presume that what she’s singing about isn’t going to make me cringe. But the tune is sturdy and the horns, attention-getting and circus-like as they may be, don’t get in the way at all. My sister Brittany, whom you may recall from “La Perla,” sez: “Right away I thought it sounded like Motown Christmas music. Then I thought it sounded like the kind of music Dell or some other technology company would want as background music in a commerical. Then at parts I thought it sounded like Asian pop. The song was pretty bubbly. I like bubbly music sometimes, but this was a little too bubbly. She has an okay voice, but the lyrics were too repetitive. The chick is pretty. Okay, I get it. NEXT! I would give this a 3.”
[7]

Martin Skidmore: This is annoying — the simpleminded piano, the fairground oompah of much of it, and the mostly girlish vocal (she occasionally gets more ambitious, and has a strong voice). She’s big in Mexico, but I can’t see this irritating nonsense gaining a great deal of wider attention.
[3]

Matt Cibula: I love Natalia so much (especially now that she’s de-mobbed her backing band La Forquetina) and I love this song so much and I love the video and I love ambitious Mexican indie pop and it’s beautiful outside.
[9]

Jonathan Bradley: Natalia Lafourcade, whether intentionally or — more likely — not, conjures up quite a Christmassy feel for “Ella Es Bonita,” and it’s not just the liberal amount of bells adorning the track. Her playful vocal and the near-comical seriousness of the plodding horns behind it create a festive air, and there is even, dare I say, a slight hint of magic in the melody. A decorative and gaudy sonic palette, a tune stuffed with sugar, and an overall sense of whimsy that manages not to be cloying? Sounds like the most wonderful time of the year to me.
[8]

Iain Mew: The brassy/twinkly intro put me in a positive mood towards this right away, with just a lingering doubt that it could turn too twee. It doesn’t quite, and once the looping chorus eventually hits it’s laidback bliss. The only problem for Natalia, then, is how to get from A to B, which in this case is via C where C is a slightly too hesitant stop-start piano section.
[7]

Anthony Miccio: Swoony and playful enough that I don’t spend the whole track wishing Regina Spektor or Nellie McKay was putting it over in English. Hell, maybe Lafourcade will do it herself.
[7]

Yes, we should really have got on this a few months ago, but the album was only out the other week, and, as you’ll doubtless see below, he’s still not done a proper video for it…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.63]

Martin Kavka: There are some claims to party hard, but not much actual hard partying.
[3]

Erick Bieritz: Does funky house ever party hard in the sense that, say, Andrew W.K. would? “Party Moderately” or “Party Reasonably” would have been more fitting for such a mild-mannered, mid-tempo track.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: I know almost nothing about him, but this is a medium pace, funky, dancey track with rapping that is more dancehall than grime. The rapping is pretty good on the refrain, working rather like Sean Paul, though it’s less impressive on the rest, but the music bubbles along very nicely indeed all the way. Very enjoyable.
[8]

Chuck Eddy: Too much space then too much non-space then too much space again. Tries too hard to sound American sometimes. Not sure if he’s taking about ravens or ravers. Could use more high reggae notes and less obscured grumbling. Best part: zoom zoom za zoom zoom. Daylight come and he wanna go home.
[6]

Rodney J. Greene: There are so many differing versions of this floating around that I’m not sure by which I should judge. All have grime refugee Donae’o, in an indecisive vocal stuck between scat, toast, and bellow, voicing Suges’ tribal-percussion ‘n’ bleary-Model 500-synth banger “We Belong to the Night.” Beyond that, there’s a lot of variance. One version has lame “roof is on fire” chants, some have three extra minutes of bassy beat, dotted with creepy intonations of the Suges track’s title. The best version solves the problem of Donae’o’s aimlessness by handing the prissily nonchalant Princess Nyah half of his vocal duties.
[8]

W.B. Swygart: “I don’t play-ay-ay, bro” – but you do, though, don’t you? And that’s the best thing: the playing, the messing, the mucking about. Donae’o lopes around the basement, patting random acquaintances on the head, hoiking himself onto tables for impromptu chanting sessions that no-one really asked for, whipping out a notebook with “DONAE’O’s HOOKS ***TOP SECRET***” scribbled on the front and seeing which of them stick. It’s a lovely, bumping, shuffling stream of consciousness, and the lack of a properly definitive version makes it all the more ingratiating.
[9]

Alex Macpherson: Former grime MC Donae’o’s decision to hitch himself to the UK funky wagon came somewhat out of leftfield (though not, perhaps so surprising for those familiar with his early 2-step work), but has paid off spectacularly. “Party Hard” is ubiquitous on the scene, not least because it’s brilliantly malleable: check the remix with Princess Nyah, on which she and her girls moan about the rain outside before they get to down Tia Maria and champagne, and the ferocious bashment of the Heatwave Refix. Though it initially seems too basic to be an anthem, propelled by just a bare-bones rhythm, the occasional disorientating wash of minor-key synths and some perfectly-judged bass injections, it’s this looseness which makes it work so well on the dancefloor. Donae’o’s lyrics sound more like the freestyle exhortations of a live MC than crafted verses, but even better are his infernally infectious scatting vocals: “Zoom-zoom-z-zoom-zoom-zoom!”, “Lord have mercy!” and of course “Donaaae-oo! Donaeee-oo!”. They’re the kind of hook which move into your head like tidy, well-behaved temporary tenants, but within the week have invited all their mates around, trashed the kitchen, thrown a week-long party and show no sign of vacating it, ever.
[9]

Michaelangelo Matos: Like so many anthems, this shrivels a little outside of its proper context, which I’ll take to be London.
[6]

All-London Friday ends with an art-pop outfit that have nothing to do with Donae’o whatsoever…

[Video][Website]
[5.30]

Alex Macpherson: Hey, a quirky girl who can’t sing or dress herself extending her contrived infantile incompetence to an arrangement which sounds as though it was composed and performed by five-year-olds. I don’t think we’ve had one of these yet this year!
[1]

Anthony Miccio: Hoping I had brilliantly coined the phrase “tweelectronica” while listening to this song, I was bummed to find the genre referenced online more than five years ago. Not that I thought this song was novel – I just wasn’t sure anyone had bothered to give this poppy, negligible college radio fodder a name.
[6]

Chuck Eddy: Muffled indie-geek electro-dribble fronted by a pissant singer who clearly deserves to have her spectacles stomped on. But though the teensy toy-phone and glass-tinkle effects deserve a much better song, at least they keep the ball rolling.
[4]

Martin Skidmore: Produced by (Matthew) Herbert, this sounds very odd, strangulated strumming and bleepy noises and unexpected sound effects, such as breaking glass. It does manage a little energy in places, but Micachu’s rather flattened tones don’t help, and there is no kind of song in here most of the time.
[3]

Michaelangelo Matos: I found their album so spiky that the whiz-around ease of this comes as a very pleasant surprise.
[8]

Andrew Casillas: There’s something exhilarating about the clash of disjointed noises that Micachu utilizes so well. You’d figure that this would reek of sloppiness, considering the amount of hooks this track has, but the level of focus and energy sustain your interest to the point that you just wanna shake a leg and boogie.
[8]

Martin Kavka: This is a typical Matthew Herbert production. On the first listen, it feels like the most glorious song in the world, a perfect soundtrack for losing one’s sobriety (and dignity). Unfortunately, that experience is ephemeral. Subsequent listens reveal indulgences of muddy production, mush-mouthed singing, and sounds that only exist as a way to show Herbert’s and Mica Levi’s romantic detachment from the world. There are some good ideas here that reflect Mica Levi’s schooling, but there’s little care taken in the execution.
[5]

Alex Ostroff: “Golden Phone”, and indeed, most of Jewellery, is not about anything per se, so much as it is about the combination of disparate sounds in an attempt to make something vaguely resembling pop music. While it never truly sustains brilliance, the song has its moments, specifically the bass line and the irregular electronic blips that pop up when least expected. It inspires me to dance around my apartment, occasionally breaking glasses and dishes by accident in time with the apparently klutzy Micachu.
[7]

Hillary Brown:Perky and quirky enough, plus brief (always a plus), but it’s missing oomph or something.
[6]

Anthony Easton: Needs some editing, good idea broken apart by an excess of effects. Excellent tambourine though.
[5]

Yeah, it’s about time people who buy things on hire purchase got told…

[Video][Myspace]
[6.22]

Martin Kavka: Most. Annoying. Chorus. Ever.
[3]

Michaelangelo Matos: The reason Americans don’t like U.K. MCs: they sound stuck in 1988. The reason I like U.K. MCs: they sound stuck in 1988.
[7]

Chuck Eddy: The drum beats would’ve fit in fine on Sugarhill Records in 1980, and maybe did. Also… Limpal Bizkit (or whatever) is the one who doesn’t say “This is Donae’o,” right?
[7]

Martin Skidmore: This sounds surprisingly like ’80s hip-house, albeit with a bit more grinding bass and grimey rapping. I rather like it: danceable, funky and fun, and Lethal Bizzle delivers it with a likeable swagger. I’m surprised at how dated it sounds, but I enjoy it.
[7]

Hillary Brown: If you turn this song on repeat, you will never know where it ends and where it begins.
[5]

Anthony Miccio: If Jay-Z really wanted to take back the night, he’d make like British Daddy Kane here and burn up the mic over an uptempo James Brown sample. Not that moves that old school were ever his thing, but nothing’s truly dated as long as you’ve got speed and authority on your side.
[8]

Alex Ostroff: The beat sounds like a repurposed “It Takes Two” – didn’t Dizzee just do this on “Pussy’ole”? Donae’o is, for the first time, just repetitive and grating. Bizzle is competent, but not enough to give this more than a…
[5]

Alex Macpherson: Former More Fire Crew member Lethal Bizzle’s always been an opportunist, coming to prominence with brilliantly aggy grime, but subsequently displaying no shame whatsoever in performing with the likes of Pete Doherty and Gallows during the mercifully brief phase during which people pretended “grindie” existed. So it’s no surprise to see him pop up on a UK funky beat – but if he’s proved anything over the years, it’s his adaptability. Over a beat which introduces funky to drum’n’bass and finds promising chemistry in the pairing, Bizzle’s delivery is clipped, focused and not to be messed with; he even gets away with namedropping Doherty and Kate Moss and referencing Maino’s “Hi Hater”, of all things. Meanwhile, Donae’o essentially reprising his own “Party Hard” in yet another guise on the hook is the cherry on top.
[8]

Anthony Easton: This is not as brutal as a song with the lyrics “Me, I’ve got to go hard, hard, for my money” should be.
[6]

Best Mates Thursday segues into All-London Friday…

[Video][Website]
[5.85]

Martin Skidmore: We have another lively house production from Fraser T. Smith (as on “Number 1”), this time with added Sugababe, which is always a good thing. Her hook is very strong and catchy, and Tinchy is as enjoyable as ever, so the whole thing is irresistible. There’s still something a bit ridiculous about his success, but I am all for it, and this will surely continue his run of big hits.
[8]

Anthony Easton: So much noise, so much chaos, so much metallic energy (as in cutlery at the bottom of a stainless steel sink), and I am a sucker for the rough boy voice rapping and the pretty girl voice singing, which this does well.
[6]

Alex Ostroff: His cadence evokes TI’s recent inspirational kick, but it’s a bit early in Tinchy’s career to be speaking of the perils of fame, isn’t it? Regardless, this is appropriately epic for a ryde or die track, and quite enjoyable.
[7]

Michaelangelo Matos: As a Yank I think it’s a hoot that they’re trying to sound so damn American, but I’m also struck that this is only the latest example of a grime act aiming straight for the top of the charts, the whole post-“Rolex” thing as far as I can tell. I can see the closing credits of the rom-com already.
[6]

Talia Kraines: “Never Leave You” might use exactly the same formula as his last two singles, but it just sounds cheap and nasty to me.
[2]

Matt Cibula: I like this better when I pretend that it is a pop remix of a house classic, because then the piano chords and constant breakdowns make sense. Otherwise it all seems a bit too-too to me, trebly and troubling and clattering and clanking all over the place — and I can only keep up the illusion for so long.
[4]

Rodney J. Greene: I like a few splashy Jordin Sparks ballads and I like some measure of crabby Brit-rap, so I don’t see any good reason why I should be opposed to the combination thereof, especially when the Sparks parts are this exuberant.
[7]

Martin Kavka: Absolutely wonderful. In the lyric, in the slinkiness of the bassline, in the simplicity of its arpeggios, and in Amelle’s voice, “Never Leave You” manages to capture both the innocence of new love, and the maturity of old love that has reaped the benefits of the knowledge that love has to be worked and stoked in order not to become shopworn. The peak comes in the last verse, which is rapped/sung by both of them: “I’ve been gone since the weekend. So how’s your week been without me? How you keeping?”
[9]

Alex Macpherson: I don’t blame Tinchy for this. I’ve no doubt he genuinely loves the music he’s making now, and he seems to be having the time of his life. I blame the wider musical culture in this country that made him realise that cheap’n’cheesy crap like his past three singles would sell. “Never Leave You” is a mess. It rushes along at a frantic pace, propelled by a synth line pumping away purposelessly and an out-of-place, meandering house piano, but doesn’t go anywhere of note. A swamp of treble buries every ounce of character that both Tinchy and his guest, Sugababes’ Amelle Berrabah, possess. What’s really sad is that Tinchy continues to make excellent music – which is then buried on guest spots (his turn on Toddla T’s “Safe”), or released for free (the EP uploaded this week to his website), because anything that codes too obviously “urban” (ugh) is deemed inappropriate for the charts. What a terrible indictment of the British music industry all of this is.
[3]

Ian Mathers: I noticed that some of our commenters were kind of pissed that Tinchy Stryder has — is ‘sold out’ the right term? But, having never heard him before, I enjoyed the hell out of “Number 1”, and this one is even better. I have no idea how it stacks up against his old material, but this is a deliriously maximalist pop whirlwind, and Amelle does a surprisingly great job with the hook. It feels as if there’s about three choruses here, and weirdly enough the florid rush of the music and the breathless excitement of the narrative reinforce each other. It helps that I can honestly see this song as continuing on from, and being sung to the same person as, “Number 1” was.
[9]

Anthony Miccio: God, if you’re listening, please make Speidi cover this. It already sounds like them, and I’m sure they’ll appreciate the message of devotion. So get on it. Thanks.
[5]

Additional Scores

Hillary Brown: [5]
Chuck Eddy: [5]

Best Mates Thursday continues with the important lesson that, if you’re mates with a pasty Brit indie singer and a pretty young lady with more number one hits than you’ve had hot dinners, it’s probably her you’d want to put in the video…

[Video][Website]
[6.71]

Alex Macpherson:The song sits uneasily between its ambition towards jaunty disco bounce and its need to cohere with the rest of 808s & Heartbreak; the flat Autotuned vocals and rudimentary production which serve the album so well in its better moments are simply inadequate for any track with dance aspirations.
[4]

Hillary Brown: Damn if every single we review off Kanye’s album doesn’t make me realize how much more that record is than the mere sum of its parts. The songs don’t work incredibly well as singles, but if you listen to them all in a row, you get a much different feeling. Anathema to this kind of thing, though.
[6]

Anthony Miccio: This was always my favorite track on 808s & Heartbreak. Grabs the ear right from the intro, though outstanding hooks are all it has going for it. The “Girl, stfu – you’re the problem, I’m just the lord of your thighs” message isn’t quite as grating when divorced from the poisonous context provided by the album, but this is some smug, megalomaniacal, worst-boyfriend-ever shit no matter how you slice it.
[6]

Martin Kavka: This is better than most examples of the you-who-are-about-to-dump-me-are-making-a-big-mistake genre. Usually, the guy is just ignorant of the woman’s complaints. Here, we actually know what the problem is: Alexis Phifer is complaining about the nights alone, and assumes that Kanye is cheating on her constantly. But if the relationship is that tense, why doesn’t Kanye just let her go? Why does he threaten her with a future of abjection if she leaves: “you really want to spend your whole life alone?” and “they don’t know you like I do, they’ll never know”? A pox on both their houses, and an extra two points off for a video which makes it seem as if Kanye is instructing Rihanna to stay with Chris Brown.
[5]

Rodney J. Greene: The highlight of 808s & Heartbreak simply by virtue of being the only song where Kanye sounds like he has the tiniest inclination to fix his problems rather than just throw bitchfits or weep melodramatically. He’s trying to bring back the good times with an attempt at luring his lady out for the night in spite of enevitable watching eyes. It’s Ye making his way past the imagined hurdle of “Flashing Lights” and struggling in leading another to take the leap of faith. What makes it especially gripping is how the drum machine clicks away and the synths temporarily blind, evoking paparazzi as effectively as any of Kanye’s words.
[8]

Ian Mathers: Naggingly addictive, even if Kanye still just seems like a dick. He claims that she’s “worried about the wrong thing,” but it comes across as if he means not that she shouldn’t worry, but that she’s looking in the wrong place. And “anyway, they don’t know you like I know you” mostly reads as the arrogant laziness of a guy who’s unaware he’s about to get dumped, which perversely gives “Paranoid” something approaching real emotional heft.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: This is the one 808s and Heartbreak track that has Kanye sounding free. The sense of weariness and frustration underpinning the verses enhances the weightless relief in the brisk synth lines and the “You worry about the wrong things” hook. Even out of context of its parent record, the subtext is clear: this is the ecstacy of managing to escape, if only temporarily, the grim pall of long-term misery. But disconcertingly, the elation results from a sense of vacancy rather than joy; when heartbreak makes Kanye a dancer, he includes the pain as part of the package.
[9]

Matt Cibula: One of the least-convincing “don’t worry about a thing” songs ever, especially if the song’s target has ever listened to any other Kanye West songs. And a little too long. But those subtle Boz Scaggs chords and the easy lilt of the background synths have me sprung a little, so sure I’ll give in here.
[7]

Alfred Soto: God, I love farting synths. 808 and Heartbreak‘s imperviousness to interesting melodies or lyrics that extend beyond Twitter updates stops here. “You worry about the wrong thing,” I want to shout, or sing in a heavily processed voice, to Jay-Z and his death-to-Auto-tune twaddle. Still, this track is decidedly second-tier until the drum program from Animotion’s “Obsession” transforms into the drum break from Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch’s “Good Vibrations.”
[6]

Chuck Eddy: After those S&M synths at the start, I want Kanye to enter monotoning like the Normal guy in “Warm Leatherette.” Later, at the end, the whipcracks make me yearn for Lene Lovich. How he conveys neurotic emotion is so straightforward it feels artless — and hence, ultimately, a little boring. If anything, the music might not be pretentious enough. If he has to skim all the joy from the great Whodini/System/Nu Shooz tradition of new wave r&b synth-pop, the least he could do is cultivate a German accent.
[7]

Edward Okulicz: A delicious, delirious mix of quite 90s drum programming with confident hooks and generally meaningless but pleasant lyrics – best of all, the autotuned bits improve rather than intrude. Perhaps a bit on the long side, suggesting what West needs is someone to quell his excesses, but at least for 80% of the length of this song, he is as clever as he keeps saying.
[8]

Michaelangelo Matos: Fine, fine — weird, personal disco is my favorite music ever, so of course I like this. Still can’t stand “Love Lockdown” or most of the rest, though.
[7]

Additional Scores

Alex Ostroff: [6]
Martin Skidmore: [8]