As November comes a knocking, ClashMusic counts the minutes ’til the Xmas novelty songs are unleashed with a look at this week’s releases.
Former Clash Magazine cover star, Jay-Z, claims this week’s Single of the Week with the euphoric ‘Empire State Of Mind’ featuring Alicia Keys. Jay-Z’s missus also puts in an appearance elsewhere alongside Royksopp, Snow Patrol, Paolo Nutini, The Soft Pack and Chase & Status.
New York, New York so good they named it twice. But will ‘they’ ever stop singing about the place? Seriously, the Big Apple has inspired more odes than a Grecian Urn and shows no signs of breaking. Rap heavyweight Jay-Z is the latest to pen a letter of devotion to the city that never sleeps, with the thumping backbeat sounding like a million heartbeats thumping at once. Enormously anthemic it seems that Jay-Z is so damn hit right now he can even coax a decent vocal out of Alicia Keys, which is no mean feat.
Like rock’s walking, talking self help book The Soft Pack return with some more snarling, uplifting rock. Formerly The Muslims, the band remain unrepentant to anyone who didn’t get the joke. No wonder – ‘answer to yourself’ they chant, as guitars fly by like Jenson Button with his foot stuck to the floor. A stomping, storming track the American group emerge as brats with a heart of gold. Hotly tipped, ‘Answer To Yourself’ will satisfy the doubters but only increase the hype around The Soft Pack.
Apparently Gary Lightbody has claimed that ‘Just Say Yes’ is the closest Snow Patrol have ever got to techno. No wonder techno is running screaming in the opposite direction. If techno had its guts ripped out and replaced with a sulking, anodyne wreck this is what it would sound like. Just say no, people!
Try as I might, I just can’t bring myself to hate Paolo Nutini. Sure, this is Tesco music of the highest order taken from an album that is set to delight mothers and irritate their kids on Christmas morning. But somewhere underneath this ‘Sing Sing Sing’ propelled trad jazz pastiche lurks an entertainer, and for that I salute him. Of course, if anyone buys my mum ‘Sunny Side Up’ for Christmas that opinion could well change…
One from the other side of Beyonce. The dull, ballad side that is. Sure to be the song of choice of X Factor auditionees next year, the blandness of ‘Broken Hearted Girl’ is unoffensive but tarnishes the fantastic pop star aura of ‘Crazy In Love’ or ‘Single Ladies’ Beyonce. It’s funny how the guy in the video is clearly not Jay-Z. Or even remotely like Jay-Z. I wonder if he sees that as a good or bad thing?
Featuring the vocals of Karin Dreijer Andersson of The Knife and Fever Ray, ‘This Must Be It’ is the latest lush, synth-pop effort from those Nordic kings of chilled out dance, Royksopp. Sounding suitably futuristic, it’s chorus comes dangerously close to Sophie Ellis Bexter’s ‘Heartbreak Make Me A Dancer’ but keeps it’s cred intact and makes for an unsurprising but effective effort.
The surprisingly angelic sounding Plan B adds his voice (and acoustic guitar) to this Pendulum-like pummeler, taken from ‘Harry Brown’ OST (which Plan B appears in). A bit good it is too. The drums threaten to overpower Plan B’s contribution which is the most immediately like-able part of the track. The fact that it makes me wonder about new material from Mr B is a good indicator of this successful collaboration.
