Here's the playlist from last evening's England Swings show :
Pendulum - Crush (Immersion)
Naked & Famous - Punching In a Dream (Passive Me, Aggressive You)
Badfinger - No Matter What
Edwyn Collins - Do It Again (Losing Sleep)
Avicii & Sebastian Drums - My Feelings For You
Jamie Woon - Night Air
Rod Stewart - Mandolin Wind (Every Picture Tells a Story)
Martin Simpson - The First Cut Is the Deepest
Fairport Convention - Rosie (Rosie)
The Fab Four Freakout :
Ringo Starr ft. Paul McCartney - Walk With You (Y Not)
Beatles - You Won't See Me (Rubber Soul)
Beatles - You Really Got a Hold On Me (With the Beatles0
Clare Maguire - Hope There's Someone
Alistair Griffin - Just Drive
Fenech-Soler - Demons
T.C. Folkpunk - Zero To Hero (In Sixty Seconds (T.C. Folkpunk)
T.C. Folkpunk - Take a Look Around You (T.C. Folkpunk)
Goldie Lookin Chain - You'll Never Be Alone On Christmas Day (A Goldie Lookin Christmas)
...and this week's top 5 songs in the UK :
5). Rihanna - Only Girl (In the World) (re-entry)
4). Rihanna ft. Drake - What's My Name (new)
3). Ellie Goulding - Your Song (-1)
2). Willow - Whip My Hair (new)
1). Black Eyed Peas - The Time (Dirty Bit) (new)
TOP 5 ANALYSIS and REVIEW
The Americans take over the top 5 again, with three new entries. Two of these have been American hits; the other has received a little less attention, but a fair amount of notoriety.
We have a rare re-entry into the top 5 as well this week, with Rihanna's "Only Girl (In the World)" reaching number 5 after being absent for a week. The song has already spent 5 weeks in the top 5, with two of those weeks at number one. In the interim, the song rose for a week to number one in America as well.
I think I've said all I need to about this track in previous weeks, but if you've forgotten, it's a pseudo-disco stomper over which Rihanna floats her thin voice. It was vaguely exciting the first couple of listens, but has now been overplayed to the point that I could easily go a couple of years without hearing it again. On the England Swings scale of 1-10, I give it a 5.5.
Of course, we have to give props to Rihanna for having TWO songs in the top 5 this week, which is something that I don't remember happening for quite a while for any artist. "What's My Name", at number 4, though, is a vast improvement on the club monsters that Rihanna has come out with in recent times. The song is truly catchy, beautifully produced, and Rihanna does a magnificent vocal on it. She slips into a slight Barbadian accent here, and it's charming.
The track could have been easily done without Drake, though, who really adds nothing. It's the chorus that the listener remembers, not the ephemeral rap that the guest star provides. I give this song an 8.
Ellie Goulding continues to stick around with "Your Song", which says something about the attractiveness of the tune. It received as little promotion as any song in recent memory, so it's a triumph for it to have been in the top 5 for four weeks now, and for it to be the only survivor of last week's top 5 as it has only slid back one place.
There's a vulnerability to the song that harks back to the Elton John original. Ellie delivers an unaffected vocal, and the only consistent accompaniment is a piano and a cello. Simple, but effective - as the success of the song shows. I give it a 7.
If you're not familiar with the phenomenon of Willow, suffice to say that she is the daughter of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett, and has been pushed into the showbiz life at the tender age of 10. Whereas her song has created some buzz in the USA, it hasn't hit the top ten there.
In the UK, though, the song entered the chart at number two this week. It remains to be seen whether or not it will have any staying power, but I'm guessing that the UK looks at this as a novelty song, and that it will drop next week.
Willow doesn't have a bad voice, but it's actually a bit hard to tell, since the track is vastly overproduced. It also sets a hyperactive pace, with SFX and "extras" jumping in and out of the song.
And it's all about her hair.
The track will be soon forgotten. I give it a 5.
Depending on how you feel about the production tricks of will.i.am, you'll either love or hate the new Black Eyed Peas track at number one this week. "The Time (Dirty Bit)" is a touch over five minutes of a cover ("The Time Of My Life" from Dirty Dancing) with a BEP-synthed overlay. The song represents new lows of lyrical stupidity, even for the Black Eyed Peas. It's another of their "party" songs, where everyone feels good and (cringe) pops bottles.
It does have a killer synth line in the "dirty bit", but there have been better (and more murderous) lines in practically any Euro-Techno hit in the last ten years.
The song is slick, danceable, and sounds exactly like everything on the BEP's last album - especially the dreaded "I Gotta Feeling".
In the USA, the song has climbed to number four on the charts so far, but it's not done yet. It won't stay at number one in the UK next week, either, for obvious reasons (okay, because it's time for the Christmas number one, and it looks like the X Factor winner might have it wrapped up). I wouldn't be surprised to see it climb back to the top in the UK after the holiday, though.
I can't hate the song, but I can come close to it. I give it a 6.
See you next week for some analysis of the Christmas top 5!
It's a Very Special England Swings show today at 6:00 p.m. ET :
In Northern Virginia : Cox and Verizon digital cable channel 37
In Reston, Virginia : Comcast channel 27
Anywhere else in the World : http://www.fcac.org/webr
Each week, the England Swings show brings the best, brightest, newest, and coolest music from the United Kingdom to your TV or computer (we are cablecast and webcast). This week, for our pre-pre-Christmas show, we've got new tunes Pendulum, Edwyn Collins, Clare Maguire, and more, and we've got older songs by Badfinger, Martin Simpson, and Rod Stewart. Also, we'll be debuting a couple of tracks from a brand-new album by unsigned Canadian artist T.C. Folkpunk! Oh, and a special holiday song as well.
All of this, plus our regular features :
The Fab Four Freakout : Beatles, Beatles, Beatles!
UK Music News : X Factor Update!
Top 5 Countdown : the best-selling songs in the UK TODAY, with a new number one!
Tune in to the England Swings show today at 6:00 p.m. ET, and enjoy a couple of hours of entertainment!
Well, wow.
There seems to be a trend in the past year or so for R&B and/or rap artists to expand their horizons and try to do a modern-day Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Earlier this year, one massive success was Janelle Monae's "The ArchAndroid", which borrowed from so many different musical forms - sometimes in the same song - that it was nearly overwhelming at times.
Now Kanye West has stepped up and made the album of his career. "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" is a phantasmagoria of different genres, pulling in influences from Bon Iver to Gil Scott-Heron, and blending it all in a cohesive, fascinating, and downright MEAN album.
Kanye has so much to say, that it's only natural that he reached out to a ton of guest stars, samples, and divergent forms of music. In essence, though, he's made a rock album with a certain amount of inevitability. I mean, why did it take this long for someone to pick up on the brilliant King Crimson anthem "21st Century Schizoid Man" IN the 21st century? It took Kanye to realize the potential there.
The album is rife with rock guitars, many of which are sampled from other music. Take a look at some of the sampled artists for an idea of the diversity to be found here :
The Byrds
Smokey Robinson
Manfred Mann's Earth Band
Mike Oldfield
Rick James
Tony Joe White
Black Sabbath
All of this makes the album completely bursting with music, and makes for very few dull moments. Along with this, the filthy, misanthropic (and, yes, occasionally misogynistic) lyrics manage to titillate and shock at the same time (and for Kanye putting us on notice about what he's aiming for : "What's a black Beatle, anyway?/A f***ing cockroach?").
The most amazing thing about what's going on here, though, is the near-perfection of the blending of guests, styles, and genres to make a complete whole. Many of the guests have moments of brilliance (witness Nicki Minaj's brilliant rap on "Monster"), but it all contributes to a distinctly Kanye-esque take on music, life, and philosophy.
There are a couple of minor musical "interludes" on the record, but here's more evidence of Kanye pushing against the wall : most of the songs are long opuses that shift and mutate into several forms. All of them are good, but some standouts include the above-mentioned "Monster", "POWER" (that's the Crimso-sampling one), and the remarkable "Runaway". This track starts off with nearly a minute of one piano note before kicking into a slippery syncopated rhythm. Again, the lyrics are just as nasty as they can be ("Let's have a toast for the d*****bags/Let's have a toast for the a**holes"), and concludes with a oddly affecting filtered sound which could be vocals or guitar, and sounds like both.
The album ends with "Lost In the World", featuring a delicately auto-tuned Kanye and Bon Iver, and stops in the middle of a note.
Does that mean there's more to come? It's going to take some doing to top this.
I give this new Kanye record a 9.5 on the England Swings scale of 1-10.
T.C. is an unsigned Canadian artist, and he’s just released a interesting album of all-original material.
Since T.C.’s last release, “Every Cloud Has a Sulphur Lining”, he’s managed to pick up an entire band for recording, and he’s improved his songwriting skills. “Every Cloud...” had several broadly-based diatribes against easy targets such as television and tobacco companies, but the new self-titled album expands his range of topics. That’s good news!
There ARE still some easy ones, though. “Zero To Hero” is possibly about reality TV stars. “Instant Coffee Lifestyle” is all about the inauthenticity of modern life.
There’s a core of songs, though, that could maybe fall under the category of “People that piss T.C. off for one reason or another”, and that’s where the songwriting skills have advanced. There are plenty of Elvis Costello-ish lines on these tunes (good example : “She was one mistake that I made/Though I’ve laid her to memory” from “She Has Everything”). Clever turns of phrase, hurtful and hurting asides, it’s all here. T.C. is finally aiming his vitriol with some originality!
The instrumentation is impeccable. The songs are, for the most part, hooky as anything, and the choice of embellishments is kept simple. A nastily-distorted harmonica here (“Zero To Hero”) or horn parps there (“Take a Look Around You”) add a whole new dimension to the music.
All of this adds variety, and completes the T.C. picture. The makings of an exceptional musical composer are here.
Some highlights :
“Whenever I Sink My Teeth Into You” is filled with those marvelous horns again, and has a descending-note bit just before the chorus that does the job admiringly. We’ve got the extra added bonus here of a male-choir repeat of the chorus near the end of the song, while the music builds and finally fades back to the acoustic guitar that the tune started with.
“Feeling My Way Around In the Dark For You” is a blues-oriented tune with more of that nasty harmonica. The song is actually a bit surreal and psychedelic, like something that was done by a garage band in the 1960s.
A word about the vocals : T.C. is a decent singer, but nearly all the songs are delivered in a sort of clenched-teeth roar that becomes a bit monotonous after a while. Fortunately, the songs are strong enough to overcome this, but I’m betting Mr. Folkpunk has a voice that has a lot of versatillity. He needs to start showing it.
I’m looking forward to whatever T.C. Folkpunk does in the future. For now, I give this album an 8 out of 10 on the England Swings scale of 1-10.
Here's the playlist from last night's show : Enter Shikari - Destabilise White Lies - Bigger Than Us
Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl Paolo Nutini - Coming Up Easy
Courteeners - Scratch Your Name Upon My Lips (Falcon)
Slade - My Oh My (The Amazing Kamikaze Syndrome)
Amy Winehouse & Mark Ronson - Valerie (Version) Bee Gees - Lonely Days (Two Years On)
The Fab Four Freakout :
John Lennon - (Just Like) Starting Over (Double Fantasy Stripped Down) Beatles - Slow Down Beatles - She's Leaving Home (Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band) Beatles - Flying (Magical Mystery Tour)
Adele - Rolling In the Deep Alesha Dixon - Radio
Brett Domino - Gillian McKeith
Coldplay - Christmas Lights
...and this week's UK top 5 :
5). Far East Movement - Like a G6 (new) 4). Olly Murs - Thinking Of Me (non-mover) 3). Nicole Scherzinger - Poison (new) 2). Ellie Goulding - Your Song (non-mover) 1). X Factor Finalists 2010 - Heroes (non-mover)
TOP 5 ANALYSIS and REVIEW
It was a surprisingly average week in the British top 5, with a plethora of songs staying in place, and a couple of new entries. Why surprising? Because it's December, and usually there are so many songs vying for the top echelons of the chart that there's a bit more turnover. But we take what we can get, right?
Every song tells a story, more or less. This week, we highlight the stories behind the songs :
At number 5, we've got the All-Asian Angeleno Electro Hip-Hop group Far East Movement (there's actually supposed to be a * between Far and East, but I can't be bothered).
Story : People drink. A lot. They get high (and fly). They dance.
The interesting thing about this track, which has already reached the number one position in America, is that this is the sort of thing that's been popular in Europe for, oh, six years or so now. All of this makes me think that Basshunter and Fat Man Scoop should probably re-release their entire catalogs in the USA, just to see what will inevitably climb the charts.
"Like a G6" is simple, with an oscillating synth line, handclaps, and filtered vocals. Just to dispel any uncertainty, the song's "G6" refers to a model of Gulfstream private jet. And also, there's no uncertainty that there's not even a modicum of originality in either the instrumentation, the lyrics ("popping bottles". Again?!), or anything else. That said, the song has a certain alcoholic warmth to it that's charming. On the England Swings scale of 1-10, I give it a 6.
Olly Murs hangs onto the number 4 slot for another week with "Thinking Of Me".
Story : Guy used to be togevva with gal, they've moved on, but he still likes her and throws a bunch of nostalgic memories of their time at her in hopes that she'll hook up with him again.
Olly continues his assault as the British "easy-goin' fella" with ska-lite tunes and "oh-oh" vocals. This ain't bad, but it's fairly forgettable. What was I talking about?
Oh. Yeah. I give Olly a 6.5.
Nicole Scherzinger has her first chart smash as a solo act, coming in at number 3 this week with "Poison".
Story : I really have no idea what she's talking about. Sorry.It's got something to do with her using "Poison" to seduce somebody. I think.
The track is all ADHD, a bit like Cheryl Cole's "Promise This". It doesn't stand still long enough to get a real fix on it - it's overproduced to the max, and only vaguely catchy. Note that the track was released in the USA more than a month ago, and went absolutely nowhere : there's a reason for that. I might be proved wrong, but I'm guessing the British audience will tire of it quickly as well. I give it a 5.
Ellie Goulding manages to stay at number two a second week with "Your Song".
Story : Gal likes guy, (or in the original version, perhaps it was guy likes guy), and can't afford to buy her great stuff, so s/he writes a song for her.
Uncharacteristic of Ellie's past material, the song is simple - there's only a piano for most of it, and then strings creep in. Ellie's voice is not filtered, and is a bit idiosyncratic; therefore the song has a bit of rough-edged charm. It's all very nice, and fairly unimpressive. I'm going with a 6.5 on this one, too.
The X Factor Finalists stay at the top of the chart with "Heroes".
Story : Well, it was originally a song about being a "hero" by being mean and drinking all the time, but Simon Cowell has cut out the song's heart, and turned it into a vaguely inspiring charity single ABOUT heroes.
Good guitar, though. No Carlos Alomar, but not bad.
Of course, like every Syco records "ballad", it starts all slow and respectful, and then builds and BUILDS until it's a faux-gospel shout-out.
It's mostly pretty awful, charity or no.
I give it a 3.Album reviews coming soon!
Every Sunday, the England Swings show plays the best, brightest, newest, and coolest music from the UK. Why, exactly, is that? The British and American music scenes are fairly separate. There's some crossover, sure, but for every song you hear by a British performer on the radio in the USA, there's about eleventy thousand that you don't. The England Swings show picks out the cream of the crop each week, mixes them in with some older tunes, and sends it out to you for your listening pleasure. We are cablecast and webcast at 6:00 p.m. ET each week : In Northern Virginia : Cox and Verizon digital channel 37 In Reston, Virginia : Comcast channel 27 Anywhere else in the world : http://www.fcac.org/webr This week, we have our usual eclectic mix, with new songs by White Lies, the Courteeners, Adele, and a new Christmas single by Coldplay. We also have older tunes by Van Morrison and the Bee Gees. Plus lots more! We also have our usual features : The Fab Four Freakout : featuring some newly mixed solo work by a BeatleUK Music News : X Factor Update!Top 5 Countdown : the best-selling songs in the UK right now!Tune into the England Swings show today, and get your fill of great music!
Pop classic. Oddity.
I go back and forth between these two terms when I think about the new, improved, reformed, and reformatted Take That. The truth is somewhere in between.
It was exciting to see Robbie Williams rejoin the band, and much anticipation was given to the release of this album. Commercially, it's a huge success, having become the second fastest-selling album in UK history. After the rise of the Robbie-less Take That in recent years, and the slow dripping away of Robbie's musical talents (and sales), it was a natural occurrence for this to happen.
First, we got the "Blackbird"-quoting single "Shame" from Robbie and Gary Barlow, which managed to summarize both the animosity and inevitability of the return of the full Take That. That single is not included on the album, and that was probably the right thing to do. It was fun, but it doesn't quite fit in with the new direction that the band has taken.
It's not that they've completely washed away the sound that produced "Patience" and "Greatest Day", though. "Eight Letters" is a Gary Barlow song that sounds like it could have been written as a postscript to "The Circus", which was the last Take That record.
For the most part, though, Take That have managed to jump on and refine the synth-based pop that's prevalent now, and - again for the most part - they've succeeded admirably, if occasionally oddly.
Take the first single, "The Flood". This is so obviously a Robbie Williams song; the lyrics are obtuse, the arrangement is flowery, and of course Robbie takes the lead vocal. The song climbed to number 2 on the British charts, outdone by upstarts JLS. It was hard to know what to make of the whole thing.
So the album comes as a bit of a surprise. There are harder arrangements here than Take That have ever done ("SOS", "Kidz"), but that Robbie is no stranger to. Both of these songs are mostly just odd, though. "SOS", in particular, has a desperate edge to it that push it into the realm of the strange.
But there's also some very nice, modern stuff on the album. "Wait" is a gorgeous ballad, and it's of a piece with "Happy Now", which is a bit neurotic but very up-to-date and effective. Both songs remind me of the Gorillaz when Damon Albarn is in his calmer mode. I'm going to hazard the opinion that the cartoon band was an influence on the new Take That.
Many reviews have mentioned that the album is a bit Robbie-centric, but there seems to be a fair amount of equity among the songwriting and vocals. Only Jason Orange gets the short stick, relegated to a heavily-filtered vocal on the bonus track "Flowerbed". Sure, there's a lot of Robbie, but there's also a lot of the others as well.
The album plays well as one piece, too, as some thought went into the sequencing and segues between tracks.
All in all, this may turn out to be the best thing that Take That AND Robbie Williams have done. If you can take the occasionally jarring arrangements, and balance it with the moments of pop bliss, then you'll love this. Of course, you've probably already bought it, haven't you?
I give "Progress" a 7 on the England Swings scale of 1-10.
Last night's show was dedicated to my cousin Sarah, who is critically ill. For more information, check out http://sarahdsays.weebly.com/index.html .
Here's what we played :
Nero - Me & You
Take That - SOS (Progress)
Foghat - My Babe (Fool For the City)
Example - Two Lives (Won't Go Quietly)
Duffy - Endlessly
Rumer - Take Me As I Am (Seasons Of My Soul)
Vanity Fare - I Live For the Sun
Crispian St. Peters - The Pied Piper
Searchers - Sweets For My Sweet
The Fab Four Freakout :
Paul McCartney & Wings - Jet (alternate version) (Band On the Run)
Beatles - Let It Be (Let It Be)
Beatles - Act Naturally
Patrick Wolf - Time Of My Life
Jessie J - Do It Like a Dude
Simon & Garfunkel - Bridge Over Troubled Water (dedicated to Sarah)
Gyptian - Hold You
Frank Ifield - Confessin'
Cheeky Girls - Cheeky Song
...and this week's top 5 songs in the UK :
5). Rihanna - Only Girl (In the World) (-1)
4). Olly Murs - Thinking Of Me (new)
3). JLS - Love You More (-2)
2). Ellie Goulding - Your Song (+1)
1). X Factor Finalists 2010 - Heroes (new)
TOP 5 ANALYSIS and REVIEW
A couple of new entries, both X Factor related, enter the top 5 this week, while Rihanna and JLS predictably drop. A bit more unpredictably, Ellie Goulding rises a place.
I think we need to resign ourselves to the fact that the British top 5 will feature a healthy wallop of fluffy pop until the end of the year. Come the last month before Christmas, and all of the trends - grime, "new" R&B, dubstep - are swept out the door to make room for gloopy pop songs. In recent years, not only has X Factor controlled the Christmas number one (with the notable exception of last year), but has tightened its grip on the weeks preceding it.
At number 5, Rihanna's "Only Girl (In the World)" barely holds onto the top 5 for another week. No other song has been in the top 5 longer this week; all the rest are new or only a week old.
And - while I have no doubts about the hit power behind the tune - Rihanna's "What's My Name" is a much better song. It may not rise near the top, though, with so much else going on.
"Only Girl" bounces along, disco infused and powerful. The song finally managed to climb to a number one position in America this week, after flirting with the top for quite a while.
On the England Swings scale of 1-10, I give this song a 6.5.
Olly Murs (say that in your X Factor announcer's voice, please)! Much like his earlier hit, this new song is a reggae based, breezy little tune. It's slightly more annoying than "Please Don't Let Me Go", though, and that can mostly be attributed to a chirpy little synth flowing in and out of the mix. Someone should have told them.
Olly seems to have found his niche here, doing reggae-lite and trying to style himself as a British Jack Johnson. That's okay, though - the song works. I give it a 6.5 this week.
"Love You More", JLS's latest tune, drops from the top to number 3 this week. Last week, I dismissed it as as ephemeral and inconsequential. Around about Tuesday this week, I finally "got" it, and the song bounced around in my brain for the remainder of the day, and even through part of the week. I still have issues with the twee nature of the vocals occasionally, but I've begun to appreciate the tune for what it is. I wouldn't call it classic, but it's got a . . . .something going on. I hereby upgrade my appraisal to a 7.5 this week.
And I'll go in the opposite direction with Ellie Goulding's "Your Song", which rises to number 2. If you think about it, the song manages to strip out most of what's interesting about Ellie, and turns her into a slightly quirky cover artist. She's better than that. The song has an innate charm, but it's not proving to have any lasting power. I downgrade it this week to a 6.
Now comes the big banana, the bully that pushes all the other children out of the sandbox. It's a charity single, of course, but I've learned over time that that's no real excuse.
This year, the X Factor finalists (with the glaring absence of Wagner - was he sick that day?) had Simon Cowell choose David Bowie's "Heroes" for them.
Why?
Well, because the charity this year is "Help For Heroes", which offers assistance to injured soldiers.
But one gets the impression that Simon just did a song search on his iTunes for "hero", and this was the only thing that came up besides the Mariah Carey song, which was the X Factor charity single two years ago.
So we have this sanitized version of a song that perhaps should have remained inviolate - I'm sure that there are legions of Bowie fans burning Matt Cardle in effigy at this point.
Not to mention the fact that the song is actually an ANTI-hero song, and that the words have been trimmed for this new version. I guess "You, you can be mean/and I/I'll drink all the time" didn't quite fit the paradigm.
As usual, the track starts fairly decently, but has a thousand strings and voices piled on by the end, turning it into the sort of pseudo-gospel tripe that's the standard. Then, the arranger has the nerve to paste on a martial drumbeat at the end.
My advice? Buy it for charity if you must, but maybe the message to Those Who Inflict This Sort Of Thing On Us should be, "Sure! Do a charity single! But at least make it interesting, or I won't be interested!"
It should come as no surprise that I offer up a measly 3 on the scale for this one.
There are definitely album reviews coming this week. I don't have to cook Thanksgiving dinner. See you then!
Today's England Swings show is dedicated to my cousin Sarah, who is critically ill. Here's hoping that the energy and love of our listeners is directed her way. She was an early and ardent supporter of the show; it's only appropriate that we send our thoughts and prayers to her. As always, we bring you the best, brightest, newest, and coolest music from the United Kingdom. Today we have new tracks by Nero, Take That, Duffy, and much more. We can be heard at 6:00 p.m. ET : In Northern Virginia : Cox and Verizon digital cable channel 37In Reston, Virginia : Comcast channel 27Anywhere else in the world : http://www.fcac.org/webr
The playlist from last night's show :
Blood Red Shoes - Light It Up (Fire Like This)
Pulled Apart By Horses - Yeah Buddy (Pulled Apart By Horses)
Supertramp - Bloody Well Right (Crime of the Century)
Nadine - Insatiable (Insatiable)
Beady Eye - Bring the Light
Cribs - Men's Needs (Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever)
Olivia Newton-John and ELO - Xanadu (Xanadu OST)
Jackie Trent - Where Are You Now
The Fab Four Freakout :
Beatles - I Want To Hold Your Hand (live, Washington, DC, Feb. 11, 1964)
Beatles - Hey Jude
Beatles - Twist and Shout
Crystal Castles ft. Robert Smith - Not In Love
James Blake - Limit To Your Love
Krokus - Long Stick Goes Boom (One Vice At a Time)
Petula Clark - Don't Sleep In the Subway
Julie Driscoll & Brian Auger - This Wheel's On Fire
Louise - Stuck In the Middle With You
...and this week's Top 5 songs in the UK :
5). Katy Perry - Firework (-2)
4). Rihanna - Only Girl (In the World) (-3)
3). Ellie Goulding - Your Song (new)
2). Take That - The Flood (non-mover)
1). JLS - Love You More (new)
TOP 5 ANALYSIS and REVIEW
The balance of the top 5 switches to Britain this week, as two new entries by home country artists crash into the chart. Last week's big hits are relegated to the bottom portion of the top 5.
And Take That doesn't move at all.
Katy Perry's "Firework" is becoming a bonafide hit in the USA at this point, slowly creeping up to number 9 on the American charts this week. In the UK, though, it reverses its fortune, sliding from number 3 to number 5. The law of diminishing single returns says that the third song from an album usually doesn't rise quite so high, and that's the case here.
Even though it has that super-processed Katy Perry sound to it, the song is one big hook. The part where the cellos kick in before the chorus - cool. Katy's yelping "Oh, oh, oh!" - even cooler. As much as I hate to admit it, I really like the song. I give it a 7.5 on the England Swings scale of 1-10.
Rihanna's "Only Girl (In the World)" drops back to number 4 this week after spending two weeks at the top of the British charts. That's a peak that's only been achieved by a select few songs this year; the switch at the top has been more common than anything else. The song has a old-fashioned disco beat, an only slightly auto-tuned vocal, and the synths don't come in until the chorus. That's restraint.
That said, I don't think the tune is wearing that well. I know it's been hanging around for weeks, both in the UK and America (where it's managed a rise to a peak of number 2). It's good, but it's not great enough to become such a perennial. Time to move on, I wager - I give it a 6.5.
Well, our rather quirky Ellie Goulding has managed to have her biggest hit by doing a song that's not hers at all. At number 3, her version of Elton John's "Your Song" still maintains the oddity in some respects, but in my estimation it's the straightest thing she's done so far. Her unusual vocal tone is still there, but all the flashy production from her album seems to have been shoveled away from this song.
I like that she keeps a strong accent for the song - and that's a sign that she doesn't care about the American market very much. I like the arrangement of the song, for the most part. It's low-key, effective, and pretty.
Admittedly, the vocal performance takes some getting used to, but after a few listens it sounds more natural. I give Ellie a 7.5 for this.
I'm no closer to figuring out what the *@#@! Robbie Williams is talking about in "The Flood", which - based mostly on an X Factor performance - has managed to hang onto the number 2 position for another week. The vocals can't be faulted, except to say that sounds like Robbie and a backup band. The song is pretty, but it's also odd enough to create some cognitive dissonance.
Why do Robbie Williams' lyrics make me think that he's the Neil Diamond of the 21st century?
I'm anxious to hear the rest of the album now; I'll hopefully review it a little later this week. In the meantime, we've got this anomaly of a song. I give it a 7.
JLS manage to top the chart with "Love You More" which - of course - they performed on X Factor last week. I'm not surprised that it went to the top, but I don't think it's their best song. It's got drama, and it's got a hook, sure, but the vocals are a little over-indulgent, and the song doesn't have sticking power. It's a bit frothy and insubstantial. Of course, one could say that about everything JLS has done, but this one is even airier. It reminds me a bit of early 21st century British boy-band "with an edge" songs, like the ones done by Blue. Except the knife could maybe use a little more honing.
I give it a 6.
I'll be a bit late with an album review this week, but it'll be here sooner or later. Check back, and don't forget to listen to the England Swings Show!
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