Lopez Blogs

1. Hilary Duff – The Math: We will start with little Hilster! Not that she’s the be all and end all of electro pop, because she certainly isn’t (though Dignity is a step in the right direction towards pop classiness). But two of her best songs were never released as singles… and the first one is The Math. A great little rocky tune that embraces fuzzy guitars and a decent beat with a catchy chorus – give this one a little bit of a synthy makeover and you got a smash on your hands…

2. The Faders – Better Off Dead: Another song rooted in guitar rock but with the heart of a disco waiting to get out. The Faders just sort of faded away really thanks to an utterly crappy second single. Had this been released with a variety of remixes, it could have nestled atop the charts with Sugababes and Girls Aloud. Maybe Molly McQueen will do something dandy with it and surprise us all…

3. Tommy Page – Kissing In The Rain: Taken from his final (to date) album, Ten Til Midnight, this slow burning disco gem never really got the attention it deserved. An insidious beat grooves along to some gorgeous instrumentation while Tommy’s voice makes this a seductive floorfiller. Give it Xenomania or Jadion to remix and you got a boyband smash on your hands…

4. The Sugarcubes – Hit: Quirky pre-Bjork smash that is just an amazing infusion of eclectic styles, innovative instrumentation and Bjork’s distinctive vocal. While every other bugger does It’s Oh So Quiet as their karaoke fave, it would take a brave person to attack this song, rework it and make it their own. But it could be done and prove to be one of the best pop covers of recent times in the right hands…

5. All*Stars – Love Is: You may judge me for liking All*Stars when I judge Scooch so harshly. I’m not really sure why they were so appealing, other than I thought Sam Bloom was a little bit RAR and they were always supporting Steps on the many times I saw them in concert. Love Is was always rumoured to be the final single from their debut album, but after the poor showing of the lovely Back When it never happened. So someone needs to dust off this little sparkling pop beauty, bring it up to date and be as foxy as Sam Bloom. Marv…

6. Hear’Say – Loving Is Easy: Unfairly ignored thanks to their plummeting popularity with the UK press, this was easily one of the popstars finest tracks (though I’m not sure about the cargo pants with tassles look they had in the video). Veering towards the (then) cool sound of rivals Liberty X, this was a perfect pop number complete with awkward dance breakdown that was ultimately charming thanks to them resisting the temptation to have a rap in it! If someone can get over the stigma of covering a Hear’Say track (hey it worked for the cutting edge cool of Bianca Ryan!) then this could be swizzled into something quite lovely.

7. Hilary Duff – Haters: Not a million miles away in style from The Math, but equally as delectable, this is what you get when you get Hilary mad. Ooo scary! Genius if only for the unintentionally hilarious faux rap breakdown that would just be brilliant if someone like Avenue or Eton Road covered it – “different life forms different species, broken promises and treaties, talk about exterminating, not the haters just the hating…” Political!