Lopez Blogs

After I did a post last week about some singles coming out by boy singers, I thought to myself "self, you must do a post about singles coming out by girl singers" - but tragically nothing really stood out to me. Until a number of not exactly earth shattering, but perfectly pleasant tracks popped up at random on my drive to Blackburn yesterday afternoon (and all from albums that I initially adored then got a bit bored with). I shall proceed...

Amy Macdonald - Run: Ah, amy. Mr Rock 'n' Roll was quite nice in a pleasant guitar pop/lilting vocal sort of way, but then she was horrible to a friend of mine so I sort of ignored her for a while. One heavily discounted album later and she tops the charts and picks this little gem as her next single. And it's very romantic indeed. There is something about her voice that I quite like, and this folky power ballad has a gorgeous chorus dipped in edible melodies that float into the ether and dance along the breeze. Or something. In other words, it's quite quite lovely.

Alanis Morrisette - Underneath: Oh Alanis. How you sometimes disappoint me. Had i not such vast knowledge of her back catalogue, I wouldn't have a clue upon hearing this that it was a new single. In fact, it seems to be a straightforward remake of Thank U and Everything. Very low key for a first single, the usual heinous and pretentious lyrical selection and quite forgettable. It's not that it's particularly bad, it just seems that Alanis has stopped trying. Well you would if you weren't getting it from Ryan Reynolds anymore...

Delta Goodrem - You Will Only Break My Heart: I really liked Delta's third album when it came out. I raved about Believe Again, although it succeeded more as an album track than a single for me. I tittered at poptrashaddicts calling her Dulta. When this popped up on my mp3 player yesterday, I didn't recognise it at first (much like the next track reviewed) and was shocked to learn that this dubby/reggae lite track was Mrs Bryan McFadden! Yikes! It's quite catchy actually and is growing on me again by the minute. I prefer uptempo Delta at the moment even if she does seem to veer into Leann Rimes territory from time to time...

Leona Lewis - Better In Time: I had pretty much resigned myself to the fact that Bleeding Love was a fluke - one of those right song at the right time by the right singer type tunes. I mean heck, it was released way before Leon's effort and is STILL outselling it. But instead of putting out an album of weak covers, she puts out an album of largely weak originals with some outstanding tracks on. Luckily this song is very much in the vein of BL with an uptempo shuffle, and some lovely piano and violins drifting throughout it. It's no Bleeding Love, but she could have picked a lot worse to follow it up with (Angel for example!)

More excellent girl tracks: Duffy - Mercy (i'm so fickle, I'm already over Adele and appreciating Duffy more...); Kylie - Wow (with her best b-sides in ooo, ages); Oh Laura - Release Me (A stunning remix by the attic turns it into this year's EBTG-Missing)