THE NEW:
Candy Coated Chaos - Masquerade: In the days of myspace and internet music, it is far easier for the world to see burgeoning new pop combos blossom as they hone their craft and prepare to launch themselves onto a somewhat suspecting public. Part of me thinks this is a shame (imagine if we'd heard every spice girls demo before Wannabe smacked the world upside the head - the impact would have been far less), but sometimes it totally works. This is the case with the CCC girls - they have increased in confidence with each song and this is their finest to date. An absolute stomper of pop-dance single that not only pays tribute to the freestyle girl groups of the 90s (Expose, Cover Girls, Sweet Sensation) with it's intoxicating rhythms and pounding bass, but also manages to sound utterly relevant and now with a chorus to kill for and their tightest and most pleasing vocal performance to date. It apparently takes about 2-3 years for acts i like to become huge, so CCC should be massive right about, er, now. Expect to hear this on a radio near you very soon. Oh and be sure to check out their myspace for a plethora of other quality pop songs, all competing to be on their debut album. Loves. (Check out Mel's review here!) (You can also hear CCC and Simon Curtis music here)
Red Blooded Women - Enjoy The Silence: Count backwards 5-4-3-2-1 because a new british girl group is in the wings and waiting to explode. And frankly there is more than enough room for them. The debate about this DM cover vs The Saturdays DM cover is getting tiresome now - the songs are completely different, and it's hard enough to compare the originals to each other. JCGE is entirely a Vince Clarke composition and maybe the most Erasure-ish song the Mode ever did, even before Erasure ever existed. Enjoy The Silence is a much moodier, less frenetic pop type number and RBW totally play that up by weaving in delicious electro synth, a persistant and enticing beat and sultry vocals that give the song a new edge. The blogs are positively crackling with positive energy towards this group and i'm dying to hear this on the radio. It's 1990 and it's 2009. The girls sound lush. Loves part 2. (Check out some earlier reviews of RBW here , here and here)
THE POTENTIAL LEGENDS:
The Saturdays - Work/Chasing Lights: You know, it took a little time for me to get the Saturdays, but now i feel all protective towards them. I think they have got a "bum" rap with their comic relief single. Everyone is quick to point out that it didn't make number one (hey, neither did Bananarama with the glorious Help!) and that it wasn't as good as the other DM cover out there (my thoughts on that are above!) and they were a bit desperate on twitter this weekend! All true, but they probably didn't have much input into the song, it's quite delightful as a campy 80s throwback with modern leanings and it veers between brilliancy and adequacy which makes it quite good over all. Anyway, seeing as LesSamedi have called their tour Work, I'm rather hoping that spunky little album track will be gussied up as their fourth single from the increasingly edible Chasing Lights album. And if they would like to put a nice acoustic version of the title track on the flip side, I'll be more than happy to oblige with a purchase. And obviously Up remains one of the best pop songs of the past year or so,
THE REIGNING CHAMPS:
Girls Aloud - Untouchable: This could be one of the worst choices of Girls Aloud singles ever. Not because it's a bad song. It's not. It's blindingly beautiful and utterly amazing from start to finish. Nicola's vocals are very lovely indeed. It has exquisite lyrics and a trance-dance feel that is difficult to pull off, but the Girls do it perfectly. It's fiercely beloved by fans and therein lies the problem - will they accept anything less than the full album version of 6mins+? A radio edit/mix would have to be incredibly tight and certainly won't please everyone. I guess the first peak at this will be when the Girls appear on the top rated Dancing On Ice programme on Sunday, where skating legends Torville and Dean will swoop around the ice to the track, while the lasses sing AN EDITED VERSION suspended by high wires, flying around. It could be utterly heavenly. I await to be (girls a)wowed.
Tomorrow: Possibly Erik Hassle (amazing) or Kevin Borg (adorable). Or nothing at all. Who knows?!
Candy Coated Chaos - Masquerade: In the days of myspace and internet music, it is far easier for the world to see burgeoning new pop combos blossom as they hone their craft and prepare to launch themselves onto a somewhat suspecting public. Part of me thinks this is a shame (imagine if we'd heard every spice girls demo before Wannabe smacked the world upside the head - the impact would have been far less), but sometimes it totally works. This is the case with the CCC girls - they have increased in confidence with each song and this is their finest to date. An absolute stomper of pop-dance single that not only pays tribute to the freestyle girl groups of the 90s (Expose, Cover Girls, Sweet Sensation) with it's intoxicating rhythms and pounding bass, but also manages to sound utterly relevant and now with a chorus to kill for and their tightest and most pleasing vocal performance to date. It apparently takes about 2-3 years for acts i like to become huge, so CCC should be massive right about, er, now. Expect to hear this on a radio near you very soon. Oh and be sure to check out their myspace for a plethora of other quality pop songs, all competing to be on their debut album. Loves. (Check out Mel's review here!) (You can also hear CCC and Simon Curtis music here)
Red Blooded Women - Enjoy The Silence: Count backwards 5-4-3-2-1 because a new british girl group is in the wings and waiting to explode. And frankly there is more than enough room for them. The debate about this DM cover vs The Saturdays DM cover is getting tiresome now - the songs are completely different, and it's hard enough to compare the originals to each other. JCGE is entirely a Vince Clarke composition and maybe the most Erasure-ish song the Mode ever did, even before Erasure ever existed. Enjoy The Silence is a much moodier, less frenetic pop type number and RBW totally play that up by weaving in delicious electro synth, a persistant and enticing beat and sultry vocals that give the song a new edge. The blogs are positively crackling with positive energy towards this group and i'm dying to hear this on the radio. It's 1990 and it's 2009. The girls sound lush. Loves part 2. (Check out some earlier reviews of RBW here , here and here)
