Lopez Blogs

Well good golly miss molly - the autumnal rush of new music to flood the Christmas sales market is coming at ya thick and fast. It seems that every day a new song from one of my fave artists hits the internet - and I wonder whether I'm really having enough time to take it all in enough. Don't get me wrong, I'm loving having enough new music to take a bath in, but I sort of miss the days when there was a lot more anticipation about music and the first time you'd hear a song was when you rushed out to buy the cd single. Now it seems as soon as a song is announced, it's available as a radio rip on one of those naughty mp3 blogs or on youtube seconds later. Still, these times they are a changing, and I guess the modern pop artist just has to keep up! So without further ado, here are some of the week's best new tunes...

• The Baseballs ~ Hot n Cold: The Baseballs aren't exactly new and this has been floating around on their wonderfully different album for a while now ~ they have, however, done a shop window type video to rival that of Dolly Rockers and their lamentably poor selling Gold Digger :/ The oddly attractive lads seem to getting increasingly popular in Germany and I'm just itching for them to bring their hillbilly-esque rock'n'roll to the UK. Check out their live on tv performance of the track here and a recent reworking of Lady Cuckoo's PokerFace. Marv!!
• The DollyRockers ~ Boys Will Be Boys: Talking of the Doilies, yes yes Gold Digga didn't do quite as well as it should and I'm as sad about this as anyone else, but it's time to move on. Nary a week after they peaked at #46, they are back with their very important now indeed next single. What you need to know is a) it's very good indeed, b) it pitches itself somewhere between The Veronicas and Shampoo and c) it's (almost criminally, but manages to be ace on it's own) not a cover of The Ordinary Boys song...
• Preston ~ DS Sessions: Talking of Preston (I don't just throw these posts together you know :P), I can't tell you how distraught I am that the bloody enjoyable (if the Doilies can say bloody so can I) Dressed To Kill is apparently not going to storm the charts at #128. Bah to the lot of you who didn't buy it. I still think the Ordinary Boys were grossly underrated and i'm liking stripped back Preston - check him out doing the single and a new song on Digital Spy, which is called Heart of Gold and sounds possibly like it could be about Chantelle. Or not. I'm usually crap at these song interpretations.
• Dragonette ~ Pick Up The Phone: Everyone got a bit excited in bloglandia this week about the debut of a new Dragonette song and video (XO as usual covered it best) ~ less immediate and less in your face than the punchy Fixin To Thrill, it does a rather fine job of reminding people that the group not only write rather brilliant pop songs, but also (like Dangerous Muse ~ where the fuss is I Want It All?) should be entirely massive by now. Sigh...
• Natalie Imbruglia ~ Want: Much like William of Young and Annie Lennox, Natalie seems to exist just to pop up on the pop radar every couple of years and serve up an elegant slice of music for the world to feast on. It's always done with effortless class and "Want" is absolutely no different. It comes with a gorgeous video where Natalie looks stunning and has a rather insiduous groove that gets 'hookier' with each listen. Lovely.
• Nerina Pallot ~ Real Later Starter: There is nothing that I do not love about Nerina. I bought her debut album based on an advertisement in Heat and quickly fell in love with songs like Watch Out Billie (Piper?!) and Jump. The second album bought greater success and the gorgeous Sophia and Nerina is finally back with a new single ahead of her album The Graduate in October (and a concert in Birmingham that Ruthiepoos and I will be attending). The song is a quirky slice of pop with some lovely piano work in the middle 8 and the brilliant line in the chorus "oh my god if I was somebody you'd be kissing my ass right now". Genius. Point to note - Nerina's really embraced interacting with fans via twitter and her youtube page (link above). Love it.

Other songs floating around written about on other blogs...

• Ken and Mel point out that Cheryl's debut is nothing to write home about...
• Nikki gives the quite good Sugababes song "About A Girl" a middling 2.7/5. Now what the ecky thump was that Amelle stuff about?!
• Poptweetz gives his two cents worth on the only just top 40 Bananarama single :/ It's very good everyone. Please buy it!
• Mike PTA and I bond over the return of Vanessa Amorosi! She's proper bonza when she wants to be :)
• It's not new but ADH did a rather lovely write up about why he is still smitten with Robbie William's Angels...
• PosterGirl not only has the skinny on the excellent new David Jordan single, but also her views on a new Darin track floating around.
• Finally, lots of people wrote about James Leon's debut single Purple Heart. Quite rightly so too. It's very good indeed.

Top 21 Songs of the Week:

21 ~ Nerina Pallot, Real Late Starter (NE)
20 ~ Benny Andersson Band, Story Of A Heart
19 ~ Backstreet Boys, Straight Through The Heart
18 ~ Bananarama, Love Comes
17 ~ Little Boots, Remedy
16 ~ Preston, Dressed To Kill
15 ~ Mini Viva, Left My Heart in Tokyo (NE)
14 ~ Pet Shop Boys, All Over The World
13 ~ Industry, Burn (Download free legal remix here)
12 ~ The Yeah You's, Getting Up With You
11 ~ BWO, Love Comes Crashing Down
10 ~ Alexandra Burke, Bad Boys (NE)
09 ~ Same Difference, Better Love Me
08 ~ Alphabeat, The Spell
07 ~ Madonna, Celebration
06 ~ Mariah Carey, I Want To Know What Love Is (NE)
05 ~ Whitney Houston, Million Dollar Bill
04 ~ Sugababes, Get Sexy
03 ~ Leona Lewis, Happy (NE)
02 ~ Mika, We Are Golden
01 ~ Robbie Williams, Bodies (2 weeks)