Lopez Blogs

Well after a day where 67 year old men did presentations on how Lady Gaga has changed pop amidst numerous other things, I barely thought I'd have time to get this post done. But i'm all for a quickie, so I'm going to throw it together for you in minimal time. How's that for love and devotion?! PS all links to tv performances where poss...

More essential playlist tunes for May:

• JLS ~ Heal This Heartbreak: The theme of this month's Chronicles is obviously "when record companies attack". Once again, a pop band has been let down by a record company (Shayne Ward starts every diary entry like this). They should essentially be on a 5th single, having missed the opportunity to release the corntastic but charming Close To You at Chrismtas. Oh well. This would have made a brillo single, but for now it's onto album two (next track on playlist pending)...
• Lemar ft JLS ~ What About Love: ...or instead just imagine that JLS had popped out this as a double AA side single (do I need to do 2 As if I have already typed double?!) with Heal The Heartbreak? Just imagine! Are you done imagining? This rather lovely ballad is dreamy and swoony all at once, with a simplistic but delightful melody and some lovely harmonies. Teenage girls could be crying at concerts in the video and all boyband cliches would be restored to the world (especially with some Christ like poses at the end of the video). No, no, album two it is then :(
• Donkeyboy ~ Sometimes: Hmm, are Donkeyboy still not famous in the UK with the lovely Ambitions? bah humbug to that. This track isn't quite as transcendent as Ambitions but it certainly is a rather lovely piece of 80s inspired magnificence - oh and it's definitely the glorious chorus that makes you want to get out your seat and smooch whoever you are standing next to at the time...
• Boyzone ~ Love Is A Hurricane: Wasn't Gave It All Away quite wonderful? Cellos in pop are becoming an increasing necessity. This should really be the boys next single if they are to get any more mileage out the album (though my head nearly exploded at the Corrie where the song played in the background of the Rovers while Shane was pulling pints at the bar. Insanity!) It's a nice upbeat song that's a little bit country, without being a little bit rock n roll. Inoffensive pop as people would call it...
• Westlife ~ Where We Are: Where you are Westlife, is stuck with an album that has only had one single out and that was back in bloody October. Sort it out you goons, and get Nicky naked while you are at it. They could have released Shadows back in Feb and have this title track of the album out to coincide with the tour they have planned. Sigh. It's very drummy, with nice harmonies. Again, not a world changer, but perfectly pleasant.
• Backstreet Boys ~ If I Knew Then: What a perfect opportunity for a Simon Curtis update :P He is supporting AJ McLean at the Roxy in LA on May 6th. My 10th anniversary. So if anyone wants to pay to fly Darren and I out there that would be super. Back to BSB, why Bigger wasn't bigger is beyond me, why All Of My Life wasn't a third single is a baffler and this could easily cap off a successful album/singles campaign but hasn't. MUST I DO EVERYTHING FOR THESE GROUPS? :P
• Natalie Imbruglia ~ Fun: If I was going to stop going on about botched album campaigns, now really wouldn't be the time to do it, but it is getting a bit repetitive isn't it?! Anyway, half of Natalie's album is genius, and half is a bit experimental for me (who won't try sweet chilli flavoured crisps because i feel they are too 'out there'). Fun is a brilliant follow up to Scars though, very radio friendly, nice chorus, lovely vocal. What's not to like?
• Nerina Pallot ~ I Don't Want To Go Out: Good for you Nerina. Sometimes I like to stay in, have a nice hot chocolate and watch a Dr Who or something. It's not all about buzzing your nuts off. I foolishly diverted from Nerina's single releases and chose When Did I Become Such A Bitch for the Feb playlist, which makes this early 2010 single seem a bit dated in terms of it should have featured earlier. In terms of it being utterly magnificent, then it is not dated at all and a rollicking little piano led pop tune. PS, i listened to Geek Love about 5 times this morning.
• Hurts ~ Better Than Love: This song gets better each time I hear it. Are Hurts actually ready to happen just yet, or are they going to be one of those bands that keep having "pre-single" singles out forever? Does it really matter? Not when the song builds up into this crashing chorus that entirely takes over everything in your life for those few seconds it plays. The song really gets going at about 40 seconds and it's full on from there. Keep with it and get rewarded :)
• Keane ~ Stop For A Minute: I'm honestly too tired to write about this again right now, so just go to my most recent post for a still relevant write up. It's really grown on me since then and I'm finding it more endearing with each and every listen. Yes, like Hurts. God I'm repetitive today!
• The Ark ~ Superstar: oh Nick AlienHits will be pleased. A new Ark single preceding an entirely new to be devoured Ark album. Bonza! It's a definite feelgood single with a great guitar riff running throughout it and an almost bonkers glam rock vibe to it. But that's what they do best and like Abba their not quite perfect English just adds to the overall charm of the package. Do check them out :)

Oh Nats. The "broooog". According to Amazon, the UK release date of the quite charming actually "Come to Life" album has been pushed back to 2010. Considering that promo copies of the album have been sent out, reviews are in the printed word (hello Attitude Magazine) and about 11 people on the popjustice forums are gushing at the gash for this set of tunes, it's a bit of a wank decision to delay it. I am no expert in marketing music but delaying the release of an album never inspires confidence in the product. It is, in fact, up there with these other common pop disasters:

• Keisha leaving the Sugababes just as they have a spunky new album "in the can" and a top 2 single with Get Sexy. Frankly, I can't stop listening to Every Heart Broken because this is even worse than when Sean left 5ive just as KingSize was released...
• David Sneddon thinking that Sneddon was a popstar name and then failing to be the next Robbie Williams when Britain criminally ignored the amazing Best of Order...
• Simon Cowell effectively ending the promotion of Gareth Gates' second album and denying the world a single remix of the brilliant Skeletons. Sigh...
• Rachel Stevens not being number one for 11 weeks with "I said never again but here we are". I still mourn this fact on a very regular basis.

Of course there are many more pop injustices in the world, but those are the first few that sprang into my head. It's a shame that the album has been delayed because Come To Life actually contains some very fine pieces of music. Plus Natalie looks a bit like Dannii Minogue on the album cover and this can only be a very good thing indeed. By now, the "promo" single Wild About It (record companies need to ditch the promo single - it's very annoying. It's either a single or it's not!) and first single proper, Want, should be etched into your brains. The former works well as a video-single rather than an actual single - it features Natalie roaming around after a party and shows a more fun side to her that is rarely seen when she is performing darker fare (such as Identify, Beauty On The Fire and That Day). Musically however, it's like an indie version of Sweet About Me and is neither as elegant or as powerful as the music Natalie usually churns out. Want, however, is eerily gothic and subversive and just as much Kate Bush as it is Natalie Imbruglia. It's not exactly what might be expected of a first single, but it gets under your skin and promotes the album far better than Wild About It.

My God is an energetic guitar led opener for the album, with a driving beat that - matched with the sweeping vocal from Nats - powers the song and keeps what could have been a slightly lost melody firmly in check. It's Lukas however where the album really begins to shine. I am assuming this is what Coldplay are referring to when they say they gave away their best song. Written by Chris Martin, it could almost be a lyrical sequel to the Suzanne Vega hit Luka. It's got that epic "end of summer" feel about it - you know, when you need just one song to sum up your entire holiday experience. It definitely deserves to be a single - it tells a complete story and Natalie delivers it with just the right amount of reserve and intensity. Just imagine if this had been the Kylie-Coldplay collaboration instead of what the world ended up with?! The story telling vibe continues in the ever so lovely Fun (another Chris Martin composition). A song about the end of a relationship isn't the most original of topics, but it's universal and when done well, the results can be astonishing. The first few seconds of the tune sound like an Abba ballad, then the song begins to build and crescendo as the backing track grows and Natalie sings "people always ask about you" and it actually feels painful to hear. "Didn't we have fun" is the message of the song and despite the pain, Natalie remembers the good times of a relationship as the music ebbs and flows (just as feelings change in ebbs and flows as you come to terms with the end of a relationship). Quite quite brilliant. (I'd love to know XO's opinion of these two songs!)

Twenty is a perfectly pleasant jangly pop tune and continues the theme of examining relationships. It's not a bad song at all but it does suffer ever so slightly by being wedged between the aforementioned Fun and the definitely should be the second single Scars. Scars possibly would have been a better single to promote the album than Want - it's initially ever so vaguely reminiscent of Torn and is definitely one of the most radio friendly things she has done. It delivers the devastating lines "You got your brand new friends and I got a broken heart/doesn't matter who we are everyone has their scars". Gorgeous vocal, lovely melancholy and melodic chorus, spot on lyrically, just another perfect, clever and sad break up pop song.

Following on from Want, the last half of the album seems to be the more electronic part of Natalie coming to the forefront. WYUT (What You're Up To) is an energetically angry throbbing retort of a song, with some synthy effects permeating the verses and a stacatto vocal that matches the needs of the song. Not the finest moment on the record, but it's nice to see some risks being taken even if they do detract from the near perfect first half of the opus. Cameo, sadly isn't a song about the late lamented group, but rather more experimental bells and master&servant style goth-pop with a rather industrial sounding backing beat. Natalie's voice is quite haunting on it, but overall the song leaves me ever so slightly cold.

Overall, the first half of the album is a quite extraordinary and brutally accurate examination of the death of a relationship. It's steeped in emotional imagery, wistful memory and gorgeous melody. This is the section of the album that really comes to life for me. The more experimental second half is perhaps more relevant to today's music market, and enjoys some interesting production values but doesn't sell itself to me as fully and magnificent as those first five tracks...
Possible singles: Want, Scars, Fun, Lukas

OTHER WORTHY FEMALE SINGER ALBUMS:

• Check out XO's mini review of the new Paloma Faith album...
• Lenka's experienced a bit of a revival with her 2008 album. Check out my review here...
• Ditto Marit Larsen and her stunning If A Song Could Get Me You (number one in Germany, chart fans!)

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)