MANIC STREET PREACHERS - Some Kind Of Nothingness
Some Kind of Nothingness sees the Manic Street Preachers' James Dean Bradfield Bradfield and Echo & the Bunnymen frontman Ian McCulloch trading lines that build to a crescendo of strings and backing vocals for their rather fantastic second single from their tenth (also rather fantastic) album Postcards from a Young Man.
It is big commercial "classic" Manics on show here with a singalong vibe and good duetting with the Bunnyman, that even a massive cheesy backing choir can't even ruin. Popping up on Strictly Come Dancing to sell a few extra copies will hopefully see this troubling the top of the charts if there is any justice in this world.
Rated 4 out of 5
LOTTE MULLAN - Can't Find The Words
Everybody knows that slow and acoustic songs are quite annoying and should be only played on Radio 2 by Steve Wright - unless they come from the fretboard of Laura Marling etc. However, introducing Lotte Mullan, who releases the fantastic song Can't Find The Words that can be filed in the 'Slow Songs That Aren't Sh*t' file next to Marling.
The result is a chillaxing piece of blissful modern folk-pop with a good dose of great bass and drums that you'll want to listen to again to warm up your soul on these cold wintery days. It is kinda like Portishead have made a folk single, which can't be bad can it? This release has (apparently) now been put back to the 27th, but it is still definitely worth a listen now!
Rated 4 out of 5
PATRICK WOLF - Time Of My Life
Patrick Wolf, the musician and hair dye maverick, utilises a wide variety of instruments in his music and has created a genre known a 'folktronica' - which is a clever mixture of the words 'folk' and 'electronica' created by some brilliant wordsmith somewhere.
This limited edition 7" single is the first taster of his eagerly awaited new album. The result? It's fantastic! It is folky and with a classical and electronic sound that Ellie Goulding is probably trying to find. Buying this won't cause you to have the best time of your life, but it certainly won't harm your chances. However, it is rubbish that people can only buy it on vinyl (no CD or download) though. Don't you know that only anal morons buy singles on vinyl nowadays?
Rated 4 out of 5
WILLOW SMITH - Whip My Hair
If you don't already know, then Willow Smith is the daughter of the actual Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. According to information that we have received, the Fresh Prince is a man that wears black when fighting aliens and also hangs around with bad boys. Blimey!
Err...this is Will Smith's young daughter Willow Smith. Despite the obvious reservations about liking a song by a ten-year old kid (who has quite an usual deep voice on the evidence of this), this is a decent pop song which makes it impossible to disagree with the "baby Rihanna" tag. But come on...she is ten! Sadly, the NSPCC are yet to respond to our email about this silly "young pop star" situation.
Rated 3 out of 5
KYLIE MINOGUE - Better Than Today
Firstly, we would like to clarify and answer the one question on our reader's lips. No, Kylie isn't wearing any hot pants in the video!
Kylie Minogue releases this, her third single from recent album Aphrodite, which is the traditional uninspiring Scissor Sisters-esque romp that we have come to expect from Kylie these days. Having said that, it is a decent enough pop effort that almost makes up for the lack of arse excitement with ticking a lot of boxes that you expect from a good-ish commercial pop tune. It's just not our cup of tea.
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