This Week’s Singles Reviewed – 21 February 2011

Featuring Miles Kane, Britney Spears, Kanye West

Our guide to the singles released in the UK today

Miles Kane – ‘Come Closer’

When he’s not watching Performance over and over in his winkle-pickers, perched in a bubble-chair, with a Woodbine clenched between his teeth, a Watney’s Red Barrel in-hand and that picture of him with Harold Wilson on the mantle, Miles Kane enjoys romanticising the 60s.

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Keen students of pop music may note that this has been done before. It is only bi-annually, however, that it is done so very well. Liam Gallagher will no doubt be declaring Miles new-bessies and tour-support within the month, but frankly this knocks Beady Eye into a cocked hat full of increasingly diminutive cocked hats. There is nothing good you can’t say about ‘Come Closer’. It’s literally the best thing since the last best thing.

Britney Spears – ‘Hold It Against Me’

They used to give Rihanna the offcuts. Now, the worm turns. Max Martin, Dr Luke, and the rest of the sinister cabal who run pop music seem to have resigned themselves to doling the second-bests to Britney, as she hauls out the sub-‘Only Girl’ rave-pop for another diminishing-returns comeback.

Even the jokes are ninth-hand.. “If I said I want your body now/would you hold it against me.” Seriously? Can “Dr Luke, I think I’m a pair of curtains…” be far off? As the hoover-synth goes about its hoovering like the world’s most downtrodden office cleaner, it surely can’t be long before Britters is arm-wrestling Matt Cardle for the songwriters’ table-scrapings.

Kanye West (ft Rihanna) – ‘All Of The Lights’

Not sure Kanye should be releasing another single yet, given that the mainstream has so far failed to wake up to just how amazing ‘Runaway’ was. A UK number 56 hit? Britain, you dicks. ‘Runaway’ was meant to be his ‘The Drugs Don’t Work’-style woe-saturated confessional flipside chart-topper, but it failed to spark. By rights, he should be re-releasing it every week until Joe Public goddamned-well relents.

Anyway, this isn’t anyone’s favourite cut on ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’, in which Rihanna does her usual dead-eyed soul-shittingly bland cash-warble, opening and closing her MasterCard-branded throat like a halibut that only eats money, and he would’ve been much better off releasing ‘Dark Fantasy’, which is much better, just my opinion, no biggie, what do I know anyway.

The Sounds – ‘Something To Die For’

Like Roxette if they hadn’t started to go downhill on ‘Tourism’, plumbed real depths on ‘Crash! Boom! Bang!’, then found further nadirs located within ‘Have A Nice Day’ before breaking the nadir-barrier on ‘Room Service’, The Sounds continue to be fun, infinitely Swedish, totally chorus-oriented, and capable of singing noo-noo-na-na English couplets with the full ribald joy of non-native English speakers. I like them.

Yuck – ‘Holing Out’

When the big Cajun Dance Party divorce came (and who could forget that torrid saga: one that gripped the whole music press right through the long, recriminatory summer of 2009), we’d always thought that the guitarist was the super-talented Svengali one who’d go on to success.

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Well, it turns out it was the singer – the guy who used to write lyrics about ‘following my dream’ that at the time made us think he was probably a flake and a pansy. He sure showed us. Here, his new unit are being unnervingly good, but also hitting the upper buffers of their tendency towards pastiche. Grunge is (back/dead)!

Magnetic Man feat. John Legend – ‘Getting Nowhere’

I live in the wretched corner of London between Poplar and the Isle Of Dogs detailed in Magnetic Man’s brilliant new video, so they’ve unwittingly struck a big fat jackpot with me. Seen these four youths out on the estate a lot, actually. “Dark in complexion,” was how I described them to my local PCSO the evening the greasy spoon burned down.

“Something a bit apocalyptic about them, too. Can’t put my finger on it. Mind you, I think Food Standards should’ve closed that place years ago – what with all the insects they insisted on serving.”

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10 best tracks on the internet this week

This week’s new albums reviewed, featuring Yuck, Frankie & The Heartstrings, Toro Y Moi

Other songs you can buy:

Alexis Jordan – ‘Good Girl’

Clare Maguire – ‘The Last Dance’

Cults – ‘Go Outside’

Kanye West – ‘All Of The Lights’

Lupe Fiasco – ‘The Show Goes On’

Magnetic Man ft. John Legend – ‘Getting Nowhere’

Nadine Coyle – ‘Put Your Hands Up’

Pink – ‘F**kin’ Perfect’

Take That – ‘Kidz’

Jamie Woon – Lady Luck

Alexis Jordan- Good Girl

Katy Perry- Peacock

Nicki Minaj ft Drake- Moment 4 Life

The Script – If You Ever Come Back

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