Plastic Sunshine 2012

Its been a while and it has taken a lot to push me to it, but i feel anger brewing.....

Rita Ora - How We Do (Party)
Rita Ora's career should have finished right after she guested on the DJ Fresh #1 single Hot Right Now. You know, like the career of Do finished after being a featured artist on Heaven by DJ Sammy featuring Yanou and Do. As if the brick-to-the-face subtlety free zone of R.I.P. featuring Tinie Tempah (hence a guaranteed #1) wasn't bad enough, this latest slice of cod American bilge is truly grotesque. The radio edit is full of blanked out words (apparently Ms Ora gets the drunk sex feeling on a regular basis) and a repeated chorus chant of Party...and party....and party etc which makes Nicki Minaj sound like as if she has the eloquence of William Shakespeare. Everything about it is awful - there is precious little song, the content is vile and the repetitious nature is excruciating.

Wiley featuring Ms D - Heatwave
To quote: "I'm a party. I gone dance. Put your hands all over my body." Only one of these sentences actually makes sense. For a start, the last time i looked it was impossible to be an abstract concept of a social event. The second is clearly grammatically incorrect - perhaps i'm going to dance was the intended meaning, in which case i'd have even accepted i'm gonna dance as a reasonable appropriation of a sentence. The final statement of "put your hands all over my body" just about sums up the attitude to women of the brainless, alcohol fuelled Gary Lagers who will concieve unwanted to children to the rhythm of shit like this. Everything about it is awful - there is precious little song, the content is vile and the repetitious nature is excruciating.

Are you getting a sense of deja vu?

Trey Songz - Simply Amazing
Here is a surprise: it isn't.

Stooshe - Black Heart
I find it really hard to listen to this song without singing along my own lyrics. Daddy i'm falling for a bastard... (and that is the only one i'm willing to share in public). Stooshe are basically a foul mouthed version of the Spice Girls and this is their attempt to do a Motown song, which is partly successful but falls down on the lack of any subtlety that was usually present in the original female ensemble Detroit sound.

Nicki Minaj - Pound The Alarm
Like her previous single, the best bits of it are when Ms Minaj shuts up because whilst the American Black Music industry tears the heart out of the past 25 years of European dance music, there are some interesting sounds from the early 90s popping up from time to time. Its just a shame that we then have to endure Little Miss ADHD spouting her bullshit all over it...

Flo Rida - Whistle
Flo Rida is an amazing interviewee. If you hear a radio interview with him promoted, then make sure you listen to it because for somebody who has made a career out of making brainless party music, he's a completely sourfaced twat with no sense of humour whatsoever. As such, i'll review his latest record in the same way: Its an utterly childish and thinly veiled song about oral sex.

Fun featuring Janelle Monae - We Are Young
About the first 40 seconds is tolerable. The dual-tempo business that is going on is a bit like Franz Ferdinand's Take Me Out. But then it all goes wrong. Instead of turning up the tempo and the brashness, it degenerates into four minutes of the most excruciating overblown, drawn out whiny self congratulation i've ever heard. Star turn from Glastonbury 2011 Janelle Monae has been roped into the bullshit as well, apparently to do backing vocals over about two lines halfway through the song. They probably think they're being dramatic, but ultimately it feels completely false and contrived. On the plus side, follow up single (and album title track) Some Nights is a much better anthem without the drawn out wailing.

Misha B - Homerun
Whereas most reality show contestants end up released abysmally wet singles drawn out from hours in front of focus panels, X-Factor bad girl Misha B has turned up this sparky slice of urban power pop which does a great job of showcasing her style and vocals without sounding cheesy or contrived. It also scores points on not going down the currently fashionable route of making a filthy song which has to be butchered for the radio. On the strength of this, she deserves to have a decent career out of it.

Merdan Taplak - On The Rocks
It becomes obvious that radio stations are crying out for a strong summer anthem when they have to commission their own. Studio Brussel did just that, booking local Belgian-Turkish electro stalwart of the Balkan Beats scene Merdan Taplak to record their summer tune On The Rocks. They've even produced a cocktail book of the same name, which is a marketing masterstroke. The song itself is a euphoric three minute marvel of everything that makes a good summer tune - a bit of house, a shake of electro and some balkan beats without the stupid gimmicks that mars most dance music that is successful in the UK at the moment.