Everyone knows that the best pop stars around at the moment are all Scandinavian, from Robyn to Lykke Li, from Those Dancing Days to, er, Alphabeat ('Fascination' was good!). Back in 2004, Norway's Annie released the wonderful Anniemal album, a collection of shimmering electropop that looked destined to ride on Girls Aloud's perfectly designed coat tails. As is sometimes the case with quality pop, however, the general public gave Annie a succinct 'meh' and she quietly retreated back to the Nordic mountains or somewhere. But, buoyed perhaps by Robyn's top ten success here in Blighty, Annie is back with the first single from her new album, the Richard X produced, 'I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me'.



Now, for those of you that have heard of Annie before will know that this single isn't a million musical miles away from her debut single 'Chewing Gum', also produced by Richard X. I'm not one for letting laziness pass by unnoticed, but in this case I'll make an exception. The reasons for this are twofold:

1). No-one bloody paid any attention the first time, so what better way to re-release a great single without actually having to re-release the single then to just re-work into another great single. It's what Oasis have been doing for years, just without all the 'great' bits.

2). The rest of the album is meant to be so lipsmackingly good that when you hear it you'll realise that 'I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me' is probably the seventh best song on there anyway.

The album is called Don't Stop and is produced by Richard X and Girls Aloud production machine Xenomania (Girls Aloud also provide backing vocals on one track). For reasons unknown to many, the record company have pushed the album back to October (!) but the single is out right about now. This is what the album will look like if you hold the CD facing you: