We all knew last week would be a success, in fact, we made sure of it. Echo sold over 160,000 copies in its first week, to debut at number 1, but that's about half of what her last album sold in the same period. Now, we're not suggesting that the wheels are falling off Leona's career per se, but what she lacks that a lot of other pop stars have is a definite personality. Songs like 'Happy' don't help matters. Speaking of personalities, Will Young's best of crashed in at, er, no. 9, which is hardly the work of a TV talent show alumnus, but we're pretty sure that's all he can hope for now. The Arctic Monkeys single seems to be missing from the top 40, which must be some kind of blip, right?
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Fuzzo by Brigadier Ambrose
OK, confession time, this band are friends of the blog. Not just, "oh yeah, we met them at a party, they seem like nice guys" kind of friends, but proper "we went to school together" type friends. We feel the need to make this clear from the outset given the fact that we love this album so much it's going to seem like nepotism either way. You'll assume we're friends even if we weren't when we say that Fuzzo is one of the best debuts of 2009. Influenced by surrealist British comedy just as much as they are by bands like Blur, Belle & Sebastian and Pavement, they've crafted an album that keeps one eye on the everyday and the other turned skywards. It also features this lyric; "Silences don't really mean a great deal anymore/ One minute for footballers and two minutes for war / Three for terrorist atrocities / Four for the death of Morrissey". Kind of says it all really.
BUY THESE MONOCHROME BEAUTIES
Rated R by Rihanna
The Fame Monster by Lady GaGa
Two of pop's biggest characters return with albums on the same day, one trying to build a new image after some well-publicised personal problems and the other cementing her status as 2009's best megastar. Rated R is a darker, denser affair than Rihanna's previous efforts, featuring far more aggressive, almost sadomasochistic imagery. Guns are licked, fired and drawn on skin (she has a tattoo of one on her hip), whilst love is variously depicted as dead, deadly or, er, Spanish ('Te Amo'). WARNING: This album features will.i.am. Lady GaGa's The Fame Monster on the other hand should be subtitled "what this? Oh I knocked this up in my lunch break", such is the run of form she seems to be on. Eight brand new songs, four potential singles, Beyoncé drops by for a brief cameo and somewhere Madonna dies a little inside.
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Fall Be Kind EP by Animal Collective
This 5-track EP is a little bit darker, a little bit denser than their last album...oh, have we written that before today? Erm, it's their equivalent of Rihanna's Rated R album, only with longer songs and slightly more droning. Very good as ever, in other words.
We weren't expecting great things from our selections last week, so, as you will see from this week's picks, we're going all out for the chart glory this week. Amerie was our most bankable bet and she was nowhere, Joe Goddard's album probably sold about 11 copies and the Girls single missed the top 75 too. We're trying not to be too despondent, but it's difficult.
BUY THIS FOR YOUR MUM THIS CHRISTMAS
Echo by Leona Lewis
This week can rightly be labelled 'run up to Christmas' week. For those lamenting the inclusion of someone like Leona, the only other options were that dire-sounding Them Crooked Vultures album or the new Stereophonics collection...So, we thought we'd include this so that if you were having problems deciding on what to get your mum or your older sister for Christmas, this might help you out. Echo isn't exactly what you'd call experimental, but there are moments when that voice wraps itself round an undeniable melody and you get a strange feeling in your stomach (see 'Outta My Head'). 'Happy' is still really dull though.
BUY THIS FOR YOUR NAN THIS CHRISTMAS
The Hits by Will Young
We will be buying this for our Nan and we suggest you do the same. Well-executed, intelligent pop music sung by a nice young man who doesn't swear or 'carry on' like all those other ghastly singers and who has a handful of genuinely great singles. For example; the piano ballad, 'All Time Love', the career-defining 'Leave Right Now' and the underrated 'Who Am I'. What you will need to do, however, is put a little note on the present label, warning your elderly relatives not to listen to the first two songs. 'Evergreen' is an abomination and Will's jazzy cover of 'Light My Fire' is about as jazzy as Simon Cowell's record collection. After that, the rest is plain sailing.
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'Cornerstone' by Arctic Monkeys
After the lukewarm reaction to 'Crying Lightning' and the general frustration at the lack of tunes on Humbug, Arctic Monkeys release what their record label will hope is the song to reverse their sales slump (the album sits at no. 75 this week). Luckily, it's a brilliant, beautifully phrased singalong that benefits from the relatively stripped back production and Alex Turner's characterful croon. Revelling in their new-found desire to sell less records, however, the band have made a video that makes Turner look like an androgynous electrical salesperson from the Eastern bloc.
Like us, you probably hate the X Factor. But like us, you probably can't tear your eyes away from it either. It's the pleasure/pain principle in full effect. We noticed this year that a lot of contestants were performing Oasis' not-exactly-seminal, 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out', or rather we noticed that a lot of the contestants shown on TV happened to be singing 'Stop Crying Your Heart Out'. "But why?" we asked ourselves.
BECAUSE LEONA LEWIS HAS DONE A COVER OF IT FOR HER NEW ALBUM THAT'S WHY!
So, everytime they played a version of it, usually sung by a perma-tanned young person, we were actually being primed for what will likely be a future single by a former winner. So, rather than have people go "oh, I feel like I should know this but I can't remember every having heard it before", they'll say "oh yeah, it's that song the guy with the ridiculous hair and the Top Man jewellery sang outside Simon's totally soulless mansion on one of the other shows".
See.
Let us tell you a short and not very interesting story. It was October 2007 and Radio 1 were about to play the new single by a certain young lady called Leona Lewis. The song was called 'Bleeding Love' and it was supposed to be the single to launch a new global superstar, yaddah yaddah yaddah. So, that now familiar organ swell kicked in, those vocals reared up and then that odd, almost cheap-sounding drum machine made the whole thing sound strangely, well, good. We were genuinely excited to hear it, which a lot of people will think is ridiculous because it's a pop song and she's from a talent show and it's much more interesting and challenging to listen to Autechre or The Cribs, etc, etc. But, it would take a fool to suggest that 'Bleeding Love' isn't amazing and though her singles after that seemed to gradually get worse, 'Bleeding Love' did what it set out to do; created a superstar.
Anyway, Lewis has a new single called 'Happy', which given her new found status might be just as important as 'Bleeding Love'. Produced again by Ryan Tedder, it's, well, it's a bit, you know, er, 'meh'. Basically, it's a nice song and there are some nice moments but it doesn't make our ears prick up and we can't shake the feeling that the booming drums and quiet, loud, quiet, loud structure makes it no more than 'Bleeding Love's slightly duller sister.
Here it is:
Towards the end there are some ridiculous vocal gymnastics, which makes us think that given Whitney Houston's recent vocal problems (or, 'the drugs', as it's also known) it's basically Leona sticking her finger up in Houston's face and saying "step back biatch, you're in my house now". Probably.
Forget Radiohead dropping new songs left, right and center, the real delight comes when songs begin to leak from some of the years most anticipated pop albums. You can almost hear Simon Cowell's hands wringing around some poor studio assistant's neck. In two years, Leona Lewis has gone from 'receptionist with a dream' to one of the world's biggest superstars, selling records in every major territory (nice), despite being about as charismatic as Kate Thornton.
This new ditty is called 'Don't Let Me Down' and features Justin Timberlake and the production skills of a certain Mr Timbaland:
It's not exactly 'Maneater', but what did you expect. It's good to see that Leona's gone a bit street, starting a song with "fucking around". Oh, "fork in the road", that makes more sense.
