Spinning Around

M.I.A. - Boyz
Material from M.I.A.’s new album (rumoured title: ’Kala’) continues to leak and this, a bonkers sort of space-age Bollywood waltz played backwards, is exactly the kind of thing that makes us think the follow up to ‘Arular’ will be something very special indeed.

Andermay - Entre Tu Y Yo
Shimmery pop from Spain; more information about which can be found in an article about European pop music we are (probably not) going to write next week.

Dragonette - Galore (LP)
This is brilliant. Review next week.

Hadouken! - Liquid Lives (single version)
We’re desperately trying to figure out whether getting rid of the weird beat is the biggest mistake in the history of recorded music, or a career-based necessity. Hmm. At least the chorus appears a lot sooner, and the ’DRINK! - SMOKE! - FUCK! - FIGHT!’ bit is ace.

Tom Fletcher’s Ten Number Ones
Apart from the shit ones.

Rihanna - Umbrella
Unusually for a song with MASSIVE FUCKING NUMBER ONE written all over it, this track actually made it to the top of the charts. Deservedly so too, as this giant-sounding paean to love and friendship is basically one of 2007’s best songs. We’re even willing to admit we were wrong about the Jay-Z bit. Wow, etc.

It's the Friday Quiz!

That’s right! And because it’s new, we’ll make things fairly straightforward for you.

Okay? Here goes:

1) Spot the correct song title.

a) Out Of Control (Song For Mutya)
b) Song 4 Mutya (Out Of Control)
c) Out Of Control (Song 4 Mutya)
d) Song For Mutya (Out of the Sugababes)

2) Pete Doherty used to be famous for making records, but what was his first?

a) Down In Albion
b) Up All Night
c) Up The Bracket
d) The Libertines

3) Hadouken! are named after…

a) A move in a computer game
b) A sexual position
c) A type of Japanese fish related to Haddock
d) Something off Nathan Barley

4) How many different members have the Sugababes had?

a) Four
b) Five
c) Six
d) Seven

5) Who would win in a fight between:

a) Team Evil
b) Lily Allen
c) Cheryl Tweedy
d) None of them; it’s mutually assured destruction

6) Manic Street Preachers released their largely-terrible ‘Send Away The Tigers’ LP last week. How many albums, including this one, have they now released?

a) Five
b) None
c) Eighteen
d) Eight


This is just a bit of fun but if you really must you can email your answers here.

Spinning Around

Hadouken! - Liquid Lives
More ‘crazy beats + Mega Drive + baseball caps x grime = 2007’ madness from the band who recently had two whole pages in the NME devoted to whether they are shit or brilliant. This should help bolster the case for the latter somewhat, being as it is COMPLETELY AMAZING.

Amerie - Because I Love It (LP)
If Amerie keeps improving at the rate she is doing, she’ll be absolutely brilliant by 2009. She’s already ten times better than Beyoncé, who’s going in the opposite direction.

The Tigerpicks - Disco Punk Electro Funk
Already cited here as being a bit like an indie band making a brilliant stab at being Girls Aloud, this gets released properly this week and is definitely worth your pocket money.

Sergey Lazarev - Shattered Dreams
An update of the Johnny Hates Jazz original which, if it were a stick of rock, would surely have the words ‘AMYL’ and ‘NITRATE’ emblazoned in big bold letters through its core.

Groove Armada - Song 4 Mutya (Out Of Control)
This week we are enjoying finally knowing the proper title and the “hey!” bits.

Feist - Mushaboom
It’s not on her brilliant new album but we have been listening to this advert staple a helluva lot lately; mainly because it’s not on her brilliant new album. Did we mention she’s got a brilliant new album? It’s brilliant.

Time to blow the speakers.

Hadouken! - That Boy That Girl

We’ve been a bit slow off the mark with Hadouken! really. We only heard them for the first time a couple of weeks ago.

However!

They have a tune called ‘That Boy That Girl’, which is our tune of the week. We don’t know when it’s actually released but it is definitely the tune of this week. And most other weeks too, probably.

Sounding at times like ‘Crazy Beat’ by Blur fed through a techno blender, it is the aural equivalent of being beaten up by a gang of hoodies who use glowsticks as weapons and who are quite happy to leave you with little more than 12p in change and the word TWAT scrawled on your forehead as a memento of the experience.

If more people made records that sounded like this, they could invent a genre where all the tunes are like updated versions of the old rave records from the early nineties… but what would they call it? Our money’s on ‘Now Rave’, or ‘Current Techno’.

It’s going to be HUGE.