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.

Reaching Double Figures

So for some reason (probably the band’s PR shitting themselves upon seeing the new single’s less-than-elegant slide down the chart) there is a big hoo-haa in today’s Sun newspaper about Tom Fletcher’s remarkable songwriting achievements.

In case you’re unaware, Tom Fletcher is the one in McFly who looks and acts a bit like Gary Barlow did in Take That.

Apparently, the band’s latest double a-side, Transylvania (quite good) / Baby’s Coming Back (quite not good), is in fact the TENTH number one single that young Tom has had his hands in (if you count the ones he co-wrote for Busted with James Bourne).

Ten number ones and still only 21 years of age. Let’s look at the songs, shall we?

1. Crashed The Wedding
2. Who’s David?
3. Five Colours In Her Hair
4. Thunderbirds Are Go (THIS WAS A NUMBER ONE SINGLE??!)
5. Obviously
6. All About You
7. I’ll Be OK
8. Please Please
9. Star Girl
10. Transylvania / Baby’s Coming Back

Quite impressive, save for a couple of iffy ones; but will Tom get the credit he deserves?

Frankly, no. He’s got more chance of being referred to as ‘the fit one out of McFly‘.

Why? Because it’s not real music, durr! At least that’s what people will (and do) say. The type of people who think a song is somehow inherently better if it manages to ‘speak to’ people rather than make them want to dance and, y’know, actually go out and buy it (because as we all know, the first ten number ones thrown out by Lennon and McCartney were all incredibly deep, weren’t they? None of that shallow ‘pop music’ nonsense for those boys!)

What these people fail to understand is that there is an incredible knack to writing pop songs; songs that capture the public by the balls and make everyone go dizzy for a few minutes and shout along with glee. Fletcher might not exactly find himself in the upper echelons of this songwriting realm, but with ten number ones under his belt he must be doing something right.

Take a song like ’Obviously’, for example: as at home in a teenage girl’s bedroom as it is in the student union; capable of being sung with equal verve by school kids and by beered-up boys down at Varsity. Anyone who can knock out a track like that deserves a pat on the back in our book, so here it is:

ONE PAT ON THE BACK FOR TOM FLETCHER

Here’s to many more!

x


(FYI, we checked on our special computer and there’s NO WAY Tom should have given Dougie that bridge to sing on Transylvania, or tried to do the shouty bit himself, but even songwriting legends have to make mistakes at some point in their careers so we will have to assume it was some kind of ‘blip‘).