Single Reviews

Sorry to say it, but the solo debut of 'national treasure' Cheryl Cole has been a distinct non-event. First off, there was Fight For This Love, which was one of those 'hit back at the gossips' songs that has recently backfired on her almost as hard as Rehab did for Amy Winehouse. Then there was that dreadful collaboration with will.i.am a track that no-one outside of the studio needed to hear, let alone release as a single.

And let's not get started on the wacky styling, which her 'people' probably described as edgy and modern, but which actually looks like Lady Gaga in the deepest throes of depression.

But there's a glimmer of hope - Parachute, a song with some kind of decent chorus. And instead of trying to do anything too edgy, this borrows a tango rhythm with a touch of a hip hop beat. It's a gentle, romantic song, only slightly marred by the declarations of "I don't need a parachute, baby if I got you" and "I won't fall out of love".Hard to rely on someone catching you from a freefall when they're probably distracted trying to text a photo of their privates to a glamour model. But hey, that's a lesson everybody needs to learn once, right?

I was a bit surprised when Daisy Dares You came on TV the other day with Number One Enemy. It looked like the end of a brief stint of positive single reviews. The intro to the song is sung in that girly Lily Allen, bored-voice style. It's enough to put you right off, but if you'd stopped listening after the first verse, you'd have missed a great chorus.

In fact, the chorus is the selling point of Number One Enemy. The verses are virtually redundant - it's all about that upwards inflection when Daisy screams "STOP!" It doesn't take long for that chorus to burn itself into your mind - and as the song reaches its climax, it gets stronger and more listenable.

Until that Chipmunk cameo.

Sorry, but what is it about that helium-voiced plonk? "Ha ha, Mister Munk!" His rapping is pathetic, redundant and totally unwanted. Maybe the label insisted on teaming Daisy up with a 'big' name to help sell the record, but it wasn't needed. I can see how Chipmunk appeals to the demographic, but he's a total waste of space.

Newsflash! According to this Guardian feature on Daisy, Chipmunk wasn't the original rapper on the track either:

I kind of like Jason Derulo. He's a purveyor of quality pop-slash-R&B tunes, and he almost reminds me of a young Chris Brown. Before Chris permanently tarnished his image with that unfortunate 'rearranging Rihanna's face' incident.

I'm not making light of the domestic violence incident, but isn't it funny how Derulo pops neatly into the slick, youthful R&B singer spot that Brown just vacated? He's either got a flawless complexion or he's airbrushed to within an inch of his life. He can do the fancy footwork (check out his videos), and there are the aforementioned chart-destroying tunes.

And In My Head is only his second single to date!

There's clearly more of a rawk vibe to this single - though the same smooth harmonies carry the melody, you can hear the distorted guitars punctuating the climaxes in the song. There's a liberal smattering of autotune on the vocals here, but it works out nicely.

An aside: How many R&B singers do you think wake up each morning and sing their own name through an autotune mic?

Moving on to the music video - it borrows heavily from Justin Timberlake's Like I Love You video: the bit of flirting and dancing at the 7/11. Yes, the yanks have been meeting girls this way since the 1950's, why stop now? If it ain't broke, and all that...

Continuing with what I hear is the fourth single from the She Wolf album, our Colombian heroine Shakira releases Gypsy. Considering I've been oblivious to Shakira since the She Wolf single was dropped on us, Gypsy comes as a bit of a shock.

Gone are the disco-flavoured backing beats, replaced by harmonica intros and sitar playing (or is it banjo?) on an intensely ethnic-feeling track. All of this sits on a simple snare beat as Shakira warbles on in that sexy-yodeller voice of hers.

It's a rootsy little tune that shouldn't be unexpected for longtime fans of Miss Mebarak - she pulls in and uses such an ecclectic range of musical styles that we've come to expect this. I still remember the accordian intro to Objection which blended effortlessly into a surf guitar riff. Impressive stuff!

The Gypsy video's a smouldering affair, as Miss Shakira is joined by tennis player Rafael Nadal (where is Mr Shakira during all of this, you might well ask!) She's wearing a very revealing black wrap which covers those small and humble boobs, but will clearly have the pervs in the audience leaning closer to the TV to see if she's wearing anything underneath it.

The next single from Paramore's Brand New Eyes album is The Only Exception. It's the third single from the album, and I feel I should forewarn you that I haven't been as taken with Brand New Eyes as I was with Riot! - I think I'm still so engrossed with that album that truthfully, I'm not ready for this new material yet.

Anyway The Only Exception is a ballad (gasp!), quite a break from the sublime rockers that the band have released to date. Of course, there's plenty of romantic material to be had on the album tracks...

This one is a song of hope - at the beginning, Hayley's sworn off love and doesn't believe it exists. Damn those parental breakups! But the frequent refrain is to the lover in the video that he's the exception to that rule. The lyrics are admirable, optimistic and adorable.

The video features Hayley walking through various scenes in her life, including a clever speed-dating scene where she 'dates' each member of Paramore individually and rejects them all! And, according to Neon Limelight, the letters on the bed Hayley lies on are all "real love letters from Paramore fans". That's got to be a massive ego boost, seeing your letter in a Paramore video.

If you dared to actually listen to Gabriella Cilmi's album a couple of years ago, you'd know that there was more to Miss Cilmi than Sweet About Me.

I saw Gabriella performing this on the Just Dance for Sports Relief on Saturday night, and the song made me sit up and take notice. No, not just because of the futuristic (and tantalisingly short) silver dress she was wearing, but because the song was just fantastic.

Drawing from a ton of 70's and 80's disco references, On A Mission is a big fuzzy synth dance anthem. She vamps is up in some often ridiculous spacey costumes, but the video is perfect for this shameless pop track. I read on the BBC Chartblog a little bit of background to the song's composition:

If the grown-ups wanted to try and butt in at this point, it might be to conclude that, yes, the verses really DO feature the bass line to 'Stepping Out' by Joe Jackson, with the chords from Van Halen's 'Jump' played over the top. But by the time the speedy, bratty chorus rolls around, they'll just be holding their ears and asking someone to turn it down

Before I begin this review, let it be remembered that I love Leona Lewis. And, for the record, I love her new single I Got You. In fact, it was the stand-out track on Leona's Echo album for me.

I'd hoped that I Got You would get released as a single, and it gets its release on the 22 February. What's so special about the track? Well, it's a step away from the boring ballads Leona constantly gets given. It's got a distinctive chorus that stands out from 80% of the other material on Echo, and while it isn't as uptempo as Forgive Me (another personal favourite), it's a sign that Leona's capable of more than the standard warbling.

Still, it's a good sign that this came out as a single instead of the turgid Stop Crying Your Heart Out. I may have waxed lyrical about this originality fail in the wake of her cover of Snow Patrol's Run - clearly her management team were looking to repeat the trick with an Oasis tune. Yawn.

For the third single of their debut album, JLS grace us with One Shot, a song which seems purposefully crafted for those X Factor auditions where people get through - the lyrics "You've only got one shot, so make it count, you might never face this moment again..." perfectly suited to those moments where a talented singer with a sad story (I'm recovering from bunions) gets a thumbs up from the judges.

It's a strange single for the JLS boys - it's got all the hallmarks of a boyband ballad, but filtered through a Basshunter backing track. And if it doesn't sound like a good mix on paper, One Shot is a passably good single, ticking all the right chart-friendly boxes. It's danceable, it's got an uplifting sing-along chorus and the video features the boys making microphones magically appear! Extra cool points for that one!

Three singles in, and JLS still have the feel-good factor. Personally, I put that down to the boys being a group before they ever signed on for X Factor. They've got a great vibe about them, and the dance routines in their music videos are fantastic. Check the 'fumbling my words' bit about 26 seconds in to the video - and practice in front of a mirror with some friends!

Alexandra begins her latest single, Broken Heels with a playful call to producer Red One - "You know we can do it better than you, we can do it even better in broken heels!" After dusting up some brawlers in the video for Bad Boys, Burke returns with an anthem for the ladies.

Broken Heels is an uptempo triumph - capturing a little of that The Boy Does Nothing beat which temporarily made Alesha Dixon the nation's sweetheart a while back. It's cheeky, it's sassy, it's totally Alexandra Burke.

The video's a complete hoot, too - Alex and her gal pals dressed up in American football gear acting out some hot football fantasies. The thing is, it reminds me of that scene from Scary Movie where Brenda's super-camp boyfriend encourages her to dress up in football gear and inadvertently calls her Brandon while they're romping on the bed! If you haven't seen that scene, I implore you to get that movie out!

Of course, in the X Factor world, Alexandra is the Whitney to Leona Lewis's Mariah - bolshy, brash and very very funny. Even listening to her in interviews like catching a one-woman hen night, which is why I love this single for Alexandra and I'm kind of glad Syco don't have her pumping out power ballads like her life depended on it.

A collaboration between Katy Perry and cuddly teddy-bear-slash-producer Timbaland should be a joyous thing - Perry's all-pervasive suggestiveness fused to Timbaland's stock beats.

And that's what If We Ever Meet Again is - an almost seamless wedding of two distinctive artists - the musical lovechild of Perry and Timbaland. It starts with some guitar arpeggios - Katy's influence - and Timbaland on verse singing like he's swallowed the autotune machine. The chorus has a classic pop/rock hook attached which kind of redeems the forgettable verses.