LEMAR – If She Knew
We join in progress, a dress has just caught fire, Lemar is in a lift, Lemar is standing with his feet apparently welded to the floor and it’s making him look very short, or possibly that’s cos this telly is widescreen and TMF isn’t available in 16:9 so he’s looking a bit squidged generally. Anyway, I still have a fairly sizeable soft spot for yer man Obika. He’s rocking that 80s synth noise like e’er one else nowadays, he’s yearning for his girl like e’er one else nowadays, he’s just a bit more likeable than e’er one else nowadays so I’m with him.
THE KILLERS – Human
And what else did we have in the 80s? Shitty poetry, of course! This is a live version (well, Flowers is singing live, anyhow) from some MTV award ceremony, and the staging is admittedly quite impressive – the band are stood in a wall of cubes, in a formation like the five face on a standard board-game die, and there’s various projections of stuff being made to look like they’re pulsing and rotating and so forth. The Killers’ new album is entitled Day & Age, and “Human” certainly matches that level of pretention nicely. Remember that X-Press 2 and David Byrne song from a few years ago? It was better than this.
Ad break – BRAND POWER!
And that brings up our first individual fruit pie of the day. Back to 4Music, methinks.
Or not, cos they’re playing Jon Bon Jovi’s “Please Come Home For Christmas”.
T.I. ft RIHANNA – Live Your Life
In common with most American music videos at the moment, it’s got an overlong outro and intro bit. Why they all wanna be in perfume commercials?
I still can’t get my head around how T.I.’s voice sounds on this record. It’s so… scrubbed-up, sanitised, like they’ve run it through a mess of filters. Thinking on it more, it’s like how FM radio used to sound – sort of strained, bodyless. Really weirdly neutral. Rihanna is easily the best thing about this.
THE SCRIPT – Breakeven
NO FAKE NEWS HERE. They’re in a bar, rockin’. They’re in a car, they’re at the coast, the focus is soft, and oh begorrah are they ever Irish. Look, a causeway! “Prayin’ to a God that I don’t believe in” – REAL! This is by some distance their least offensive single so far. All reasonable chorus and “melodic” and such. I have no desire to ever see or hear it again.
DUFFY – Rain On Your Parade
The big thing this Christmas is deluxe reissues of albums. Leona Lewis, Rihanna, Adele and, of course, Duffeh. They’re the same as the standard editions but with three more tracks and some bonus DVD gobshitery (how did they get the people in the “Chasing Pavements” video to do that thing where they dance while lying on their sides? With the deluxe edition of 19, you can finally find out!)
And they’ve all got accompanying singles, and this is Duffy’s… and you know what, I rather like it. It’s basically a chorus about how she will not take Unspecified Nonsense from Unspecified Man and so now she is going to make Unspecified Man pay in Unspecified Manner, but it’s got some right good violins going STAB STAB STAB STAB! STAB STAB STAB STAB! in the manner of some other single that I can’t remember. Possibly Najoua Belyzel? I know her singles don’t generally have violins… actually it just might be “Sweet Temptation” by Lillix, which is good, cos there’s never a bad time to embed that:
But yeah, good Duffy single, not obviously ripping off 60s anymore, actually trying to, y’know, do something… I approve. Though the video is under the impression the song has some kind of ‘big drums’ thing going on. Which it doesn’t.
After that we had Akon again, and now it’s the adverts. Let’s see what’s on 4Music, cos this ad has Scott Mills’ voice and he’s just said “Crimbo”…
