I notice that the BBC has tagged us as one of the sites which writes about pop music in simple language rather than using “bloglish”, which is a tool whereby The Kids confuse The Man and stop him buying their music with his so-called “fifty quids”.
Well done Alan Connor of the BBC for a sensible reply to an absurd Observer article (look it up if you can be botherd), but now we have a reputation to live up to, so here are five great pop songs I’ve been listening to recently (i.e. that have just come up on my iPod), and a good reason why to like each of them.
FRANKIE KNUCKLES ft JAMIE PRINCIPAL – “Baby Wants To Ride”: Because it’s a paranoid early house track which mixes up sex and spirituality, Prince style, and then brings in geopolitics while the beat goes on and you-the-listener get the uneasy feeling that it’s 3am and you’ve gone home from the club with a lunatic.
RACHEL STEVENS – “Nothing Good About This Goodbye”: Because it’s the most heartfelt, bittersweet and straightforward pop song from Rachel Stevens’ second album – which is an excellent record but ‘heartfelt and straightforward’ seems to suit Rachel more than ‘clever and cool’.
THE CONTOURS – “First I Look At The Purse”: Because it’s the cousin to the more famous Motown hit “Money” and just as delightfully cynical. “Why waste time / Looking at the waistline?”
WILL SMITH – “Will 2K”: Because it’s such a perfect use of an iconic rock sample, and because squares like to party too.
BROADCAST – “Echo’s Answer”: Because it’s the sound of a winter night, and after four years I still can’t get less vague than that.
Normal gibberish can now resume.