I’m having one of those days where everything sounds terrific, so please bear that in mind if I say something ridiculous, maybe something like ‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ is the best single of the year so far. I’ve been wrong plenty of times before, after all. I was wrong about that Mis-Teeq album, for instance. Sitting in the office it sounded like self-denying R&B pastiche. Sipping cider in Brittany it sounded like self-confident R&B panache. God knows what ‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ would sound like if I was still on holiday. I wish I could find out.
I like that he’s called ‘Killer Mike’, by the way. It makes me think of the bloke from the Young Ones. I’d heard a Killer Mike track before this — ‘AkSHUN!’ — which was good but a little harsh. ‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ isn’t harsh. It’s mostly two overlapping hooks — one synthed one sung — the synthed one is slightly better but they’re both terrific – interspersed with goof-raps that tell you nothing much, adorably. Killer Mike likes women not men but that’s just him; wear a condom, kids!; maybe Killer Mike thinks about sex too much.
Maybe he does. If he didn’t, though, we wouldn’t have a song. (‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’, fabulously, means ‘All Day I Dream About Sex’). If Prince didn’t, we wouldn’t have a song either. ‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ sounds like Prince might sound if he took sex less seriously, the way those of us who aren’t Prince have to take it to stop going loopy.
(Not that Prince took sex seriously all the time, but even my favourite Prince album has an air of real fit-to-burst desperation about it, while Killer Mike is dreaming about sex like Porky’s does, mostly for effect and laffs. At the end of the day he’s probably happy with his hand.)
(That would be Dirty Mind, obviously.)
(‘A.D.I.D.A.S.’ is the best single of the year so far.)