Pick of the week: Annie, I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me (Island)
Theme-wise, this is a really, really good version of the Pussycat Dolls' Don't Cha (wish your girlfriend was hot like me). But without the baby oil, or the poles, or the leather bras, or the little feminist sit down you have to have with your niece when the video comes on telly.
Tune-wise, it's LOVELY - a sweet, fabulous dessert of pop. Extra points, too, for reclaiming Crazy Frog's ring-a-ding-ding refrain.
Neon Neon, I Told Her On Alderaan (Lex)
On first listen? A little bit mincy-mancy. A little bit Casio experiment. On second hear, though, it's sort of mesmerising. In a Human League, Hall & Oates and Windows start-up tune kind of way. Third listen and you'll want to download it as a polyphonic ringtone. And maybe even rent Star Wars, which - true story - I've never seen.
McFly, One For The Radio (Super)
Dawn breaks. You wake with your clothes on, the taste of stewed celebration on your tongue, and an odd lightness of mind. Lying in the dim morning light, you stifle a giggle. The day ahead, the year to come - your dissertation deadline, your gallstones, your relationship with a distant father - all worries dissolve like a pound coin in a glass of Coke. McFly are back. Things are good. No, things are great.
Madonna, Give It 2 Me (WEA/Reprise)
Madonna invented leotards, America, metal bras, the 1980s, Guy Ritchie, lesbianism, adoption, Marilyn Monroe, nipples and/or breasts, disco, ageing, religion, underwear-as-outerwear, and now, a brand new music genre: cross-trainer-pop, songs which work on your quads and glutes, which smell delicately of strangers' sweat, which leave you clammy and wanting, and urge you to wipe them down once you're done.
CSS, Left Behind (Sub Pop/Warners)
I feel a bit of a dick saying that this isn't their best work, because with CSS, it's not about making a nice rounded song, it's about leaping about in a rainbow catsuit and having a hilarious time with all your mates. But! With a bit of a towelling down from an expensive production team, this could be an Ashlee Simpson-Wentz hit. Not a bad thing! I'll tell you why: good pop that is just OK (this) makes fantastic bad pop (that!). Do you see?
Kid Rock, All Summer Long (Atlantic)
This is Kid Rock's (a musician as drawn by an artist whose hands have been badly broken) ode to Sweet Home Alabama, the song he used to "make love to by the lake". If you don't concentrate for a second though, it sounds like he made love to the lake itself. Which, when it's Rock, one doesn't question. He's an intensely sexual person. He sort of just makes love as he moves. He oozes it. The chair he sits on: it's made love to. The air he walks through: it's made love to. If you walked close by, he'd certainly make love to you, too. You wouldn't even notice. You'd just totter on, an itch gathering momentum in your jeans.
