Spector
Never Fade Away (Luv Luv Luv)
Helped along the way by Simon Fuller's 19 Management and with their records released by Florence + The Machine's manager Mairead Nash, Spector are going to be pretty hard to ignore. Their first single is a sweet, anthemic pop song that sounds like it's been designed to snare teenage girls who think the Killers are cool and turn them on to something more dignified and British. They could have written a couple of more lyrics to the chorus and made the drums sounds less like Live Aid, but all in all Spector are shaping up to be the best British boyband since Menswear.
Little Roy
Sliver (Ark Recordings)
Of all the ways of cashing in on the 20th anniversary of Nevermind, these guys have had the best idea so far. They found a little-known Jamaican in his 60s and had him record an album of rocksteady cover versions of Kurt's best songs, thus drawing attention to the great pop songwriting that was always at the core of Nirvana's music. All the emo/drugs/angst and shotgun suicide stuff around Nirvana-worship is strictly for the people who're gonna be writing the 10-page tribute editorials in the music monthly glossies later this year. Can't wait for that!
True Tiger feat Professor Green & Maverick Sabre
In The Air (Virgin)
Epic, frantic dance music with rapping on it, designed for stressed-out teenagers who smoke too much weed and think every problem they encounter in their lives is the end of the world. They can listen to it all they want and I hope it brings them joy, but this is the kind of stuff that makes me never want to have kids.
Younghusband
Carousel (Too Pure)
Amazing wibbly wobbly jangle that's been time-machined from the indie charts of 1985. The singer sounds like a less self-assured version of Stephen Pastel and the guitarists are still trying to work out how Kevin Shields makes those weird noises. The drummer's been wearing the same trainers for three years, and the bassist still lives with mum, always getting headaches that make him late for practice.
Vato Gonzalez feat Foreign Beggars
Badman Riddim (Jump) (Ministry Of Sound)
This is that massively annoying "paaaarrty" music they put on adverts for sportswear companies. There's a bunch of kids breakdancing and playing street football while a VJ throws gang signs in slo-motion and some models pretend to enjoy barbecue chicken. A Japanese guy spray-paints a peace sign on to a basketball and then fireworks go off spelling out "You can do it!". Fade to sportswear company logo.
Snoop Dogg feat T-Pain
Boom (Parlophone)
Easily the worst thing that Snoop's ever done, the 10-minute long, million-dollar video for this tawdry disco rap is proof again that all this talk of a "newfound austerity" in the music industry is a lie. Sure, they fired a lot of people who weren't making that much money anyway but the big dogs at the top are still paying themselves oligarch wages and splashing cash on crap like this.
