PICK OF THE WEEK
Tough Love
So Freakin Tight (Get Twisted)
A nugget of R&B from Jodeci provides the hook for the house duo’s first major label release. It’s a bass-heavy banger made for everyone from tweens who use phrases like “eyebrow game on fleek” unironically to dead-eyed corporate types saving up their annual leave for Creamfields. “Every freakin day, every freakin night, I wanna freak you girl, your body’s so freakin tight” goes the chorus, in the most effective throwback to 90s naffness since the high street resurrected jelly shoes. So Pete Tong that it’s right.
Elicit
I Wanna Be Your Lover (RME)
Elicit harnesses the same subconscious-hijacking formula that has made the likes of Avicii into squillionaires with this slick house reimagining of Prince’s 1979 hit of the same name. There’s surprisingly little online about him or his previous incarnation LZ Beatz, bar a few mentions of his work with rapper Shystie. However, come summer the faceless dance messiah’s following will surely explode as this track invades festivals, clubs and the kind of barbecues where heatstroke and Echo Falls are sine qua non. Ambient yet attention-grabbing.
Jessie Ware
Champagne Kisses (PMR)
Despite a title that sounds like a shower gel you’d regift on Boxing Day, Champagne Kisses is a slice of classy, sensuous pop that sees Jessie test the plate-shattering heights of her vocal range. It’s a shame, then, that she’s often drowned out by a heavy beat and fractured harmonies, jostling for attention like house tracks in a rundown of the week’s singles. In a world polarised between Shazamable dance remixes and Live Lounge gloop, it’s neither ballsy nor bare enough to placate the masses.
Nick Jonas
Jealous (Island)
The Disney star turned pop poseur reaches the apogee of unoriginality, hitting refresh on John Lennon’s Jealous Guy whilst seemingly paying “homage” to Taylor Swift’s Style. An unexpected dalliance into misogyny – in which he defends his tendency to be a “possessive”, “hellish” dickwad when other guys notice his squeeze – it’s sure to have you yearning for the good old days when the Jonas Brothers were all purity rings and cherubic curls. Proof that Robin Thicke’s demise has taught the world diddly-squat.
Hudson Taylor
World Without You (Polydor)
In an age when adverts for fried chicken masquerade as fostering appeals, it’s natural to question the sentimentality constantly flogged to us. This combination of delicate strumming and lyrics about “tasting teardrops” (you wot?) is a case in point, having almost certainly been crafted to make you well up on the bus and give all your pennies to the Dublin duo behind it. Thankfully, they’re an innocuous-enough outfit, but just imagine the havoc that Nigel Farage and co could wreak if they got their hands on a ukelele or two.
