PICK OF THE WEEK
Honne
Loves The Jobs You Hate (Tatemae/Atlantic)
Annie Mac named this track her Hottest Record In The World back in August, and now it’s finally, finally getting a proper release. Loves The Jobs You Hate is weirdly sexy funk, contrasted with bitter lyrics that sound like a fight you’d hear outside a pub on Valentine’s Day: “It’s only been a minute since you knocked me/ Now you’re trying to treat me like you love me/ But I’m not fooled by you”. A break-up sex anthem for people who enjoyed Uptown Funk but felt that it could be a bit less optimistic.
The Parrots
I Did Something Wrong (Shacklewell Records)
Did someone remember to tell Spain about the Zutons and the Coral not being a thing any more? Anyone? Whose responsibility was that? Because whoever it was forgot, and now they’ve sent us the Parrots: three lads who are from Madrid yet sound exactly like every band that came out of Liverpool in the early 00s, all jangly guitars and whiney-distorted vocals. It’s 2015. We don’t need this.
David Guetta & Showtek ft Magic! & Sonny Wilson
Sun Goes Down (Parlophone)
Blood moon aside, if there’s any more proof needed that the entire universe is sliding slowly and surely towards an impending apocalypse, it’s this track. Yet another frantic collection of random sounds by David Guetta, collaborating with Magic!, the band who ruined all radio in 2014 with their musical tapeworm Rude. Sun Goes Down is basically the soundtrack to a panic attack, if it was happening in the vicinity of a Spanish-style acoustic guitar, with the vaguely menacing refrain of “I’ll be there when the sun goes down”. Sun Goes Down, blood moon goes up, entire world blacks out.
Weyes Blood
Cardamom (Kemado Records)
This sounds like Weyes Blood, AKA Natalie Mering, was aiming for folky and ethereal but ended up making something that sounds like music you’d hear while walking around Hampton Court Palace, dodging bored drama students working summer jobs dressed up in period costume and bleating “my liege!” at each other. Ban all flutes in popular music.
Jamie Lawson
Wasn’t Expecting That (Gingerbread Man Records/ Warners)
Straight off the “meaningful indie” conveyor belt, this track will be every first dance at the next six weddings you attend. The first single from the only act Ed Sheeran has signed to his new record label, it’s exactly the plodding acoustic guitar bore-off you’d expect from someone handpicked by Teddy, a song written to cynically pull on your heartstrings with soppy lyrics describing the timeline of an entire marriage and a video designed to make girls on their periods cry. Here’s hoping that it’ll be rejected for the 2015 John Lewis Christmas ad.
