TRACK OF THE WEEK
Cadenza
No Drama
Imagine the pressure if you’re both a musician and revered reggae DJ David Rodigan’s son: not knowing if he’s yelling at you to turn your music down because the neighbours are getting pissed off again, or because it’s doing his head in. Fortunately for family relations, Oliver Rodigan, AKA Cadenza, hasn’t messed up. No Drama is a bass-heavy, minimal, trap- and grime-influenced track full of darkness and aggression that’s unlike anything its title suggests. Listen to it with the lights on.
Maxwell
Lake By The Ocean
Wetter than, er, a lake by the ocean, Maxwell’s bore-off is a middle-of-the-road ballad that your worst Tinder date would panic buy when you went back to their flat, to mask their Lighthouse Family playlists. It doesn’t help that the song features lyrics (“Love is the medicine/ I can heal us”) that sound like an over-keen dating profile. Next time, swipe left.
Bastille
Good Grief
You know what a song about grief needs? A great, big, foot-stamping, hand-clapping singalong chorus. Something for the funeral crowds to chuck their pints in the air to. And that’s what Bastille have made with Good Grief, trailing new album Wild World (imagine that meeting with the label: “And it has to be the one about death, does it?”) and it’s… really good? Which is unexpected, given Bastille’s previous output. A great summer festival anthem, so long as you ignore the words.
Tired Lion
Not My Friends
As anyone who’s experienced 2016 so far knows, the 90s are back. Yes, it’s a trend and no, you still can’t pull off a crop top. Not My Friends is a nostalgic, grungy 2m 43s of slagging off everyone at a party, and frontwoman Sophie Hopes’s delivery is a pleasing blend of Courtney Love’s laconic sulkiness and No Doubt-era Gwen Stefani. It’s all right, but they don’t half hammer it home in the video, dressing up as the cast of Friends, Seinfeld and Home Improvement, and making everyone else feel roughly 85 years old.
Flo Rida ft Jason Derulo
Hello Friday
Hello Friday is, unsurprisingly, a love letter to that sweet moment Flo and Jason finish up their long week in the pop star office, make the international sign for “pint?” at each other and head out to “sip that Patron”/ buy “a ticket to Rome” (the rap version of that post-work-drinks ASOS order at midnight). The track’s actually quite enjoyable, until you realise that Rida and DeRulo are showing more respect to a day of the week than they’ve ever shown a woman in their lyrics.
