TRACK OF THE WEEK
J Hus: Playing Sports
What a week, with my two favourite artists in the world, 21-year-old J Hus and 82-year-old Leonard Cohen. Let’s start with Hus, who’s sort of like if Popcaan grew up in east London; he’s got a cheeky “all right-geez-how’s-ur-father-banged-ur-girlfriend” flow, but sung like a dancehall chorus. On this track he is, as ever, singing about stealing your girl and about how “We kinda connect/ So when I’m outside your crib you know that Wi-Fi connects”. Cohen would be proud.
Leonard Cohen: You Want It Darker
This a song that pities the superficial darkness Cohen used to wrestle with, calling his previous demons “middle class and tame”, with the ominous suggestion that something far bigger is on the horizon. But there’s an added chill here, as Cohen is almost Luciferian in tone, whispering over gospel samples. “You want it darker?” he jibes, as if he could very well have that arranged.
The Weeknd ft Daft Punk: Starboy
I’ve looked into it and this Drive soundtrack-ish song, which includes a lyric about Brad Pitt “Legend of the fall/ Took the year like a bandit”, was definitely recorded before the Brangelina divorce went public. So what does it mean? Either the Weeknd is psychic at predicting celeb gossip and Grazia should get him on a retainer, or he himself had some part to play in the split of the year. I’ve tried to scan the rest of the song for clues but it’s all just cars and cocaine.
Green Day: Still Breathing
Green Day are trapped between a rock and a hard place. Now in their mid-40s, If they keep making pop-punk and wearing eye makeup they look like your weird uncle who wakes up every day still thinking it’s 1994. But if they go full Coldplay and aim for stadium hits then they seem like sellouts. Here, they have made the decision to try a bit of both, so sound like a crap year-nine talent-contest band drowning in a whirlpool of reverb. Still breathing, perhaps, but that’s about it.
David Guetta ft Cedric Gervais & Charles Willis: Would I Lie To You
Sadly not a tribute to the Rob Brydon-fronted panel show but another intensely irritating dance song which takes a pop classic and puts a pound-shop drum machine underneath it. It’s worse now – with the chart full of these moronic covers – than when Steps and Atomic Kitten were doing versions of every Bee Gees and Bangles song in existence, because at least sometimes Liz McClarnon would do a bit of a rap.
