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For an emotion we all yearn to feel, as much as we possibly can, light-hearted skippyfun can be very, very troublesome to capture in popular music. Too much sugar, as we all know, rots the teeth, and makes people feel sick. So it’s often a good idea to leaven it with a bit of sourness, just to cleanse the palate.

It’s a tough balance to strike though. Too much sour is even worse than too much sweet, cos it curdles the whole confection. Ideally, you’d want a song something like this, something which seems to be full of sunlight and happysighs; something which tumbles through your mind like a carrier bag lifted into the afternoon sky by a gentle breeze.

Unfortunately, the lighter and happier you sound, the more you risk annoying people, rather than carrying them along with your infectious giddiness, so it needs to also have some great big clumping clown feet, just to keep it from disappearing in a puff of twee.

(Here’s the video. Hey, isn’t that Mark Ronson’s bike?)

In Eliza’s case, the clown feet are provided by the swinging beat, and some slightly barbed lyrics, and the palate-cleansing job is done by the melody, which does takes some delightfully sour turns, for such a sweet song. Maybe the shoes could be a bit bigger or the barbs a smidge sharper, but it’s not the kind of song that seems to care whether anyone likes it or not. Which is just as well.

So it’s a bit unfair the way people seem to want to hold up a picture of Lily Allen in front of Eliza and tell her off for not being as sharp a madam, lyrically. If there’s a comparison to be made with anyone it’s someone like Feist or Yael Naim, both of whom seem to prefer a tumble of thoughts which happen to fit the rhythm of the melody to Lily’s strident spade-calling.

Plus you could never say that a Lily Allen song is carefree in the way this tries to be. She’s much too good at articulating awkward human interactions for that.

SO, where does that leave us? Well, a song like this is basically a butterfly, isn’t it? It’s nice to have around, but if it gets up your nose, you’ll probably want to bat it away and go and sit somewhere where it can’t get you.

Download: Out now

www.elizadoolittle.com
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

Seven Foot Sounds says: “‘Rollerblades’ isn’t that good but I like it!”

Von Pip Musical Express says: “My Fair Bladey”

View full post on BBC – Chart blog

It’s always a good sign when you resent having to turn a song off in order to write about how brilliant it is.

Frankly there’s a whole ocean of enjoyment still to be wrung out of ‘Upside’ and I’m keen to get started. So I’m going to have to keep this brief. C’mon, read faster!

Let’s just assume I’ve said something sharp and daft here about the grammar in the chorus, and how leaving the line “you don’t know which way is upside” unfinished until the final chorus is just begging all the would-be Lynne Trusses on any dancefloor to shout “DOWN!” every time that line comes around.

And let’s assume I’d have then gone on to conjure up some scenario at the annual Christmas party of the ‘Grammar Is One National Greatness Mankind Always Destroys’ club (blah blah acronym blah), where they only play songs which are grammatically correct – with the result that it’s a really, really short Christmas party.

Haha…yes…a crazy scenario indeed…HURRY UP!

(Here’s the video. Boxing for him. Bedroom for her.)

And then here’s where we get a chance to talk about the music. About how rude and lumpy the brassy background sounds after what feels like YEARS of saturated synths and cold, cold dance-hop. But, even though Mark Ronson has forsake the funk for, well, the other funk, it’s songs like this that prove why bringing trumpets back was such a good idea in the first place.

Speaking of cold…Michelle Breeze’s drop-choruses…those gorgeous, sobbing choruses, act like an ice-bath next to the sweaty heat of the verses. She reclines on a bed of frozen strings, far into an icy ocean, calling out for rescue and quietly falling apart.

Meanwhile Kano is all brutal strength and frustration. He’s clearly as keyed up as she is, but rails against it, punchily. He’s the angry man at the bus stop who hasn’t got time to give you the time because can’t believe how late he already is, and how much work he’s going to have to do to catch up. Is this what he pays his taxes for? What is the world coming to?

Although he does express it in a much cooler way than I have, with that densely-structured flow of his.

Whacking the two extremes into one song is a brilliant, brilliant thing, because it makes the sad bits sadder and the funky bits funkier. And they’re already as sad and as funky as you’d normally need. It’s called juxtaposition and it’s been done perfectly.

NOW, have you got all the information you need? I could tell you Michelle’s in a band called Why Why Peaches or that ‘Upside’ was produced by Craigie Dodds, but I really need to get on, so maybe you could just find these things out for yourself for once, yeah?

OK, thank you, much obliged. Gotta go!

Download: 23rd August

www.ka-no.com
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

The Couch Sessions says: “The sad thing is that the cats in the UK have been consistently pushing the envelope for the past two decades, creating some of the most imaginative sounds most US rap fans would kill over.”

Mind Of Grime says: “The bars are lacking and it just doesnt do it for me.”

The Lala Report says: “Really love Kano’s lyrical flow.”

View full post on BBC – Chart blog

Plan B is a hard man. He wants us all to know this. And if you don’t know it, he’s going to go to extravagant, sweaty lengths to prove it.

He might sing ’60s soul music in a high voice, but in case you may conclude that this makes him a wuss, he does it with maximum, throat-tearing intensity, as if his larynx doesn’t wanna do the job, but he’s gonna FORCE IT.

He might perform his songs on a stage for everyone to see – just like JLS do – but in case you are under the impression that he NEEDS the approval of an audience, he does it with what the Arctic Monkeys call “the face on” – glowering and furious.

He might wear a suit, but this does not mean he has sold out, to other men in suits – and anyway, his one is tailored to look as if he could rip it off and stuff it into an enemy’s windpipe, should the situation arise.

You’d be a fool to mistake him for a banker: he looks like The Accused.

(Here’s the video. It’s literally a riot.)

And there’s more: He might have created a soul concept album, but in case you think this is a pretentious, bookish, swotty thing to do, he has filled it with street-level details which take in murder, bad love, wild nights out, prison, swearing, and redemption. A bit like that album by the Streets, only without the broken telly (and with more murder).

He might have a song in which a character he has created is praying to God because of the awful things which have befallen him, but in case you think that it is weak that he, Plan B, could ever show that kind of frailty, he’s singing as if he is praying HARDER THAN ANYONE HAS EVER PRAYED IN THE HISTORY OF FAITH. Those prayers are like press-ups, maan.

The song may contain more spiralling horns than a tornado in a moose enclosure, but in case you associate brass with parping, cheeky, Mark Ronson indie-remakes, they are massively punchy horns. The kind of horns Joshua would’ve used to give the walls of Jericho a good seeing-to. MAN HORNS, in other words.

And if all of that sounds awfully tiring, well sometimes it is. But he can take it, and why? Because he’s a hard man, Plan B.

So long as we are all aware of this, he don’t need NUFFINK, GOTTIT?

Download: Out now

www.time4planb.co.uk
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

Indie London says: “Another fine example of Plan B’s accomplished storytelling ability.”

Clash Music says: “In the distance, the haters continue to grind their teeth…”

The Reverend Garibaldi McFlurry says: “Obviously praying should be our first resort, our Plan A, rather than plan B or further down the list of priorities.”

View full post on BBC – Chart blog