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There’s no point putting your fingers in your ears and hoping it’ll go away; pop moguls on both sides of the Atlantic are on the hunt for very young people with very strong voices, and thanks to TV talent shows and YouTube, they are going to find them and they are going to make them make records and they are going to release those records and we are going to have to listen to them. That is simply where we are in terms of cultural evolution right now.

And if this talent trawl annoys older people – people who aren’t really the target audience for the thing in the first place – and it gets in the way of heritage pop acts who have got a bit too used to having the Top 10 for a personal playground, and it generally shakes things up a bit, well that’s all to the good.

There again, some of the records are going to be rubbish. That’s an unavoidable side effect of an initiative like this.

(Here’s the video. She’s got a lot of fans.)

So, hats off to the production house Stargate for giving Alexis – a graduate of both the America’s Got Talent finishing school AND the university of YouTube – something to sing which might actually appeal to all ages. It’s a soft-boiled trancey dancey thing, which spends ages wending its way through the verses; stopping off for a little “hurry hurry” moment here, building up slowly there; before rising sharply to a startling peak and then gently tumbling down the other side.

And what a peak! The “Hah” of “happiness” has got to be in the Top 10 of ecstatic pop moments of the year, surely? And the “piy” and “nessss” aren’t exactly trailing far behind.

And it’s not just a case of low expectations being exceeded easily, either. If Madonna had put this out, it would be hailed as one of the best songs of her long and varied career. And she possibly would struggle to get the crystal purity of those top notes, which means Alexis is officially Better Than Madonna.*

Mind you, it is another one of those songs isn’t clear about what it wants you, the listener, to do when you hear it. Slightly too soft and slow for dancing, slightly too upbeat and lively for seated listening. Good for a nod-along, I suppose, but if that makes it sound like a passive listening experience, well it isn’t.

What it demands is that you melt with joy. That’s the appropriate reaction, at the appropriate moment. And if you can’t manage that, you’re not listening properly.

Download: Out now

www.alexisjordanofficial.com
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

* Not officially.

Pop Trash Addicts says: “Just be careful because you’ll have “I got to hurry hurry hurry now, quick quick quick” stuck in your head for weeks!”

Hey It’s BCT says: “It really does give you this youthful sound that is very refreshing.”

View full post on BBC – Chart blog

So, the tabloid hooey that it would be uncharitable to mention in relation to this song can be summarised thus:

Nadine’s song is out a week later than Cheryl’s. It is like Blur vs Oasis all over again.

Nadine’s album is out a week later than Cheryl’s. It is like Take That vs East 17 all over again.

Nadine and the other Aloud girls might not be getting on as well as they would like you to believe. It is like Robbie vs Take That all over again.

Nadine might not do as well with her solo album as Cheryl will with hers. This is possibly because one of these women is a key part of a hugely popular weekly TV talent show, and is currently enjoying national treasure status, and the other has yet to prove that she can break out of the constraints of being Nadine from out of Girls Aloud. It is like Sabrina Washington vs Alesha Dixon all over again.

SO, having got all of that out of the way, what’s Nadine’s song actually like?

(Here’s the video. Somewhere there is an empty dressing-up box looking rather forlorn.)

Well it is clearly the work of someone who wants to make it very clear that they are mature, and that their music exists in a timeless sphere which is unaffected by current trends. There are grinding guitars in there, and real brass instruments, like grown-ups use in their songs, and there’s a lot of soul in Nadine’s pained howl.

There are no spiralling club-banger synths, there is no autotune, there is no mad chanting, and no-one sings “ayo”. Four things which would place Nadine at the very now-ness of popular music, and therefore ruin the idea that she’s a soul madam from always o’clock.

If we are to draw a parallel with her bandmate, based on the music alone – Cheryl’s hit songs seem to speak to a public idea of what her love life is like, while Nadine is attempting to prove that she is no longer the young girl with the big voice that she was in 2002. She’s now a fully grown woman with a big voice. And big voices and rocky-soul go together like Paloma Faith and hats.

And actually, if there is a comparison to be made musically, it’s probably with something like Paloma’s ‘Stone Cold Sober’, or some of Tina Turner’s ’80s hits, only you never heard either of those two making that strange “a-haow” noise with which Nadine begins proceedings. It sounds less like an emotive mic-check and more like one of those compression sounds people make when they’re clearing out their sinuses.

Work your way past all of this baggage though, and there’s a bright, engaging song here, sung by a woman whose voice deserves to be heard on its own merits. Whether there are enough people out there willing to do this, in the midst of a gossip tornado, is a different matter entirely.

Download: November 1st

www.nadineworldwide.com
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

It’s Pop says: “The track is clever precisely because it is not an instant smash, but a grower that takes a few listen to fully reveal itself.”

Reflective Inklings says: “What makes things even sweeter is the instrumentation done. The track does not sound like a rip-off of a Guetta-produced track at all.”

The Chemistry Is Dead says: “first thing it reminded us of was that Kiss cover by Tom Jones, then a bit of Echo by Girls Can’t Catch and Rihanna’s Umbrella in the verses”

View full post on BBC – Chart blog

Ladies and gentlemen, people who have not been paying attention, sceptics and believers alike, I give you, the female Justin Bieber!

OK, the hair is different, and the voices don’t quite match up – he’s more Mickey Mouse with a sore throat, and she’s more junior Beyonce – but what they do share, apart from extreme youth, is the strange experience of being massively popular on YouTube, and managing to turn this into success in the wider world of entertainment.

Here’s how it worked. Five years ago Charice appeared on a TV talent show in the Phillipines. She did OK, reaching the final, and then the Top 3. Clips of her performances were put on YouTube, then lots and lots of people watched them.

A couple of years later, she appeared on another TV show, this time in South Korea. And then the performances from that were put on YouTube and lots and lots of people watched them too.

After this, it all gets a bit showbiz. American TV chat shows started to get her on, then UK TV shows like Paul O’Grady, and all the while the video clip pile is growing and more and more people are watching her do her thing. Until eventually there’s a flurry of ridiculous celebrity names and international acclaim: Oprah, Celine, Bocelli, Alvin and the Chipmunks…and now she’s even managed to nab a role in the next series of Glee.

Katie, Cheryl, Robbie, you are going to have to UP your GAME if you wanna compete with that little lot.

(Here’s the video. It’s Gleeful.)

It’s fascinating to come at this relatively fresh and try and see what all the fuss has been about. On the face of it, she’s a small girl with a big voice, establishing a global pop presence using the tried-and-tested method of taking a beefed-up slow jam, about faith or hope or turmoil, putting a guest rapper in the middle of it, and attempting to sing his face off.

She damn near manages it too. Poor Iyaz, attempting to join in now and again by nodding “like a pyramid, like a pyramid” around her hurricane howl, sounds a smidge lost. No, wait, not lost, as such. He sounds like someone who is doing none of the work, but attempting to take some of the credit. He’s a skiver on a building site, yelling at passing girls and waving his big hammer around.

And no, I’m not just saying this because – as is so often the way of things at the moment – the very first word out of his mouth is the s-word. You know the one. Sean Kingston knows it too.

Anyway, yes. Stirring stuff, sung to within an inch of its life by a girl who belongs in the showboating vocal fireworks display of Glee like custard belongs in a trifle.

Well done, the internet!

Download: Out now

www.charicemusic.com
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

Life As I Know It says: “Though Charice shows off some high notes and other vocal stylings, ‘Pyramid’ not as intimidating as a power ballad”

View full post on BBC – Chart blog

True fact: This song made Fearne Cotton cry. Out of her EYES, dammit!

It all happened on the Sky 1 sort-of-like-the-X-Factor-but-the-judges-are-all-off-Later-With-Jools musical talent show Must Be The Music. You all know the setup by now. Three judges, a big audition arena show, a presenter backstage talking to the acts before they go on. Two girls walk up to Fearne, who is basically the ‘Dermot’ in this situation. One is called Katie Pepper and the other is called Emma, she plays the piano, hence the name. They are from Manchester and they are excited and nervous.

Emma reveals she has had some troubles in her life, and that making music with Katie has helped her pull herself together. They then take to the stage. Then The Magic happens:

Instead of performing an off-key version of an Alicia Keys song, or even a bland re-write of an even blander recent pop ballad, Emma strikes up some dour chords, and then Katie opens her mouth and sings up a great big bruise. A massive black-eye of a song. An ‘Everybody Hurts’ where literally everybody hurts.

(Can’t show you the video. Ad cooties.)

I don’t mean it’s painful to listen to, not in the sense that they’re doing anything musically wrong, at any rate. It’s just…blimey that’s an unsettling noise to hear coming out of a televised human face, isn’t it? Katie’s voice is closer to that of Antony (of …and the Johnsons fame) than, say, Leona Lewis, and although the song they’re playing is a little clunky and unvarnished (by the standards of yer slick Top 40 acts), it’s clearly a thing of substance, especially when sung like that.

Outside of the viciously-pigeonholed TV context, it would probably make less of an impact, a slightly wonky song, earnestly sung, by a lady with a boyishly deep, but operatically huge voice. But stick it in the middle of a silly old TV talent show and WHOAH!

The looks of shock and delight on everyone’s faces are perhaps similar to those you would see if you organised an imaginary dinner party, where you and your friends have dressed up smart, and gathered around an immaculately-laid table, only to spend the entire evening pretending to enjoy a sumptuous feast (more ghost beef, vicar?), with all the not-really-there trimmings…and then a latecomer arrives with real home-made trifle.

It might not be the finest trifle money can buy: some of the jelly hasn’t set properly and the custard is a little runny, and there are peanuts and raisins sprinkled all over the top, as a radical garnish. But you can’t deny that it is actual food.

Download: Out now

www.facebook.com/pepperandpianoofficial

(Fraser McAlpine)

View full post on BBC – Chart blog