Labrinth – Earthquake (Live)
Labrinth made a dramatic arrival onto the UK music scene last year with his number one hit Let The Sun Shine… then promptly vanished. He’s been performing at many of the big festivals this summer which means some of the tracks from his upcoming debut album have made it onto YouTube. They have an excitingly fresh sound, proving that Labrinth has as much talent as his contribution to Tinie Tempah’s hits (and Loick Essien’s amazing flop single Love Drunk) suggested. However, new single Earthquake is no sing-along genre-defying anthem. It’s much closer to the Tinie sound, rap-heavy with plenty of pointless squealy noises, which for me has little appeal. With the singles chart overflowing with UK urban acts at the moment, I have no doubt that Earthquake will find its way into the top ten, but I was hoping Labrinth’s new single would step outside of that (admittedly large) niche, as Let The Sun Shine did, and Earthquake hasn’t fulfilled my wish.
67% Poptastic!
Bella Vida – Kiss Kiss Me Bang Bang (Watch)
How embarrassing… I actually quite like this! Bella Vida are Taylor-Ann and Hayley, daughters of David Hasselhoff and current Big Brother housemate Pamela Bach. Since I think David Hasselhoff is the least amusing of all novelty celebrities (he should be playing uni freshers balls, not judging Britain’s Got Talent), I’m even less interested in his children. But even if they were a totally unknown new girl duo with no celebrity relations, I’d still be embarrassed to like Kiss Kiss Me Bang Bang. They have none of the necessary pop factors (talent, looks or personality), the title of their single doesn’t even make sense and their music video uses every cliche in the 2002 edition of the book. Even if you take all of that out of the equation, this is still not a good song. It’s cheaply produced and of a style which it would be inaccurate to call dated – it’s never been popular. However, I still find it oddly enjoyable listening. It’s got a girly feel good vibe and its complete disregard for music trends is quite refreshing. If it was a Europop act I’d definitely be giving it my approval – just bear in mind my score is for the song itself, and definitely not the artist!
72% Poptastic!