Kelly Clarkson – I Do Not Hook Up (Listen)
If you thought that My Life Would Suck was just a retread of Kelly’s past work, you’ll certainly think the same of her next single, and this one doesn’t even have any Swedish people involved in it! Even worse, guess who was involved? Only the one rock-pop singer I dislike more than Kelly… Katy Perry! Actually no, Pink is also more annoying than Kelly. The oh-ohs in the chorus are really catchy and I like the relentless speed of the song. I love songs that just don’t stop for 3 and a half minutes. There’s nothing wrong with it, and the chorus has good energy, but at the same time I don’t feel at all compelled to listen to it again. We’ve heard this all before, haven’t we?
77% Poptastic!
Velvet – Chemistry (Watch)
Thanks to September’s success last year with Cry For You, Sweden’s most similar act, Velvet, has been given the chance to release a single in the UK. Luckily one of her very best songs (one I posted on ITG immediately when I heard it in 2007) has been chosen as her UK debut, and now a video has been released. It’s nothing very remarkable, but is certainly an improvement on the embarrassingly old-fashioned UK videos made for September. Why she needed new videos at all, I’ll never know. It concerns me slightly that Velvet is being promoted by the same people who are working with U2 and Red Blooded Woman, but hopefully the great quality pop music will shine through. Now we just need Radio 1 to get on board, cos the inevitable Clubland TV hourly rotation will not be enough to get this song the notice it needs.
96% Poptastic!
Nick Lachey – Patience (Listen)
The ex-98 Degrees singer and presenter of the acetastic High School Musical: Get in the Picture is soon to release a new album, and after his last one had the most excellent lead single of What’s Left of Me, I was looking forward to seeing what would be the first song released this time. Sadly we don’t get a new Nick/Emanuel Kiriakou collaboration, as the song turns out to be a cover of Patience by Take That! It actually works really well as a Nick song. He makes it more BSBs than Take That. I like his version, but it’s kind of sad that Take That won’t get a chance to release Patience in America themselves. Then again, if it does well for Nick, it could be a good launching pad for our boys over there. If they want it, that is.
83% Poptastic!
Kate Deigman – It Was You (Watch)
I can’t really see why, but the video for Kate’s debut single is getting absolutely loads of plays on YouTube at the moment. Her claim to fame seems to be counting Bryan Adams, Rod Stewart and Gary Barlow among her fans (but Gary’s mate Eliot Kennedy wrote the songs, so that’s no surprise), but she totally lacks any claim to goodness. She’s like the new Sandi Thom, singing in the style of Joss Stone. Can you think of a more terrifying proposition? I can’t! Obviously she is getting all these hits from somewhere, perhaps the support of a tabloid or something like that, and there must be quite a bit of money behind her, because a blandathon like this would never just catch on of it’s own accord. Perhaps it’s one person watching the video on 123,575 computers at once?
32% Poptastic!