Yes, Single Wars is BACK! This is the feature where fans of the acts releasing singles this week tell us why their song should be pronounced Dirrrty Pop’s single of the week. First up is Chris (aka Klee) who wrote about the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and their new single Cheated Hearts:
“The first time I ever heard the Yeah Yeah Yeahs I thought “Ooh, Chrissie Hynde’s remembered how to write songs again”. They might be noisier and cooler than The Pretenders, but both bands share a lot in the spiky guitar rockpop stakes.
Cheated Hearts is more of the same: angular guitars, Karen O’s yelp and a bassline they seemed to have nicked from Virginia Plain by Roxy Music. It builds slowly from the bassline to a screaming crescendo via a Karen O vocal which could be summed up as “I’m cooler than you all and have the hair and shoes to prove it”.
It’s good, but not great – a first rather than second album song in that it covers less emotional ground than other tracks on ‘Show Your Bones’. A nice indie disco punt though, and it fills the gap between now and them re-releasing Turn Into and taking over the world.”
Our second contributor is Carrie, whose favourite single out this week is Starlight by Muse:
“Binoculars to the fore! Avast me hearties! Who is that we spy looking brooding in the midst of that fine blue ocean? Why, it’s Muse! Get out the black eyeliner, gang, and begin tapping your toes and nodding your head backwards and forwards. Don’t go into full-on mosh mode, mind – this ain’t a hardcore thumper of old-school Muse misery.
No, this is Matt Bellamy’s soaring vocals over a keyboard-heavy accompaniment – this is what Placebo would sound like if they were joined by Dave Bryan from Bon Jovi. There’s the usual crashing chords across the bridge, and close harmony backing comes in at the end as the guitars ease up and leave Bellamy’s plaintive cries exposed.
There’s something really sinister – in a heart-rending way – about this track, for all its upbeat, singalong piano riffing. Maybe it’s because it’s a tortured tale of lost love, beginning, “Far away, the ship has taken me far away”, so it’s fairly easy to guess where their director derived the idea for the water-based video. If such literal lyric interpretation doesn’t grab your vote for single of the week, you must be an incredibly difficult customer to please.”
Next is Mike, a big Kelis fan who loves her new single Bossy:
“This infuriatingly catchy song is the first single off her brilliant new album Kelis Was Here, and OF COURSE it should win single of the week. She’s one of the best popstars ever (even without her paintball-fight-in-a-stuffed-toy-factory hair), she references past hits in her lyrics (as pioneered by Britney on her landmark 2000 single Stronger), she ‘rides the beat like a bicycle’, she’s ‘icy cold’ and promises to ‘keep it pumpin’ while the 808 is jumpin”. We’re not 100% clear on what an 808 actually is, but we’re prepared to sit here all night making sure it stays jumpin’. Because Kelis said so, and she’s a BOSS.
You know it makes sense.”
And last but hopefully not least is my own personal favourite, I Don’t Feel Like Dancing by the Scissor Sisters:
Proving that you don’t have to be original to stand out from the crowd, the Scissor Sisters have great taste in songs to rip off, creating an end product which could be mistaken for the Beegees except surely if they’d done a song this ace we’d have heard it at least as much as Night Fever and Stayin’ Alive? If they let Ana sing more on the next one (I have noticed that despite being the acest member and not having any instruments to play except the tambourine, she has almost no lead vocals) perhaps we’ll get ABBA as well.
The Scissor Sisters represent everything that is missing from today’s music scene – a sense of fun, a reckless disregard of what is considered cool and a look so colourful you almost have to shield you eyes. If they were Swedish, they might even overtake BWO as my perfect 21st century band. Best of all, being at no.4 in the charts on downloads alone, it looks like this is going to be a humungous success and I am very excited!
Now it’s time to vote for your favourite: