TRACK OF THE WEEK
Guy Garvey
Open The Door
With his endless prattling about booze, fags and late nights, Garvey slowly went from “cool uncle who could probably sort you weed” to “boring drunkard who spends his Mondays urinating in doorways and shouting at pigeons”. But wait: Latin trumpets? Those drums are pretty funky, too. Oh, this a cracking tune! He’s all right this bloke. Give us a ring, Guy, and we’ll sort a night on the razz, yeah? Didn’t mean all that stuff about piss and pigeons. Guy? Hello…?
PJ Harvey
The Orange Monkey
Taken from that album PJ recorded suspended in a glass box near the Thames while drunk Brits hurled Big Macs at her, or something, this mercifully lacks the uncomfortable social critique of previous effort The Community Of Hope, concerning itself instead with less controversial imagery of mountains and shadows. And for a song without a chorus, it still manages to be an oozing, superbly spooky stonker. Polly got a cracker.
Spring King
The Summer
“The summer’s here!” assure Spring King. And can you truly hate a song with such a goofily cheerful and benign message? The Summer chugs with Parquet Courts guitars, chimes with a synth riff that could quite easily be the theme for an 80s quizshow where the grand prize is an appalling Italian hatchback and then it sort of just… ends. Aiming for both wistful and joyous, it never quite nuzzles into the bosom of either.
Meghan Trainor
Me Too
Is popland where all the exciting songwriters live now? It seems so: Trainor can boast more bangers than the Wakefield Aldi car park. The elastic-twang synth bassline lends the whole affair minor-key gravitas, and then the chorus swells into full-on harmonious Motown bombast. Cheesy, yes, but the kind of cheese you’d happily snaffle at 2am until you were so helplessly full you started crying and had to phone your mum.
The King’s Son ft Shaggy
I’m Not Rich
Shaggy was always one of music’s odder sex symbols. He smacked of the sort of lechy bloke who ponged of Joop and whose most treasured possession was his Mk3 Golf GTI. He also sounded for all the world like the sort of manky scrubber in your year 8 form who’d spend his days farting into a Pringles tube. Here, he heads up a bafflingly dull dirge-pop effort from the Jamaican quartet, in which all involved make living “like a millionaire” sound as exciting as a Wetherspoons vegan banquet. It was you this time, Shaggy. And it stinks.
