TRACK OF THE WEEK
Shura
Nothing’s Real
Shura came to attention with 2014’s Touch, the video for which was embraced by us queer kids for its same-sex snogging by beautiful people in The Quiet Life caps. Nothing’s Real is a faster slice of disco pop and perhaps the finest song written about a panic attack since, well, Bright Eyes’ entire career. “They’re telling me there’s nothing wrong”, Shura sings, as the beeps of an ECG machine merge with ominous synth strings and a defibrillator beat.
The 1975
She’s American
The 1975 are an excellent band. This doesn’t mean that 80% of their songs don’t sound exactly the same – tell me this doesn’t have a bassline that is totally indistinguishable from The Sound. Yet the one downside to the 1975 is that Matt Healy still insists on swigging from a bottle of wine on stage, which is something I used to do during my teen slam-poetry days. A friend recently contacted me to say she found some copies of these early works. Please respect my privacy at this difficult time.
Röyksopp ft Susanne Sundfør
Never Ever
I think I’m right in saying we all stared out of windows to Röyksopp’s 2005 ennui-banger What Else Is There?, a kind of modern twist on Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is? Röyksopp are Norwegian, and fall under the edict that anybody born in a Nordic state can chuck out great pop with the abandon of a best man with a tub of confetti.
Sting
I Can’t Stop Thinking About You
I can’t stop thinking about how Sting, worth £185m, recently gave an interview about how tough it is for his kids who struggle “to put bread on the table”, because he doesn’t believe in giving them handouts. Sting’s kids are living in a studio in Mile End where the fridge door hits the corner of the bed frame when it’s opened, while he’s rich enough to wee in a Maurizio Cattelan-style gold loo. Sting’s kids are shoving their hands up vending machines to shake loose packets of sweaty non-brand flapjacks for lunch and their dad is releasing this back-to-basics rock track, not giving a toss. And while we’re here, can we all agree that Sting looks like a mashup of Sam Neill and Malcolm McDowell, because he does.
Olly Murs
Grow Up
Here is Olly Murs telling you to grow up; this despite the fact he has the look of a giant toddler who’d go viral for doing something faintly amusing in the backseat of a car, then become an i100 article. It has a cutesy video featuring a bunch of kids, all of whom look older than him.
