Gwen Stefani – Baby Don’t Lie
While the pop world waits with bated breath for the return of Rihanna following what for her has been a decade-long hiatus (not quite two years), her influence continues to permeate the landscape like a big green cloud of smoke. Judging by Gwen Stefani’s first solo single since 2008’s lovely Early Winter, the No Doubt singer’s obviously been listening to Rihanna’s back catalogue, specifically the Loud album, with the lilting verses of Baby Don’t Lie reminiscent of most of the Stargate productions that adorn that album. Obviously aspiring to Rihanna-levels of lead-single greatness is never a bad thing, and there’s a lot to love about Baby Don’t Lie, specifically how the chorus gets bigger and better as the song goes on, with the chanting “oh oh oh/ah ah ah” towards the end sounding as stadium-ready as anything from any top tier pop star this year.
Oh Land – Head Up High
There’s always been a bit more than meets the eye when it comes to Denmark’s Nanna Øland Fabricius, aka Oh Land, whose 2011’s self-titled major-label debut of crystalline pop cast her as another in what was then a longline of Scandi-pop exports. Having toured that album relentlessly she decamped to producer and TV On the Radio member Dave Sitek’s studio to record her independently released follow-up, Wish Bone, an album led by modern-day feminist anthem Renaissance Girls. For her new album, Earth Sick, she decided to launch a PledgeMusic campaign, partially funding the album via donations from fans in return for tote bags, tickets to a talk about music and pancakes and, obviously, the album itself. First single Head Up High continues her knack for creating effortlessly featherlight, symphonic pop with a warm heart, its pre-chorus built around self-help mantras like “no heavy rain’s going to hold me down any more” that somehow sound enriching rather than cliched.
Huntar – Bitter
South London singer and producer Huntar first emerged seven months ago with Expectations, a mildly diverting, oddly meandering slither of electronic experimentation. While follow-up Naked Noises cast his soulful vocals in a slightly more immediate context, showcasing his apparent love for both Prince and Hudson Mohawke, it’s new single Bitter that sounds most likely to cross over into potential pop star territory. Opening with unadorned vocals and piano à la fellow pop oddball Fryars, Huntar slowly adds layers of electronic textures and a simple metronome beat, the production never clouding the song’s pristine minor chord melodies. Veering towards modern power ballad territory (as all ballads should, let’s be honest) it has a lovely, chest-clenching chorus (“the bitter feels better with you, the winter gets warmer with you”) that deserves a collective swoon.
Tulisa – Living Without You
Former N-Dubz member, X Factor judge and long-term Female Boss perfume saleswoman Tulisa released her debut single Young back in 2012. Its carefree, we-all-make-mistakes-while-we’re-growing-up lyrics seemed to perfectly match the tabloid story building up around her at the time. The perfect symbiosis of narrative and pop song, it reached No 1 in the UK and everything was set for Tulisa to be, well, the new Cheryl. Obviously things didn’t really pan out that way – this didn’t help but then neither did this really – and while comeback single Living Without You could be vaguely interpreted as a nod to recent travails (“I know I’ve made mistakes”), it’s essentially just a big 90s-indebted dancefloor banger that could easily have been dismissed as a poor man’s Kiesza rip off were it not for a really brilliant chorus.
Sia – You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile
Released online back in March, Sia’s incredible Chandelier has dominated 2014 (top 10 in more than 20 countries, over 200 million views of the video, myriad TV talent show auditionees butchering it). Its omnipotence is such that Sia’s coming over to the UK to perform it on Graham Norton next weekend, four months after it was available to buy in this country. Rather than follow it up with a single from her excellent album 1000 Forms Of Fear, it looks like her next release will be an update of You’re Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile taken from the forthcoming remake of orphanage horror show Annie. Keeping the original song’s core themes of not basing your happiness on material things, but with updated lyrics referencing Chanel and Gucci, Sia’s sky-scraping version succeeds because of her unquenchable ability to imbue everything with a slightly frayed sense of joy; as if every scrap of happiness has been achieved via years of toil. There’s a bit in the second verse where she sings “don’t sink the boat when you lose hope, I’ll keep you alive” before soaring into the chorus; and that line alone probably carries more emotional weight than anything in the remake itself.
