Tierra Whack
Only Child
“You must be the only child, because you’re so stingy,” croons Pennsylvanian rapper Tierra in this ace bloop-synth slowbounce. And you think: “Yeah! Only children are the WORST!” Then as you’re busy being chuffed someone finally said it, cursing every time an only child has jibbed out of a round or “forgot” to tidy the flat for six years, you realise this isn’t, in fact, a long-overdue evisceration of the fraternally challenged, but a excoriating burn on an ex. “Hope that other chick got syphilis!” sort of gives it away. Gently furious, genuinely great.
Pregoblin
Combustion
“It sounds a bit like David Byrne mudwrestling with early Streets” is, as you’ll know, about the highest praise it’s possible to bestow on any noise. This trip-disco mellow-funker – the debut from the Fat Whites and Will Sin for Love cut-and-shut group – presses those tingly buttons in its three-piano-chord simplicity: sexy, groovy, catchy, a bit scary, cooler than the other side of the pillow. Pregoblin is a decent band name, too. Ten points for that. What, we don’t score those? Oh.
Rob Thomas
One Less Day (Dying Young)
“I’m not afraid of getting older, I’m one less day from dying young” is a pretty glass-half-full outlook from a bloke whose last thrust at even semi-relevance was 20 years ago, when his Nickelback-with-an-erection warble made him the sixth most prominent thing in the Smooth video, behind Carlos Santana, Carlos Santana’s moustache, Carlos Santana’s hat and both of that dancing lady’s nipples. The sort of billowing dross you can imagine staining the walls of a Christian rock band’s practice room. But what did you expect? Dubstep? Cammaaahn.
James Bay ft Julia Michaels
Peer Pressure
What can you say about a new James Bay song? It’s quite pretty. Your nan would like it. His record company probably does. It’s fine. Erm, yep. Next.
Pink
Walk Me Home
Armed with the knowledge that this is from an album called Hurts 2B Human, you don’t need to listen to this to be able to hum it. It’s like Shallow only minus the depth; almost an actual cover of Sam Smith’s Stay With Me (the chorus is literally the words “stay with me”), to the extent that you’d bet your favourite kidney on the fact the video involves Pink rocking the “Richard Hawley flushed his head down a lavatory and then jumped out of a plane” Smith-circa-2014 look. Not so much art as it is a discharge of pop peristalsis. She won an outstanding contribution to music Brit, you know? Utterly remarkable.
