SATURDAY NIGHT

UD Project

Good news - if you've been waiting for somebody to cover Whigfield's ten year old "classic", this isn't it so you'll have to keep waiting. Stop moaning, it's good news as far as I'm concerned. I'm sorry to say that first impressions of this one aren't encouraging. The sirens at the start of this song coupled with somebody saying "There's a party going on, get your hands up" - how dreadfully 1992. I'd like to say how much things improve and to be fair, they do - there's another song to listen to after this one finishes. The problem with this song is that it borrows so heavily on the things that made Summer Jam a success (the clapping noises for example) that it doesn't have any personality of its own. Now, I've written reviews that sometimes have very similar themes and even repeated phrases, but I think after 279 weeks' worth of reviews, who wouldn't? UD Project have done two singles and already it looks like they've found a formula. Not good, not good at all.

I'M A CUCKOO

Belle and Sebastian

It's a bit harsh to describe this as guitar-led indie pop, but essentially that's what this is. It's got something of a rough-around-the-edges feel to it and some of the lyrics are practically forced to rhyme (take "I'd rather be in Tokyo / I'd rather listen to Thin Lizzy - oh", but really it just adds to the charm. The only problem is that the song feels a couple of minutes too long, but that aside it's not a bad way to pass the time.

RED BLOODED WOMAN

Kylie Minogue

On the bright side, this is totally different to Slow and not simply a retread of something that works. As for the dark side, well, that leads to small moons and space stations so we'll leave that where it is. Kylie Minogue is very good at what she does, which is being a micro pop princess and releasing singles that seem to hit the Top 5 with incredible accuracy, of that fact I will not argue. Occasionally, she even releases good singles. Daft, I know, but what can you do? This isn't one of them, I'm afraid. Don't get me wrong, this song says "I'm funky", it also says "I'm poppy" and it even goes as far as to say "You know there's going to be some dancing in the video", but it also says "Mis-Teeq and Victoria Beckham rejected me", which is a shame. This song would've worked for someone else, but it just doesn't quite sound like Kylie and this song were made for each other. Can't put my finger on why, it's one of those things that just doesn't sound right.

ROCK YOUR BODY ROCK

Ferry Corsten

Well, it's about time. As dance singles go, it's been ages since we had a right nutter of a song doing the rounds. This song is bonkers. It's fast, probably never existed outside of a computer until it somehow barged its way onto a record release schedule and has the word "rock" featured twice in the title. Now that's mad. In fact, it's so good, I'll even forgive it the vocoded bit. The best thing about it is that it doesn't really sound like anything else that's already out. I like it, and that's good enough for me.

STUCK IN THE MIDDLE

Clea

I'm surprised. I don't mind this one. It's yet another melancholy pop slowie, at least on the face of it, but it's got something to it that made me think "I don't mind this one". Perhaps it's the way that's it's not performed in a hey-look-at-us-we're-pop-stars-see-how-many-notes-we-can-hit fashion, it's all understated and works all the better for it. If you want me to be totally honest with you, if we're going to have pop songs in the Top 10, then I'd prefer it if it were songs like this that got there. It also has the added bonus of not having the word "Cheeky" in the title and that has to be good news.