AIN'T THAT A KICK IN THE HEAD

Westlife

First, the good news and you have to believe me when I say this is about as good as it could possibly get. This single is NOT available in the shops, so its chances of reaching Number One are precisely zero (unless you go by the Music Download Chart). It is, however, a digital single. "Go on, Simon, tell me what a digital single is", I hear an imaginary person say as a rather flimsy way of getting me to explain that in plain English for you. Alright then, I will. You can only buy this single off the Internet and even then only as a download that sits quite happily on your hard disk. If you're a Westlife fan and you don't have access to the Internet, I bet right now the song title seems somewhat apt. Mind you, if you are then you might as well wait the extra seven days for the album and then you can own it on a nice shiny CD with a case and booklet and everything. Now, I have a confession to make. Robbie Williams's Swing When You're Winning - I couldn't stand it. Big band stuff does absolutely nothing for me - I mean, yes, it's real musicians and it's all done with style and panache but my parents always used to have Radio 2 on when I was a kid (especially on Sundays) and I think I overdosed on it to the point where I can barely listen to it. And don't get me started on reggae... (takes a deep breath) anyway, the reason I bring up Mr Williams is because Westlife (what's left of them) have done a Robbie. This time though, they've decided to cover songs by one artist instead of a handful. Could it be Motorhead? Sadly not. How about Boyzone? No, although I do see the similarity. Nope, they've decided to breathe new life into Frank Sinatra's old songs (I assume because the great man is no longer able to do the job himself). Having heard this, I'm a bit worried about the rest of the album because you have the big band doing their thing (groovy, man) as professionally and as slickly as ever and then you have four blokes taking it in turns to croon their lines as best they can, giving the song a karaoke feel. As I said, they do what they can, but they don't actually add anything new to the song (apart from three extra singers) and to be honest, this sounds so similar to the original I'm wondering why anybody bothered. Avoid like the plague.

VERTIGO

U2

U2 used to have a habit of releasing storming first singles off of new albums. The Fly, Desire, do you know I even like Discotheque. The problem is the second single is generally not that great in comparison, which is going to be a hell of a challenge when they follow this. That's because this is surprisingly good, in fact it's a stormer. I say surprisingly because All That You Can't Leave Behind was in my view anyway, U2 sounding a bit bored and middle-aged. As a total contrast, this is one of those songs where you just know for a fact that all concerned were having the time of their lives recording it. It's loud, heavily guitar-driven, has a couple of Spanish lyrics and is all over in just over three minutes. For once I can say something deserves to be a huge hit, knowing full well that that is exactly what will happen.

THINKING OF YOU

Paul Weller

Paul Weller covering Sister Sledge? That's just not right! At least, it would've been if he'd done this in a disco style, that would've been a bit naff and there wouldn't have been any point in doing a cover that sounded the same as the original. No, Mr Weller knows what he's doing and what he's doing involves stripping the song down to its bare essentials and rebuilding it with acoustic guitars and a small string section. In other words, he's added something new to the song and it still sounds good. Can't ask for much more than that, can you?