HERE'S THE GOOD NEWS

Paul Weller

If this song was a person, it’d be strolling down the street purposefully with a big smile on its face on a bright sunny day. Now and again, someone would be out in the garden, either mowing the lawn, putting out the laundry (maybe not the wisest thing to do in your front garden, but you get the idea) or simply putting the cat out. This song would wave cheerily at each and every one of them and twice at the cat. Every passing car would get a glee-filled thumbs up from this song and woe betide any small children who happened to be playing in the street because this song would either pat them on the head or (gasp) join in for a while before issuing high-fives to all and sundry. And all the time this song would be merrily warbling away like a 21st Century version of Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah. Do you know, I think I’ve described a mid-nineties Blur video there, but that’s what I see when I hear this single. I’ll give you an idea of how jolly this song is as if I haven’t already – early on the Weller sings “Sound the bells ’cause here’s the good news” and somebody jingles a bell. Yes, way. I don’t know why, but I’m undecided about the song itself (From The Floorboards Up is far better, either that or I’m just very hard to please), but it’s hard to knock a happy song that actually sounds like it really means what it’s saying. So I’m not going to – dammit, we need songs like this in the chart! Now, if 50 Cent covered it, that would really be something – and I’m sure the video would be absolutely unforgettable.

LOOK ON THE FLOOR (HYPNOTIC TANGO)

Bananarama

Sometimes, when a band comes back after a long break / crawling out of the dumper * (*delete as applicable), I end up wondering why they bothered after hearing their new stuff. This for example, it’s all over the place and not in a good way. It veers uneasily from Fuzzbox album track (showing my age here) to Erasure B-side (showing my sometimes questionable taste in music here) to identikit pop chorus and none of the three quite gel together. If this gets anywhere near the No.14 position their last single got, I will be very surprised.

HYPNOTIZE

System of a Down

It’s a bit unsettling, this one, and it’s also a bit good. It’s one of those metal tracks that could go completely ballistic at any point, but keeps itself in a relatively calm state of mind throughout. Your parents could listen to this and their ears wouldn’t bleed at any point, that’s how calm it is. Of course, the only way most people are going to hear this is during the chart rundown, which is a shame as it deserves better than that. That’s the price you pay for not playing safe, I suppose.

AI NO CORRIDA

Uniting Nations

To be fair, this isn’t exactly dreadful, but it does scream “Why did they bother?” You can dance to it, I suppose, but it’ll probably be more at home being continually paused and played during Pass The Parcel at some five-year-old kid’s birthday party than at the school disco it sounds like it’s aimed for.

STAND UP FOR LOVE

Destiny’s Child

That’s it then, is it? This is how Destiny’s Child go out? Well, if you enjoy listening to songs that sound like five bags of Haribo Starmix dumped in a saucepan and melted together into one huge, sickly, sugary lump then boy, are you in for a treat. I don’t. This is rubbish. Actually, I wanted to use a different word there, but decency forbids me – suffice to say if I left this single out in the garden my cat would probably bury it. Just listening to the girls wailing and giving it their all on this desperate ballad, you can actually visualize somebody watching them sing whilst nodding his head in time to the music and saying “You go, girls”. There really is nothing to get excited or even interested about here. Let’s remember them as they were, it’s better that way.