SIN SIN SIN

Robbie Williams

There aren’t many good songs that have the same word used three times in the title, of that I’m pretty sure. There also aren’t that many songs that sound like a cover of an old Erasure single. Oh dear, this one’s not looking too promising, is it? Well, to be fair, this is slightly different to Robbie’s usual output, which seems to consist these days of either bland driving music or bizarre electronic experiments, but only inasmuch as he’s managed to fuse the two different styles together. The resultant song is bland electronic driving music with a couple of guitars thrown in just in case you don’t believe it’s really a Robbie Williams single. It’s all done so earnestly as well - this isn’t a song to listen to and enjoy, this is a song you’d listen to on the radio while you’re waiting for a decent one the DJ promised he’d play about half an hour ago. Perhaps he’d have been better off calling it Grim Grim Grim, because that’s what it is.

COUNTRY GIRL

Primal Scream

Do you know something, that Robbie single’s made me so miserable I had to go and find something to cheer me up. I was going to listen to the new Ronan Keating single, but somehow I didn’t think that would do the trick, so I plumped for this one instead. It’s done the trick too, because this is great fun. In the hands of a band with less imagination, this would’ve ended up as a really quite uninspiring little stomper, but Primal Scream aren’t really that sort of band. Fair enough, it thumps along for its entire running time and, on the face of it at least, it’s a good old fashioned rock and roll song at heart, but there’s more to it than that. There has to be, otherwise I wouldn’t still be writing about it. The video helps, mind. Bobby Gillespie and the star of the show both look like they’ve been dressed by the sixth Doctor Who and while Bobby’s content to dance and sing and enjoy himself immensely doing it, the guest star gets up to all sorts of activities that individually would mean no appearance on any Saturday morning kids telly, but collectively should be enough to get the tabloids absolutely spitting feathers. Actually, that’s not strictly true, the first 20 seconds are totally free of controversy, unfortunately that only gets you halfway through the first verse, still it’s the thought that counts. When I heard Primal Scream’s new single was going to be something rather rocky, I was a little concerned, but on this evidence, I shouldn’t really have worried. So, that’ll be another band to add to the list that’s been around for years and has come back to show the new bands how it’s done, then. Suits me.

CRY BABY CRY

Santana featuring Joss Stone and Sean Paul

Yep, you read that right. All three of them on the same song. Now, I’m not the biggest fan of Carlos Santana’s style of guitar playing – I don’t like guitar solos that scream “Aren’t I great?”, they detract from the song – but here he’s let himself off the hook. He does what he does best, but you’ve got to feel sorry for Joss Stone. She’s reduced to being a mere backing singer, and if that’s not bad enough, she’s reduced to being Sean Paul’s backing singer. How the mighty fall. It’s just wrong, you see, you’ve got a really good singer twiddling her thumbs while guess who yaps away with his I-shall-only-sing-one-note method of singing, and while Joss Stone can adapt to Santana’s style of music, Sean Paul doesn’t sound like he’s treating this any different to one of his own songs. When Shirley Bassey teamed up with the Propellerheads, that worked. Same with Tom Jones and the Cardigans. This is one collaboration that must’ve sounded great on paper, it’s just a shame that CDs aren’t printed on paper.