VOODOO CHILD

Rogue Traders

Most of the time, when an old song is dragged out of the vaults, dusted off, hacked to bits and then re-invented as a club anthem, I find myself questioning why particular songs are chosen. For instance, Chris De Burgh’s High On Emotion. How on Earth did somebody listen to that and think “Yeah, I can really make something out of that”? And Roxette’s Fading Like A Flower… I mean, seriously, the two questions that really need answering there are “How?” and “Why?”. Sometimes these people get away with it, after all, look at Mint Royale’s Singin’ In The Rain. Go on, look at it. It’s great and I don’t care who hears me say it. Of course, then you get the other sort of re-invention, the one where an old tune has some new lyrics whacked over the top – Alcazar used to do that, and not very successfully either. And then there’s this. What a strange little beast this is. You’ve got a title borrowed from Jimi Hendrix, a tune borrowed from Elvis Costello and a singer borrowed from Neighbours. Yes, Neighbours. I know what you’re thinking, but don’t move on to the next review just yet. Her name’s Natalie Bassingthwaighte, and for a music column a mere two inches wide like this one is, that’s a very inconvenient surname indeed. Not only that, she’s not just here to bring in the soap fans, she’s earning her wages. As for the tune, I have to say that they could probably have got away with this as an instrumental if they wanted – they might have sampled Elvis Costello’s Pump It Up, but where most people would have just chucked a few drum loops at it and have done with it, they’ve decided to make the sample merely a part of the song. Wise choice too, if you ask me. They even manage to sneak in a wailing guitar solo halfway through and get away with it. Popping the singer on the top just finishes things off nicely. This deserves to be huge, but now I’ve said that it probably won’t be.

STARS ARE BLIND

Paris Hilton

I’m racking my brain here, trying to think of something nice to say about this single and the best thing I can come up with is “She’s a better singer than I thought she’d be”, that is if in fact she is doing so totally unaided by modern technology. Some effort’s gone into making this sound a bit different to your average pop single, for a start it’s easy-going and it’s got reggae stamped all over it – now admittedly, I don’t like reggae myself, but at least it makes a change from the usual inane pop drivel. The trouble is, it’s just not very interesting to listen to, in fact it sounds like it was written with the phrase “last song at the school disco” in mind. Ah well, who’s next?

GET TOGETHER

Madonna

This song annoys the hell out of me. Madonna and her mates had a perfectly acceptable dance track here, not great, but it’d pass the time for a few minutes until something better came on the radio. At least it would if it wasn’t for the bright spark who thought it’d be fun to play about with the sound levels of the tune while leaving the vocals and the drum loops as is. Honestly, it sounds as though a child was flicking the volume control up and down in time to the music for a laugh and somebody heard it, thought it was a massive improvement and decided to go with it. For once, this is a duff single through no fault of either the singer or the musicians.

CHASING CARS

Snow Patrol

Blimey, this is a bit boring. Guitars strum, the singer sings a love song of sorts and by the time the rest of the band finally decide to turn up, there’s only enough time for them to take part in the final chorus. Some songs have a great build-up and a big finish. This has neither, which is a shame really as Snow Patrol are capable of far better than this.