WIND IT UP

Gwen Stefani

Before I heard this, I'd read a few reports saying that this single is nothing short of terrible, but I decided to give it the benefit of the doubt, at least until I'd heard it. After all, Gwen Stefani's first album had some half-decent stuff on it occasionally, and it was a hell of a lot better than her No Doubt stuff. So here I am, after hearing it a few times, trying my damnedest to work out if there's anything at all that La Stefani could've done to make this worse than it actually is, and do you know what, I think she's pretty much nailed it. Well done Gwen Stefani, well done indeed. It does show some promise right at the start – be fair, did you ever think you'd hear her singing The Lonely Goatherd? – and the opening sample of said number shows signs that this song will at least be interesting, even if it eventually turns out to be rubbish. The problem is, once the sample cuts out it's just the singer, the beat and naff all else. Tune? You must be joking. Rubbish? Utterly. Interesting? Painful, more like. Considering this is from the same person who produced the really rather wonderful What You Waiting For?, the mere existence of this song in the same artist's canon is nothing short of scandalous. I really hope there's some better stuff on the album that she can release as follow-up singles, because thanks to this one I now have a new dripmat, and as such I shouldn't need another one for a while. Something with a discernable tune would be a good start.

YOU KNOW MY NAME

Chris Cornell

I always used to think Goldfinger was the best James Bond film (although Moonraker's not far behind thanks to some of the put-downs Hugo Drax comes out with), and I always used to think On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Live And Let Die had the best theme tunes. If you ask me and I'll bet you didn't, I'd put Casino Royale up there with the very best of the films, but as I'm not a film reviewer I'll start going on about the theme tune now if that's alright with you. To be honest, the bar's been set really low in recent years – poor old Pierce Brosnan never had a decent song for any of his films. Goldeneye sounded at times as though it was being sung by a cat that had been locked out of the house and desperately wanted to get back in, Tomorrow Never Dies was the Perry Mason theme in disguise, The World Is Not Enough was Garbage sounding like they'd been forced to do someone else's song, and as for Die Another Day… it could've been worse, but the only chance of that happening would've been if Crazy Frog had sung it instead of Madonna. Now, like the Gwen Stefani abomination mentioned above, I've seen some pretty disparaging remarks about this song. Unlike the above, this song stands up to the criticism and the main reason for that is that it stands on its own two feet if you hear it on the radio as opposed to at the cinema. It's not a typical Bond theme, but then Casino Royale's hardly a typical Bond movie so it fits right in there. The orchestra's still there to provide back-up if needed, but this is an out and out rock song, plain and simple, Chris Cornell even does a fair amount of rock singer screeching to prove it, and does it work? Absolutely it does. Even better than being a good Bond theme though, it's a good song and when you get right down to brass tacks, that's far more important.

21ST CENTURY CHRISTMAS

Cliff Richard

Oh, is Christmas coming then? Tell you what, let's hold off this review until next week, eh? I'm sure there are a couple of other festive offerings around, so I'll make an entire week of it, how does that sound? Well, yes, I do make the rules, but I thought I'd at least make it look like there was a choice...