I WANT YOU TO KNOW

Charlotte Hatherley

If I could write a review that just said “Buy this now” and you believed me enough to go out and do just that, this reviewing lark would be a piece of cake, and not only that, you’d get about forty or fifty reviews a week. Imagine that, shedloads of reviews that said either “Buy this now”, “Bit average really”, “Don’t waste your money” or “Crazy Frog”. It’d be an easy life for me and no mistake, mind you, I bought the final edition of Smash Hits last year for nostalgia’s sake, and that’s precisely what their music reviews section had been reduced to. The downside to all that is that you can’t sum up songs like this in three words. I mean, yeah, it’s great and I’m going to recommend it, but it’s only fair if I tell you why this is so good. You see, for two minutes and forty seconds this song thunders along with energy, unpredictability and fun, in other words, it motors along in exactly the same way that Beyonce’s current single doesn’t. Allow me to elaborate. Go on, you might as well, it’s my column. First off, the energy part – if you want noise, by jingo you’ve got it. Take one drummer into the recording studio? Why do that when you get far more noise with two? And don’t go thinking that everything else is drowned out by two blokes reshaping their equipment with their drumsticks, you can hear the guitars and the singer perfectly, and it’s a good thing too, because the tune’s a corker, which brings me onto point number two – the unpredictability of it. The song changes direction more times than a hopelessly lost getaway driver, which means that the running time flies by and, far more importantly, you really shouldn’t get bored after one listen and that brings me neatly on to the final point. This song is damned good fun to listen to. Perhaps leaving Ash wasn’t quite so much of a gamble after all.

WALK THIS WAY

Girls Aloud vs Sugababes

Obituary - Walk This Way (1975-2007).
Born to proud parents Aerosmith, it became a Top 10 single in America, but didn’t achieve anything of note over here until the band allowed Run DMC to help with its upbringing at the age of 11. The song managed to pretty much save the career of its parents (for one thing, even though Aerosmith had been going since the early seventies, this was their first hit single in the UK), but also did wonders for rap music, which at the time was in a pretty sorry state (Holiday Rap, Amityville (The House On The Hill), I could go on, but can’t be bothered). In its later years, Hayseed Dixie took the song under their wing and it took on a sound that was more bluegrass than rock, yet still worked. The song finally met its maker by courageously giving its life for charity, namely Comic Relief. It wasn’t quite the dignified end it deserved, as it was battered to death by eight young women from opposing factions. The song was caught in the crossfire - shame really, it had a fighting chance, but the problem was that whereas Aerosmith and Run DMC sounded markedly different, thereby effectively turning the song into a duel, the latest version sounded like eight people singing just another pop song and worse, using vocal theatrics instead of simply singing the song straight. Eight singers being given the opportunity to collaborate on one song? Now that really is charity. Still, at least it died for a good cause.

CHICK FIT

All Saints

Well, the comeback’s gone a bit wrong hasn’t it? Rock Steady went Top Three, but the album stiffed big time. At least that means hardly anybody already has this song, which is no bad thing. It’s by no means perfect, the way the verses are sung gets annoying very quickly, but apart from that it’s a decent pop song with plenty of get up and go and the chorus redeems the verses. Probably deserves better than it’s going to get, but that’s life.