PUSHER

Shapeshifters

Oh, now this is a strange one. Do you remember when Mason's Exceeder had some completely unnecessary vocals slapped over the top, courtesy of Princess Superstar? Of course you do, you know your popular music and it'd be rude of me to insinuate otherwise - blimey, 452 columns I've written for this periodical, and I don't think I've ever used the word "insinuate" before – oh look, I've used it twice now. What do you mean, get back to the review? Oh well, if you really insist. So, yeah, Exceeder. Perfectly good instrumental, in fact, I'd go so far as to say amazing. Somehow though, the addition of vocals dragged it down a bit. See where I'm going with this? Good, because I'm not entirely sure. This song sounds like it'd be a really good instrumental, you could still dance to it if you wanted to, it wouldn't make the song feel as though it was dragging and it's got a slight edge to it that most dance singles don't seem to have at the moment. The only thing that lets it down is the fact that it's a vocal track and that's no slight on the singer, she does what needs to be done very well. Nope, I just think you could simply lift the vocals off the track and the song would work just as well if not better. Anyway, I'm probably wrong so it doesn't matter.

GRIP LIKE A VICE

Go! Team

From start to finish this is noise, but by heck it's noise with a tune to it. If you can imagine some female rappers being given a recording studio crammed with musical instruments and an infinite number of session musicians to play them, that's pretty much what you end up with here. The fact that the end result makes any sense at all indicates that a fair amount of skill was also involved in creating this little number. Now, if you remember last week's column, I took 50 Cent to task and I said it was possible to do a decent rap song. It's lovely to be proven right so quickly.

HANG ME UP TO DRY

Cold War Kids

If you're going to have one riff playing for an entire song, especially one that lasts for nearly four minutes, it's safe to say you'll need to have a pretty damned good song to back it up with otherwise you're in trouble. This song is that good chances are you won't even notice the riff. As for what it's about, I haven't got the faintest idea, it could be about emptying the washing machine for all I can tell – if you think I'm joking, listen to the lyrics ("all mixed up in the wash, hot water bleeding our colours" – see what I mean?). That doesn't matter, the song's got a bit of an atmosphere to it, and the piano playing would make Les Dawson proud. This is a great song, and because I've said that it's going to miss the Top 40 altogether.

4 IN THE MORNING

Gwen Stefani

Good thing about this song – it's not Wind It Up. Bad thing about this song – it's painfully average. It's a by-the-numbers mid-tempo pop ditty that ambles along for a few minutes and then departs. It's just finished, and can I remember anything interesting about it? Nope, not a thing. It's a bit of a nothing song, really.

OH MY GOD

Mark Ronson

I'll be honest here, I think his re-interpretation of the Smiths' Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before was better than this one. Don't get me wrong, he's turned the Kaiser Chiefs song into a sleazy, funky tune filled to the brim with brass instruments, and the Kaisers must approve otherwise they wouldn't have agreed to appear in the video (while the song's new singer Lily Allen only appears in animated form), it's just that for me this doesn't quite come off. No idea why, everyone involved sounds like they're having a fine time, but there you are.