CAFE DEL MAR

Energy 52

Oh look, a song that's been in and out of the record shops almost as often as the staff that work there. How very boring, you might think. When will they stop re-issuing this and come up with something new, you might think? Well, if you ask me, this is one of the few songs that actually deserves to be unearthed every few years, because it's wonderful. Yes, I did say that, and watch this – I'm going to say it again. Café Del Mar is a wonderful song. Not only that, it's that rarest of creatures, a dance track that can not under any circumstances be given a duff remix. Usually, when somebody's given a new song to play around with, the first thing they do is rip out the tune, create a new one and whack the vocals on top. Café Del Mar's a little bit more of a challenge in that it doesn't have any vocals, so you have to keep the melody largely intact otherwise all you're doing is creating a new song, and you really don't want to do that when the tune's as good as this one. Yes, it's repetitive, no, it doesn't do very much when you really think about it, but it's a properly uplifting tune that doesn't use any gimmicks or cheap tricks and it cheers me up whenever I hear it. For a misery guts like me, that's one Hell of an achievement, and as far as I'm concerned, as dance tracks go, this one's very nearly perfect.

JEALOUS GIRLS

The Gossip

Yeah, I already reviewed this one a few months ago, but that was when it was originally meant to come out. Funny how surprisingly successful singles can throw a spanner in the works, innit? Unfortunately, I've got a nasty feeling that this one's going to vanish without trace just like Listen Up did, purely because it's not Standing In The Way Of Control. Simple as that, really. Similar thing's happened to the Kaiser Chiefs, they've released two singles since Ruby, but guess which one still gets the airplay. I really hope I'm wrong though, because this is a great little number. It moves along quite merrily for three minutes, and if any better singers than Beth Ditto have appeared this year I'd like to hear them (sit down Kate Nash). Tell you what, prove me wrong. Show me up for the cynical old hack that I am. This band thoroughly deserves to be known for more than just the one song. Go out and buy this song and put it in the chart. Go on, you probably won't regret it and even if you do, you can always say I told you to buy it, making it my mistake and not yours. Can't say fairer than that, can I?

1973

James Blunt

I'm five years old again. It's 1979, not 1973 (I wasn't around in 1973, but then if you're any good at maths you'll be way ahead of me there). It's a hot summer's day, in fact it's almost exactly the sort of summer's day we haven't had this year. I'm sitting in the back seat of my mum and dad's Austin Maxi, partly because I'm too young too drive - partly because I wouldn't be able to reach the pedals, and partly because I wouldn't be seen dead driving an Austin Maxi - but because it's a hot summer's day and the car seats have warmed up to a temperature that would usually have NASA panicking about heat shields, my legs and back feel as though they've just been ironed. Although the car radio has Medium Wave and VHF frequencies, we're listening to Radio 2 on Medium Wave, which means every time we go under a bridge the radio reception politely waits outside for us to rejoin it. Music-wise, it's like being engulfed in a tidal wave of beige – every song is or sounds at least five years old and they're all sung by nice, safe people that the listeners could take home to meet their parents. This is what James Blunt's new single sounds like to me – pedestrian, bland and very, very seventies.