2 HEARTS

Kylie Minogue

Most of the time, the phrase "New Kylie single" fills me with horror. I've never been much of a fan of her poppy stuff, and that goes right back to when I Should Be So Lucky kept Bomb the Bass off the top spot. It's a good thing for her that she knows how to re-invent herself then, but then I suppose when you've been in the business we call music for as long as she has, you don't have much choice do you? I mean really, if she was still releasing stuff as twee as Got To Be Certain nowadays, she'd be laughed out of town and rightly so. As a result, one minute she's doing pop, another minute she's gone all indie, next thing you know she's gone back to pop, and now… well, God only knows what she's playing at now. This certainly isn't pop as know it, and it's certainly not indie. I'll tell you what it does sound like though, and that's the aforementioned pocket pop star holding up a copy of Spinning Around in one hand while saying "This is what you wanted…", then holding up a copy of 2 Hearts in the other and finishing with "…but this is what you're getting", and walking away laughing her head off. There's a bit of blues in here, not to mention some glam rock and lounge singer elements, it's played with real instruments, it's lazily paced and Kylie's so chilled out she's practically speaking her words. I honestly couldn't tell you what bright spark thought all that would be a good idea, and frankly I couldn't care less. The fact of the matter is that Kylie Minogue has just released comfortably her best single since Confide In Me and a genuine contender for Best Kylie Single Ever. It's one of those rare singles that gets everything absolutely right, I think it's fantastic and I honestly cannot believe I'm saying all these nice things about a Kylie Minogue single. Well, I am. This is her first single in nearly ten years that doesn't sound as though it was recorded with chart placings in mind, and I'm giving it a huge recommendation. Seriously though, me saying this about a Kylie single… they're probably having snowball fights in Hell right now.

UNINVITED

Freemasons featuring Bailey Tzuke

In which Alanis Morissette's rather haunting little number gets some go faster stripes so it'll sound better in the clubs. Actually, to be fair to Freemasons, they've shown a decent amount of respect to the original, so it's turned out to be pretty good, and that's all I need to say on the matter.

LET'S DANCE TO JOY DIVISION

Wombats

Well, this song's a mess. It's a likeable mess though, and doesn't sound much like any Joy Division song I know (I'm pretty sure Joy Division never invited a class of schoolkids to sing along on any of their songs). It's loud, raucous, frenetic and you never know what direction the song's going to take next. It's certainly different though, and do you know something, I like this one too. I must be in a good mood or something this week.

BLEEDING LOVE

Leona Lewis

And it looks like normal service is about to be resumed. Substitute the word "love" for "awful" and you're getting closer to the mark. The indications are that Leona Lewis has approached this single with a "Tonight Matthew, I'm going to be Mariah Carey" mindset and by heck it shows. She's probably a very good singer, but she overdoes the emotional outbursts just a smidgen on this one. Mind you, she got off lightly, it's the poor unfortunate drummer I feel sorry for. Sounds like one of his drums has been nicked, and he's had to resort to using an empty Quality Street tin instead. You see, necessity is the mother of invention, or was that Frank Zappa's backing band? Anyway, this song's a bit too "feel my pain, damn you" for me. If they'd kept it simple this would've been a much better song possibly, but they haven't and it isn't.