CALL THE SHOTS

Girls Aloud

So here's me in my glass house, and I'm chucking stones. As my huge and loyal army of readers will no doubt both be aware, I can't dance for toffee, but I've seen the video for this song and I'm sure Girls Aloud have been told what they're doing is slow and seductive, but when they do their running-the-fingers-through-the-hair bit it reminds me of a L'Oreal advert. Anyway, that's not what I'm here for. I review songs, apparently. The good news is that this is miles better than Sexy! No No No… was, although with a title like Call The Shots it's never going to threaten its predecessor for the Most Gratuitous And Excessive Use Of Punctuation In A Single Title Of The Year award, although on the bright side I think Girls Aloud have got that one sewn up already. While their last single was all over the place musically, lyrically and probably something else ending with –ically, this one sticks to the old-fashioned ideas of coming up with a tune and then not trying anything clever with it. This time round you can actually tell which bits are the verses and which are the choruses. See, bands like Radiohead get away with doing mad stuff because they think about what they're doing, but for some reason when Girls Aloud do it it feels a bit on the "committee decision" side. As pop singles go, this one isn't half bad as it turns out. It's not one of their very best singles, but it's by no means their worst, not so long as efforts like I'll Stand By You remain available to purchase. I'm in a good mood, so I think I'll recommend this one – just.

TOO MANY PEOPLE

Wet Wet Wet

Right then, this… hang on… who?

Wet Wet Wet

I don't believe it. Let's try that again.

Wet Wet Wet

Alright then, if you say so. To be perfectly honest, I thought they'd gone the way of Brother Beyond but here they are, so I'm led to believe. I'm all for bands changing and evolving, but this is ridiculous – it doesn't even sound like Wet Wet Wet! If you can imagine Jamiroquai getting locked in a room with Maroon 5 and being told they can't come out until the two bands have thrashed out a song together, then you can hopefully imagine the outcome. I can envisage two. One would be Jamiroquai moving heaven and earth to get the job done and be allowed out quick smart, and the other would be this song. It's the sort of laid-back disco funk-type stuff that Jamiroquai are known for, but with a few Maroon 5-esque riffs thrown in, if you like that sort of thing. So anyway, remember when I said this didn't sound like Wet Wet Wet? Well, that's mainly because Marti Pellow doesn't sound much like Marti Pellow – it's like somebody's sandpapered all the rough edges off his singing voice, which means that he sounds much better than he did before, which is nice. When you get down to business though, this is a pleasant enough tune and it'll kill four minutes quite easily, but there's really not very much here that's new and interesting. It's safe and cheerful though, so at least you'll hear it on the radio if nothing else.

AMAZING

Seal

I was wondering what the video to this one was like, so I typed in the title and the artist into YouTube. Imagine my surprise when I found myself watching a short film featuring an aquatic mammal twirling round and delighting onlookers. I should've expected that to be honest, but this song is almost as entertaining as that video. It's a good old-fashioned pop song of the sort he used to do when he was belting out decent tunes like Crazy rather than horrors like Kiss From A Rose, and I rather like this one. I'll settle for that.