CRASH AND BURN

Sugababes Mark IV

I'm not really sure why I'm reviewing this, I mean, it all seems so pointless now. A few months ago I described the parlous state of the girlband market and I said that all that would be needed to throw the whole thing into a terminal tailspin would be a Fuzzbox reunion. Well, since I wrote those words Fuzzbox have reunited, so that's the end of that... surely?... to be honest, I have no idea anymore. The title of this song OUGHT to be a metaphor for what's happened to the Sugababes since their last regeneration, but here they are, still chucking out Top 10 singles like there's nothing to it. Girls Aloud don't look like they're coming back any time soon, Girls Can't Catch have only recently experienced what it's like to have even a Top 20 single and Mini Viva... let's move on. Somehow the good ship Sugababes and its alternating crew of three has ended up flying the flag, but God alone knows how they've got away with it. Actually, come to think of it, perhaps it's because their last two singles were actually very good. Nah, this is the wonderful world of pop music, it couldn't be that simple. Whatever the reason, this single's a clunker, but then it is the fourth from the album so theoretically all the best songs and Get Sexy have already gone. It's mid-tempo, it's got a wailing guitar doing an amazing impression of a Stylophone and it's got some seriously heavy beats dumped on top of it in an attempt to give it a bit more depth, but if you want my opinion it's not much cop.

UMBRELLA BEACH

Owl City

ALLIGATOR

Tegan and Sara

One of these songs is style over substance, and the other is substance over style. Owl City have gone down the uplifting pop anthem route with heavily processed vocals, a bit in the middle where everything calms down for a while and a tune that Erasure would've killed for in the mid-1990s. Tegan and Sara, on the other hand, have come up with a short and simple pop song with few special effects but loads of heart, and that's where Umbrella Beach loses out here. Owl City's song sounds like it was conceived and put together as an event rather than a song, and if you're going to get away with that you have to come up with something on a par with the Chemical Brothers' current masterpiece. They haven't and they don't, so the points go the other way.