November 2011 – Under Attack

Another good one from Rizzle Kicks? Why not. Kudos for managing to rhyme “fireman” with “cider can” too. I’ll be honest, I couldn’t stand Earthquake when it was in the chart, but this is the first time I’ve heard it in over two years and I can at least tolerate it, although there are sounds on this song that I just know will rapidly become incredibly annoying if I had to listen to it regularly. Then there’s Read All About It, in which Professor Green plays Eminem at his own putting-his-life-into-song game and does it better.

Lego House’s tune is a little too tame for me, but Ed Sheeran’s turning out to be quite the lyricist here. That’s three songs of his now that I’ve heard and all three have something worthwhile to say, and not just “I love you la la la”. With Ur Love’s next… awkward.

OK, that’s it. This is the final straw. Over the past year or so, I’ve noticed some blatant product placement for cars in music videos. Earthquake is the latest in a sizable line of videos that plug Minis and Pixie Lott drives onto and off of the set of her new video in a Citroen DS3. I know it’s a Citroen DS3 because the number plate states “CITROEN DS3” and the dashboard has “DS3” painted all over it. I’m onto you, music video makers – if I wanted to watch adverts for other things I’d watch ITV. The song is nothing special, by the way, which may explain why it nosedived out of the chart inside four weeks. Take A Chance On Me is not the Abba song… and that’s really the bit where JLS went wrong, because what they’ve served up is so dull all I could think of was “Why didn’t they do the Abba song?”

I bet Gotta Be You goes down a storm at One Direction’s gigs, assuming any bugger can hear it over the screams of their fans who are thrilled to be within earshot of their idols. Does nothing for me, though. Anyway, if you like Mini adverts I’ve found another one for you. Flo Rida’s Good Feeling manages to fit around 15 minutes’ worth of commercial breaks into a four minute video. In fairness, the song is good enough not to need that sort of thing, in fact, it turned out to be so durable that it took nearly two months for it to reach the top. It entered the chart at No.2 and then meandered around the Top Ten for a while, not really looking like it could be bothered to go all the way and then when it did, it briefly moved to pole position for a single week, almost as if it thought nobody was watching. That’s patience for you.