2019's Twenty Quid winner: Georgia's About Work The Dancefloor
Last night 39 Popjustice readers spent four hours shouting at each other in a London pub. By the time the shouting stopped, Georgia's About Work The Dancefloor had seen off eleven other shortlisted songs and won the 2019 Popjustice Twenty Quid Music Prize.
Seriously, what a song.
As Georgia is the overall winner she'll be receiving the usual £20 (this year, supplied as two £10 notes), plus a pair of overalls.
Special mention should also go to The 1975, whose It's Not Living (If It's Not With You) — also an amazing song — missed out on the prize by just one vote.
Thanks to all last night's judges for committing themselves so wholeheartedly not just to the pursuit of pop justice, but also to the bar hitting its minimum spend requirement.
New Music Friday: Lewis Blissett thinks some things are meant to be torn apart
The Song Of The Week is Killing Butterflies by Lewis Blissett.
You may well have been wondering what life would be like if Billie Eilish were a bit more like Troye Sivan. On the other hand you might have been wondering how things would be if Troye Sivan were a bit more like Billie Eilish. Lewis 'Lewis' Blissett provides some sort of answer with his second Atlantic release Killing Butterflies, and brings the grand total of decent things to come out of the UK versions of The Voice to: two. (He was on The Voice Kids a few years ago.) (The other is Becky Hill, obviously.)
Additional notes:
- Camila Cabello's gone a bit Clean Bandit on Liar, which I suppose really means she's gone a bit Ace Of Base. This is excellent behaviour that should be supported and quietly celebrated.
- The new Muna album, released today, comes in at twelve tracks and 43 minutes. The ideal album, at the ideal length.
- Maybe it just seems this way in the context of other Louis Tomlinson songs but the Louis Tomlinson song is… Not awful? Strong second-Babylon-Zoo-album vibes.
- There's nothing worse 'of a morning' than the distant crashing and screeching of a rubbish lorry reminding you that you forgot to put the bins out. Nothing to worry about today though, that's just the sound of Björk remixing Fever Ray.
New Music Friday: Taylor Swift is so sick of running as fast as she can
The Song Of The Week is The Man by Taylor Swift.
In which Taylor echoes the sentiment of Beyoncé's If I Were A Boy and ends up at If I Were Still Taylor Swift But Also A Boy. Points are made.
Additional notes:
- Taylor Swift is also responsible for the week's worst song, but that's the gift and the curse of the multifaceted pop entity, right?
- The new Unperfect single is their best yet. You cannot go wrong with an upward trajectory.
- The 1975: incredible racket.
- Poppy: incredible racket.
- Missy Elliott's first album in over a decade isn't actually an album because it's an EP but let's not allow the fact to get in the way of Comeback Excitement. One thing is certain, though: "I did records for Tweet before y'all could even tweet" is the lyric of the week.
- 5 Seconds Of Summer credit New Order in their new single, which seems quite strange. A bit of it sounds slightly like Rihanna's Blue Monday-interpolating Shut Up And Drive… Is that it?
- The Elusive Charlteuxcx releases new music this week after an absense of, ooh, several days. Miss U, off the new 13 Reasons Why, is album-worthy material. (It's not on the album.)
New Music Friday: Normani does it so right
The Song Of The Week is Motivation by Normani.
Last time I checked the spreadsheet I noted that pop was overdue a new hero and here she is, with a little help from Ariana, Max, Ilya and Savan. The video is excellent about 37 different ways and constitutes what I reckon has to be 2019's definitive Supersar-Has-Landed moment.
Additional notes:
- The Charli and Sky single is a swooping slab of melectrodrama that with any luck will establish this pairing as the new Pitbull & J.Lo. One song a summer, every summer: ideal.
- MUNA have billed their new song as a "trauma banger", which is five levels above a sadbanger on the gloomometer. "Trauma never sounded so good!!!" is the sort of thing people say in reviews isn't it?
- Swedish semi-superstar Vera Hotsauce (NOT HER REAL NAME) is really shaping up to be something special and One Time is an XCesque is a great step forward from the Red Pill EP, which came out earlier this year.
- Navvy is also sad on My Love, the key song on her new EP which is called — and she's not leaving any room for ambiguity here — The Breakup.
- For the avoidance of doubt, because I know a lot of you listen to playlists on shuffle, the new Darkness single is VERY MUCH THE BOTTOM SONG THIS WEEK.
Caroline Polachek does not adhere to aspect ratio norms
New Music Friday's quite boring this week so let's instead use our time to marvel at the aspect ratio deployed in Caroline Polachek's Ocean Of Tears video. There are times, aren't there, when it feels like 4:3 is giving us less. But that's only if you're thinking horizontally. Don't be fooled by the dark portions of a YouTube embed: a visionary like Caroline lives their life vertically, meaning that in this case a 4:3 video is actually giving us more.
She's on tour this October. Tickets went on sale this morning.
The Gold Zone is where all new popstars need to be, and CXLOE's just entered it
Australian singer of song and established bubblewrap advocate CXLOE returns today with Sick, a song she says is about the fact that "sometimes we just want that raw emotion of feeling sick over someone, like an obsession … That pit of your stomach sick". Which is all very well, but the main point here is that while Sick begins like any number of songs by any number of emerging solo artists, it packs a huge punch of a chorus and is, when all's said and done, a totally amazing pop single.
Sick is CXLOE's third consecutive stupendous song (following I Can't Have Nice Things and Low Blow — both released earlier this year) which means she's entered pop's Gold Zone, a coveted area reserved for emerging acts actually worth investing your energy in.
THE GOLD ZONE EXPLAINED
- One great single: FLUKE.
- Two great singles: COINCIDENCE.
- Three great singles: GOLD ZONE ACHIEVED, SOMETHING'S DEFINITELY HAPPENING HERE.
Gold Zone rules are harsh but fair. Two great songs followed by a duffer? Sorry, you need to start again. A great song, then an alright song, then a great song? Apols, the second song has voided the first.
Gold Zone membership is not for life and can be revoked if a run of three great songs is followed by more than one consecutive substandard tune. This means that if CXLOE's next single isn't up to scratch (UNLIKELY) she'll still be in the Gold Zone, but if the one after that's a stinker (POSSIBLE, STILL UNLIKELY) she'll need to re-earn her Gold Zone status by releasing three new great songs in a row.
I'm still figuring out the finer points of Gold Zone membership. Should it also apply to established and returning artists? (I think it could.) How do EPs and albums affect it? (The rules really only make sense in the run-up to a Body Of Work.) Does a hit song that's a shit song (HSSS) have any bearing on the whole thing? (I'm leaning towards no.) But in a pop era packed with an unprecedented number of pretty good new artists with pretty good music, the Gold Zone might be our best chance to make sense of what's really happening.
New Music Friday: ITZY are icy, but on fire
The Song Of The Week is Icy by ITZY.
Icy, which I should warn you right now goes like the absolute clappers, is the lead track off the new EP by relatively new K-pop five-piece ITZY, whose first release popped up back in February. Like a lot of the best pop music Icy feels like it could go in any direction at any moment and you've got to love a song that includes the lyrics "beep beep" and "blah blah". There's a great bit in the video where one of them eats an apple. AN APPLE!
Additional notes:
- Tove Lo's released her best single in years; Alma comes along for the ride.
- Sydney-based singer Lola Scott is currently sitting on 227 monthly Spotify listeners. Luxurious pop wobbler Heaven Knows should change that (and the spectacularly-titled Warzone Of The Suburbs, from earlier this year, is also worth a listen).
- THE NEW ARIANA IS ABSOLUTELY FINE.
- Best Raye single yet? Yes.
- The Charming Horses and Bymia single doesn't exactly have a double chorus but its chorus does have a great 'secret compartment' with the "cos you got me inappropriate" part.
- Not to say the Carly Rae Jepsen vs Gryffin single is slightly less than the sum of its parts, but if you think about the Gryffin of about three years ago and the Carly Rae Jepsen of, well, about three years ago, OMG isn't exactly a case of both acts firing on all cylinders.
- I'm sorry about this because I know you probably really like it but I just find the new Haim song totally awful. What a racket!