Song of the last week:
Dua Lipa — ‘New Rules’ (Initial Talk mix)
There are plenty of good songs out this week, but there’s nothing that feels worthy of Song Of The Week, so we’re activating an unprecedented SONG OF THE WEEK ROLLOVER.
Wrong of the week:
Louis Tomlinson — ‘Miss You’
It’s quite an achievement for ‘Miss You’ to be one of the year’s worst singles — after all, 2017 is a year that’s already thrown up three other Louis Tomlinson releases. But here we are with a written-to-brief, no-redeeming-features meditation on life as Louis Tomlinson delivered in the style of a Son Of Dork CD single bonus track.
The lyrics reference drugs, drinking, going out and fake smiles because hey, guess what, sometimes being a famous person isn’t everything it’s cracked up to be! It’s sometimes quite bleak!! Sometimes when you are in one place and other people are not in that place you miss them!!! Nobody has ever mentioned this before!!!! Except actually yes they have, they’ve done it quite a lot actually, and they’ve managed to articulate it a lot less charmlessly than this!!!!!
Combined with the single’s sound, its artwork (Louis spotlit in a sea of faces, what could it all mean etc etc) suggests that having wafted aimlessly between genres since June Louis is now going for a ‘Life Thru A Lens’-era Robbie Williams approach and, well, good luck with that.
Either way this is a fitting way to round off a year of releases which kicked off with a hilariously softball interview in which Louis basically admitted he was a pointless and aimless popstar with no real ambition to be a solo artist and no way of explaining why he was even bothering to release music.
Additional notes:
- The Alan Walker mix of the Ina Wroldsen single is great, though we regret to inform you that Alan Walker still sounds like the founder of a small chain of Kent estate agents, who retired in the mid-2000s and left the business in the hands of his two sons but can’t help dropping in on the office uninvited and attempting to reorganise the filing system because, you know, the way he used to do it just made so much more sense.
- The Prettymuch and French Montana single is the first Prettymuch release to make you think “yes, this is what a boyband should probably sound like in 2017-slash-18”.
- Hey, the Kiesza track is really good!
- For some reason DJDS and Empress Of have covered Lana Del Rey, but the results are rather pleasant.
- ‘Hot’ on the ‘heels’ of her Eminem collaboration, Beyoncé has now turned up on an Ed Sheeran remix. All it needs now is for Ed to guest on an Eminem song and the circle will be complete.
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