Song of the week:
Rhys — 'Last Dance'
If you liked Becky Hill's 'False Alarm' you are going to love 'Last Dance', ie it combines world class songwriting with great vocals and wobbly semi-tropical Spotpop production. Rhys' single was written by Jörgen Elofsson (who's written about 17% of your music library) and co-produced by Paw Lagermann from Infernal (TUNE) and could quite possibly mark the arrival of a major new global popstar. God knows we need one.
Wrong of the week:
Take That — 'Giants'
Look we're sure Gary Barlow's a lovely guy but do you think it's fair to say the world would be in no way different if, moving forward, Take That never made another record? Do you think "Take That have pretty much made their point by now" is a fair statement? Do you think there's a chance we might, by now, have heard the band's best work? Well it doesn't matter what you think about any of that because Gary Barlow is not listening.
Additional notes:
- Vanessa White is still at it.
- Keep an eye on ARY. She's a solo singer (aren't they all) from Norway (isn't everyone), she's had some great coverage from The Line Of Best Fit, Nylon and Interview (hasn't everyone) and she makes brilliant, slightly muted, left-of centre electronic pop (just like everyone else).
- 'Bad Things' is a big, banging, fizzy new tune from Noella Nix.
- If anyone's after a snapshot of pop in 2017: Maroon 5 and Linkin Park are involved in two of this week's better songs.
- Sarah Solovay is also worth keeping an eye on — 'Rough Draft', out today, is really good, but her next single is totally great.
- Ralph is fucking amazing. Perhaps you saw her video on Noisey this week.
- Remember a few years ago, before Ed Sheeran got really good, and he was actually quite boring? For those of you who've forgotten, he's chosen to release a little reminder.
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