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Nice Burke if you can get it (which you can, in the SoundCloud player below)

burko

We're just listening to Alexandra Burke's new 'EP', which is called '#NEWRULES' and has just appeared on SoundCloud.

Why don't you listen along with us and chuck your thoughts in the comments box?

We'll add our own comments in this post too once we've finished 'giving it a spin'.

TRACK ONE: 'LEAVE A MESSAGE'

  • We are hearing a pro­ces­sion of slightly-high-in-the-mix voice­mails from people like Jenny Francis off Heart FM and Aston from JLS. The people seem to be excited about Alexandra's EP.
  • We are hearing some music pootling along in the background.
  • We are hearing thunder and rain to signify drama.

TRACK TWO: 'FIX YOU'

  • This is literally Coldplay's 'Fix You' in an Alexandraballadesque fashion.
  • It's pleasant but it is not going to change the world or even a very small part of the world. Consider Burgess Hill, in West Sussex. That is the sort of small part of the world likely to be unchanged by this song.
  • Nice singing though.

TRACK THREE: 'DAY DREAM'

  • Opens with Alexandra noting, "I really didn't wanna talk about this, I think it's time". Hopefully it won't be about bowel problems.
  • Don't worry, it's about  Jermain Defoe.
  • You may have some dif­fi­culty working out what she is talking about in these heavily coded lyrics. "What was you thinking at the time when you decided to sleep with her? It didn't stop there, yes I know, the papers fucking told me so."
  • Alright so it's no "I found your credit card receipts" but "the papers fucking told me so" is a pretty bold lyric.
  • There's another use of the word "fucking" later on in the song: "I benched you, oh deja vu [we think this is something about football], [can't make this bit out apols] better fucking sub­sti­tute". Hard not to feel that changing it up a bit — "shitting" or "cunting" — might have helped.
  • This is actually a pretty good song. Good work Burko.

TRACK FOUR: 'SEDUCE YOU'

  • This is the one with Wretch 32 in it.
  • "There's nothing under this robe, there's something under this robe." Readers, we're going to be blunt here, we think Alexandra means that she is naked and in pos­ses­sion of sexual organs.
  • By now it's becoming clear that the '#NEWRULES' EP is quite a downbeat affair but once you accept its banger-free status and relax into the fairly sparse and dark pro­duc­tion it's rather enjoyable. You can def­in­itely see why Alexandra wanted to make this sort of EP after the last album. None of it so far sounds like the sort of thing you'd expect to find in the charts, but nor does any of it sound like it's trying to be.

TRACK FIVE: 'BOUNTY HUNTER'

  • We've got a Twix if that's any help.

TRACK SIX: 'TRY'

  • This is a quite beautiful pianos-'n'-warbling ballad about love and that sort of thing.
  • Again, good vocals.

In Summary Then

We're very impressed with this EP.