Lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living

The Official Chart for July 17

New Britney! I was a bit wrongfooted because I assumed she’d come back with a banger, so I wasn’t sure what to make of this more downtempo track. I quite like it; actually, I like the verses and the bridge quite a lot (a new role for Britney to play: power-bottom-ney), but there’s something about the shift to a more obviously uplifting chorus that feels a bit cheap? The guest rap is garbage, obviously, and its presence is inexplicable (who on Earth thinks “I wasn’t going to listen to this Britney record, but now I know G-Eazy is going to be on it…”?). Read more↴

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The Official Chart for June 12

https://soundcloud.com/ladyhawkeofficial/a-love-song A great week for synthpop, with the release of Ladyhawke’s new album, Wild Things. The whole album is great (I mentioned “Let it Roll” a couple of weeks ago, and “Sweet Fascination” a few weeks before that; the title track is also very good), but I think my favourite track is “A Love Song“. I’m […]

The official chart for August 21

New Britney! When I first heard “Do You Wanna Come Over?“, I thought “Britney doing Girls Aloud,” although actually the guitars are more “Sweet Dreams my LA Ex”; either way, this has something of the sound of mid-2000s British pop, the golden age of popism, a sound Britney didn’t embrace at the time (though there is the […]

The Official Chart for April 10

Sara Ahmed writes about how attempts to emphasize the affirmative and exciting elements of feminist theory can sometimes contrast these elements with an other, implicitly earlier and duller feminism, and so end up reinforcing the image of the boring, outdated feminist. I was reminded of this by how Girli’s excellent new single, “Girls Get Angry Too“, wilfully insists on […]

“Dirty talk and call it stegano­­graphy”

Watch: Britney Spears – Circus I like to imagine that Britney’s new video came about when Britney, in a room high up in Spears Towers, complained to her team: “Christina had an elephant in her video! I want an elephant. No, I want two elephants!” And so, they wheeled out the rather tired celebrity/circus analogy, […]

Everybody’s all Chris Isherwood about me

Damn, the new Girls Aloud record is out, and I still have a post to write about Britney’s album. With “What You Crying For” and “I’m Falling,” Tangled Up gives Blackout some unexpected competition for “Best early-90s hardcore record of 2007.” Well, I suppose it’s not totally unexpected from Girls Aloud, but I wasn’t anticipating […]

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Virtue as resilience

I like Reign. I like how the show is early-modern Gossip Girl, flagrantly unconcerned with history except as a stage for teen jealousies and romances. I like how everyone wears pretty dresses. And I especially like the Very Serious face that Adelaide Kane, as Mary Queen of Scots, pulls whenever she has to make a Morally Difficult Decision. There’s […]

The Official Chart for July 10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tb2YzWyWpEI With brides, angelic visitations, and ghosts, Bat for Lashes’s The Bride seems to be aiming at the territory of gothic romance (as does the tendency of the lyrics to use romantic commonplaces like “this heart of mine,” which is arguably appropriate, but which I found distracting). But if the gothic is always about the body, the […]

The Official Chart for June 26

The new Demi Lovato track is great. I hope the sadboy R&B tendency (Nick Jonas, Zayn Malik) are taking notes on how you should make moody, sexy, records. 

The Official Chart for June 19

“Since You Went to Heaven” is the standout track on Brandy Clarke’s new album, an incredibly controlled and heartbreaking narrative of personal and social collapse. “Love Can Go to Hell,” “You Can Come Over” and “Broke” are also very good, although I’m not sure they’re quite as good as the best tracks on her previous […]

The Official Chart for June 12

https://soundcloud.com/ladyhawkeofficial/a-love-song A great week for synthpop, with the release of Ladyhawke’s new album, Wild Things. The whole album is great (I mentioned “Let it Roll” a couple of weeks ago, and “Sweet Fascination” a few weeks before that; the title track is also very good), but I think my favourite track is “A Love Song“. I’m […]

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