Singles of the week: featuring Gorillaz, Lee Ryan AND MORE

Gorillaz - Superfast Jellyfish

The world of the single is a curious one. For some bands, the only difference week to week seems to be the track name – the song quite literally remains the same. To that end, Gorillaz have unleashed the new wave of their anti-charm offensive, in the form of ‘Superfast Jellyfish’. Like ‘Hot Tub Time Machine’, it is one of those titles that makes you turn to the sky askance, but within the satiny folds of its three plus minutes, the band’s trademark sound makes a welcome return, the refrain of “Superfast jellyfish” repeating to fade – formulaic but addictive.

Speaking of formulaic, here’s Lee Ryan – the boybander with a penchant for opening his mouth and sticking his foot right in it. Blue found fame with a series of inoffensive pop singles that were shaft of pap but tip of pure urban influence. Sadly, Ryan has evaded the harmonious net that captured his ex-band, and ‘Secret Love’ is the epitome of his post-Blue period pseudo-erotic electronic blandishments – all asinine lyrics and keyboard-heavy dance beats. It’s the opposite of erotica, and leaves as unpleasant a taste in the mouth as edible knickers. If underwear as food interests you try checking out sexually unhinged Brightonites Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. A band back in the early noughties who defied all taste and style, they still somehow just worked. Led by wild-eyed Guy McKnight, their rock-swathed venom was a delight indeed, all menacing stairs and songs about having sexual relations with mothers. On ‘Love Turns To Hate’, the surreal guitars call to mind behemoths like The Cramps, while McKnight’s squally vocal drips rock’n'roll excess and a type of mania. Nice to have them back on the airwaves.

Far from her non-conformist image, Kelis fits into the urban-tinged songbird slot better than she would like to acknowledge. The well and truly acceptable face of radio-friendly unit-shifting, ‘Acapella’ reinvents nothing other than her bank balance, but it is a diverting enough ditty. Peppered with the sort of “you complete me” lyricism that makes Renee Zellwegger’s career, “Before you/My whole life was acapella” is the message – now relishing the symphony of love, Kelis seems unable to keep herself down, and the euphoria makes this a perfectly placed summer radio hit.With American style streaming through the speakers, Fugative is a 16-year-old artist with pretensions of being the new Justin Timberlake. Except from Essex. Naming such diverse influences as Timbaland and Pharrell Williams on his MySpace page, ‘Crush’ is an uptempo rap from start to finish. Featuring a female vocal on the chorus, it’s got more than a hint of the Blazin’ Squads about it. If that sounds horrific, well, it is. Slightly better is the next release. Back in the day, ‘Truth Hurts’, as produced by DJ Quik, made a great play for best western pop song with eastern influences in ‘Addicted’. It’s been a long time in coming, but new release ‘You’ by Gold Panda steals its ethnic crown. All sultry hipsway and eastern promise, there’s a touch of class to the London producer’s emission, and it’s a pleasure that bears repeated listens.

If Eugene McGuinness decamped to the US of A and fashioned an artist in his own image, Dan Sartain would be out of a job. Because there’s a unique quality to his voice and intriguing darkness to his lyrics which make this Yankee singer songwriter the very essence of post- Jack Johnson musicality, and make ‘Atheist Funeral’ a striking guitar record. From the sublime to the slightly ridiculous – the whiff of privilege, the implication of education – Princeton made a bold move in naming them after an Ivy League institution, after Vampire Weekend’s deck shoes and Hollister schtick garnered them wedgies at every gig they played in 2009 (possibly). There’s a knowingness to ‘Shout It Out’ which is a little grating, and the fake handclaps only serve to underline the chasm between this sort of light hearted pop and that of, say, Paul Simon on Graceland. With a hint of Gorky’s, though, there is something a little more off-kilter in the veins of Princeton, and the track does end up bringing a smile to the stoniest of faces, fading on, “I love you, let’s shout it out.” Bless.Less worthy of our sentiment are the next band. If there was a space year 1984, think how crazy that would be. Jumped-up youngsters in turned-up jeans with bequiffed heads and an Oxford Compact Dictionary would make their way to gigs of jingly jangly guitar power pop like ‘Heartbeat’ played by angry young doppelgangers tired of not having a job and putting off girls with their questionable personal hygiene. This is Blighters. They’re not as good as The Smiths.

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