Singles Review

6th Feb 2010

 

 

Flo­rence Rawl­ing: Love Can Be A Battlefield

Miss Rawl­ing is a woman who can sing very well. Love Can Be A Bat­tle­field is a soul-influenced pop bal­lad. Lis­ten­ing to the non-radio-edit ver­sion, I find myself bob­bing along as one does with a good song. It def­i­nitely has all the nec­es­sary ele­ments – a good singer, a catchy phrase, a choir and large instru­men­ta­tion. How­ever I find myself check­ing how much is left of the song at about 3:30. It’s long, and doesn’t really have enough vari­a­tion in order to pull off the full 5:15. Luck­ily the radio-edit stops at the appro­pri­ate 3:30 to make it into a very decent tune and worth look­ing into her musi­cal cat­a­logue. Assum­ing they all have radio-edits.

Jed­ward: Ice Ice Baby

Stay­ing power: that is the super­hu­man qual­ity that the Jed­ward mon­ster pos­sesses. They’re still very much alive post–X-Factor. The song choice comes as no sur­prise, nor that Vanilla Ice had space enough in his diary to con­tribute. Ice Ice Baby. It really only works as a com­edy music video.

As their recent appear­ance on Fri­day Night With Jonathan Ross proved, the young lads are über-engergetic and con­fi­dent, but rather con­fused. As tele­vi­sion per­son­al­i­ties though, they are rather adorable. Jedward’s music is 100% cheese, let us hope its shelf-life is short.

HIM: Heartkiller

I know what you’re think­ing. HIM are the embod­i­ment of an ado­les­cent metal cliché, a joke; no-one in their right mind would take them seri­ously, and they are rub­bish. And you were nearly right too, until you crossed the line. They’re not rubbish.

Sure, if you actu­ally lis­ten to it, Heartkiller is just a pop anthem wrapped around some pseudo-macabre lyrics. The fact that the band can play instru­ments is a bonus, but this just adds to the fun. Just like how the music from school dis­cos is still pop­u­lar ten years on for the shame/nostalgia fac­tor, HIM are a reminder of those same teen metal obses­sions. And you have to love it.