Take you away from here

I've fallen into a bad habit recently of starting these long, involved posts and then never finishing them, leaving them lost in the cobweb filled word of "Drafts" for who knows how long, and then rushing out a quick one or two sentence description of each song I'm loving at the moment (though strangely my last rambly long post got finished in one sitting). It's certainly not for lack of good music to write about--it's more a matter of songs that I love so much that I really want to do them justice or multi-part issues or explorations of subjects that cry out for a little more effort and my seeming ADDish inability to finish them.

I'll try to hit that middle ground sweet spot more often, though, because I need an outlet to talk about how much I'm enjoying Martin Stenmarck's new album, how excited I am about the new Adam Lambert album (I have apparently listened to each of the 30 second clips--well, except "Time For Miracles"--fourteen times on my iPod alone), how lovely the Sugababes' "Wait For You" is, how much bounce Anna Abreu's "Music Everywhere" puts in my step, or how hard I fell for Blake Lewis's "Left My Baby For You" (I've said before how much I love "Heartbreak On Vinyl," and that still holds true as well).

In the meantime, there are a couple of projects based around the end of the decade that are worth your reading time: Chart Rigger's 40 best pop songs of the '00s and XO's year-by-year review of the '00s. It's really easy to get caught up in the excitement of now and songs that you instantly love are a hugely important part of pop; having spent all Friday a week ago with that adrenaline rush you get from loving, really loving a new song, I'm certainly not going to knock the appeal of the here-and-now. A bit of distance, though, can sometimes make for a better, more insightful read and can take you back to some pretty special songs (and memories, even if the songs no longer hold the power for you now that they did then).

Sometimes when I close my eyes it feels like I'm living by numbers

ARGH. How can this be HAPPENING?

*throws all the toys out of the pram*

(That's not to say this new incarnation couldn't potentially make great music...but can it possibly still sound like the Sugababes?)

Dealing with the mainstream

(The song which is the subject of this post is not available on YouTube if you live outside the UK, but you can stream a low quality version of what is probably a radio rip on this non-official MySpace site.)

There's a probably undeserved sense of self-satisfaction that comes from loving a song not fully embraced by others (whether "others" is the general public or a much smaller segment of the people you usually interact with) and then seeing that song's artist fully bloom in a way that consolidates your original belief in that first song while also creating the perception that they're only getting better. That really awkward opening is my way of leading into the fact that Tinchy Stryder's new single is fantastic summery pop. "Take Me Back," his Taio Cruz-featuring breakthrough single taken from his upcoming album Catch 22, deservedly went to #1 in the UK, but I didn't see it get too much blog love (even I was guilty of not writing about it here, though I praise it elsewhere).

Follow-up single "Number 1" was even better, with a perfect pop chorus--in fact, perfect pop everything, even though Tinchy's more hip-hop (grime?) style gave the song a welcome additional flavor.

I couldn't tell you yet whether Tinchy's latest single, "Never Leave You," featuring Amelle of the Sugababes, is better than "Number 1," but it's certainly yet another fantastic song with a sound that is both exactly the sort of thing that should be in the charts in 2009 and yet is totally refreshing. Tinchy's kept the strings around and, if it's possible, its chorus is even poppier than that of "Number 1." Breezy, poppy, summery, lovey-dovey pop-meets-hip-hop? Yes, please.

It's getting too much

Apologies for disappearing for a few days--it's that time of the year where offline life always manages to interfere with online life. I basically spent the weekend listening only to a-ha (inspired by KulPop's news about their new single), Sugababes, and songs by Richard X and Xenomania--pseudo-retro. Doing some sort of special is tempting, but that ground has been covered pretty often.

Coming up soon (this week) should be my hopes for and thoughts on Eurovision.

Until then, I leave you with the mindboggling news (stolen from the PJ forums) that Frankmusik is apparently making music for/with Holly Valance. No, really.



Lest we all forget, Holly's State Of Mind was one of the best albums of this decade. Talk about a killer lead single.

Try to find some more stars

While I'm engaging in pointless ways to evaluate an album, the tracklist for the Alesha album, The Alesha Show, looks pretty great. Special shout-out to track 12.

1.) Welcome To The Alesha Show
2.) Let's Get Excited
3.) Breathe Slow
4.) Cinderella Shoe
5.) The Boy Does Nothing
6.) Chasing Ghosts
7.) Play Me
8.) Hand It Over
9.) Do You Know The Way It Feels
10.) Can I Begin
11.) Italians Do It Better
12.) Ooh Baby I Like It Like That
13.) Don't Ever Let Me Go
14.) I'm Thru
15.) Mystery (hidden track)

I hope the cover is as awesome as it should be.

In other news, why on Earth did no one tell me Martin Stenmarck had recorded a new English language song? Granted, it's for charity--the Scandic Sustainability Fund, run by this hotel chain--but still, any Martin at all is always more than welcome. It's called "A Million Candles Burning" and you can stream it here or buy it from Swedish iTunes (if you're from Sweden) here (possibly the best thing about this whole project is that whoever came up with the remix name decided to call it the "Sustainable Mix." Brilliant). It's at #2 in the Swedish singles chart, but that means absolutely nothing in terms of how popular the song actually is. Maybe of more meaning is its entry into Sverige Topp 40 (which mixes albums and singles, so I really don't what it actually means either), which combines sales and TV and radio play, at #17.

I know I'll probably never get around to actually writing about it like I should, but the new Sugababes album is great. Really, it is. And I've still not written about the fantastic Ladyhawke album yet, have I? Needs to be done. Albums that I found (to steal a phrase) worthy were pretty scarce in the first half of the year, but that's been changing over the past few months luckily. So far, I think I'd put Ladyhawke, Sugababes, Kate Ryan, probably Will Young on the list, though there are a couple of albums I've only just bought/got that I'll need to properly listen to a few more times before I make a judgment call (and I may be forgetting something).

My favorite album of the year so far, though? It's never been challenged since March. I've never done a proper write-up of it and I don't think I could even come close to doing it justice if I tried, but that may not stop me from trying at some point in the next few months, if I can ever figure out how to put into words my adoration of it, how exciting I find it. It's an album I'll recommend to anyone and everyone (recommendation was in fact how I first listened to it), but, oddly enough, it's not an album I can ever envision myself listening to with someone else unless it was in the most intimate of circumstances.

What is it?



In other news, Darin and David Jassy wrote American boy band (and My Fizzy Pop post subjects) V Factory's new single "Love Struck." Listen to it here. I could be completely wrong on this, but doesn't it even sound like you can hear Darin on the backing vocals sometimes? Speaking of Darin, you can also watch a video (in Swedish) of the making of the video for "Breathing Your Love" here.

According to an interview, he's got a record contract in France now.