Ash: Oh Yeah (Infectious) is a monster heatwave of a record, a blast of hazy sunshine and youthful exuberance which will permeate the summer air like pure, passionate pollen. With just a simple exclamation, Tim Wheeler has captured the essence of being young, being in love, and feeling all warm and breezy inside. He has seen heaven, and it lies in the first, flushes of teen lust: "It felt like it was the start of forever". The chorus is impossibly catchy, bending in a sensual "ooh ahh", the verse is thoughtful and evocative, and the strings touch of grandeur to the ward beauty of youth. Listen to this song on a scorching day and you'll faint - with pleasure.
The Cranberries: Free To Decide (Island) is the single from the Limerick three million selling To The Faithful Departed album, and it wraps everything that's wrong about The Cranberries into a three minute nutshell. The guitars are woefully lazy and inept, a dull, lifeless strum, punctuated by a few torturous lead guitar licks and a completely facile; organ break; Dolores executes her usual vocal acrobatics, and her larynx needs to be agile to somersault over such lines as "You must have nothing more with your time to do/There's a war in Russia and Sarajevo too". It's your decision.
Gary Barlow: Forever Love (BMG). Watch out, George Michael, Gazza is on your tail. Yes, the first post Take That single will be released on July 8th, and it marks the solo career launch of Gary Barlow, a.k.a. "the talented one". Not surprisingly, this piano drenched ballad sounds a bit like something Georgie boy could wrap his breath around, if it didn't already have a chorus, a verse and a hook. Get your knickers ready to twist around this one, girls.
Green Day: Brain Stew (Reprise) is another flurry of faux punk from the 1990s version of The Knack, another boring and predictable slice of pretend paranoia from Billie Joe and his trio of troubadors.
Once again, the lyrics address the pain inside, the angst, the alienation and the bloody screaming headache from that recent lobotomy. So basically, it must be a song about Green Day fans.
Beck: Where It's At (Geffen) is a mad maelstrom of funked up organ beats, psyched out drum breaks, souped up scratches and streetwise raps from the Crown Prince of Slack. Taken from the new album, Odelay, the follow up to the mega successful Mellow Gold, this single shows that Beck Hansen really knows where it's at, and where it's at is somewhere between Paul's Boutique, Electric Ladyland and Arrested, Tennessee.
King Crimson: Schizoid Man (DGM). Oh, goody, a bit of Prog Rock to get the nostalgia juices flowing. Twenty-first Century Schizoid Man is the ultimate prog anthem, a manic, pretentious, jazzy, sci-fi scenario of doom which got the beardies in a froth back in the Summer of 1969. Now the er, tyred, old epic is back in the limelight, thanks to a Dunlop ad, and has belatedly become the first ever single to be released by Robert Fripp's regal red brigade. The CD features a five minute edited version, the original seven minute version, plus three live recordings of dubious merit. Oh, God.
The Eagles: Love Will Keep Us Alive (Geffen). I'd rather listen to hoary old prog than this boring old grog, taken from The Eagles's reunion album, Hell Freezes Over. The single comes out just in time for the band's two big concerts in Dublin next weekend, and it gives us a taster of what we are in for folksy country twiddle and mountain top harmonies. Love will keep us alive? Gee, guys, and I thought it was the prospect of making loads of wodge on this reunion tour.
Steve Earle & The V-Roys: Johnny Too Bad, (Transatlantic). At least Stevie boy has had the good grace not to become stinking rich and move to Aspen, Colorado, so he still retains a bit of integrity. This uncharacteristic foray into reggae isn't quite his style, and it comes across like a kind of countrified Suggs caught in a battle of the ragga heads.
