Single Reviews 13/05/12

Welcome to the Single Reviews, on a week Great Britain learns it has a Prime Minister who doesn’t even know what ‘LOL’ means. Hell, that’s even worse than the fact he was schmoozing Rebekah Brooks in the first place. As a nation, we are truly doomed. Still, if you’re looking for recommendations for your apocalypse playlist, then read on, as we can offer a fine selection...

Nigerian rapper D’Banj is up first, with the hypnotic thump of Oliver Twist. Nonsense lyrics about arse-shaking and listing celebrity ladies he’d like to bone may not be the most appealing aspect of a song, but it’s hard to resist the mesmerising tribal beats and brilliantly daft rapalong chorus. Mix that with the lucrative Kanye West stamp of approval, and it’s safe to say we’ll be hearing Oliver Twist for some time to come.

Blood Red Shoes score a Single of the Week with the robust rhythms and brooding licks of Lost Kids. For the most part, it’s a solid, if fairly standard, indie-rock effort, but the intense, growing chorus brings Lost Kids into its own: a sharp-edged, attitude-laden anthem from one of Brighton’s brightest. If rock has any fighting chance of returning to the charts, it bodes well that it’s got Blood Red Shoes in its corner.

Neon Hitch drops a good few storeys in our estimations with the grotesque F U Betta, a messy, runny McHouse number with precisely zero relevance. She’s clearly going for some sort of legs-akimbo Rihanna skankfest, and she does achieve it on the most base of levels, but any vague credibility she may have once carried is lost amongst the overprogrammed beats, AutoTune hell and presumably whiffy quarter-leotards.

And finally, The Saturdays miraculously turn out a good song in what’s become one of the most dull, personality-free girlband catalogues in music history. It’s not quite on a par with Up, but 30 Days is playful, danceable, entertaining and a step away from the faceless, forgettable squelch that’s made up most of their recent output. (We’ll overlook the atrocious video shot in a motorway diner on a budget of £150.)