It's Called Pop. It's Great.

Sugababes, "Red Dress" - So I'm driving back from my brain-breaking temp job at the LA Times today, wondering what I've got that (a) I've actually been listening to lately and (b) will make up for my ongoing War Against My Microscopic Readership - or rather, wondering if I have anything other than "Red Dress" that fits the bill. I have to confess that my British teen-pop addiction is really gettting out of control these days; Rachel Stevens and Alexis Strum alone would have probably made 2005 a banner year for girl-pop on their own, but when you take into account all the efforts of the lesser lights (Amerie, Goldfrapp, Roisin Murphy, Robyn, a few minor singles from Girls Aloud and Texas, etc), "banner year" feels as backhanded as if you'd used it to describe Britpop's 1995. As far as my ears are concerned, girl-pop in 2005 hasn't been anything but one extended payoff for retraining my ears to appreciate this stuff in the first place; it can hardly be a surprise that I'm ten thousand times more fascinated by it than anything else in the world right now.

That being said, it's also pretty obvious why I'm the only one of my friends that actually listens to this stuff, let alone spends hours tracking it down: this stuff sounds like it was made specifically for me, which is always a more accurate barometer than a song's actual content. I mean, I always liked crashing, swooping synths, so here's "Crazy Boys" pushing that to infinity, or I always liked the idea of jangly "Our House"-levels of energy in my pop music, so here's "Love Machine" or "1 Thing" to hit that spot. So imagine my surprise and delight when the chorus of "Red Dress" kicked in and I found myself in the throes of the greatest big beat hook I've heard in probably five years - seriously, I bet the good Dr. Cook canes the bejesus out of the instrumental to this one, even if it's just for OH GOD THOSE HORNS. And while I'm sure there's absolutely no pressing need to resuscitate big beat right now (if ever) and it's a little churlish to recontextualize it as pop music when from the start it wasn't ever anything else, I have to admit that that's where at least part of the charm of "Red Dress" comes from; it may just be Yet Another Pop Song About The Stuff Pop Songs Are About, but it's also as fine a litmus test for your appreciation for vulgarity and frivolity in pop music as you're likely to come across these days, and I doubt I'll be able to keep songs like that a secret even if it means catching a world of shit from Brian and David. (Click here to pre-order Taller In More Ways from Amazon.co.uk)

Kray Twinz, "What We Do" (feat. Twista, Lethal Bizzle, & Gappy Ranks) - I've said it before, but it bears repeating: Dave Stelfox' monthly dancehall column for Pitchfork is one of the most unmissable reads going when it comes to music right now; I don't think I've walked away from a single one without immediately beating the living dogpiss out of Certain Applications in search of the stuff he mentions. Dave's reccomendation for "What We Do", for instance, closed out his most recent edition of the column, which more often than not is where he brings up the stuff that's really been owning his universe, and sweet Jesus did he ever get this one right. It does feel kind of strange to be constantly pimping chirped-up vocal samples in the year of Late Registration's glib break with helium soul (and if you think I've gone nuts on it now, you should have hung out with me when I was first hearing "Stay Fly") but fuck it; gimmicky hip-hop's been hot as all fuck since Snoop and Pharrell dropped it like such, and this one's just an embarassment of riches (it's not a coincidence that both the Twista tracks I've posted have been pretty flamboyantly gimmicky). The fact that this is in no way actually dancehall is beside the point; what's important about this song is that it sounds like it came from five years in the future, which isn't that impressive until you remember that in five years it'll be 2010, and this is exactly what you'll be bumping in your hovercar come the time. ("What We Do" hasn't even been released to promo yet, but click here to visit the Kray Twinz' site in the meantime)

ELSEWHERE

Okay, it's late and I'm hungry, so I will shortchange both James and Keith who have each been posting an embarassment of riches lately. Both their blogs are utterly indispensable, but lately they've just been straight fire; James, for one, recently posted a murderously fun nu-Britpop song from Battle (which I was literally about to buy off Rough Trade when I noticed he'd posted it), which is so good that I can barely even be bothered to point out any of the other awesome stuff he's put up lately (PENDULUM PENDULUM PENDULUM). Meanwhile Keith - better known to me as "the guy who hipped me to the Arcade Fire last September" - done did it again; if you like the Fire, make ABSOLUTELY MOTHERFUCKING SURE you grab every last mp3 of the Scotland Yard Gospel Choir that the man has to offer; I haven't listened to Wolf Parade yet, but if there's anything on there half as vibrant and full as "A Good Kind Of Crazy" I'll be shocked into silence.