New Musick Monday

When is a hit not a hit? Is it when an act who has received blanket coverage in the press and who finished second in the BBC Sound of 2010 poll ends up at no. 12 on the singles chart with their first 'proper' release? It's not a bad show by any means, but Marina & The Diamonds' 'Hollywood' missing the top ten is a bit of a surprise, but perhaps she's 'doing a Florence' (who also missed the top 10 with her first few singles) and will sell billions of albums. We'll have to wait and see. The albums fared pretty well with Midlake breaking the top 20 and Hot Chip entering at no. 11 (which is kind of disappointing seeing as the album is really very good).

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Odd Blood by Yeasayer



This is a bit of a turn up for the books if you were expecting another 'interesting' but 'noodling' album from everyone's second favourite 'interesting' but 'noodling' American alternative band (Animal Collective being number one, natch). Odd Blood injects Yeasayer's percussive, gloriously off-kilter songs with a pop nous that was missing from most of All Hour Cymbals. 'Ambling Alp' is a clear highlight, with a chorus as glorious as any song about a failed boxer has the right to be, whilst tracks like 'O.N.E' and 'Love Me Girl' are stone cold anthems. It's nice to see a band who understand that alienating just about everyone does not necessarily a good band make.

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I'm New Here by Gil Scott-Heron



This album is streaming for free to the right of this post so if you haven't already then give it a listen. We're not going to tell you about it seeing as you can do the work yourselves.

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'Hurtful' by Erik Hassle



This has been floating about for what seems like a musical lifetime but finally gets it's UK release today. Having been deftly retwizzled by Starsmith, it's now slightly less MOR but still a whole load OTT, Hassle sounding like he's about to cry on every other line. It's not rocket science, it's not going to change the world, it's not 'cool', but it is a very good example of a radio friendly rock(ish) ballad and manages to break the inexplicable monopoly Snow Patrol have had over that particular genre in recent years. You'll either love it or hate, not like Marmite, because we like Marmite but we're allergic to it and we're not allergic to this...*METAPHOR FAIL*