PICK OF THE WEEK
The Wanted
Walks Like Rihanna (Mercury)
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What's not to like about this wistful paean to someone who walks like someone with one of the least famous walks in pop history? Well, there's the intro, verses, middle eight … but what a chorus. "She can't sing," warble the lads. "She can't dance/ But who cares? She walks like Rihanna." OK, those lyrics don't work very well written down. In fact they're borderline terrible when you hear them, too. But the melody is the best in any of this week's single releases.
Biffy Clyro
Opposite (14th Floor)
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This latest single from the Del Amitri it's OK to invite to the Kerrang! Awards is – and you'll struggle to believe what I'm about to say here, so take a seat, get a glass of water ready and hold a paper bag in one hand lest you begin to hyperventilate – a pensive, twiddly guitar-abetted downtempo effort. There's – quick! Administer the paper bag! – a slo-mo video too, in which Biffy Clyro seem to die in a car accident. Makes you think, doesn't it? Specifically: that's not a very good video but the song could be worse, if only slightly.
Bo Bruce
Alive (Universal)
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Continuing with Car Accidents In Pop Videos Week in this week's column, we have this tune from a lady who, you'll doubtless recall, didn't win last year's The Voice. In fact, not only does the video feature a car accident but the entire song tells the story of one, too. "Looking at the wreckage/ anyone would guess that all inside had died, but I'm alive," she sings quite early on in a song whose very title is a pretty massive spoiler.
The Lumineers
Stubborn Love (Dualtone)
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Now I, as much as the next TV viewer, enjoy watching footage of the same eight to 10 bands pretending there's a Sense Of Occasion to each of the identical, lucrative festival appearances they make over the course of the summer, but if there's one problem with increased telly festival coverage it's that there simply – sadly! – just aren't enough Mumford & Sons songs to soundtrack all those montages. Thank goodness the Lumineers exist with that song Ho Hey and all the others that aren't as decent, like this one.
Kamaliya
I'm Alive (AATW)
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Concluding Car Accidents In Pop Videos Week is this effort from Kamaliya, a Ukrainian pop queen, actor, model and former Mrs World [sic] who has crowbarred the opera bit off that British Airways advert into the sort of enjoyable Euro banger you would expect to get if you induced Calvin Harris into a coma and plugged his bumhole into a copy of GarageBand. For the video car wreck, Kamaliya screeches to a halt on a country road to avoid colliding with a horse, hits her head on her steering wheel, then hallucinates four minutes of topless model-strewn Gladiator-meets-Eurovision ridiculousness, a twist Biffy Clyro would do well to employ in future videos.
