PICK OF THE WEEK
Mumford And Sons
Hopeless Wanderer (Island)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
I can't pretend any longer. I've made jokes about their Cotton Traders tweed slacks, derided their soggy-biscuit upbringing and heckled incessantly throughout their Glastonbury set ("Play the one about compost!"). But I can't do it any more. I. Like. Mumford. This song is great. It's dark in all the right places, the harmonies are beautiful, and it comes with an all-star video that proves the lads have a sense of humour about their affected straw-chewing image.
Naughty Boy Feat Emeli Sandé
Lifted (Virgin)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
It's difficult to remember, now that's she's cowed our once-great nation into despondency with her morbid balladeering like some kind of Magic FM despot, but there was a time when Emeli Sandé seemed like an edgy new proposition, with a drum'n'bass-influenced debut single and a quirky hairdo. Of course, she turned out to be more middle-of-the-road than Amanda Bynes after nine breakfast whiskeys, but this track is a glimpse of what might have been, Naughty Boy's faintly interesting beats restoring a vestige of colour to the grey, maudlin killjoy.
Franz Ferdinand
Right Action (Domino)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
There's something quite admirable about Franz's refusal to leave art-rock behind. Undeterred by their spectacular fall from favour, or the reality that they're closer to qualifying for a winter fuel allowance than they are a young person's railcard, they're still plugging away with angular guitars and parochial lyrics like "I wish you were here, weather permitting". Listening to them today is like reconnecting with your uni friends only to discover that they still drink snakebite and think 9/11 was an inside job.
Mr Hudson
Fred Astaire (BlackJagMusic)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
Plucked from obscurity by Kanye West with the same apparent randomness that led the rapper to Twitter-follow just one man in his mid-30s from Coventry who didn't like hip-hop, Hudson has spent three years standing in the background of some of the world's biggest music videos. Once a penniless troubadour in north-west London's indie-folk scene, no one begrudges him his golden ticket to Kanye's chocolate factory. But as he refocuses his solo efforts, I don't think we need to afford him the same goodwill. Fred Astaire tries to piggyback on some Camden Market concept of 50s glamour in the hope no one will notice the mumbled lyrics and clugging beats.
Bonnie Tyler
This Is Gonna Hurt (Celtic Swan Recordings)
Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
Was Tyler really our Eurovision entry? I feel like that was one of those BBC 1 Saturday night cheese dreams I get where a Doctor Who weeping angel gives a soapy tit job to Nick Knowles. Anyway, this song is incredible in an "80s hair metal via Britney's cover of I Love Rock N' Roll" kind of way. When Tyler rasps "this is gonna hurt", you know she means nipple clamps.
