October 12th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, Take That
If Radio One haven’t already rammed the fact down your throats already, Take That’s new single will be called Greatest Day, and it will be played to the nation tomorrow morning on the Chris Moyles radio show.
The song will be played some time around 8:15am.
If you’ve been reading this blog for any length of time, you’ll know exactly how much radio releases annoy me. They’re soooo old fashioned. But, considering how much the missus likes the buggers, we might just tune in ourselves for a quick listen.
Pop back here later and tell us if it’s any better than Rule The World.
October 12th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, Kings Of Leon

Sex On Fire has been my favourite track of the last few weeks. Kings Of Leon have really pulled out all the stops with this one – smouldering guitars and wicked yelps from Caleb Followill.
So, inside my head, the words this sex is on fire have been playing almost non-stop, along with a smirk every time I imagine the lyrics to be about some kind of nasty infection…
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October 12th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, Snow Patrol

It’s been absolutely ages since we’ve heard a decent rock song with a “whoa whoa” chorus.
Isn’t it refreshing then that Snow Patrol have decided to run with an up-tempo song as the first single from their new album? And not only an up-tempo song, but a darned catchy one at that?
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October 12th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, Britney Spears

Britney’s new single, Womanizer, is splitting opinions everywhere.
Where some reviewers are captivated by the futuristic electronic fuzz and the heavily processed vocals, others like the stalwart pop commentator Bill Lamb remain unimpressed.
It all sounds like a rather weak attempt to approach the attitude of Katy Perry in a classic Britney futuristic bubblegum pop context. Unfortunately, after a few listens it all becomes quite dull.
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October 11th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, Leona Lewis

Considering she ‘graduated’ from The X Factor almost 2 years ago, it’s hard to believe that Forgive Me is only Leona’s fourth single.
Interestingly, this is her first up-tempo single to be released from the Spirit album. Written by Akon (and Claude Kelly and Giorgio Tuinfort), it’s a breath of fresh air. After a slew of ballads, a regular pop song will show us if Leona can break out of the diva stereotype.
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October 10th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, Beyonce Knowles, Thumbs Up

If I Were A Boy is not a song about penis-envy. As an independent woman, apparently Beyoncé doesn’t suffer from that affliction.
Wise-cracks aside, this single will blow you away. It is not what you’d expect from Beyoncé Knowles. Gone (for the moment?) are the tired R&B routines I was complaining about when I reviewed Green Light a year ago. Instead, I would say that If I Were A Boy is the most conventional song she’s ever released.
What’s the song about, I hear you ask. Well, it’s about a girl imagining how she would behave toward women if she ‘were a boy’. Get it? Lyrically, it’s a tad sanctimonious, because Beyoncé clearly doesn’t understand the male psyche, assuming that she’d still behave like a a girl while encumbered with man-parts. She just doesn’t understand our struggle, fellas!
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September 18th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, Those Dancing Days
OK, for those of you not familiar with Those Dancing Days, you should probably check this out. It’s their new single, Home Sweet Home.
What do we like about it? Well, those cute Swedish accents for a start – that kind of drawling but musical delivery. Or maybe it’s the fact that it’s a simple pop song about being back home and among one’s creature comforts?
The video’s cool as well – a series of postcards from far flung places, just to hammer the song’s point across :) There’s no point in trying to rationalise everything that’s fun about this song. Listen for yourself, and we dare you not to like it…
September 18th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, Stripper Music, Sugababes
It may be worth noting, dear reader, that the title is not Here Come The Girls. It is merely Girls. Very minimalist.
And although the Sugababes only released their fifth album (Change) last October, this new single is from their forthcoming sixth album. Entitled Catfights And Spotlights. That should scotch any more rumours of the trio breaking up for a while at least!
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September 12th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, The Feeling

The musical equivalent of the credit crunch is happening in the Indie scene at the moment, and it seems The Feeling may be ..er.. feeling the pinch.
Join With Us is the title track from the band’s second album, but the singles they’ve released lately don’t seem to be charting as well as the stuff from Twelve Stops And Home. Is it a general malaise in the Indie scene, or are we getting tired of The Feeling’s chirpy patter?
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September 11th, 2008 by Gerard McGarry. Tags: 2008, Leon Jackson

The long-awaited and marginally hyped second single from Leon Jackson is hitting the stores in October.
Let’s just remind ourselves of what we said last Christmas when Leon was storming the charts in a blaze of X Factor-led publicity.
Is it possible that Leon may be about to wipe the smug grin off our record-reviewing faces?
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