Professor Bean
Singles Clubbed: DJ Shadow, Passion Pit, Jennifer Lopez, Dappy, Professor Green and some others!
Published on September 26th, 2012 | Jonny Abrams
It’s Singles, Clubbed! Here are this week’s singles interspersed with barbed and heavily flawed critique courtesy of Rocksucker’s resident team of singles scientists…
Dappy – “Good Intentions”
“Whose singles have we got this week?”
“I dunno. Probably Dappy or someone.”
Spooky. Well, more typical in a tch! kind of roll-your-eyes way, but a little spooky too.
Here we find the N-Dubz delight getting in touch with his feminine side, or his “fassy side” as he might call it. So entrenched is this guff in expensive studio sheen that Dappy’s very presence makes pianos burst into flames (see video); Rocksucker lay in hope that one of the pianos falling from the sky might hit him, or at least bear the legend “12.5% APR” like one of those falling blocks from some wack loan shark advert.
At least his intentions are good, even if they do result in disaster (visually and artistically), and for once we could understand what he was saying, so for that Dappy gets…
Rocksucker says: One and a Half Quails!
Deaf Havana – “Hunstanton Pier”
“We were young and out of touch / With the things that we grew to hate so much” sings a Fat Booth-ed Jamie Oliver. Well, we hate this.
And we’re right to, because this sounds like Ronan Keating with The Killers spaffed over the top. The ‘lament’ so laughably conveyed by the singer’s ‘contemplative’ stroll through the flowers is punctured somewhat by the subsequent clips of Deaf Havana pissing about on a water slide. They were meant to be sad, and they bloody well should be for inflicting this FIVE-MINUTE atrocity on Holy Mother Music.
The seaside town of Hunstanton is now cursed. Don’t go there.
Rocksucker says: Have a Dead Quail!
DJ Shadow feat. Terry Reid – “Listen”
Meh. Rocksucker fails to see how Reid is worthy of a Shadow collaboration. Should this really be included on an album titled The Best of DJ Shadow? The girl in the video is lovely, and Shadow’s juggle-funk still satisfying, but the in-one-ear-out-the-other vocals leave a lot to be desired.
Rocksucker says: Two Quails out of Five
Fake Blood – “Yes/No”
Piano line like “Children” by Robert Miles shot through with a healthy dose of The X Files/Halloween/Freddy/summat like that? Oh yes, and just in time for Halloween! With its grinding syncopated bass and nocturnally minimalist bleepery, this is pretty decent trancey fare, and it kicks up a notch or two when first the piano takes on that “Sunny Afternoon” descending bass sort of motif, except all spooked up and ravey, and is then supplemented by string and glitchy vocal samples that all add up to a satisfying build that makes a strange bedfellow for Rocksucker’s morning coffee.
Rocksucker says: Three Quails out of Five!
Halestorm – “I Miss the Misery”
Over a million YouTube views? Wuh oh. First impressions upon her vocals: ooooo…. Ew. On this evidence, she should still be miserable. In fact, she misses the misery so much, that on this tripe she does her damndest to summon it, and spread it. Oh dear on so many levels.
That number of YouTube hits served, and was heeded, as a warning. Really, what does that say about the world, really? To be fair, there are three good things about “I Miss the Misery” by Halestorm: it made us laugh, the resolution of its chorus chord progression, and the drumfill. Otherwise, this is Evanescence meets Avril Lavigne; yuh.
Rocksucker says: One and a Half Quails out of Five!
Joss Stone – “Pillow Talk”
Yeah, this is an alright cover, as pop covers go. Nice voice and groove, no quails for necessity though. Beyonce filler, some might say, but still…
Rocksucker says: Two and a Half Quails out of Five!
Jennifer Lopez feat. Flo Rida – “Goin’ In”
No longer J-LO or Jenny from the Block, Jennifer Lopez is a serious artist now dontchuknow. “Tonight feels like we can do anything we like / Tonight feels like the best night of my life” – yes, this is sure to be good.
Bearing down on 50 million views on YouTube, we see. DAMN YOU, WORLD! We’re frightfully sorry, where are our manners? Anyway, this depressingly has ubiquity written all over it, so you might want to consider going into hiding for a few months. It’s also got gym written all over it, and Rocksucker for one will gladly stop going, get fat and die young just to avoid hearing this bilge one more time.
Wonder how much the video cost. This is the very emblem of first world obliviousness, arrogance and suppression. This is like some George Orwell shit right here. This is the book-within-a-book in the middle of Nineteen Eighty-Four that goes on for ages. This is so bad it deserves a quail, because slowly but surely it must be giving the game away.
Rocksucker says: One Quail out of Five!
Kindness & Trouble Funk – “That’s Alright”
Totally awesome machine-gun sass with the backing vocals, mad Captain Beefhearty interjections of “the beat is fiiiine”; and look, most of the other videos so far: people actually playing their instruments! OMGZ! LOLZ.
The saxophone solo is a wee bit too smooth – come on, man, make that conical bore spazz out! – but this is for the most part tremendous, winds up nice and concisely – CONCISELY, Deaf Havana – and even features a token white guy playing some kind of drum pad. Bravo!
Rocksucker says: Four Quails out of Five!
Passion Pit – “Take a Walk”
Song’s nice, video’s nice; here’s our review of parent album Gossamer. How lazy is that, right?
Rocksucker says: Three Quails out of Five!
Professor Green feat. Sierra Kusterbeck – “Avalon”
Okay, Rocksucker only listened to the first minute of this, but that was enough to hear Professor Numpty’s laughably anaemic vocals and the identikit chorus refrain apparently handled by a drunk 16-year-old girl who’s just been turned away at the door of a northern nightclub and is now giving the bouncer shit about it. This is so bad that it has caused untold damage to the galliforme community (Galliformia?)…it’s…
Rocksucker says: …A QUAIL MASSACRE!!!!
Look what you did, Professor Bean.
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About the Author
Jonny Abrams Editor of Rocksucker and the website's founder, Jonny is passionate about the music he listens to, both good and bad, as well as interviewing his favourite musicians.
