Flo Rida… Super talented
Singles: Maroon 5, Flo Rida, Stooshe, Spiritualized and some others!
Published on June 20th, 2012 | Jonny Abrams
Singles! Getchasingles! Threeferrapahnd!
2:54 – “Creeping”
Nice sort of Elastica-y slow-burner, driving, pulsing, minor-key intensity and all of that, passes by relatively uneventfully until the storming PJ Harvey chorus. The video certainly matches the song, all watery, wintry and meticulous, but it’s overall a bit too much on the subtle side of an overly familiar sound. Nevertheless…
Rocksucker says… Three and a Half Quails out of Five!
Flo Rida – “Whistle”
Remove Flo Rida from the equation completely and this suddenly becomes both a less rotten song and a really rather enjoyable video. This kind of thing requires absolutely no thought whatsoever, so who better to be at the fulcrum of it all than Flo Rida?
Rocksucker says: Half a Quail out of Five!
Maroon 5 – “Payphone”
A truly remarkable single insomuch as everything about it – absolutely everything – is utterly dreadful, from the jarringly squawky lead vocal to the polished boy band fluff of a backing track, while the Wiz Khalifa guest rap that begins “man, fuck that shit” – as if this song’s audience isn’t primarily comprised of 12-year-old girls – made Rocksucker burst out laughing when we first heard it. Even Maroon 5 themselves get in on the currently all-the-rage swearing-in-a-pop-song act with “All those fairy tales are full of shit / One more fucking love song, I’ll be sick”, tragically unable to see the implicit irony in this unintentional self-laceration. Oh, and the Michael Bay-esque action movie video is stupid too. One more Maroon 5 anything and we’ll be very fucking sick indeed.
Rocksucker says: Have a Dead Quail!
Oresteia – “Helen”
Brownie points for the bizarre, slapstick video, and even more for the Franz-Ferdinand-hallucinating-with-The-Zutons song itself, taken from the recent Rocksucker interviewees‘ debut EP Romancing the Damned. Worth checking these guys out, and indeed the rather splendid roster of their Southampton-based label Sotones. They should stop strangling each other and start patting each other on the back for a job well done.
Rocksucker says: Four Quails out of Five!
Purity Ring – “Belispeak”
Glitchy, vintage-synthed, pleasingly odd electro from Montreal – a sultry, hiccupping robot of a track, the very Welsh-named Megan James putting in a smooth and stylish vocal performances that merits forgiveness for its foray into autotune at the end. And after Maroon 5 it sounds like the bloody White Album.
Rocksucker says: Four Quails out of Five!
Spiritualized – “Little Girl”
In Rocksucker’s review of parent album Sweet Heart Sweet Light, we described “Little Girl” as “introducing an attractively restrained verse to a big old singalong chorus, in which the perspective-reinforcing lyrics “Here today and then we’re gone / Before we ride into the sun / Get it on” leads into the album’s most satisfying chord change. We liked it, basically.
Rocksucker says: Four Quails out of Five!
Stooshe – “Black Heart”
Amy Winehouse minus the talent and voice but plus the aliveness. And if you think that sentence was in bad taste, you should listen to this warble-a-thon. Don’t be fooled by the pleasant-enough Motown-lite backing track – the existence of Stooshe is of no benefit or consequence to anyone bar those who make money out of them.
The Fresh & Onlys – “Yes or No”
The very ‘now’ sound of this cut from the band’s forthcoming Long Slow Dance album might tug at the old cynic-strings at first, but this is good fuzzy fare with an agreeable absence of showiness and a way with a lyric. Could be worth keeping an eye on this bunch.
Rocksucker says: Three and a Half Quails out of Ten!
Wot Gorilla? – “Snow White”
“I am the opposite of you / Don’t try to make a connection” sing the Halifax maths-rockers on this cut from their penned-in-for-August-release album, and they sure go some way towards severing any kind of potential comparisons by sounding as if they’ve stitched about a dozen different song ideas together on this delightfully tangential number. One quail deducted for the lyric about being “dragged down”, though. We have to be super-vigilant if we’re going to stamp this sort of thing out.
Rocksucker says: Three Quails out of Five!
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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.
