It's the week before the big one--the week before the week before Christmas--traditionally the biggest week in music sales. It's a foregone conclusion what will be Christmas #1 this year, and it isn't pretty (I'll talk more about that later). Because of that, the next couple of weeks have a larger than usual dose of holiday cheese and fewer great singles by established artists. Much of what you would have expected to come out is being pushed to January--U2, Eric Prydz's return single, Siobhan Donaghy, Jojo, to name a few.
My pick for single of the week is "Littlest Things," the third offering from Lily Allen. Lily made a big splash last summer with "Smile," and kept it up with fall release "LDN." While most of her songs find her in maneater mode, "Littlest Things" instead has her reminiscing nostalgically about a past relationship. Although her usual ways are fun, it's a refreshing touch of tenderness.
Chris Cornell's Casino Royale Bond theme, "You Know My Name," looked a few weeks ago like it might not get a release, but it will arrive in stores next week. It's a shame this song a) was getting a bad rap and b) was omitted from the soundtrack, because it's a great song. It fits perfectly with the movie. Although I didn't care for it at first, after having seen the film (which is fantastic), it's really grown on me. This marks the sixth Bond theme in a row to be recorded by an American (or prediminantly American) artist, following Patti LaBelle ("License to Kill"), Tina Turner ("Goldeneye"), Sheryl Crow ("Tomorrow Never Dies"), Garbage ("The World is Not Enough"), and Madonna ("Die Another Day"). It's also the first theme since "All Time Love (From "Octopussy") to not use the film's title in the song.
Gwen Stefani returns with "Wind It Up," the first single from her second solo album, The Great Escape. I reviewed the album earlier this week, and was pleased to find that it was pretty good. This is one of the better tracks, and probably the best among the hip-hopish set of songs. Some people are turned off by The Sound of Music reference ("The Lonely Goatherd"), but I think it's fun. Strange move though to release this the week after the album. It could have had a shot at #1, but now I'd be surprised to see it in the top 5.
Finally there's Shakira, who despite having initially botched the release of Oral Fixation Vol. 2 with the lousy lead single "Don't Bother," was able to turn the project into a big success by re-releasing it with the ubiquitous hit "Hips Don't Lie." Rather than follow that up logically with another single though, the project has again languished for months until now. We finally get a third single: "Illegal," a lukewarm collaboration with Carlos Santana. It's okay, not as bad as "Don't Bother," but this certainly isn't going to set charts on fire like "Hips Don't Lie" did. Lily Allen (4/5), Chris Cornell (4/5), Gwen Stefani (4/5), Shakira (2.5/5).
So that's that for the quality stuff. There's still eight more singles to talk about. A couple of hip-hop tracks could find chart gold this week, particularly a new single from Eminem. "You Don't Know" is from Eminem Presents the Re-Up, which is sort of a new Eminem album--he appears on 8 of 23 tracks, with the rest coming from his buddies. "You Don't Know" doesn't interest me at all, and I've actually found myself liking some of Eminem's older stuff, particularly The Eminen Show-era releases. The other is Diddy's collaboration with Christina Aguilera, "Tell Me," which sounds overcooked, not as good as his Pussycat Doll Nicole Scherzinger collaboration.
Dance vixen Cascada offers a new single, an unnecessary dance remake of Savage Garden's "Truly Madly Deeply." Cascada previously turned awful "Everytime We Touch" into a massive hit in both the US, where pop charts usually avoid dance music, and the UK, where pop charts usually avoid bad dance music.
Then there's the Christmas releases. Cliff Richard still holds the UK record for the most #1 hits. Let's hope "21st Century Christmas" doesn't join that tally. Yikes. Crazy Frog returns with double A-side remakes of "Last Christmas" and "We Wish You a Merry Christmas." Peter Andre, usually washed-up muscle head pop singer who managed to re-release his early single "Mysterious Girl" in 2004 and send it to #1, has teamed up with model/singer/tabloid fodder Katie Price (aka Jordan) to record an album of remakes, including "A Whole New World." Finally, previous X Factor contender Andy Abraham teams up with Michael Underwood to bring us "December Brings Me Back to You," which is actually pretty decent--the only decent song of this lot for sure.
There are no significant album releases this week or next week or the week after that. So there!
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