Single Of The Week
U.S. Girls : Pearly Gates
If ‘Pearly Gates’ arrived sometime in the mid-to-late ‘90s, it might have had a chance of being one of those alt-pop cuts that somehow climbed to the business end of the charts – or, a slightly boundary-pushing outing from an established popstar. Instead, it’s 2018, and the charts don’t really mean anything anymore. Well, they mean a lot less. ‘Pearly Gates’ is a smoky-cool, brilliantly executed jaunt. Iconoclastic and fantastic, on more than one level.
Alice Ivy ft Bertie Blackman : Chasing Stars
Granted this might be a hyperbolic benchmark, but the qualities of Alice Ivy’s earlier tracks had a flair for minute eccentricities, the kind which garnish Avalanches-like lushness with Aphex Twin-like daring. I can’t really sense that on ‘Chasing Stars’, a more straightforward pop sojourn. It’s well-served by Bertie Blackman’s lingering melodies, somewhat undone by the featherweight ‘chasing stars’ sentiment. An EDM build, mercifully, pays off with a flurry of brass, not bass.
Vance Joy : We’re Going Home
A platitude so generic it simultaneously feels like an ad for every reality show, insurance company, and airline that has ever existed. Vance Joy has achieved sync singularity. Syncularity.
Troye Sivan : My My My!
There have been a handful of top-line pop tracks in the past few years that sift in shades of the Jai Paul. ‘My My My!’ isn’t exactly derivative of the reclusive artist’s scant material, but it feels like a mainstream manifestation of that energy, forged with indelible pop radiance. Deserves to be a monster hit, with legs.
