James Blake - Radio Silence
★★★
"I can't believe that you don't want to see me," wails James Blake, just a tad forlornly, about 50 million time on this track from his The Colour in Everything album. Radio Silence is a gloomy elegy for a relationship that ended when Blake's lover left him abruptly and without explanation. The morose singer can't understand why the girl left him. I have a couple of theories.
Justin Timberlake - Can't Stop the Feeling
★★★
Long ago, pop superstars got to make preposterously lavish music videos with Hollywood budgets and production values. (Check out Guns N' Roses' November Rain, from 1992, on YouTube – that fiasco cost more than Irish Water.) Sadly, the industry no longer has that kind of scratch to throw around. So when Taylor Swift, Pharrell, or Justin Timberlake want to trump their star power, celebrity cameos are the currency they splurge. Can't Stop The Feeling features the dancing and standing-around talents of Gwen Stefani, Anna Kendrick and James Corden amongst others. (All concerned star in a forthcoming Dreamworks animated movie called Trolls.) It's an upbeat track, but I'm not sure it's quite as infectious as it thinks it is.
Kehlani - 24/7
★★★
"I don't know nobody," sings Kehlani Parrish, "who smiles at everybody 24/7." The 21-year- old was hospitalised in March in an apparent suicide attempt. Here, she returns with an admirably frank anthem about wellness and mental health. One might describe her as the Bressie of R&B.
The Burning Hell - Fuck The Government, I Love You
★★★★
Think love songs are dumb? Well, wait till you hear this one... Canadian songwriter Mathias Kom duets with clarinettist Ariel Sharrett on this quirky retelling of a couple's New Year's Eve courtship. For the record, the amateur poet inept at picking up simple social clues is the character I most readily identify with.
