PICK OF THE WEEK
Pinkunoizu
Moped (Full Time Hobby)
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Feel as if all the new psychedelia, Tame Impala and the rest, is just recreating Syd Barrett's old trips? Then try this Danish-built monster, which sounds like a new dose freshly concocted in some eastern European basement. It veers in tone – with its wall of shuddering guitar noise, two small girls shouting and an old man learning the drums to Tomorrow Never Knows – between the club scene in a film about hard drugs and the climax of a Japanese horror. Exciting!
Lissie
Further Away (Romance Police) (Columbia)
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Now that everyone's finally admitting how great Fleetwood Mac were (three cheers for Haim, everybody), this should be lifetime-supply-of-cocaine huge. That's partly because it's a sleek portion of airbrushed soft rock, with perfectly brooding verses and properly anguished choruses, but mainly because Lissie sounds exactly like Stevie Nicks. Spooky!
Tinie Tempah Feat 2 Chainz
Trampoline (Parlophone)
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Nothing wrong with the production (by Major Lazer's Diplo), which sounds like it started as a challenge to find the stupidest noise he could build a No 1 single on and ended when he found a button marked Squeaky Rubber Ball. No, that's fine. The problem is Tinie, who's still all, like, "My girls is fancy", "My mansion is tidy" and "I'm high-end and you're high street". Coming from a Brit, it's like an obnoxious conversation at a golf club. Vulgar!
Public Service Broadcasting
Theme From PSB (Test Card)
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Now these cardiganed chaps are playing banjos and putting fruity-voiced prewar radio announcements over gently driving electronica, the so-called hipsters have a band to go with their arch military moustaches and ironic tweed plus-fours. It's like a steampunk Pump Up The Volume, though not quite as much fun as that sounds. Disappointing!
Miley Cyrus
We Can't Stop (RCA)
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Little Miley's all grown up, y'all. No more sweet country-pop ballads with wholesome messages for parents to buy; now it's all twerkin', Auto-Tunin' hater-calling over Rihanna-rippin', pristine production-line R&B pop. And just look at that video: Hannah Montana grinding her bottom, faux-lesbianing it up and generally writhing around in a way that must achey-break her daddy's heart. It's enough to make you feel sorry for him. Awful!
Noah And The Whale
Lifetime (Mercury)
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Teenage nostalgia is one of the keystones of great pop, so this chugalong is, theoretically, following a noble tradition. But singer Charlie Fink has been doing this so long he's like that drip with a Penguin Classic in his back pocket being ostentatiously heartbroken at student parties. Take it from one who knows, Chaz, it gets old fast. Oh, and David Byrne called and he wants the keyboard part from This Must Be The Place back. Jesus!
