Singles get neglected as Christmas takes its inevitable grip on all and sundry, with three minute snippets making way for three hour greatest hits packages. A few brave souls are desperate to get their songs in Woolworths before it’s too late though, and here is the pick of the bunch.
Cat Power – The Dark End of the Street
A cover discarded as not good enough for her second – yes, second – covers album, is an unlikely lead off Cat Power’s new EP, but NME gives it 8/10 for its “striking intuition and timeless sound”. Yahoo equals that mark, commending its aroma of an “afterhours whiskey in a dimly-lit dive bar”, while Rolling Stone calls it “a classic cheating song that epitomizes the simmering Seventies Southern soul”. This smoky, sultry song deserves 8/10 from me purely for daring to cover Aretha Franklin and coming away with dignity intact.
Alexandra Burke – Hallelujah
As we’re on covers, it’s only right to pick holes in X Factor winner Alexandra Burke’s number-one destined cover of Hallelujah. Of course, she is going to be more omnipresent than indigestion this Christmas, selling more records than Simon Cowell has sold grannies, and Digital Spy give her 6/10 for “the most listenable X Factor single yet”. MusicOMH bemoans it as “an overblown version” and Orange plain attacks it for undermining “the frailty of the track’s sentiment” and awards 4/10. It’s a passable rendition until the key change near the end, when it becomes more evil than the Grinch and steals a 5/10 overall.
Kings of Leon – Use Somebody
Finally, an original release in the form of Kings of Leon’s Use Somebody. Well, original in the loosest sense, as this is arena-by-numbers drabness. However, Yahoo gives 7/10 for the promise of it provoking “grown men to embrace in a strictly heterosexual manner”. Unreality TV says “possibly the best word for it is bland” and The Daily Star makes dreaded Coldplay and The Killers comparisons. Nevertheless, ThisIsFakeDIY offers 7/10 and affirms that it “settles just on the right side of cool”. It’s a lax effort from the Followills and only finds 6/10 here.
Snow Patrol – Crack The Shutters
Snow Patrol are used to being panned by the critics by now, but with Leona Lewis riding high in the charts with their song, Run, it’s a timely return for the affectionate fellows with Crack The Shutters. Orange sits on the fence with a 5/10 for it being “as inoffensively effective as anything they’ve done.” Digital Spy complains that “there’s something depressingly samey about their latest offering” and gives it 4/10, and the BBC claims “it should have opened up an epic, rather than the drudge that follows it”. Oh well, boys, maybe next Christmas higher than 4/10 awaits.
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