Cheryl Cole admits she’s not exactly as good as Beyonce, public slow claps

June 5, 2012 in TV with 0 Comments

Bless Cheryl Cole. She performs with a dance routine and people accuse her of miming. She just stands still and sings and she’s cringe-worthily out of tune.

And it seems she herself is not oblivious.

The ‘Call My Name’ hitmaker is quoted by Music Rooms as saying she would love to perform with Beyonce, but wouldn’t dare try and compete with her vocally. She said:

“I would rap, maybe, and she could sing. I can’t hit those notes.”

…… OK, so she’s not exactly saying “LOL I’m a desperately average singer”, but you get the jist. Anyway this whole Beyonce business is irrelevant anyway because she can’t ever envisage herself giving her a cheeky ring.

“I’m too shy. I’m not like some artists who ring other artists outright and say ‘I want to work with you’. I would take a mild panic attack before dialling.”

The thing with Cheryl is she’s a ‘popstar’ in a very conventional, Waterman-era sense. She can just about (on a good day) hold a tune, but she’s a performer before she’s a singer, and you wouldn’t go to a gig of hers to hear her belt out the piano ballads just like you wouldn’t go to an Adele concert to see her do a 10ft swan dive into a high-energy dance routine. It’s different strokes for different folks, and you can really appreciate one of her performances if you compare her stint on The Voice to, say, Tulisa’s lifeless, stage-presence-free appearance on Britain’s Got Talent.

Arguably the reason popstars like Cheryl (i.e. those who are performers rather than singers) are dying out is because talent shows have made us value the vocal talent above the performance talent. That’s not a bad thing whatsoever, but it’s just ironic that Cheryl was a very large part of those talent shows becoming so successful for so long (not to mention that she was voted to fame on a talent show ten years ago). It’s a funny old industry…


But seriously, pet – mime next time:

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Trash Mash Friday: Beyonce vs Nicola Roberts – End Of My Drum

February 17, 2012 in Music with 0 Comments

Who knows if this going to catch on enough to become a weekly event, but let’s see – to mark the end of the week we have an exciting mash-up for your hearing pleasure.

This one is one we ‘knocked together’ yesterday, mixing Beyonce’s apparent next single ‘End Of Time’ with Nicola Roberts’ solo debut ‘Beat Of My Drum’ in a flawed, if valiantly-attempted mash-up.

We’re still getting the hang on this mixing shiznit so “bear with”.

Listen to ‘End Of My Drum’ below:

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Top 50 Singles of 2011: 40-31

December 19, 2011 in Music with 0 Comments

On Saturday the Trash Lounge Top 50 Singles of 2011 began, starting with Jennifer Lopez at No. 50 and wrapping up with Charlene Soraia at No. 41. Catch up in full here.

The list continues today with a handful more of the year’s finest pop hits, and if you have any issues to raise then remember the voting is still open on the readers’ poll – you decided the shortlist, and you’ll decide the winners.

So, here we go with Numbers 40-31…

40. Katy Perry – ‘Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)’
June, Peak #9
Katy continued to milk Teenage Dream for all it was worth in 2011, with a further three singles. Two of them appear in the TL Top 50, and here’s the first. With a video featuring cameos ranging from Glee’s Artie to Rebecca ACTUAL Black, ‘Last Friday Night’ was another effortlessly cool, bright and breezy slice of Perry Pop. Singing about the nights out we all enjoy (or rather, wish we all enjoyed), Katy writes another killer chorus and puts her own quirky quirkiness on it by chucking in a saxophone solo.

39. One Direction – ‘What Makes You Beautiful’
September, Peak #1
The band you know you should hate but you just can’t, One Direction propelled to No. 1 in September with this ‘Summer Nights’-esque tune written by Glee favourite Savan Kotecha. Does it cynically aim for the target audience knowing damn well it’ll make thousands of pounds from them? Yes. But is it hands-in-the-air sing-a-long-able anyway? Yes. The term ‘guilty pleasure’ often sounds ridiculously snobby, but in this case it couldn’t be more fitting.

38. Selena Gomez & The Scene – ‘Love You Like A Love Song’
July, Peak #58
The TL review of Selena Gomez “& The Scene”s latest album When The Sun Goes Down – their THIRD UK LP release in just over a year – was, in hindsight, a little too harsh. It didn’t set a new boundary for pop music as we know it, but it was a lot more of a slow-burner than it was given credit for, and ‘Love You Like A Love Song’ is a stellar example of a track that is, quietly and without anyone really noticing, rather brilliant. With fantastic production that makes the most of Gomez’s limited vocal ability, it’s “the band”s best single release so far.

37. Ed Sheeran – ‘Lego House’
October, Peak #5
Ed made an impressive début in 2011, and though he’s not quite as un-commercial as he sometimes gives the impression of wanting to be, his tunes are undeniably lovely. ‘The A Team’ and ‘You Need Me, I Don’t Need You’ may have been very different but equally very good, but it’s ‘Lego House’ that is his personal best so far. Simple, effective and heart-warming, it shows off the ever-growing talents of one of Britain’s most promising emerging artists.

36. Beyonce – ‘Love On Top’
December, Peak #22
The first half of Beyonce’s comeback album 4 was a massive let-down, but then, as if from nowhere, the second half was freakin’ brilliant. ‘Love On Top’ is the highlight, not least because it showed the happily married Lady B taking a break from singing laborious break-up songs and just being happy. With a deliciously uplifting FIVE key changes, it may not have set the charts up in flames, but it certainly deserved to.

35. Nicola Roberts – ‘Beat Of My Drum’
June, Peak #27
The baby of Girls Aloud took her Team Ginge mantra to the masses in 2011, as she launched her tepidly-received solo career. Commercially she may not have done anywhere near as good as Cheryl Cole, but by critics she was universally applauded. Sounding like a slightly maturer Daphne & Celeste single, ‘Beat Of My Drum’ got her off to a flying start, with a gloriously bonkers chorus and a bizarre-but-cool video to match. Let’s hope her record label look at the reviews rather than the sales figures, and let her make more tunes like this.

34. Lana Del Rey – ‘Video Games’
October, Peak #9
Bombarding the international One To Watch lists for 2012 is Lana Del Rey, an intriguing American songstress with a haunting vocal and a penchant for harps that only Florence Welch can really understand. ‘Video Games’ arrived in the Autumn with masses of critical acclaim, and with a slot on Jools Hollands’ show to get her off the ground, her status as an Officially Cool Maker Of Pop was secured. To everyone’s liking? No. But you’ve got to be at least a little bit curious as to what she’ll do next…

33. Calvin Harris – ‘Feels So Close’
August, Peak #2
Progressing his sound from the whacky space-out-pop of ‘I Get All The Girls’ etc, Calvin pulled off a corker with ‘Feels So Close’. Falling victim to the fanbase-heavy appeal of Olly Murs, this was a deserving No. 1 that may have been lyrically basic, but the sound of it spoke for itself. Good enough to make us forget that he occasionally comes across as an arrogant nob in the media, it was a good go-to for anyone who found Kelis hook-up ‘Bounce’ a little too weird.

32. Nicole Scherzinger – ‘Try With Me’
November, Peak #18
The X Factor performance may have been bizarrely all over the place considering it was just her, the music and a small platform, but The Scherzinator’s under-appreciated ‘Try With Me’ proved that, despite the naffness of ‘Right There’, she has a good ear for a properly good pop tune as well. Written and produced by the brilliant duo Nervo, this brilliant track started as a twinkly piano ballad before exploding into an all-out electropop floorfiller, without losing an ounce of its emotional resonance.

31. Rihanna feat. Calvin Harris – ‘We Found Love’
October, Peak #1
Ah, Rihanna. In case you’ve been living under a rock all year, she’s a relentlessly hard working popstar who’s developed a would-be-tiresome habit of bringing out a new single every 14 minutes. That’s “would-be” because, as ‘We Found Love’ shows, she still has the odd tendency to be amazing. Thanks to some more fantastic work from Calvin Harris, this chart-invader stayed at No. 1 for what felt like a thousand years, but never felt over-played. At least not to these ears.

Coming up in Nos. 30-21, two ladies who made impressive debuts in 2011, two very different bands, and one of our best-loved talent show winners. Find out who they are on Wednesday…

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Watch: Beyonce enlists Kelly Rowland and Solange for Party video

October 27, 2011 in Music with 0 Comments

Anybody worried that Beyonce would let a week go by without releasing another music video – DON’T PANIC.

‘Party’ is her third promo in as many weeks, and now tallies up as the sixth track from 4 to get a video.

It’s got Solange Knowles and Kelly Rowland in it, replaces Andre 3000′s rap with one from J. Cole, and is reassuringly not going to be released as an official single. It is, after all, quite bland.

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Watch: Who’s for ANOTHER new Beyonce video?

October 17, 2011 in Music with 0 Comments

Beyonce only debuted ‘Countdown’ last week but already we’re on to the next one. ‘Love On Top’ is the best song from 4 and it will be the next single in some territories. Plenty of costume changes to complement the plenty of key changes, and plenty of dancing to prove that pregnancy isn’t exactly slowing Lady B down.

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Beyonce heads back to the 50s in Countdown video – Preview

October 4, 2011 in Music with 0 Comments

A quick snippet of Beyonce’s ‘Countdown’ video shows the global phenomenon take heavy influence from 50s style.

The full version will debut online on Friday, with Adria Petty back on directing duty after doing a good job with ‘Sweet Dreams’ in 2009.

The song has a UK “impact date” of October 30th. Read the review of parent album 4 here.

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Beyoncé gets married in new video

July 8, 2011 in Music with 0 Comments

Beyonce has premiered the video to ‘Best Thing I Never Had’, in which she gets married and runs across a golf course. STYLE, ladies and gentleman.

‘Best Thing I Never Had’ is out now and is the second cut from her album ’4′.

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Album Review: Beyoncé – 4

June 27, 2011 in Music, Reviews with 4 Comments

Frankly, Beyoncé‘s career really needed the well-recieved Glastonbury set. Albums ‘Dangerously In Love’, ‘B Day’ and ‘I Am… Sasha Fierce’ may have collectively sold somewhere in the region of forty-nine bajillion-kazillion units worldwide, but album number 4 – uh, ’4′ – has been preceded by an ill-received lead single that has underperformed critically and commercially on both sides of the Atlantic. Sadly, the LP doesn’t sound like it houses enough tuneage to restore the momentum.

This overwhelmingly ballad-heavy collection was reportedly narrowed down from 72 (!) contenders; a fact which was probably intended to generate hype, but which instead makes us think that if these are the best 12 tracks, just how dull were the discarded 60?

OK, that’s a little harsh. ’4′ is not a bad album. In fact the second half shows flashes of Lady B at the very top of her game, with standout track ‘Love On Top’ making glorious use of not one, two or three but FOUR (count ‘em) key changes, and ‘End Of Time’ flaunting all the ingredients of an anthem-in-waiting. But at the front end of the disc, six of the first seven cuts are ballads of low- to mid-tempo, and it’ll take a considerably higher than average attention span to stay tuned through all of them. Current single ‘Best Thing I Never Had’ is perhaps the best, and opener ’1+1′ arguably the weakest; but the real dud is the one track in the opening cluster that’s not a ballad: ‘Party’ is a huge disappointment, with Kanye West desperately trying to pull off the word “swagu” and guest rapper Andre 3000 far from the top of his game.

And following all of that is ‘Run The World (Girls)’ itself, that opinion-splitting single intended to kickstart some kind of “revolution”, now reduced to the rear end of the set like a mere bonus track; an odd choice for the finale given that the rather affecting ‘I Was Here’ ties things up quite nicely in the Track 11 spot.

Will this disc sell as magnificently as those before it? Hard to predict. If the lukewarm success of the two singles is anything to go by, maybe not. But then, this is Beyoncé we’re talking about; and if her Glastonbury set is anything to go by, she’s still very much the woman with one of the most impressive sets of vocal chords in the industry. Still, ’4′ is a disappointment. That voice is in top shape, and the second half of the set is a riot; but far too many bland (dare we say ‘lazy’) inclusions make for a collection of songs that fail to match the potential of a worldwide superstar who can do much, much better.

That’s better, Beyonce

June 1, 2011 in Music with 0 Comments

Beyonce‘s ‘Run The World (Girls)’ is great value at a club but in terms of radio-friendly chart fodder it hasn’t really done its job at all. So here comes Single #2 from forthcoming album ’4′.


This one’s called ‘Best Thing I Never Had’, its an epic power ballad that sounds like it could be from one of the more recent Disney animations until you listen closely to the lyrics. “Sucks to be you right now”, indeed.

Beyoncé drops final ‘Run The World’ edit, video teaser, artwork

April 21, 2011 in Music with 0 Comments

As expected, the version of Beyoncé‘s ‘Run The World (Girls)’ that leaked earlier in the week was just an early demo, and today the final radio edit got its global première and release.

If it’s an anthem, it’s certainly going to be a grower. On first impressions ‘Run The World’ owes all its positive aspects to ‘Pon De Floor’, with B’s additions seeming to lack structure or direction. It doesn’t really go anywhere in its 3m57s, but that said; it took us a few listens to get used to ‘Single Ladies’ and now it’s a global anthem, so we’ll wait and see how it goes.

The ‘on air/on sale’ system has only really worked wonders for Jessie J’s ‘Price Tag’ so far. Lady GaGa’s ‘Born This Way’ and Britney’s ‘Hold It Against Me’ fared alright, but less can be said about the latter’s ‘Till The World Ends’ and Avril Lavigne’s ‘What The Hell’, which both failed to crack the Top 15. How will ‘Run The World (Girls)’ fare?

There’s also a bizarre video teaser, which we presume is either a peek at the ‘Run The World’ video or the start of the album’s marketing campaign. Either way, Mrs Jay-Z seems to be starting a ‘B Revolution’; and on the back of ‘I Am… Sasha Fierce’s 7 million global sales tally, we’re confident the woman means business.

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