This week, three major female pop artists from the UK launched their new singles. Paloma Faith premiered the video for the lead single of her new album, ‘Can’t Rely On You’, Lily Allen premiered the new single ‘Air Balloon’ and Pixie Lott released the video for ‘Nasty’, the first single for her new album. Let’s take a look at those three brand new songs!
Review: Paloma Faith – Can’t Rely On You
Paloma Faith announced the March release date of her new album last week, and Monday she dropped the new single and video ‘Can’t Rely On You’. From the first listen, it becomes apparent Faith took a whole new direction in her career. The song is less poppy, and more soulful, funky and edgy. At first, I was not convinced this would be the right style for her as I hoped for a beautiful pop song like ‘Picking Up The Pieces’, but the new single turns out to be a grower and Paloma’s raw vocal style fits the atmosphere of the song very well. It is not a surprise that ‘Can’t Rely On You’ is produced by Pharrell Williams, as the beat sounds quite similar to the production of his hit with Robin Thicke, ‘Blurred Lines’. The video is full of beautiful symbolism and metaphors. In the end we see Paloma left alone on the backseat of a driving car, she gets drowned in a bath with a white fluid and a group of women try to calm her down when she has a breakdown. It is all beautiful, but quite complex at the same time. “This is just the beginning”, Paloma says in Italian at the end. I am sure we will see quite some exciting stuff from Paloma in the next few months!
Review: Lily Allen – Air Balloon
Lily Allen announced to retire from music in 2009, but after the birth of two baby daughters the singer made a comeback at the end of last year. She released the singles ‘Hard Out Here’ and ‘Somewhere Only We Know’, a cover of the Keane song. Now it is time for the single ‘Air Balloon’. It basically has all the ingredients a successful Lily track needs. It is poppy, has a killer hook, an incredibly catchy chorus and of course some cheeky lyrics. At some points in the song she even sounds a bit like M.I.A.. It is definitely a good and contagious track that could do well in the charts, but it feels a bit Allen by the numbers. Lily recently stated that she thinks record labels are afraid of taking risks. “That’s quite frustrating as an artist, when it comes to picking singles, because they only ever want to go for the watered-down stuff”, Lily said to NME. Let’s hope we get to hear more of experimental Lily on her new record.
Review: Pixie Lott – Nasty
Pixie Lott released her most recent album Young Foolish Happy in 2011. She has been working on a new record for quite a while and she previewed the track ‘Heart Cry’ in December. Now it is time for the release of the first official single ‘Nasty’. This song was recorded previously by Christina Aguilera and Cee-Lo Green to appear on the soundtrack of the movie Burlesque. It did not make the final cut as the producers did not get the rights to use the James Brown sample. For Pixie’s version this is all set and her vocals work well on the seductive track. ‘Nasty’ is catchy, naughty and swings and it absolutely sounds like something that would have fitted perfectly on the Burlesque soundtrack. The video shows a flirty Pixie dancing in a club. It is not really Pixie’s best song to date, but she should be able to get at least a decent hit out of it.