TRACK OF THE WEEK
Justine Skye
Don’t Think About It
Justine Skye first came to prominence via Tumblr and regular holidays on yachts with Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid. For the zeitgeist-bingo full house, she also refers to herself as the Purple Unicorn. Thankfully, Skye has a habit of knocking out finger-click-friendly R&B mini-bangers such as this, an unhurried mid-tempo with more than a nod to 90s Aaliyah. The supple chorus is so nostalgia-inducing you’ll be reaching for the dungarees and headscarf combo in no time.
Lily Allen ft Giggs
Trigger Bang
Three years after 2014’s muddled comeback Sheezus, Twitter antagonist, disgruntled landlady and occasional singer Lily Allen returns to the melancholic pop that made her so intriguing. Featuring a light dusting of plinky plonk piano and Giggs’s slow-mo drawl, Trigger Bang sounds surprisingly jaunty considering its lyrics touch on the allure of class As, the downward spiral of addiction and – worst of all – missing Neighbours as a child.
Børns
I Don’t Want U Back
Garrett Borns, aka Børns, has crafted the perfect song for anyone who’s felt the warm huff of stagnant breath on their cheek at 7am while trying to wrestle a duvet from beneath an immovable loved one. In essence, I Don’t Want U Back is an expensive-sounding anthem for lone sleepers. “I sleep better than every night you were lying next to me,” Børns croons, likely starfishing alone on satin sheets.
White Town
Your Woman 1917
It’s 20 years since White Town’s Your Woman topped the UK chart, kickstarting a career that involved a No 57 follow-up and a song entitled The Function of the Orgasm. But White Town, AKA Jyoti Mishra, is finally back with Your Woman 1917, “a version that would have sounded pretty sweet 100 years ago”. It’s an intriguing pop time-travel idea, one I hope other one-hit wonders can replicate; imagine The Ketchup Song bashed out on a clavichord, or Frankee’s FURB reworked for the crumhorn.
Camila Cabello
Never Be The Same
The fifth-best member of Fifth Harmony left for solo stardom last year and things are going quite well so far, thanks. Recent single Havana spent five weeks at No 1 and this follow-up is precision-tooled for Spotify playlist domination: all slightly-too-slow-to-dance-to tempos, mumbled verses equating love with drug addiction and rampant Auto-Tune abuse. Admittedly the chorus is lovely, but delivered in a falsetto so out of Cabello’s comfort zone your ears refuse to tune into its frequencies.
