Sound of the Overground: Here's hoping Ladyhawke storms the charts

With Ladyhawke due to release new album 'Anxiety' in the coming months, we have high hopes that she will take the NZ chart by storm. Photo / Richard Robinson

Opinion

Each week Duncan Greive performs some low grade analysis on the week’s New Zealand Singles Chart and reviews a few new release pop singles.

Flo Rida remains at number one. This is a bit of a worry. Last time he spent a whole month there, which was fine (even though early '08 was great time for ballady r'n'b - No Air, Bleeding Love and With You all at the same time), except that this time there's no dreadlocked robot voice lusting after "apple bottom jeans, boots with the fur - the furrr". So it's a lot less fun.

The big mover is Annah Mac's Girl in Stilettos, which is now officially a big shiny hit, sitting at number three just behind Snoop and Flo (surely no one calls him that).

While the lyrics are fairly trite, and the title is just awful, if you don't listen super hard it's pretty enjoyable. Plus she won Gore's Golden Guitar three times! Coming mere months after Ria's superb Over You it has me hoping that we might see a little spate of poppy r'n'b from our out-of-time isles. Not gonna happen, but dreams are free, right?

All the new release action is at the bottom of the chart. Pieter T has a slowie with an Always on My Mind (the rubbish Tiki Taane song, not the great Elvis/PSB's one) feel to it, only slicker. Guetta stole three minutes of Nicki Minaj's life and had her deliver a song which truly could have been anyone. It might not even be her. Maybe she just banked the cheque. I certainly hope so. LMFAO and Skrillex's entries are discussed above.

So still fairly action-free, but that'll change shortly, starting with Ladyhawke's Anxiety, out any second now. High hopes for that one.

RIANZ TOP 20 NEW ZEALAND SINGLES CHART
1 Flo Rida ft. Sia - Wild Ones
2 Snoop Dogg & Wiz Khalifa - Young, Wild and Free
3 Annah Mac - Girl in Stilettos
4 Coldplay - Paradise
5 Ed Sheeran - The A Team
6 David Guetta ft. Sia - Titanium
7 LMFAO - Sexy and I Know It
8 Six60 - Only To Be
9 Labrinth ft. Tinie Tempah - Earthquake
10 One Direction - What Makes You Beautiful
11 Pitbull ft. Chris Brown - International Love
12 Rihanna ft. Calvin Harris - We Found Love
13 Gotye ft. Kimbra - Somebody That I Used to Know
14 Christina Perri - A Thousand Years
15 Gym Class Heroes ft. Neon Hitch - Ass Back Home
16 Cher Lloyd ft. Mike Posner - With Ur Love
17 Kelly Clarkson - What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)
18 Timomatic - Set It Off
19 Avicii - Levels
20 Flo Rida - Good Feeling

SINGLE OF THE WEEK: SLEIGH BELLS - Comeback Kid
Volume rating: 8/11

This sounds like the kind of music they'd have imagined kids in the future listening to in 2012 in post-apocalyptic movies made in the early '80s. The soundtrack would've been done on the cheap by some Italian or East German guy, and would probably now be reissued by Soul Jazz or whatever and be some sort of cult classic. The fact that it is now 2012 doesn't diminish the fun of the first single from Sleigh Bells' second album one bit. It's a full-blown Sugababes vocal battling for space next to ultra-processed thrash guitars, like a cleaner Atari Teenage Riot. Can't argue with that.

SKRILLEX - Bangarang ft. Sirah
Volume rating: 5/11

It seems so strange that dubstep is now breaking charts. Skrillex has taken all those funny aggro sounds and placed them at a tempo which blends seamlessly with Pitbull, along with a few vocal samples. I guess it's a 2012 version of Fat Boy Slim, taking an element of what was once an underground (read: messageboard) thing and packaging it for the masses. I don't have a problem with it, but a lot of men will.

LMFAO - Sorry For Party Rocking
Volume rating: 7/11

Party Rocking is a great thing to be apologising for. But using my immense critical skills to decode hidden meanings and subtexts I detect a slight air of disingenuousness from LMFAO. As if they're not really sorry for party rocking at all, and are, in fact, rather proud of party rocking. It's a good dumb day-glo song, its irrational exuberance matched only by the surliness with which it's greeted by people who should know better. Lighten up, people. They said they're sorry!

SANTIGOLD - Big Mouth
Volume rating: 6/11

Big Mouth is all energy, mad drums and chanting, and contorted vocal samples - it's exhilarating in terms of its general approach. But there's the strong sense that it might not actually be a song. Classic old white dude line, I know, but I wouldn't worry except that on L.E.S. Artistes Santi showed that she is one of the best songwriters on the planet when she wants to be. Leave this stuff to MIA - it's good, but there's much more in you, kid.

*To submit or suggest a track for review email singles@volumemagazine.co.nz or tweet @duncangreive.

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