Singled out
The Cure – ‘The Only One’
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He’s a man defiantly approaching his fifties with the same teased hair and smudged lipstick he’s sported for quarter of a century, so there’s no way Robert Smith’s going to give his music a radical overhaul. Still, he’s going for a fun gambit here: ‘The Only One’ is the first of four Cure singles to be released monthly in the run-up to a September album release. It’s a bit like that time The Wedding Present released a single a month for a whole year, only slightly lazier. The song features characteristic twangy bass, characteristic moany vocals and some less characteristic optimism – “It gets better every day,” whines Bob. Well, we’ll see.
Ashlee Simpson – ‘Outta My Head (Ay Ya Ya)’
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Jessica’s little sister has a new sound to go with her new nose. It’s a bit new-wave, it’s a bit synth-pop, it’s a bit Cyndi Lauper-meets-Gwen Stefani – in short, it’s a 2008 Timbaland production. With all this and a writing credit from flavour of the month Santogold, it’s clear that Ashlee is going for cool cachet and leaving the bland, manufactured stuff behind. While ‘Outta My Head’ isn’t brilliant, it’s at least catchy, with some wonderfully annoying vocal tics from the girl herself and a quirky enough production job to get it noticed. That whopping recording budget might just have paid off.
