Christmas Clubcentric Confusion

The clubcentric Less SAD Mix of East 17’s Stay Another Day is a timely reminder that thousands of responsible citizens like to celebrate Christmas each year (and day of the week) by getting absolutely wasted. Such hedonistic tragedy is treated with traumatic sensitivity as the fluctuating heartbeat of the More SAD Mix mourns the binge drinkers and stray Hen Night Party goers of yesteryear, ‘booze heroes’ who bravely chose to choke on their own gargled vomit or a kebab they found in a bin; the epic crusade of clubbers determined to have a good time, even if they had to get arrested at least they gave it their best shot. So the original SAD Radio Mix proves to be the definitive version, an engulfing epic of endearing crestfallen emotion – 4 scallies pouring their DILF hearts out who could not have sounded more sincere if they were at a court hearing or on Trisha waiting for a DNA test result. Their disarmingly mature sense of confused loss builds to a gigantic level: echoing ghost-like backing vocals are like a soft sleigh of awe-struck tenderness, whilst tubular bells chime the new hope of next weeks dole money.

Less SAD Mix
SAD Radio Mix

More Sad Mix
Not So SAD Mix
Quietly SAD Mix
Even More SAD Mix
Even Sadder Mix

Bruised & Rouged Club Whores

Nearing the end of my December dissection, a disco blast from the past comes from the most unlikeliest of fierce club whores. En Vogue get crucial by cranking up the camp to RuPaul levels of pant-wetting excitement on their jittery trash-tastic interpretation of Jingle Bells that knows no distinction between tragic and fabulous. Hilariously, it is the closest the girls have ever came to recording Free Your Mind Part 2. Gutsy, glitzy gusto is their winning formula here, delivering a bruised-and-rouged rousing rendition that is like being bitch-slapped by Christmas upon impact, with all the adrenaline of shoplifting for presents, or Dannii Minogue sunbathing with no top. On the whole, the remaining tracks from their internet-only Christmas album - The Gift of Christmas - cannot compete, yet this disco diversion is not a previously unexplored avenue for the MILF's of commercial Rn'B. Their underrated single Riddle spawned a Miami-style remix package that an afro-sporting Gloria Estefan would have swam all the way back to Cuba to snatch. The rampantly addictive Jingle Bells proposes a gallant Hi-NRG offering that sounds a miraculous reinvention in more senses than one.

Jingle Bells (Euro Mix)
Jingle Bells (Rock Mix)
Jingle Bells (Instrumental)

Xmas Perversity

Siouxsie & The Banshees never quite managed to fulfill their obvious purpose of producing a Hi-NRG festive anthem to be continually blasted in Marks & Spencer whilst shoppers quew up to pay for their bras and brussel sprouts. Instead, The Last Beat of My Heart is a typically foreboding interlude that could spook a horse with its thick mist of glamour and "majestic, imperial" stagnation - when Siouxsie hushes a live Lallapalooza audience it is because she has a dying wish to share beyond just buying her fabulous albums. With haunting drums and seductive mystique, it alters the senses into an acute perception of what is and what might be around you: Siouxsie's perverse idea of Christmas might be a little alientating for some, yet her mirror-gazing antics are beguiling as ever.

The Last Beat of My Heart (Recorded Live at Lollapalooza 28 August 1991)

Cristina's Christmas Chainsaw Masacre

With 11 days to go, if you haven't already killed yourself, many recording artists seem to get off on pushing people over the edge. Cristina's delicious infliction comes in the form of her miserable Christmas classic Things Fall Apart. The track is a collision between rueful depression and a merry punk backing, cleaning up the carnage of last nights party as well as the obvious metaphor of abandonment from the wreckage and task at hand to clean it all up. Cristina's numb heartache rests itself on carved cheekbones outlined by a stylized tear. The stark yuletide wonder - her unforgettable gasp "it's Christmas" could be the final breath of a lung cancer victim - fills one's own lungs with hot lead, a realization of defeat or grim panic. This is seriously one to wrap up the presents to: if you're giving someone a chainsaw that is.

Things Fall Apart

Luscious, Loud & Clear

SWV 'give it up, turn it loose' on their funky seasonal jam Christmas Just Ain't Christmas (Without The One You Love), an anthemic ballad with a jaunty central melody. For these three, loneliness lurks in the dark shadows of the bright lights buzzing around them. The girls acquit themselves beautifully: expressing more than the notion of simply not getting any, the flowing verses unravel like dazzling spirals of melanholy melody. The slick bluesy production allows the girls to denote husky tones and glide into a glossy adult contemporary sound that fits them more comforatably than some of their sassier chart material. They have so much fun singing the smooth chorus that one starts to wonder if the title lyric is just an excuse to poke fun at their single friends whilst continuing to cash the royalties for Right Here. Sad songs give the season a sense of gravity - I love a good ballad at Christmas, and afterwards one feels all the better for it.

Christmas Just Ain't Christmas

Love's Extreme Torment

Phil Spector's 'Wall of Sound' brews a blizzard of Xmas pathos on Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), sung exhaustively by Darlene Love. She gets it perfect, knowing the thin line between utter agony and extreme torment. Her amazing vocal creates an unforgettable drama, indicating that the only way to get over something is to sing it out for the whole world to know. The song is an epic emotional detox; its urge to purge is an astonishing pop creation.

Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)

Listen carefully for Cher amongst the backing singers.

Pop Group Cheese Shame

Contrived and sickly as it may be, I could not be happier if I was gagging on artificial sweetner - I Love Christmas by the Fast Food Rockers is cute to the point of suffocation and could not be cheesier if the group members had a disgusting fetish for Dairy Lee. An aspartame rush from start to finish.

I Love Christmas

Litter-Bug Lolly

Lolly's unreleased Pucker Up You Big Jessy might not have made it passed demo stage, but her uncontrollable twee tearjerker Big Boys Don't Cry is the encouragement some of us 23 year olds still need from time to time - two nights ago for me coincidentally as I wept on my bedroom floor after screaming "fuck the Spice Girls, then!" to my Mother and sister downstairs. Life is not this complicated when I play my Lolly cd's. Lolly is a life-long babysitter for gays of all ages who refuse to grow up - anyone who has been to CC Blooms in Edinburgh will know how true this can be. Lolly dislocates her neck, snapping it to the fiesty beat of no-nonesense anthem All You Need To Know, the sprinkling chaos of a pick n' mix food-fight in Woolworths.

Big Boys Don't Cry (Christmas Mix)

All You Need To Know

Cooing Christmas Porpositions

After a deal to produce her own brand of ketchup, Diana Soss, fell through, Diana Ross had no other option but to 'go with thr fro' and release a sublime Christmas album, A Very Secial Season. Her soft whispering sigh is so often underrated with an unmatched ability to soar and land straight back down again - a knack that propelled a late bloom into the lucrative early 90s commercial market for furlorn power ballads. And no one in the world does cooing power ballads like Ms. Ross does. Note: if that last sentence was read without motioning a z-snap, do so now.

Her stop-gap holiday album presents itself as warm and tender interpretations of other peoples work - her fine voice does the usual quivering, skimming the surface as always in flighty rapture. On Winter Wonderland, refined and oh-so-lush, the big old lush herself opts to deliver a mischevious sense of drama: not everyone can match the perversity of Annie Lennox, but Ross never loses sight of her impeccable aesthetics. Her flirtatious excitement dwelling on the line "two hearts are thrillin" sound like the old timer is propositioning a young police officer arresting her for drink driving. Sleigh bells tip-toe on her highly-competent version of Wonderful Christmastime, where her voice has all the confidence and majesty of a swan in steady parallel flight above a frozen lake.

Sounding like her yoga session is being interrupted, she almost loses it on Happy Christmas (War Is Over). Her serenity comes under fire when her sincerity boils over into a heartwrenching pledge in order to avoid being upstaged by a childrens choir. It is a dramatic thrill for her to come so close to danger and come out the other side wig intact - she must have left the recording booth with more sweat beeding down her than one of her staff daring to make eye contact.

Most surprising is her poignant handling of the tear streamer Ave Maria, and never before has the diva sounded more statue-esque and convincingly humble since admitting to Oprah that in all her years she had learned: "absolutely nothing!"

Winter Wonderland
Wonderful Christmastime
Happy Christmas (War Is Over)
Ave Maria

Comments welcome.

Glistening Hallucination

Annie Lennox conjures images of being an Ice Queen dominatrix on the Eurythmics' cover of Winter Wonderland; her eyes glistening like frozen caldrins stirring Christmas chills. Annie's irony-infused delivery spurts electro-elegance (her slithering pronounciation of "season" is especially good) as the swirling introduction snowballs with synths and strings, as if observing an urgent transportation taking place, escaping iminent danger at the very last second.

Winter Wonderland

Hi-NRG Festive-Galore Gang Bang

Dancefloor whore Dannii has been rigorously pounded by lots of DJ's over the years - her controversial recording "hiatus" from 1998-2001 was three grim years well spent with a mattress sewn to her back instead of the usual sunlounder (that was always super-glued). Back in 1995 a contract-free Danoushka partook in a conscious-free, gallant hi-NRG festive-galore gang bang, The Gift of Christmas, in one of her finest rare mainstream decisions. A radio edit was mere deviation from the sordid antics of the Motiv8 hardcore momentum: Dannii was so exhausted she had to draft in the help of some of her favourite fuck buddies at the time to fill out the remaining verses - little did she know they would also drown her out on the chorus after she refused to stand up to sing the damn thing.

The Gift of Christmas (Motiv8 Simply Great Remix)
The Gift of Christmas (Radio Edit)
The Gift of Christmas (Not Loveland But Lapland Remix)
The Gift of Christmas (Matt Darey Gift Wrapped Remix)
The Gift of Christmas (Beatmasters Frankincense Making Sense Mix)
The Gift of Christmas (Wands Magic Mix)

Be grateful for these remixes: Dannii was passed around with the salt to get them.

Whimsical Delight

Kicking off a series of seasonal chestnuts, first up is Kate Bush and her enchanting Christmas reflection December Will Be Magic Again. The song may have failed to become a playlist hogger of the holidays, but has secured a place in the heart of many Bush fans. The 80s store a slew of forgotten top 40 hits, of which could confidently secure exposure that todays top 20s could probably only dream of. The almost minimilistic December Will Be Magic Again presents Kate's whimsy mistique and ornate arrangements, decorated as if looking at a Christmas tree in the dark - where closer inspection reveals an intensity that is far more interesting and personal.
December Will Be Magic Again

The kind of dirty that don't wash clean

Shampoo sound like what might have happened had the 2 ugly sisters beaten up and killed Cinderella well before Prince Charming came knocking - they would probably castrate him. Beyond their accessible and familiar hits Trouble and Delicious, the disco-spunk ejaculation of the Waitresses' I Know What Boys Like could not sound more innocent in comparison to their usual trash punk terror. Their unnervingly hardboiled ASBO-imminent image is matched by material such as the sadistic fury of the ferocious Bouffant Headbutt ("your fucking dead" could be shouted from any high rise, or check-out assistant in Glasgow), I Love Little Pussy squeals out jagged melodic kitsch, Top of The Pops and the guiter grin of Blisters & Bruises. All of which are sang in either unflinching deadpan or spat out like trying to get rid of a nasty aftertaste whilst screwing up their faces.

Elsewhere, a more accomplished rampage was achieved: the camp lipstick smear of Viva La Megababes is more polished; the glossy Don't Call Me Babe could be the spoilt surly daughter of Cristina's Don't Mutilate My Mink ("cameras watching whilst we go shopping" bitch-slaps Britney's dead-eyed "cameras flashing while we're dirty dancing" - I can just picture them strutting out of New Look with half a dozen bras stuffed down their tights without batting an eyelid); and the remorceless grandeur of Girl Power suggests they probably developed a death wish for the Spice Girls after their early mantra was stolen.

Shampoo were anything but skanks, despite their tipex-sniffing appearance, their fiery outbursts and deadly pursuit of cruel gratification was simply way ahead of its time.

I Know What Boys Like
Bouffant Headbutt
I Love Little Pussy
Blisters & Bruises
Top of The Pops
House of Love
Don't Call Me Babe
Viva La Megababes
Girl Power

Edit: songs to be uploaded tomorrow or tonight!

Comments welcome.

Shola Snorts the Shameful Sherbet

The tirelessly exciting term "British soul diva" can sometimes mean literally any overconfident fat woman with a microphone. These proud ladies are vulnerable to all sorts of problems, "issues" and addictions. Ex-druggy Miss Shola Ama is fat as it happens but her thin-yet-husky tones are free of such chaffing neck-snapping insincerity, adding a surprisingly vampish layer, and are smoother than Dannii Minogue's forehead reacting to her chart positions or Colin Farrell's knob. Speaking of "breakfast, lunch and dinner" remarks made by an Irish actor whilst eating out some lucky slag, shortly before Shola started snorting the shameful sherbet, she released one of the finest cover versions from any fuller-figured UK soul diva in the month of February 1998 with Noel Coward's enduring classic Someday I'll Snort You. In a striking video clip that could only fit the top size of her body, Shola thoughtlessly ripped off BraveKylie's brave idea to pay tribute to Rita Hayworth's lurid "hall of mirrors" scene from her 1948 film noir The Lady From Shanghai almost a whole decade before Kylie could get around to it herself after surviving cancer. With so many mirrors, rather than wishing herself thin Sho was probably innocently looking for a clean surface to hoover up her stash. Her stunning "clean" vocal conveys tender tragic beauty that puts the Daily Express newspaper's Madeline coverage to utter shame. Her UK urban "oh yeah" ad libs are contrite and foolish, but, as in all the best torch songs, the orchestral backing sweeps one up into enjoyable feelings of half-hearted fantasy attention-seeking "what if I" suicide threats that are positively life-affirming.


Someday I'll Find You

Vitamin C Warms Up Her Engine

Pop fox Vitamin C has been commercially quiet since her More album criminally sunk without a trace. Promises were made regarding two 2007 albums, yet not all pop pioneers have the same energy levels as Diva Incarnate favourite Dannii Minogue. 2 new tracks were momentarily put up on a dubious myspace account, yet disappeared into mythical status. Until now...

The trigger that fires the promisingly eager Learning To Love The Enemy could well be her fully-loaded catapult back into the pop arena: clearly still in demo stage, her prowess is exhibited with her deft knack for producing biterweet cravings.

On the soft Smash It Up she is simply warming up, smoothing over old wounds with touching determination. C sounds a little overcome, but sweetly promises her trademark lyrical mayhem with sentiment alone. It's rather gorgeous, her velvety vocal on the line "with lies we fight with truth" lingers like it has been written in the sky.

I would imagine both have been written soley by herself and her husband Michael Kotch: a new album would most certainly attract collaborators to supersede previous triumphs; these being what they are, demos to attract a deal of sorts.

Learning To Love The Enemy

Smash It Up

Comments appreciated.

Dannii's Phat Daddy Cash-Flow

Dannii-Roadkill continues to strike with low-profile grooves (Blame It On The Music), dedications to her phat daddy cash-flow (Spend Your Love On Me), disco-lounge blow-outs (No Romeo), hardcore throbbings (Hurt In Love), and rock-ballad thuds (It Won't Work Out - Ross Cullum Single Mix)

No Romeo

Come On, Catch Up!

Fans of Dannii (population; you!) might be salivating to know Keep Up With The Good Times has finally arrived, and it is all thanks to my very own bitchy probing:

"Well i believe Cher has lost a few wigs along the way - but i have to clear up the rumour that i ripped it off her - this is categorically NOT TRUE!
i hope no old songs that never made the Girl album ever surface - tracks that don't make and album, don't make it for a reason!
Dannii Disco Is A Rolling Stone - moving forward - come on, catch up....
kisses and hair products
dx"

Whatev - ask any stripper worth her boob jobs, Dannii delivers and as expected, the track is a succelent dive into Hi-NRG heaven ("you ain't ever gonna break the GIRL" indeed):

Keep Up With The Good Times
Keep Up With The Good Times (Xeonomania 12" Mix)

Doo-Wop Dana Danger-Muff

Dana 'danger-muff' International has had her knockers, even paying for the privilege, so it is only fair I finally went and paid for some tracks: The Love Story of Chas Chalila being my reward for such legitimacy. Taken from the manic opus Maganona, both versions are sublime uplifting dreamy euro phlegmers ("frothed from the heart" she groans). Dana doo-wops merrily on what shall hopefully encourage her to finally make a Christmas album; otherwise I simply want what she's having.

Love Story of Chas Chalila - Sipur Ahavatam Shel Chas Vechalila
Love Story of Chas Chalila - Sipur Ahavatam Shel Chas Vechalila (Alternate Version)

Siouxsie's Throaty Delirium

Fragments of crystal expensively splinter into extravagant air as Siouxsie Sioux is festooned and garlanded, in the flouncy tradition of a 1950s movie starlet embracing her tragic climax in wanton delight by "carving the devotion" of Hollywood mythology obsessed with dying young, on her most decorative and alive single ever, Kiss Them For Me. Sioux embellishes her ornate lyrics as if they are written in diamonds, enrapturing her audience with the sheer magnetism of her cut-glass voice. The lead-off single from 1991s career high Superstition engages in visual themes of Champaign and pin-up frivolity with a cascade of decorative words that reconcile with the sharp Stephen Hague production that so famously turned the stomach of punk icon Siouxsie. Her alluring enigma hides the wounds behind the death of celluloid star Jayne Mansfield as the actresses' catch-word "divoon" is given a final definition that refuses to shatter, her death merely a marvelous "delay".


Elsewhere: the warm summer air of Shadowtime shimmers like a midnight moon being combed by moving clouds; the exacting Silly Thing extracts excess with deadly pursuit from Siouxsie's throaty delirium; her final bow, The Ghost In You, persecutes with tenderness ("the whisper of your scream sighs through the air ... so soft and frail"); the chorus to Silver Waterfalls positively describes itself (the sublime "ahhhh" as she gears up to sing "glimmer, shimmer - on me" is flaunted mercilessly like an operatic flick of a whip); unleashing the uproaring Got To Get Up's high impact intensity activates her impressive vocal range into an avalanche of awakened intuition; the tearful tirade of Cry disperses tooth-pic precision on the alternative dancefloor; the Jr. Vasquez revision of Fear (of The Unknown) for its French single release sounds like Grace Jones produced by Deee-Lite!; Softly quivers like Dannii Minogue entering a strip joint; and going spare, the magical atmosphere of the sustained-tempo ballad Return rose to the surface as a highly essential B-side to Kiss Them For Me.


As always, Siouxsie is aware of every moment of what she is doing and everything here is touched with her unique personal magic.

Kiss Them For Me (Album Version)
Kiss Them For Me (Kathak Mix)
Fear of The Unknown (Album Version)
Fear of The Unknown (Jr. Vasquez Single Edit)
Cry
Shadowtime (Album Version)
Silly Thing
Got To get Up
Silver Waterfalls
The Ghost In You
Return
Face To Face

Note: I promise to upload the final songs on this list at some point!

Kisses & Hairproducts

On her new single, Sunny D updates her dancemoves to just lying there, as her radioactive glamour septically spreads further than the gaps between her (teeth) previous 3 singles. Continuing So Under Pressure's alert theme of writhing on her back, Minogue of the D-Cup lights herself on screen like glorified bait dangling for takers. A typsy Dannii famously enjoyed my accusation that she tore the staples from Cher's tender scalp in order to steal a wig in an outrageously sincere respite, which orgasmed with the scathing sign-off "kisses and hair products."

Howev, now it appears she has only gone and nabbed one belonging to Joan Collins (after drugging husband Percy, defenceless Joanie begged Dannii to take her QVC jewellery instead before finally letting go of her now-ravaged wig). How fitting then that the video to Flick Me Like That should resemble the dingy decafence of the discoteca's featured in Ms. Collins' best flicks to date: The Bitch and The Stud. Embracing a seminiferous pounding from Jason Nevins, as well as combing out that wig, clearly takes it out of our Dannii - she has no energy left to move!

Perhaps finally putting the electro come-on of Neon Nights to rest, her marvelously rigid body language may appear to reject the tracks immensity; achieving a curious lifelessness, animation is sacrificed as she studiously soaks up the intense buzz of four gay-for-pay lesbians dyke-dancing their dirtiest until Dannii delivers her verdict as to who is sharing a cubicle with her ("I love a girl who can move" squeals Dannii here) before she finally can't take anymore and simply collapses.

I can't wait to write my reviews for the deluxe editions of Girl and Neon Nights (both released 5 November in the UK); the Xeonomania track Keep Up With The Gays that she hissed was unreleased "for a reason" has been given a kinder consideration amongst others. Dannii's most likely booked herself a drip machine to cope with such an unprecedented level of activity - the rarities set Unleashed, online-only album Club MILF and D.V.D all drop on the same day - and who can blame her?


Enjoy these remixes that capture the sumptuous attitude of a physically depleted Dannii floppeded on a sun-lounger face-first in her own vomit:

All I Wanna Do (Tiny Tim & The Mekon Dream Dub)
Heaven Can Wait (Trouser Enthusiasts Cloud 9 Mix)
Everything I Wanted (Trouser Enthusiasts Golden Delicious Mix)

"Culture, alienation, boredom and despair"

Until I got back into Madonna, the Manic Street Preachers were my biggest musical obsession when I was 13 (fuck me with a chainsaw, that was 10 years ago!). All the angst I was consumed with seemed to desperately need their pompous vitriol, altercation and alienated vanity. Motorcycle Emptiness remains without perimeters in its awe-struck sense of ennui, whilst the hard-boiled and sexually-free Traci Lords finds the time without a cock in her mouth to sing beautifully on the hopeless, gospel-tinged ballad Little Baby Nothing - her bittersweet vocals are soaked with KY and grappling nasal sadness. Like a pro, she hangs on in there more than competently, and the lines she is given to sing - including "used, used, used by men" and "we are the useless sluts that they mould" - are pop trash par excellence.


The video also marks the screen debut of music legends Shampoo.

Little Baby Nothing

Motorcyle Emptiness

I promise my next post shall include a vagina and a disco beat.

Niki Harris

On her Do You See The Light guest vocal for Snap! moment in the faceless dance track spotlight, Niki Harris's head was so far up Madonna's colonically-cleaned arse all she could see was darkness - quite who she was talking to is anyone's guess, but a terrified African orphan who couldn't speak English probably was not the best person to ask. "I'm gonn' tell the work about this love" blackmails Madge for more pay, or else takes hanger-on earstwhile backing singer sisterhood solidarity to new levels. The 2002 trance-tastic re-release, credited to Snap! Vs Plaything, deposits a welcome update of an originally unremarkable moderate hit. These days Harris stays as far away from Madonna's arse as possible, but has been known to occaisionally "freak out" if smokers on the street stop to ask for a light.

Do You See The Light (Radio Edit)
Do You See The Light (Extended Version)
Do You See The Light (Steve Murano Edit)

All smiles (L-R): Donna DeLory, Madge, Niki; HRH soon got them chucked out for being "fat".

O Misery, O Hate, O Meara

Racist pop cist Jo 'O' Meara gets on the defensive with her anthem Let's Love (Caucasian Dance Mix), which is almost as fun as her tearful dedication to big 'O' dicks What Hurts The Most. Her shimmering souvenirs of regret can't remedy her exhile, but Gays who don't care will no doubt dance along and sniff nitrate to the soundtrack of someone else's insincere misery quite happily until a much better song gets played such as Geri Halliwell's Scream If You Wanna See My Ginger Beaver. I can't possibly comment on the rumors that I once had no option but to watch Jo's music video under the covers because of the Tiga-esque bit of rough, but I will confirm I had a big 'O' wank about him instead.

Let's Love (Metro Remix)

Torch Ballad Boulversement

Cherilyn Sarkisian LaPierre's last truly spellbinding recording, surpassing both non-Believers and record buyers alike, was her breathtaking foray into furlorn drum n' bass speed ballads. Nana Cher's bulldozer vocals croon buoyantly as ever, yet You Take It All connects her amiable passion with a tender lyric that says everything we ever could and is the most emotionally exposed she has ever been since slapping Winona Ryder and calling her the "town tramp" in 1991s pre-MILF movie vehicle Mermaids.

A careful gelid glimmer soon flickers into a gust of pathos, and after the monumental middle 8 there could not have been a dry-eyed Gay in sight, so succinctly encapsulating, perhaps, her unlikely journey shared with deceased former husband Sonny Bono. The wounded significance of her loss is palpable and almost impossible to bear, yet Cher is a sturdy old broad and can yield deep feeling just as easily as an attitude of durable cosmetic surgery or else a revolving platform of toy boys.

Her seemingly underdeveloped faculty for emotionally disadvantaged ballads that put the stabilizers on such breakdowns notwithstanding (there are so many), this new-found 'noughties' niche continued with her last public recording to date, Human, a blizzard of frailty if ever there was one. Pre-existing both, the after-hours torch song abandonment of When The Love Is Gone dates from 1982s criminally underrated I Paralyze, which I shall whisper is actually my favorite Cher album. Now at the end of her "someone's got to pay for the dancing fairies" frolicking, these ballads both show a welcome overturning.

You Take It All

Human

When The Love Is Gone

Reckless Inflammation

The rampant electro swagger of Faster Kill Pussycat finds an unexpected scion with Taxi Dolls' reckless erruption Waiting, a song also not dissimilar from Stereostars' Utopia and Flash Dance by Deep Dish. Inspiriting established dance classics undersells the remix achievements of the group: the Josh Harris radio edit is more infectious than having unprotected sex with the locals in Kenya; and singer Dhana's glossy, curdling ad libs are sung so feverishly as if sinking her nails in to scratch a nasty, oozing itch she "attained" at the weekend. Meanwhile, the inescapable inflammation of the chorus flushes out her lively passage of movement - "and the waiting is gone" she reckons.

Waiting (Josh Harris Radio Edit)

Don't Bogart The Scalpel

Dana "don't Bogart the scalpel" International stoically revisits the storage facility incarcerating her locked away severed penis (now shriveled up in a beetroot jar) one last time before selling it on eBay and delivering another soft one by engaging in her most poised and pounding surgical Hi-NRG fury to date. Bequeathing her unique waspish showcase of collected pathos, colossal triumph and colonic agony, the vitric vocals (often coughing up storms of in-your-face phlegm) convey chemical warfare or else the sudden climax of a no-going-back bittersweet celebration that only a post-op pop star tranny could ever convincingly comprehend without just saying so. Her imperial facade masks the blistering horror of unthinkable surgical procedures not even Joan Rivers would sign her daughter Melissa up for as a surprise the night before Oscars, yet the 2001 single Lola, as a recurring tanoid announcement from a French supermarket, assumes one of the artists finest and most fatal incisions since saying goodbye to the little general. A panic purge of painkillers pouring down the pan pulsates her laser sharp adroit disco.

The remix of 2007s Hakol Ze Letova (Everything Is For The Best) is less tranquil than the original ballads' cumulative plaintive gust yet perfectly preens newcomers for her faaaaaaaaaabulous new album, of which has so far spurted three highly-rated singles: the serene sheen of Hakol Ze Letova (here given a mild dance infection); her cut-off cock-teaser Love Boy (complete with male prostitutes in the video); and At Machuna is infinitely more fierce than Rihanna's empty tank Shut Up & Drive.

The piano-galloping Betula sweeps itself up in a warm current that could be K-Klass in their 90s prime, whilst the 'Ethnic Virgin' option offers the diva more wings than her old catalogue of designer vaginas.

Lola

Hakol Ze Letova (Amir Afargan Remix)

Love Boy
Love Boy (Zigo Eli Remix)

Betula
Betula (Ethnic Virgin Remix)

Giddy Dannii's Diddy Ride

With a squidgy bassline like chaffing PVC, Sunny D is back raping the ears with another party jam set to fast-track the process of picking up sexual partners in a club of any gender - "I wanna feel you ... in my arms" keeps tabloid newspapers, not to mention her love blender, in quivering suspense. Loose Dannii-can declares an emergency bill, such liberal economic legislation for slithering on top of ready-made dance tracks has never sounded so shamelessly natural. It's a big swirl from start to finish, as if being daisy chained by an African tribe whilst singing Hakuna Matata - giddy Dannii's diddy ride is a guaranteed top 20 smash.

Touch Me Like That
Party Jam

Hardcore Giddy Pop Bites Delight

Whatever Janet does to pass the time when there is nothing on TV or no new hardcore bisexual porn to download is anyones guess, but revving herself up with valium seems to have produced her 2004 lead-off single Just A Little While, yet another giddy pop bite sticking her tongue into such lines as "you know how much I love to do it" which just happens to fall flat on the floor like a hot potato, but let's not give the nympho anymore ideas. The far more appealing Peter Rauhofer Radio Edit spikes her feel-good nonesense with darker suggestions. Closer attention is payed to her sexually obsessed tid bits, which reveals a more lingering interest behind her dead-eyed lack of conviction.

Just A Little While (UK Radio Edit)
Just A Little While (Peter Rauhofer Radio Edit)

Glamorama

"Dear Plebs, it's Sophie Ellis-Bextor here!

Let's be kissy right off, I love being glamorous. It's just so fucking glamourous. When people think of 'Sexy Bexy' (that's what my local builders call me as I flash them through the window of my moving Citreon Saxo) - my expensive budget videos, the exotic studio locations, glamorous hair, glamorous make-up - they probably imagine I writhe in glamorous agony in my double bed all day, wearing one of my one-in-every-colour Monsoon dressing gowns whilst sipping Tesco's 'healthy option' hot chocolate, in a mug! I just think to myself whilst tilting my head at one of those akward angles I dislocate my jaw to create "why shatter the illusion Soph?"

Now I said I would write about my lifestyle here, so here goes. My darling husband is in a daring MOR indie band fronted by a fruit called The Feeling and I just love those filthy little indie boys, they are so delish and grimy. I adore a bit of rough. Like every posh English girl does I suppose. I also promised I would share some of my beloved beauty secrets - even though my crows feet look like someone has been at my face with a garden rake I do know a thing or two about kidding myself you know!

Number 1) A girl must always be glamorous in order to be glamorous, 8 days a week if she has to. When I run out of nail varnish I use my son's felt tip pens for a quick and easy application - yesterday I had yellow, blue, green and one nail that was just a bit minging from an infection I caught whilst rummaging through my neighbours bins for some vintage dresses I sometimes find to wear in my music videos, that is until I go to the shops and actually buy some fucking nail varnish of course.

Number 2) Never poo. Being glamorous has nothing to do with pushing anything out - in fact, I go under the knife to have my posh poo removed by posh doctors who wear gloves whilst operating. After I stop screaming, it is so easy for me to cease my faeces, and after Murder became a massive #2 single I knew I could never top it. Just yesterday, again, I was delighted to dislodge a comment that my song If I Can't Dance was a "great big pile of poo" from my very own messageboard - maybe they simply saw the room I get operated on. My fans like to keep track of my movement, in more ways than one.

Right I must be off, I seem to have sat on a Galaxy Ripple that has melted. It sure doesn't smell like Galaxy though..

Pah, mwah and blah,

Sophie Ellis B. xxxxxxx"

If I Can't Dance
Murder On The Dancefloor
If You Go

Verging On The Obscene

The breathtaking and exquisite union between Marie Fredriksson's succulently soulful yet punky vocals and the ready-to-burst songwriting/production voltage from Per Gessle is a thing of unmatched melting beauty and splendour. Roxette's deft knack for a hypnotic and heartwelting ballad or punchy duck-for-cover pop meteorite has sustained an unparalleled, undiminished 20 year career that has been nothing if not consistent. Such robust versatility became clear circa 1999 witrh their "comeback" album of sorts Have A Nice Day - a sure-fire return to form. "It's hard to tell his gender" was an obscene observation suggesting the Scandinavian pair hunt in pairs for gender-specific sexual partners. Marie's agonising dance diva capabilities were effortlessly flaunted to jaw-dropping effect with the luminous and galacial storm Stars - an unflinchingly committed performance so dazzling, daring and dramatic it is impossible not to imagine her belting this one out from an icicle fortress full of kidnapped children forced to sing along on the album version. The Almighty Radio Edit is the post-0800 call to child services and elevates the song into an unequivocal dance anthem. The Todd Terry Tee's Radio Mix of the first single I WIsh I Could Fly follows the haunting lead of Fredriksson's sublime sigh. Taking the bait, it decorates her poised and commanding vocal, cushioning it with chic, sharp and sleek house beats whilst keeping the original's overlapping strings that already fold over you in deadly seduction. This remix fades not quite abruptly, rather it bows out gracefully before one last vocal delectation finally vanishes with all trace.

Wish I Could Fly (Tees Radio Mix)
Wish I Could Fly (Radio - Fade Out Mix)
Wish I Could Fly (StoneBridge Club Mix)

Stars (Album Edit)
Stars (Almighty Radio Edit)

Dilluted and Dumbed Down

Engagingly trite conspiracy theory lyrics aside, Bis were very capable of bristling electro gems. Dead Wrestlers is one of their finest examples, second only to their most memorable top 40 hit Eurodisco - the brat gimmick is utilised more effectively than on earlier tracks and becomes more appealing with every listen. The gloriously arrogant line "your politics are pantomine" is a misplaced casual quip that was their stock, with the dual vocal dynamic succeeding to brag in spite of an obvious regret. It is a pity the initial attention granted to this Glaswegian outfit had all but faded by the time they were producing considerably better material such as this, which was not even on an album - their loyal fanbase did not miss out, but mainstream success clearly was not on the agenda.

Dead Wrestlers

C'mon Burst That Juice All Over Me

90s Euro duo Diva were what Shampoo might have sounded like if produced by Not Over Yet helmers Grace - a manic rave swirls and throbs into a ferocious fervor like unwanted mouthwash to be spat out by Traci Lords hurriedly trying to get a salty taste out of her mouth before her next scene. As they are moaning the lyrics of a-ha one can only imagine the girls actually having a pot mouth each to boot - a pervading tone of autotune is only broken by their not expected rap demmanding a shared lover/stranger to "come on burst that juice all over me" which takes the girls to new heights of 90s faceless group-shagging delirium (I guess a facial does wonders for the complexion afterall). In less sticky hands the load-spurting track could have turned into quivering nonsense as if hysterically trying to find kleenex to clean up the mess.

However, these 2 girls devote serious and sustained effort: their moist, plaintive and robotic vocals - which are no doubt hindered by proudly owning bee-stung lips that also add a cheerful melodrama by interfering with the already strained delivery - and alarming Pete-Burns-fisted-by-Christina-Aguilera resemblance round out a super fierce slut image far too hard boiled to play coy. The videos' theme of doing sexy things with their down-turned eyes conveys a ditached pathos complete with chimes reminiscent of the Real McCoy; belonging to the same era gives the track a special sharp authenticity providing nostalgic goosebumps at the hammering chorus. If you can imagine the girls of the playboy mansion having hoovered up a full bin of crack each then you are probably half way there - and if deep throat was a passage for musical expression of excessive distress, Diva would pout proudly at the pinnacle.

The Sun Always Shines On TV (Radio Edit)
The Sun Always Shines On TV (Original Version)
The Sun Always Shines On TV (Volcano Club Edit)
The Sun Always Shines On TV (Perfecto Mix)
The Sun Always Shines On TV (Sunshine Mix)
The Sun Always Shines On TV (Sexy Disco Dub)

Watch the video here.

Pre-Botox Wilderness Bliss

Back in the summer of 1997 Kylie came back into my life in a big way - this was a sweltering summer that sipped the sickly remnants of Gina G, introduced Gala's inferno and No Doubt, gave bible bitches Eternal their only UK #1, where Vanilla exposed themselves, and held its breath whilst the Spice Girls filmed their movie and recorded a second album, leaving fans to count the days as well as Pepsi Max cans. Kylie was partly out of sync with an invogorating pop boom of this time, but I did also momentarily believe Don't Speak was actually Minogue herself. Instead the lazy guitar slice Some Kind of Bliss became an obsession, Kylie's most unassuming and life-affirming track to date - the press could not swallow this and seriously went overboard harking on about 'Indie Kylie' which never really existed, and her belated Manic Street Preachers collab could only stab through to #22. Did It Again by her fair hands of design did better, #14, signalling an artist not content with just playing along. The Deconstruction days produced 6 very individual, elegant and accomplished singles that provide a legacy far stronger than much of what has came since it must be said. Here are some live files very kindly sent to me, which I thought I would share such is their overall nice-ness!

Some Kind of Bliss (Mark & Lard 1997)
Did It Again (Mark & Lard 1997)
Put Yourself In My Place (Simon Mayo 1995)
If You Don't Love Me (Simon Mayo 1995)

Bump & Grind From Behind

Michelle Gayle is her name and intimate mid-tempo Rn'B love grooves are her no-nonesense game. It is time for some serious straight-talkin' morning TV chatshow style neck-snapping, finger-waving fits of self-proclaimation, chair-throwing and step-father disowning showdowns - our Chelle's just not having any of it, not today! The funky opener Get Off My Back is a seductively malevolent jam with a delicious shadow of biting sharpness - its epeleptic scream-fest "my hommies know MEEE!" would make even Mel B Blush. Happy Just To Be With You was her Chic-shinning glory - her streetwise savviness to sample Good Times for the single release was a career high, but the album version here compliments her clear vision despite hitting the party more sober. After an initial heavy flow of sterile ballads, the record is solid enough and passes through with pride during the stronger second half where more jucier material settles. Excelling with pleasant,, faintly upbeat numbers, her true calling was quite obviously the poppier productions. 13 years on and Sweetness loses none of its undeniable giddy charm as one of the most luscious, brightest, nose-scrunchiest pop songs of the 90s. On the smoky ballad Personality, grounded Gayle spells it out as "cash ain't everythang." The briefly hilarious introduction to Freedom involves the type of typsy neo-camp conversation one might overhear whilst using public transport carrying lots of teenage Mothers. Gayle doesn't mince her words and is sporadically a force to be reckoned with when she finds the fertile ground to sprout the class to match the sass.

Get Off My Back
Happy Just To Be With You (Album Version)
Freedom
Personality
Sweetness