Elin Lanto - too sexy to convince?

They say you can't be too rich or too thin. What about too sexy? No one has ever accused me of being off-puttingly gorgeous and distractingly good-looking but I understand it can be a problem for the women and men who win the genetic lottery. The main complaint is they are not taken seriously.

Now I wonder if there is a similar phenomenon for pop singers. The whole point of a singer is that they can convey an emotion with their voice and convincingly tell the story of a song. The problem for the too-beautiful is that they are not terribly convincing when singing about their woes and how tough they have it, because you look at them and doubt whether they do anything but glide through life.

Take Swedish uber-babe Elin Lanto (pictured). Her latest song (Best Pop Song of the Week) is Funeral which is a case in point. This is a big, dramatic (and brilliant) number about a girl so hurt by a guy that she will dance all over his funeral. Standard bunny boiler behaviour if a little morbid, but take a look at the singer. Does she really convince as someone who's going to get mucked about by some guy so badly that she plans to ruin his wake?

Perhaps I'm being a bit naive about the lives of the outrageously sexy - maybe they are just as liable to be emotionally shredded as the rest of us and therefore have just as much right to warble about it. Whatever the truth I don't expect Elin's going to start singing about why she never has to pay for drinks or always seems to get out of traffic tickets, and I do like her music, so I had better learn to pretend her heartache is genuine.

Roll Deep's Good Times and other daft lyrics

Four weeks as the UK number 1 for the entertaining and catchy "Good Times" by Roll Deep. I didn't make it Best Pop Song of the Week (that honour went to Elin Lanto's "Funeral" this week - more of that later) but that was only because I didn't realise I liked it at first, and by the time I did it wasn't New any more.

It is good, especially the chorus sung by Jodie Connor. It's one of those songs about the working week being done and letting your hair down with some wild partying. But hang on a minute aren't the lyrics are slightly absurd? If you don't know the song have a listen to the YouTube clip below. Roll Deep's idea of good times involves:

champagne-popping! yes, OK. Sounds like fun.

west end clubbing! count me in, good times indeed.

keep it rockin, party aint stoppin! wild. I'm up for it

late night shopping! er, what did you say? Your idea of a good times, non stop partying, hedonistic, thrill-seeking, clubbing night out is to go shopping? I mean late night shopping can be a passable time to spend a Thursday night, maybe combine it with a KFC Party Bucket or something, but I don't think this is what the cosmopolitan party animals really go for is it? Licking Cristal off a supermodel's chest in the VIP section or restocking on basic Tees at Gap? Hard choice.

As for my other daft lyric of the moment, we have to thank Elin Lanto and her track Funeral. If you don't know it then have a listen. It is great, I love the song, but there is something a bit odd about the chorus isn't there?

"No matter if you end up in heaven or in hell,

I'll be dancing on your funeral"

Sure I get the idea - you hate me so much you'll be celebrating when I die but that second line doesn't quite make sense does it. You might dance at a funeral, either at the graveside (bit tactless) or at the wake afterwards (practically obligatory at most of the ones I have been to), but ON a funeral? Elin is Swedish and I think it's a bit of a misunderstanding. A native English-speaker would have said I'll be dancing at your funeral, not on. I think she took funeral to be like birthday or wedding day, because they are occasions when "on" would be appropriate. The little slip actually improves the song - makes it sound like she wants to dance all over your grave in front of the mourners. What kind of a bunny boiler is she anyway?

Any more daft lyrics around?

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Act your age Miley!

How do you like your 17 year old girls? Boasting about how many guys they go through, how hot they are and how good they are with a pole (the thin silvery kind you get tips for working not an Eastern European)? Probably not, unless you're a 17 year old boy who's not fussy.

I'm not remotely prudish and am perfectly comfortable with the way sex permeates pop music (and the selling of pop music). Always has, always will, even at the young end of the market. What I do find a bit grating is young girl singers who feel they have to be not only cute and sexy but also somehow sexually knowing and in charge well beyond their years. Perhaps this is why I don't like Miley Cyrus is acting like she's some out of control sex machine in her latest song and video "Can't Be Tamed". It's not the sexy outfits or dancing, it's the patronising assumption that we will accept a 17 year old kid who was singing about schoolgirl crushes last year, suddenly playing the wonton sex goddess who services half a football team before breakfast. From Mouseketeer to Mata Hari in the space of two pop videos?

It was the same with Britney Spears. She seemed to leap from schoolgirl to callgirl after a couple of years in the limelight. At least she has now been round the block a few times so when she sings If You Seek Amy you can kind of believe her.

It might be acceptable if Miley was a convincing slapper (Kesha pulls off the role quite convincingly and the Millionaires are alarmingly sluttish). I appreciate she's only acting out a role, but I can't see where committed Christian Miley has gained the experience to convince as an in your face sex symbol. Do you see Billy Ray letting the boys of Nashville get too close to young Miley during the Hannah Montana years? and in the last couple of years she's only been dating one of the intensely evangelical Jonas brothers and some kid out of Neighbours. So come on Miley act your age and sing about crushes and young love again. Leave the vampy stuff to singers more age appropriate like Cher and Madonna.

Here's the clip for those who haven't seen it and below that a current favourite of mine by Eliza Doolittle who does seem to be still presenting a sweet, wholesome image that suits her age.

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Scissor Sisters: less of the tight butts please

The Scissor Sisters have decided to promote their new album "Night Work" with a black and white picture of a finely toned set of male buttocks, presumably being the album cover. Now I am not homophobic or insecure about my own rather less finely toned rear end but is this really necessary?

Say I am about to enjoy my lunchtime sandwich and decide to browse a few of my favorite popsites, do I deserve to have clenched buns thrust in my face? Maybe it's just me but that's quite an appetite suppressant.

The new album is called "Night Work" so could they not have used a picture of a (female) nurse for example doing a late shift or a night porter? Actually I just Googled night porter and the images I came up with are not helping: a half naked woman in a nazi uniform, I think it must be a German film or something. Perhaps Night Work (like Scissor Sisters) is one of those innocent sounding phrases that has some ghastly double meaning in the gay world, so I am being naive as well as prudish.

Any way the album is being promoted with lead single "Fire with Fire" and it is a half decent track actually. And just to show the Scissor Sisters I can fight fire with fire, I have headed this post with my very own black and white buttock picture; a remarkable image I pulled off the internet (well, you don't think I keep pictures of dodgy looking birds slapping their butts with spatulas on file just in case do you?)

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If you like sad songs, download this

This song "Let Go" from the Swedish band JJ has really grown on me recently and I was delighted to discover a free download available (link below). It's not actually that amazingly sad but the line "take me away like I overdosed on heroin" gives you a flavour of the track. I love the pure and wistful quality of the vocals and the instrumental bits are given room to breathe. I find it very relaxing. There's a bit of Everything But the Girl and Enya about it all.

For my song of the week I 've gone for something a bit more mainstream - "What If I" by Ben's Brother which also has an 80s echo about the sound, reminding me anyway of Feargal Sharkey.

Free Download here:

http://rcrdlbl.com/2010/01/21/download_jj_let_go

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Fugative - where it's at

I made a sweetly old-fashioned power ballad called "It Did It for Love" by Swedish actress Jessica Andersson my selection for Week's Best Pop Song but if something more current is your thing then check out Fugative and his new song "Crush". It's not strikingly original or even that good - though with its catchy hook and bouncy rapping it is easy on the ear. But you are looking at that rare thing : an artist on the verge of pop stardom. It may not last very long or raise many ripples of interest outside Britain - he's from Essex - but he's definitely got something started.

He's had a couple of minor hits already - Jimmy Shoe, It's Summertime and Supafly - and they were before he turned 16. By a brief straw poll of YouTube and Blog comments he is widely believed to be a handsome young fellow (example comment: "hes da fittest boy singa eva" ).

He writes his own songs and apparently records them in his bedroom (surely not since he got a bit famous?). His light and bright commercial R&B sound seems like the surest route to pop success these days. See what it did for Jay Sean and Taio Cruz - US no 1s. On that subject he has already been taken under the wing of a big US music manager who is predicting big things for him. Well he wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't big up the lad would he? Actually, hold on a minute. Pop supremo signs up a handsome young white kid to sing black music to sell to young girls. Doesn't sound so modern and cutting edge when you put it like that but here's the single:

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Are The Villagers a new Simon & Garfunkel?

Well maybe, but there are some big differences - they are a 5 piece band from Ireland not a duo from Queens. But have a listen to their latest song "Becoming a Jackal" below and I think you'll agree there is an uncanny likeness in their sounds.

Sure the lead singer has a harder-edged voice which doesn't have the sweetness and softness of Simon and Art, but otherwise there are a lot of echoes particularly in the phrasing, the echoey harmonies in the chorus and of course the folk-style guitar playing.

I don't know whether the similarity is intended or not but I don't remember hearing any other band sounding like Simon and Garfunkel before (and I listen for this sort of thing - see 5 songs that sound like Abba but aren't). The new band will be doing well to match their famous forebears but have made a good start with this song which is raw emotion but very tightly and melodically conveyed.

As for Simon & Garfunkel, I remember being wowed by the Central Park concert they gave when I was young and their famous songs are engraved on my musical consciousness. Go on Villagers, give us another Bridge over Troubled Water or Sound of Silence! As a footnote I just learnt from Wikipedia that Simon & Grafunkel's first band was called Tom and Jerry. Would make a good pub quiz question that.

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