Just like the rest of us, Estelle has probably grown tired of waiting around for Missy Elliott to emerge from whatever studio she’s been secluding herself in to bless us with a new crazy club banger. Here’s the difference between us and her, though: whereas we would have simply…well, just kept waiting for “Misdemeanor” to re-emerge with some heat, Estelle has gone one better and decided to simply unleash a Missy-esque track herself…and boy are we happy she did.
Rocking an immediately grabbing hook chant (“I can be a freak-every day of every week”) and a taut, B-more-styled fashion house strut (helmed by the increasingly everywhere David Guetta) that’s damn near impossible to sit still to, Estelle’s new single “Freak” finds the singer/ rapper boldly expressing her S&M-loving side while pushing the rest of the female population to embrace their inner-naughtiness as well.
“Don’t be scared, don’t be shy/ Yes, you gotta let it breathe,” she preaches, assuring the ladies that “he wanna see you handcuffed up/ he wanna see your leather gear” and using an interpolation of Soul II Soul’s deathless “Back To Life (However Do You Want Me)” to stress her bedroom-spicing ideas further. Repping for all men everywhere, featured guest Kardinal Offishall can only respond with a major case of the byoing-yoing-yoings (“I pitch a tent with an XL Magnum on the cover!!”).
Missy, we DEMAND you make an appearance on the inevitable remix…
Purchase the track through Estelle’s website. Expect Estelle’s third album, All of Me, later this year.
Nothing more but a bunch of cover songs that have been bubbling around in recent weeks. Enjoy!!
Tanya Morgan “Breakadawn”/ Skillz & Colin Munroe “Baby Phat” (De La Soul Covers)
Two highlight entries pulled from Mick Boogie & Terry Urban’s latest mixtape collabo, a multi-artist tribute compilation to De La Soul’s twenty-year strong legacy entitled Le Da Soul (download the full set here): the MJ-sampling groover “Breakadawn” see the unmistakably DLS-influenced Tanya Morgan cleverly weaving in their own spin to Pos and Trugoy’s script, while Skillz (assisted by longtime MM fave Colin Munroe) gives the curvalicious female sect a nice shout-out (“I like chicks thicker/ Imagine me dating a lil’ stick figure”) in a revamp of “Baby Phat”.
Ellie Goulding & Erik Hassle “Be Mine (Robyn Cover)”
In which two current blog-pop phenoms take a break from their respective on-the-rise careers for an acoustic guitar-backed duet rendition of Robyn’s 2005 single (best known for it’s drama-tastic spoken word bridge and one of the most heartwrenching opening lines ever put to pad-”It’s a good thing, tears never show in the pouring rain/ As if a good thing ever could make up for all the pain”).
Of course, for those who have heard Robyn’s own stripped-down take, Goulding and Hassle‘s re-read won’t be that much of a mind-blower, but oh does their vocals meld beautifully when harmony time comes around.
True, the folk-y swing that Irish alt-rockers Snow Patrol build to on the hook of this Top 5 Madonna smash kind of feels pathetic when compared to the explosive epiphany Maddie brought to the table, but we must be honest with at least this much: hearing “Light”‘s heavy verses under the band’s earnestly melancholy arrangement catches a pleasant lullaby-like mood we wouldn’t mind being soothed with at the end of a long and hard work-day.
Though England-born indie pop-punk/ soul-ster VV Brown was given a major hype push earlier this year when she was recognized as a Top Ten finalist in the BBC’s “One To Watch” poll, Sounds of 2009, she has so far struggled in earning much pop chart love (Out of four singles released, only one has managed to chart in the UK Top 40).
Still, we say keep following her. Not only because her critically-acclaimed debut album, Travelling Like The Light, has plenty of quirked-out, retro-pop/ rock/ soul goodies to offer (contrary to radio support), but also because she’s proven to be a hoot with her on-the-fly YouTube cover creations (check out her renditions of “Crazy In Love”, “Day N Nite” and “Best I Ever Had”).
There’s nothing silly about her take on the Rolling Stones’ 1978 classic “Miss You” though, which trades in the original’s bluesy-disco strut for a despair-drenched Southern-fried soul vibe.
Mumford & Sons “I’m Not Alone (Calvin Harris Cover)”
Part of the same London folk scene that has birthed the likes of Noah and The Whale and Laura Marling, the four-piece Mumford & Sons caught plenty of ears with their debut single, “Little Lion Man”, an enrapturing cut seething with self-loathing (“I really fucked it up this time/ Didn’t I my dear?”) and an edge-of-apocalypse hoedown rattle.
That same pluck-heavy furor is called upon for their surprisingly decent Live Lounge rendition of Calvin Harris’ ’90′s-dance tribute “I’m Not Alone”, their woodsy slant working wonders in an impressive mimicking of the same soft vocals/ loud music dichotomy that made the original so enticing.
Toronto-based indie label Paper Bag Records turned seven this month (Happy birthday PB!!), and to help celebrate this event, they’ve unleashed the covers compilation, The Seven Year Itch, for free from their site.
Amongst it’s twelve-song tracklisting, plenty of fascinating grabs can be found (including Josh Reichmann’s rustic campfire take on Bat For Lashes’ “Daniel” and CFCF’s ’80′s new wave & vocoder-baked treatment of OMC’s quirky international fave “How Bizarre”), but the one perched atop our highlight picks would have to be a cover of Andre 3000′s The Love Below-housed tribute to the classy female, “Behold A Lady”, as handled by Canadian-born noise-art eccentric Slim Twig.
Sludging up the original’s lean digi-funk with a dense garage stomp and kooky, vampiric vocals that sound like they’re being emitted from a broken-down loudspeaker, Twig charmingly re-brands the song with a brush of his own unique “ice cold” cool, providing belated props to an oft-overlooked Below gem.
Pixie Lott “When Love Takes Over (David Guetta/ Kelly Rowland Cover)”
Where David & Kelly’s original aimed to split open the heavens from it’s opening moments with all of it’s big dance diva grandeur, this Live Lounge version by English singer-songwriter Lott goes for a more organic lift-off.
Opening on a slow and meditative tip that plants a pleasant spotlight on the grainy squiggles of soul embedded in Pix’ pipes, the remake makes a better play at illustrating love taking over, growing more and more bold with each added layer of (mostly Coldplay-nicked) instrumentation and upgraded tempo notch until it explodes in a fireworks-like display of romantic euphoria.
It’s only been three years since Kelis last put a studio album out (2006′s under-selling Kelis Was Here), but it definitely feels like it’s been a lot longer, what with all the TMZ-headlining drama she’s been in the center of the past couple of years. With all the changes that’s went on in her personal life since she had all the ladies chanting up their “bossy” status (filing for divorce, getting arrested, having a baby), you would think her first new solo offering in a while would be something juicy, meta and extremely catchy; maybe a sequel of sorts to her 1999 scream-fest “Caught Out There”, this time directed at cheating ex-husbands who don’t wanna pay spousal support.
Sadly the David Guetta-produced “Acapella” bears little of that gossip rag-gifting goodness, instead positioning Kelis amid a techno kaleidoscope of synth-bass bloops and clubby bottom end to sing the praises of a new man rescuing her of a dreary existence free of any “tune or scale I could play” (“Before you, my whole life was acapella,” goes the hook).
It’s an alright electronic-based tune we guess, though far away from the greatness we were anticipating from the same lady who gave us major gems like the ones mentioned above, plus “Milkshake”, “Trick Me” and the sorely under-appreciated “Young Fresh & New”; but, hey, at least we now know Kelis has begun work on a brand new project, so fingers are crossed that these (hopefully Neptunes or Andre 3000-helmed) sessions will produce the kind of sassy-weird, “I am woman, hear me roar” anthems she’s ruled with in the past.
The transition from Destiny’s Child contributor to solo star hasn’t really been all that smooth for KellyRowland State-side (leaving one to wonder why she even still bothers), but when you check her stats overseas, a different story is told: In the UK alone, she’s managed to produce 6 Top Twenty singles as a solo lead! With that knowledge, it’s not all that surprising that Kelly would take a break from the traditional (and quite overcrowded) female R&B/ hip hop scheme and hedge her bets in the continued pursuing of a more international-friendly pop sound.
Her latest single “When Love Takes Over”, a collaboration with French DJ David Guetta, shows that to be a smart decision, as, for probably the first time in her post-DC career, Kelly actually sounds like a true superstar.
Some will likely be immediately turned off by either the song’s epic-sized, Euro-dance template, blatant theft of the piano melody from Coldplay’s “Clocks” or majorly corny script about the power of love (“Under water/ Now i can breathe/ It never felt so good/ ‘Cause i can feel it coming over me/ I wouldn’t stop it if I could”), but those that do stick with the tune for it’s full length will be rewarded with a masterful Rowland vocal performance, one that exudes the kind of assured, top-diva confidence often lacking in her previous solo outings.
Peep the Cascada-y original, below, followed by a nice live acoustic performance.
As nice as it is to get free music, think of how much better your soul would feel if you purchased it the old-fashioned way.
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(MP3 posts are for promotional and/ or previewing purposes only; if any artist or their representation wish to have the links removed, contact me and I will happily comply!)
Just like the rest of us, Estelle has probably grown tired of waiting around for Missy Elliott to emerge from whatever studio she’s been secluding herself in to bless us with a new crazy club banger. Here’s the difference between us and her, though: whereas we would have simply…well, just kept waiting for “Misdemeanor” to re-emerge with some heat, Estelle has gone one better and decided to simply unleash a Missy-esque track herself…and boy are we happy she did.
It’s only been three years since Kelis last put a studio album out (2006′s under-selling Kelis Was Here), but it definitely feels like it’s been a lot longer, what with all the TMZ-headlining drama she’s been in the center of the past couple of years. With all the changes that’s went on in her personal life since she had all the ladies chanting up their 
The transition from Destiny’s Child contributor to solo star hasn’t really been all that smooth for
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