UK Top 40 watch - Edition #2 (Rita Ora, Skrillex, Nicki Minaj & Gary Barlow)

THE TOP 40 FEATURE IS BACK! HURRAH I HEAR YOU ALL CHEER. Every week we’re going to take you through some of the highlights in the chart, from the best songs to the worst. Now we can all join together as one superior mass laughing in a patronising manner at the utter crap the general public spend their money on, as well as rejoicing in the not so guilty pleasures which we all hold in our hearts.

Best Song of the week: Rita Ora - RIP Feat. Tinie Tempah (no12)

Rita Ora has generally been rubbished by pretty much the whole internet as a mini-Rihanna who therefore deserves little to no attention. But wait a minute, she’s signed to Roc Nation after she caught the attention of JAY Z. Come on that’s pretty cool. RIP was originally written by Drake for Rihanna who for some incomprehensible reason didn’t want it. Tinie Tempah’s rap is the only thing that takes away from the track but Ora’s chorus is so bloody fantastic you end up forgetting about Tempah’s brief appearance as she waves goodbye to the girl she used to be. Add to that a pretty flawless performance on Jools Holland earlier in the year and I think we have a new pop starlet on the scene. And I dare you not to get a little bit turned on by her in the video.

 

Worst song of the week: Skrillex - Bangarang (no31)

 

I enjoy any chance I get to moan about the utter dirge of shit that is Skrillex and this 3.37 seconds of practically unlistenable rubbish which probably makes children cry is another brilliant opportunity. Most of the song sounds like a 13 year old messing around with the sound effects on a keyboard, there doesn’t even appear to be any discernable rhythm to it. A distinct lack of ‘wubwubwubs’ probably proves that Skrillex is changing his sound, moving away from his niche. Wow he is a true trendsetter, stepping out of his comfort zone, like a middle aged woman whose gone sky diving for the first time. Who on earth is buying this crap? Anyone wanting to sign my petition to have Skrillex forcibly banned from making music should comment below.

Guilty pleasure: Nicki Minaj - Starships (no20)

Nicki Minaj’s figure is possibly the least comprehensible thing in the whole entire universe and will distract you from listening to the song the first three times you watch this video. After you’ve got over that you’ll discover a banging pop song which, no matter how much you want to hate it, will wiggle its way into your head until you find yourself screaming it in the shower. With less rapping and less of the rubbishy lyrics, this song managed to convert me from a Minaj-hater to part of the ‘team’. If it doesn’t work for you at least we can all laugh at the funny voice she does when she’s rapping. 

Number one: Gary Barlow and the Commonwealth band - Sing

Of course in the patriotic craze that has swept the country recently, it is unsurprising that Gary Barlow’s new national anthem hit the top spot this week. Written with Andrew Lloyd Webber and featuring every person in the entire Commonwealth (ok just some dancers and the Military Wives Choir) this is the kind of song you just know your gran will love, particularly because Gareth Malone makes an appearance AND he’s wearing a bow tie. The video shows Gary going round and being a general do-gooder, not just in Britain, oh no, ALL OVER THE WORLD. What a hero. A particularly brilliant moment in the video is when Gary is being rowed down a river and looks exactly like Pocahontas. Little known fact about this week’s number 1: if you play it backwards you’ll get to hear Gazza crying about how much he wants a knighthood over Take That’s Greatest Hits.


Jessy Parker

Nicki Minaj - Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded

First thing to say about Nicki Minaj’s sophomore effort: there’s no way of getting around a title that clunky and non-committal. It’s quite literally Minaj holding onto the mainstream familiarity of her debut whilst attempting to big up her Roman Zolanski persona (which is easily the most interesting aspect of her as a performer). The Roman aspects are at first pushed front and centre with an unstoppable six song barrage of whip-crack beats and vocals that swerve from prowling menace to in-your-face rage with playful ease. ‘Come On A Cone’, with its skeletal hi-hats that call to mind an undernourished version of Suicide’s Ghost Rider, is thrilling in its assertion that Minaj has the capability to throw all the personas she’s showcased across her body of work into a single track. ‘Beez In The Trap’ however is a new side of her altogether, a hypnotic beat rumbles underneath while Nicki’s flow takes on a callus tone and rolls off some classic “fuck the haters” sentiments. It’s the aural equivalent of the cop torture scene in Reservoir Dogs.

Things start to falter on the seventh track, ‘Champion’, which is weighed down by three guest verses and a dull, derivative beat. Worst of all, it relegates the woman of the hour to performing a mawkish vocal hook that provides a sum total of zero opportunities for her to wheel out one of her batshit accents. The slump continues into ‘Right By My Side’, which is straight up chart R’n’B right down to the Chris Brown cameo. Brown’s inclusion is more than a little disheartening given how at odds his appalling treatment of women is with Minaj, a woman who has smashed the gender stereotypes of hip-hop. In fact, once Brown starts his vocals the end has already begun and Roman Reloaded falls into a tailspin that it never recovers from.

From thereon in you’re faced with a seemingly infinite cavalcade of horrific euro pop beats and a damaging surplus of verses delivered by Minaj in a bland electro diva wail. The whole thing ends with ‘Stupid Hoe’, one of the finest tracks she’s produced and a timely reminder of her prowess, however, coming off the back of cheapo ravepocalypse nightmare, it stinks of an undeserved encore and (more terrifyingly) threatens to serve as a curtain call to the fun’n’freaky image she’s strived so hard to cultivate. 

5.9 

Ned Powley