Tracks of the week reviewed: Kylie Minogue, Taylor Swift, Maroon 5
Kylie Minogue
Say Something
What a thorough joy it is to have Kylie back from the country music hinterlands. Say Something is a quasi-disco bop with a slightly saccharine post-quarantine sentiment that in anyone else’s hands would be a huge eye-roll, but Kylie – the best and purest of us all – carries it perfectly. It makes me want to drink one too many rum and Cokes and hug everyone I know. Even the dickheads!
Taylor Swift
Cardigan
Start from the merch and work backwards, that’s the only way I can explain this line: “And when I felt like I was an old cardigan under someone’s bed.” That’s just not a saying, is it? Taylor Swift’s inevitable lockdown album trades in balls-out pop for sad-lad swooning and demands you look at how serious she is. The National’s Aaron Dessner’s mossy paws are all over Cardigan, so muted piano and cello mope about behind her as Taylor dissects a teenage love triangle. And yeah, you can buy the cardigan.
Maroon 5
Nobody’s Love
Sometimes you find yourself wondering: are Maroon 5 still going? And it turns out they are. Hard to understand why, when they’re coming out with stuff such as Nobody’s Love – a song that wants you to think it’s an emotional dedication to a lover but doesn’t so much tug the heartstrings as gesture vaguely in their direction.
Blake Shelton ft Gwen Stefani
Happy Anywhere
This song is such a miserable, cloying cash-grab I can’t even be bothered to make fun of it. Congrats on your relationship, I guess.
Little Mix
Holiday
It’s a sad state of affairs when 2020 does its best to take actual holidays away from us and leaves pop-cultural tea-leaf readers Little Mix to offer the only alternative: a new beau. It’s hard not to use words like “glistening” when describing a song that has been polished to the point of blinding but this is a fun ride. Holiday glides from tentative restraint to heady excitement like the booking process on Skyscanner, and ends with an almost maudlin two-note full-stop, like the prospect of getting on the Stansted Express.
