nd it’s a warm welcome back to those joining us at home. If you’ve just tuned in, this is the Singles Jukebox, where, every week, Stylus gathers the heads of music-likers from around the world and bangs them together, whilst forcing them to pass judgment on fifteen of the choicest tunes plucked from the current international pop music landscape. And then gets them to rate them out of ten. The results get printed here every Tuesday.

Or at least, that’s the way things have gone up to now.

As of this week, the Jukebox is proud to announce that it’s joining the mighty ranks of the Stylus Staff Blogs section. Instead of the weekly behemoth, we’re becoming nimbler, slicker, more agile, and, most importantly, daily. Every week, from Monday to Friday, the Jukebox blog will publish our panel’s takes on the biggest, brightest, and best tunes from around the world. The writing and the scoring ain’t gonna be changing—you’ll still be lucky to get more than a sentence out of Hillary Brown—but it’s gonna be coming at you in a far more convenient, digestible and accessible manner. We’re quite excited, and we hope you will be too. Go have a look now—the blog’s here. There’s not a hell of a lot in the way of content at present, but over the next few days we’ll be dredging up old Jukeboxes from the archives and putting them in there, and we’ll be beginning to put up reviews of new stuff too. Subscribe to the RSS feed, and you’ll get updated the instant anything goes up.

But anyway, before we set about plunging headlong into the exciting world of The Future, we’ve got one heck of a lot of present to be catching up on. Relax and take notes as Project Pat mimes groping your arse, while Just Jack explains that reality TV Is Not Necessarily A Good Thing, Jennifer Hudson searches for a note beyond G, Sophie Ellis-Bextor goes running about Venice for no particular reason, Pretty Ricky take all the fun out of Sex Over The Phone, and Sloan get horrifically under-rated. Also, one lucky punter manages to equal the highest average score from last year, but before all that, the singer out of Augustana apparently doesn’t “wear [presumably a girl’s] chains.” To remedy this, he decides to start singing in a manner that makes Bright Eyes sound reasonable. It’s not a good look…


Augustana - Boston
[Watch the Video]
[2.60]
Hillary Brown: “O.C.” music still beats “Smallville” music, especially in the category of impassioned dude piano numbers, but not by a ton.
[4]

Erick Bieritz: A study in awful opposites, somehow timid and overbearing, weak and ponderous, shallow and contrived. There are many bad singles, but few are bad in so many distinct ways.
[0]

Doug Robertson: Can someone please organize some sort of amnesty whereby every young, “tortured” musician who has all the emotional depth of an inkwell can hand in their instruments with no questions asked and save the rest of us from having to listen to their godawful, cloth-eared, leaden, lumpen attempts at bearing their soul? Seriously, it’s time we made an attempt to clamp down on this problem
[2]

Greg Fanoe: Augustana have wisely decided to rock this song out at the end, but it's well lost by then. Whiny rock of the worst sort, I wish this song would just go away forever.
[2]


Pretty Ricky – On the Hotline
[Watch the Video]
[3.60]
Ian Mathers: Starting your song with “It's five in the mornin', and I'ma having phone sex with you” to backing vocal chants of “so horny, so horny” not only gives the game away entirely, but in Pretty Ricky's case makes the whole thing about as appealing as calling Moviefone. If the production didn't remind me of mid-90s R&B (the bad strain), this might be tolerable.
[2]

Joseph McCombs: People still have phone sex? There are still chatlines? Or did someone unearth an unused Silk song and paste new names on it? This gets 3 points only because there’s no Bubble Yum involved.
[3]

Rodney J. Greene: It's my dick! In a box! That's about the level of subtlety upon which Pretty Ricky operate. The Jodecisms are competent, the rapping less so. Both leave me feeling less than clean.
[4]

Erick Bieritz: The frigid, glittery beat sounds great on its own, but like phone sex itself, “On the Hotline” just leaves one feeling a bit empty, lonely, and sort of ridiculous.
[4]


Just Jack – Starz in Their Eyez
[Watch the Video]
[4.25]
M. H. Lo: Essentially Mike Skinner rapping over “Love at First Sight,” the undeniably catchy “Starz in Their Eyes” indicts the celebrity-making machinery for exploiting wannabes. It’s unclear why the wannabes themselves don’t get much blame in the song, as if they are wide-eyed ingénues instead of famewhores who would eat their grandmas’ puppies for five seconds of notoriety. (Maybe it’s due to the same blithe unawareness that made Jack Allsop choose a stage name that, for some of us, awkwardly recalls Sean Hayes’ character in Will and Grace, and thus render us unable to say it without gaytastic jazz hands.)
[7]

Kevin J. Elliott: The message? Bastardize “grime” or “garage” and anyone can be a star. I just have icky images of Mike Skinner and John Mayer playing Dance Dance Revolution together.
[2]

Joseph McCombs: Great chicken-scratch guitar is brought down by a series of far less inspired elements. The vocal sounds exactly like a Robbie who for once in his damn life doesn’t need to be in on the joke.
[5]

Kevin Pearson: After immigrating to the United States from England five years ago there are still times when I get all dewy eyed for the motherland. This is not one of them.
[3]


Fergie ft. Ludacris - Glamourous
[Hear it at MySpace]
[4.50]
Greg Fanoe: How cute, it's Fergie's very own "Jenny from the Block"! Money hasn't changed her! With clichéd, boring lyrics and no hook to speak of, this is a serious misstep from Fergie, who had managed to win me over with her last two solo singles. Even the Ludacris guest verse sucks.
[3]

Rodney J. Greene: At least J.Lo had the good sense not to make her naked cred-plea fucking turgid.
[2]

Jonathan Bradley: The number of Fergie hooks that feature “the Dutchess” spelling out various thematically crucial words can surely be explained by one of two theories. Either: 1. Will.I.Am, whose musical accompaniment is really quite pretty here, has observed Stacy has the mental and emotional age of an elementary schooler, and hopes to enter her in the Scripps National Spelling Bee; or 2. Most of the songs he produces for her were actually written to be performed by a Speak & Spell. Considering the curiously pointless gauntlet of vocal effects he runs Ludacris’ rap through, I’m guessing it’s the latter.
[5]

Hazel Robinson: I can't tell whether it's meant to be saying that she has changed since she got famous or that she hasn't. This isn't a particularly adventurous track for Fergie at all, but works as an 'I'm not completely bonkers and quite down to earth really' statement, I suppose. I do get quite distracted, though, by the bit somewhere in the middle where she reminisces 'bout the days where she had a Mustang, since I keep hearing it as “mustache.”
[7]


Camille Jones – The Creeps
[Watch the Video]
[5.00]
Greg Fanoe: When I first heard the opening riff to this, it got me excited, then when her unaffected voice came in, I was initially sold. Little did I know the whole song would be that on a continuous loop for three and a half minutes. Not unpleasant, but what's the point?
[4]

Hazel Robinson: This songs quite a lot like the chorus of “Sexyback,” only more monotone, lower and with a minimal feel. Despite the fact it's sexy in quite a threatening way, it turns out to be lyrically dark, as Camille questions her sanity following attacks from 'the creeps' and at least attempts to be quite unnerving with its jerkiness. Unfortunately, the stuttery chorus annoys me immensely and is detrimental to what otherwise might be a brilliant song.
[6]

Doug Robertson: Throbbing like a bass speaker that’s about to explode into a million shards of down and dirty house like some sort of dancing bomb, this is the sort of track that dreams are made of. Albeit dreams that you may not necessarily want to share.
[7]

Hillary Brown: You know how, despite your associated nostalgia, a lot of video games from the 80s kind of suck? Yeah. Like that.
[3]


Sloan – Who Taught You to Live Like That
[Hear it at MySpace]
[5.20]
Ian Mathers: I want to like this (Sloan are finally getting attention again!), and there are some great tracks on the new album; but “Who Taught You to Live Like That?” is ultimately one of the Sloan tracks that feels more like something you should like because it cunningly recapitulates and recombines their older influences than because there's actually any force in the refrain. Must (and can) do better.
[6]

Peter Parrish: Bounce, bounce, bounce—well isn’t this just the jolliest gent in town? Sloan are as thrilled as a small child, windmilling his arms in glee at the prospect of another scoop of ice cream. This is bright and buoyant stuff, with guitar lines like big bold crayon strokes across an already colorful scene. All the positive vibes are delivered in a concentrated three-minute burst, bowing out just before you get the urge to pummel the upbeat nature out of them. Marvellous.
[8]

Kevin Pearson: This is what Slade would have sounded like had they grown up in Canada instead of the Black Country.
[7]

Hazel Robinson: Joyless, derivative glam that makes Goldfrapp sound groundbreaking and uncontrived.
[1]


Mika – Grace Kelly
[Watch the Video]
[5.40]
Tal Rosenberg: Mika sings that he "wants to be like Grace Kelly" even though he clearly wants to be like Freddie Mercury more than the guy from the Darkness does. His forceful flaunting and awesome pipes get him awfully close, but he's closer to Robbie Williams than Fabulous Freddie. Even though the spot-on falsetto at the reprise is good for a chuckle, he's forgetting that the Queen frontman never bored his audience through repetition or watery MOR, and always remembered that bombast works when it balloons, not when it deflates.
[4]

M. H. Lo: Yes, he sounds like a certain late, great Queen, but far from being unaware of this, he confronts it and constructs the chorus around a sly princess/Queen pun: “I try to be like Grace Kelly / But all her looks were too sad / So I try a little Freddie / I’ve gone identity mad!” Indeed, that vocal resemblance is made a plot point in a song that’s about Mika’s (parodic?) willingness to be anything that his pop audience—or, if you prefer to read the sexual references (“Should I bend over?”) more literally, someone who answers Mika’s personal ad—might desire. The song is therefore either wittily clever or deeply cynical (the “kerching!” that ends it can go either way), but the music is joyous enough that we might not even notice till we’ve been totally sucked in.
[8]

Kevin J. Elliott: Mika “can be Freddy,” and he “can be violet sky.” After listening to “Grace Kelly” he can also be Rufus Wainwright without restraint, Elton John without paying his dues, and the Scissor Sisters without waving a giant rainbow flag. There’s a reason the rest of the world rarely takes the hyperbole of the British press to heart. You can almost hear the ruffles on his shirt wafting through the air.
[3]

Doug Robertson: Your opinion on this is largely going to depend on whether you think Queen are irritating embarrassments who should be left out for the binmen to take away or whether they were a fantastically exciting and inventive pop band whose legacy has been destroyed by Ben Elton’s desire to turn them into nothing more than a machine to print money. Or, to put it another way, whether you see Queen as being Brian May or Freddie Mercury. We go for the latter. “Kerching!” says Mika at the end of the track. He may have a point.
[7]


Gwen Stefani ft. Akon - Sweet Escape
[Watch the Video]
[5.60]
M. H. Lo: So, like, Gwen’s guy? He totally left the fridge door open, and that pissed her off and somehow caused her to spill the milk, which she realizes is curdled (because she licked it off the floor?). But, oh my God, now Gwen sees that she’s been “acting stank” like that sour milk, and resolves to be sweet. Do you see the metaphorical interplay? Good. Let’s continue it: while the chorus, with its girl-group harmonies, is gorgeous, Akon’s uber-annoying “woohoo, yeehoo” backing vocals are more rancid than lemon drops that’ve been stored in the folds of Bill O’Reilly’s scrotal sacs.
[6]

Hazel Robinson: I'm not really convinced about a song that requires Akon for it to seem interesting, but it is extremely hummable.
[6]

Doug Robertson: Oh Gwen, where did it all go wrong? From critical and commerical darling to, well, this in the space of one album? Clichéd, derivative, dull, forgettable and pretty much entirely pointless. It’s like No Doubt all over again.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: What a revelation it is to see Akon finally step out from the tireless gloom he usually peddles! His pop production is so blissfully carefree, all new wave keys, bright horns, and elated “woo-hooos,” that we can only hope the man never wants to work with Eminem again. As for Stefani, well, she has some love woes that need to be aired out (and some silly lyrics, too), but her real function is to coo along enchantingly, both re-establishing herself as empress of the irresistible pop single and schooling the pop charts on the gorgeous heartbreak of those ’60s’ girl groups all the indie kids were so excited about last year. The Pipettes could learn a thing or two, but at the best moments on this, I’d even be inclined to say the same for the Ronettes.
[9]


8Ball & MJG ft. Project Pat – Relax, Take Notes
[Watch the Video]
[6.20]
Erick Bieritz: What a continental Frankenstein monster this is; the verses and gothic heaviness are all Southern rap, but the four-note synth whine in the chorus is pure West Coast g-funk, and the Biggie sample is as New York as it gets.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: With some significant collar-popping, fly-staying exceptions, the musical output of Three 6 Mafia and its Memphis affiliates can be evaluated by asking yourself questions like: How violent is this track? How drug fucked is it? Could it soundtrack a Halloween movie? In order: not nearly enough; the hook features B.I.G. rhyming the title with “tokes of the marijuana smoke”; and you can bet the film would be fantastic.
[7]

Ian Mathers: As far as rap songs co-opting Biggie's posthumous voice go, this is pretty cool. It's just too bad that Biggie's stuttery chorus loop is more interesting than Eightball, MJG or Project Pat themselves; the way he pronounces “marijuana smoke” pretty much renders the rest of “Relax, Take Notes” irrelevant.
[6]

Tal Rosenberg:The beat's got waaay more going on than it lets on. A hi-hat that randomly changes speeds like it has ADD, horns that sound like they're being transmitted out of broken speakers, clanging bells, and a G-funk synth squawk are only some of what makes this beat ridiculous. Rapping along to a Biggie sample that should've been sampled years ago, this trio of southern rap mainstays deliver the usual: cash, violent threats, cash. Alternating vocal deliveries keep it entertaining, but this gets to be a little tiresome after some time.
[6]


Ania Szarmach - Silna
[Watch the Video]
[6.25]
Kevin J. Elliott: Judging from this, Poland could be this year’s Sweden. “Silna” is a modern day “La Isla Bonita,” clanging and clamoring up against steel and concrete rather than Madonna’s imaginary coast.
[9]

Ian Mathers: “Silna” is really all about those nagging electric piano notes weaved around Ania's chorus vocals; they provide a sense of urgency and moments that the too laid back body of the song doesn't (especially Ania's slightly aloof vocals). It's not quite enough to make this exciting, but it gets “Silna” surprisingly close.
[5]

Peter Parrish: Starts with a budget Frankie Goes to Hollywood orchestral effect, but quickly tires of all that. In its place comes a rhythm which jerks around so much that it’s being followed around by sharp-eyed lawyers keen to adopt any easy compensation claims for whiplash. I strongly suspect this is a literal tribute to the deft movements of former Polish international striker Andrezj Szarmach; and when our vocalist trawls through her dizzying range of notes in a matter of seconds, it is in homage to the sheer variety of his goalscoring. What the bongo-drum breakdown section represents, I cannot guess. Perhaps simply sheer joy.
[5]

Greg Fanoe: It's got a really nice, really weird beat and a catchy chorus. Even the verses aren't bad. Unfortunately, the whole thing feels a bit overfamiliar, and the whole is less than the sum of the parts.
[6]


Sasha – Coming Home
[Watch the Video]
[6.60]
Joseph McCombs: Don’t Worry, Step Into Christmas Whenever I Call You “Friend.” I’m deliriously happy to know this kind of trash-single sunshine pop still exists.
[9]

Peter Parrish: This is alarmingly well-suited for one of those choreographed adverts about cereal or toast, or something. A thoroughly gloomy family begrudgingly troop downstairs to face the morning; BUT WAIT—suddenly they consume said winning breakfast foodstuff and are surrounded by an unnatural glow, triggering a toe-tapping dance routine around the kitchen as Sasha starts blaring out of a nearby radio. Some chirpy kid can lip-synch the vocals, mum and dad swing side-to-side doing finger-snapping and the cupboard doors will hilariously provide some “doo doo, ba ba” type backing. Ends with the house being engulfed in a blaze of sunshine.
[7]

Hazel Robinson: Sounds almost overwhelmingly like “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” being performed by a ‘90s boyband that's going through that 'singing a capella just to prove we can' stage, which is good, if not thrilling. It's quite lovely in an unpretentious way.
[7]

Kevin Pearson: Channeling the Boo Radley’s “Wake Up” through Flying Pickets styled a cappella from a German singer whose alter ego is named Dick Brave may not endear Sasha to too many. But he did play at Pink’s wedding, doing so with his rockabilly alter ego. And, in this great celebrity ridden world, isn’t that all that matters? Talking of celebrities, my parents once received free front row tickets to see the Flying Pickets (my uncle was friends with founder, Brian Hibbard). They were excited. I never understood; much like I don’t understand why anyone would marry Pink, let alone listen to her. Or this for that matter.
[2]


Jennifer Hudson – And I Am Telling You That I’m Not Going
[Hear it at YouTube]
[6.75]
Joseph McCombs: Written to be oversung, and not-Beyoncé does not disappoint. Jennifer lets out just enough guttural laughs (“Haw, HAW!”) to convince herself the song really was written for her. Which was precisely her job, and huzzahs for her. But the tune itself is kind of overrated, you have to admit, and its coming radio overexposure will accomplish exactly one thing: Offices across the nation will grind to a halt as low-paid secretaries ignore calls while miming the serial payoffs.
[7]

Kevin J. Elliott: Hudson belts out the touchstones of a quiet fire torch song in the first thirty seconds. I’m starting my Anita Baker fan club as I type this. Though even a cameo from Crispin Glover couldn’t drag me into Dreamgirls, Hudson’s delivery has me quivering. Imagine the catfights on that set. The official soundtrack to an infinite number of unwanted conceptions and Oprah fans inspired to get their heads out of a box of doughnuts.
[8]

Erick Bieritz: It’s very professional and accomplished but oddly a bit unmoving, despite some soul exclamations and other tags that are supposed to tell modern post-Idol pop listeners that this is of classically-accepted quality.
[5]

Rodney J. Greene: Hudson's Gladys-esque performance occasionally disconnects from any sense of gravitas, vacillating between showtune camp and grits-and-gravy soul, but when she gutturally grunts her way through the bridge, you believe every word she is telling you is true.
[7]


Norah Jones – Thinking About You
[Watch the Video]
[7.40]
Kevin J. Elliott: Music for Mums indeed. But it should also trigger memories of both Cat Power’s The Greatest and Brightback Morning Light’s overlooked stoned triumph. Finding a sultry middle ground between those two is a daunting task in itself. Can’t wait till she finally picks up the sitar.
[9]

Hillary Brown: It’s just what you think it is. She still sings purty.
[5]

Joseph McCombs: Norah in Memphis, eh? I don’t keep up with her career well enough to have anticipated her Raitting her wardrobe. Gorgeous.
[8]

Greg Fanoe: It's been nearly five years now since Norah Jones released "Don't Know Why" and became a sensation among NPR listeners everywhere, and she's learned some things in that time. The horns and bass to this song are pure class, and her voice is just as smoky and pretty as ever. But rather than try to fit big pop hooks into here, she just lets the music ride, and lets her voice carry the rest. The result is rather in-one-ear-out-the-other, but extremely pleasant to listen to. A case study in playing to your strengths.
[7]


Sophie Ellis-Bextor – Catch You
[Watch the Video]
[7.60]
M. H. Lo: Not only does the song, with its trashing chainsaw guitars, owe something sonically to Blondie’s entire oeuvre, but its stalkerish lyric essentially rewrites “One Way Or Another”…which Sophie has actually covered for The Guru soundtrack. Oh, the cheek of La Bex and her writers. But the track is so propulsive, and the chorus so especially delectable, that the whole thing surpasses its inspiration and easily earns my divine forgiveness.
[9]

Ian Mathers: From the spangled zaps of the opening synth-drum stabs, “Catch You” practically oozes the kind of retro-future sound that makes you kind of wish this sound actually had become the present of Pop. Ellis-Bextor's voice, for those of us not British and thus blissfully unaware of possible class issues, is one of the more intriguing tones in this kind of music, and luckily the production actually turns it up a notch in the pleasingly boshing chorus. It's not Bertine Zetlitz, but it'll do.
[8]

Peter Parrish: Since framing poor Zinedine by leaving a body on his floor, Ms. Ellis-Bextor has apparently repented and taken up bounty hunting instead. This is her song about it. There are beepy electro bits and unhappy lawnmower guitar bits. Far more interesting than all that, though, are the lengths to which Sophie will go in order to capture her quarry. She’ll study financial records, recent phone calls and even root through filthy bedside drawers. However, the calibre of criminal being dealt with is suddenly thrown into doubt when it is revealed that she’ll also be checking behind the curtains. A chorus which is easily misheard as “mummy’s gonna find you” adds some Freudian frisson to the chase.
[4]

Doug Robertson: “Catch You,” all space beeps, thrashed guitars and enunciated vowels, is as excitingly poptastic as a room filled with balloons and hedgehogs, has as much edge as four dimensional infini-hedron, and is as danceable as a meerkat in party mood. Pretty damned good, then, in other, slightly less hyperbolic, words.
[9]


Justin Timberlake – What Goes Around… Comes Around
[Hear it at MySpace]
[9.00]
Jonathan Bradley: It’s a song in two parts, and Timbaland bolts together a typically excellent pop symphony for section one, a melange of cascading vocals and a scurrying Eastern synth. Justin does his hurt little boy thing and after five minutes, it seems time to declare a good day’s work from pop’s A-Team. But then the duo unveils part two, “…Comes Around,” and for these final few minutes, the world spins dizzyingly off balance. Everything turns to ice and Timberlake excoriates himself of any traces of humanity while his otherworldly tones devolve into a deadly sinister sneer: “I heard you found out that he’s doing to you what you did to me… girl, you got what you deserved,” all while the song’s tumbling melodies wind around themselves like the parts of some horrible machine slotting into place.
[10]

Erick Bieritz: Radio programmers must chop this seven and a half minute beast somewhere, but it seems they’re wise enough to keep the final two minutes, which is by far the best stretch in the song. There’s no new ground here for Timberlake, either lyrically or sonically, but that epilogue is such a skillful show of his strengths that it’s hard not to like.
[7]

Tal Rosenberg: In which JT not-so-subtly tells an ex how she had him, then hurt him, then humiliated herself. Now that he knows that she's "living a lie," you'd better believe that he's got the last laugh, cooing the title like he really feels for boo bear, but joke's on you now baby girl. Timbo? Oh, he's around. Warped Eastern string loop, handclaps, arena soft rock guitar, strings…the guy does boy band like he's a Swede, and then drops an R&B/electro outro with a booming choir just 'cause he can.
[9]

Rodney J. Greene: The World's Best Singles Artist and The World's Best Producer blow "Cry Me a River" up to ten times its actual size. Initially, JT plays it cool, plaintive, seeping into the corners of Timbo's epic sweep. But really, it's all about the coda where he becomes a monster-man, taking his feelings of heartbreak and channels the energy into spite.
[10]


Check out the Singles Jukebox podcast to hear some of the tracks talked about here.