Singled Out! - May 26th 2008

On the Singled Out! plate this week is a selection of songs rich in flavour and more tasty than a Big Mac…

Foals – ‘Red Socks Pugie’

With lines like “There wasp’s nests, these terminals once again” and “We could, set it on fire for them” ‘Red Socks Pugie’, even by Foals’ standard, is a somewhat complicating song to analyse – is it love or something more sinister than Yannis Philippakis is referring to, for example? Luckily, as with most songs from the band’s debut album ‘Antidotes’, while you’re losing your head to the haunted modesty and muted guitars that score ‘Red Socks Pugie’, the chances are you’re not trying to analyse the lyrics. Their true meaning is perhaps best saved for the bizarre head that they were created in.

To watch the video for ‘Red Socks Pugie’, click here.

Micachu – 'Lone Ranger'

There sure make them young these days. At the age of 21, Mica Levi - aka Micachu - creates the kind of music that you would expect a pupil of Guildhall School of Music and Drama to make. ‘Lone Ranger’, her debut single, is creative, plucky and effortlessly infectious from the off. As a perilously close to being mistuned acoustic guitar swirls above a fantastic break-beat backdrop, Levi whispers concise stanzas about escapism and lip licking. While most people would hope to conjure up something like this in their dreams, for Levi, songs like this are just a normal day at the office.

Paul Weller – ‘Have You Made Your Mind Up’

Ask those who saw Paul Weller front the Jam thirty years ago if they expected him to still be alive, let alone releasing new material, and you’d probably be greeted by a lot of shaking heads. However, having just turned 50, creating new music is still quite clearly at the top of the ‘Modfather’s’ agenda. As the aggression of his post-punk days have tempered – replaced by wistful references about relationships (“I see a glimpse of smile on your face but I know that smile ain’t mine) – what’s emerged is Weller’s natural knack for creating a kind of soul music that fuses guitars, strings and rumbling basslines together rather effortlessly. Had he shaped ‘Have You Made Your Mind Up’ thirty years ago this review might have been different, but instead, in 2008, Paul Weller seems as relevant as ever.

For more information on Weller’s upcoming UK tour, click here.

Vampire Weekend – ‘Oxford Comma’

‘Oxford Comma’ is the musical equivalent of the kid from school who, rather than not understanding grammar, just didn’t see the point of using it: it’s cheeky and ignorant but becomes more adorable every time you hear it. The song also goes a long way to supporting the well-known fact that Vampire Weekend don’t take life very seriously. In its infancy ‘Oxford Comma’ is nothing more than a drumbeat and the occasional prod of an organ key. As it grows, however, and Vampire Weekend start referencing those bad “English dramas”, it becomes irrepressibly intense. It might only last for little over 3 minutes but for every moment it’s with you life seems to be a lot more enjoyable.

To see what we thought about Vampire Weekend live in February click here.

Lily Allen – 'I Could Say’

The more time Lily Allen has spent away from music, so her apparent reluctance to return to the industry has grown. In the last few months alone, she’s fronted her own television series and mingled with the Hollywood a-list in Cannes. Yet, just as everyone was expecting her to fulfil her promise and move to the country, Allen unleashes the kind of pop song that caused people to fall in love with her in the first place. ‘I Could Say’, one of two new demos on her Myspace, boasts the same kind of emotive electro that put Robyn’s ‘With Every Heartbeat in the charts; only, Allen’s turned it into her own by enlisting her usual honesty (“Since you’ve gone I feel like I’ve been let out of my cage”) and a touch of piano. Maybe she’s content to be a musician for a bit longer still.

Join our debate about Lily Allen's new songs here.