Music Blogs

Welcome to Yahoo! Music's whistle-stop guide to what's happening in music this week. Every seven days in Recommenders we check-out the latest tracks, downloads, leaks, links and video clips from the corners of every genre and let you know whether they're worth getting out of bed for. Today, IAN WATSON puts the microscope up to VAMPIRE WEEKEND, EDITORS, CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG, AFI, ALEXANDRA BURKE and SPANDAU BALLET.

In case you hadn't noticed, it's Christmas next week. Or at least, that's what VAMPIRE WEEKEND (pictured) would like you to believe. "HORCHETA" - a cold Mexican drink made from rice, apparently - thrums with yuletide joy, references to winter weather and balaclavas rubbing up alongside xylophones that sound like jingle bells and heavenly harmonies. Quite what they're doing releasing this now is anyone's guess (maybe they wanted to sneak one in before Sufjan Stevens), but we'd be happy with a present like this at any time of year. Merry Christmas, one and all!

And so, inevitably, EDITORS go electro-pop. Makes sense really - they'd squeezed as much blood as possible from that Coldplay ape Joy Division routine, and with Tom Smith's voice sounding as it does, it was either more of the same or a handbrake turn. Et voila, "PAPILLON": goodbye guitars, hello synths, and welcome please Depeche Mode do "Sweet Dreams" (with Ian Curtis singing, of course). Which is what happens when you don't alter your songwriting, but just swap your instruments around a bit. Astonishingly, it kind of works. After all, if you've already overlooked the Joy Division thing, accepting the synth thing is a doddle.



Now here's a story. After suffering a cerebral haemorrhage in 2007, CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG underwent several MRI scans. And during those scans, she had two grand ideas. One! To turn the mechanical, claustrophobic noise of an MRI scan into music. Two! To get Beck to help her. And so: "IRM" (you see) is hypnotic and dissonant, a Can-like journey into a big metal tube that sounds like Thom Yorke dropping his cutlery tray into a washing machine. Gainsbourg remains supremely detached throughout while Beck wisely stays behind the controls. A curious endeavour, but an engaging one nonetheless.

Onto this week's burning question: can goths ever grow old gracefully? Robert Smith once shaved his head, but went back to the mop-top after his fans complained. Now, AFI - emo gothsters who found themselves being sidelined by MCR - are attempting to grow-up. Singer Davey Havok has adopted the slicked back Jon Spencer look, while the rest of the band look like they're auditioning for Bush. Will it work? Do we care? "MEDICATE" has more fire in its belly than previous AFI dirges, but this still feels like too little, too late.

Back in the real world, "X-Factor"-winning, "Hallelujah"-mangling, million-selling popstrel ALEXANDRA BURKE attemps to jumpstart her proper career with a breezy, family-friendly pop song packaged as a gangsta-lovin', bling-rattlin', attitudinal pop song. So it's one thing on the radio, and another on the TV. Genius! It's the presence of join-the-dots focus group rapper-for-hire Flo Rida on "BAD BOYS" that gives the game away though - this is about as cool as S Club 7 rapping about drive-bys.

And finally. Not a skateboarding duck but the comeback single by SPANDAU BALLET (ie, the former without the wheels). You can understand the theory - write Take That-style middle aged ballad, watch moolah roll in -- but there's something deeply unconvincing about "ONCE MORE", as if you can hear they're just going through the motions for a pay day and an easy life. Gary Barlow needed to prove something - he had plenty of cash after all - but this is simply the sound of a former Red Wedge activist (Gary Kemp) putting aside his principles to work with a card carrying Tory apologist (Tony Hadley, alas). To cut a long story short, it stinks. Merry Christmas!