And here’s more packaged pleasures for the perpetually adolescent consumer.  Enjoy!

Angus & Julia Stone ‘Grizzly Bear’

These Antipodean siblings return with their third album, this delicacy produced by uber-turd polisher, Rick Rubin. To get him on-board the duo promised to cut a ditty about man-bear Rick, so when Angus intones ‘Can I take you high, to the mountain sky’ he’s letting us in to Rick’s post-studio time habits, when as an ursine he will climb high, tear you limb from limb and slowly eat your chaotically blood-spewing tenderised carcass. That answers the question ‘Whatever happened to Dixie Chicks? Adopting a 1970s, soft-rock ambience in the voguish Flee-Mac vein, this is a grower and I like it. Does a bear…? On the YouTube comments section someone’s opined “Hail Hitler”. This planet … can’t even get its fascism right.

John Denver and Gentle Ben, you did not die in vain.

DJ Fresh feat. Ellie Goulding ‘Flashlight’

…Or what’s known in these parts as a torch. The post-millennial Dollar present the sound of every booze-riddled, puke-stained resort from Bognor to Benidorm. Deploying fag-end ’90s rave effects, this is a “reworking” of the original on Rocky Dennis’ assortment of tripe, with added mangled keyboard noises appropriated from Robert Miles’ ‘Children’ and a Bontempi ‘rave’ beat button pressed. Twiddly twaddle for dummies. Rot-pop Duchess Ellie cries in identification with her audience, ‘Get outta my way, I’m coming through’ – she’s ready to spew and for her to see where she’s going, the light will guide her to the lavvy. You don’t need to look for this, it will find you.

Rozalla, you died in vain.

Postscript: Hey DJ, you’re about as fresh as a steak tartae on Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares.

Ella Henderson ‘Glow’

Not a week goes by when some moppet or poppet from the Sycopath reproduction plant is packaged and delivered to gadgets around the globe. Hailing from Grimsby Hills West, this forgettable treat is sung in a Dolores Riordanscreech and faux-motion with a smattering of Baltimora’s ‘Tarzan Boy’ “whoooaaaahs”. Hanging round her new mid-Atlantic pals has caused Ella to lose her Northern chops as she gargles ‘we are bry-urgh, we are bry-urgh’ which, after filtering it through Cleethorpes Babelfish translates as, ‘Local girl abandons own dreams for those of tedious (S)hitmaker’.

Mel Appleby (or was it Kim?), you died in vain.

Example ’10 Million People’

He’s back, with yet another ’90s de-raved barrel-scraping anvfphum with too many words and not enough oxygen to spit them out. Something about ‘sand… Duran Duran… 10 million people can’t be wrong’. They can and they will probably lap this up. The video, shot on the continent, has pap-whore du jour Cara D and her wannabe tag-along taking time out from (yet) another seminal experience by doing some sight-seeing, climbing a mountain, the camera pans up their rear(s) then cuts to a cross on a church.

KB: Noam Chomsky, what say you about this semiology?
Noam: ‘Semantically, ‘ex-ample’ suggests was once alright or enough. This (C)rapper’s never been alright and I’ve had enough (already)’.

And the song? It’s Example, how do you think it goes (rhetorically speaking)? Think atrocious and then think worse.

Vanilla Ice, you died in vain.

James Blunt ‘When I Find Love Again’

That distinctive Tweety Pie warble gets a Lord of Dance makeover as ‘Our Boy’ sings ‘I’m used to seeing people come and go’. I bet you do, probably the grunts you sent over the top to defend your monarch. Knight of the Realm nailed. Anyway, ‘when’? Don’t you mean ‘if’? And even then it’ll more than likely be your wallet and social connections than your infernal, sappy, soppy, music. But, but, you cry, “Oh, but, he’s soooo funny on Twitter”. If ever a statement summed up the oncoming apocalypse, it’s that. Captain James Cocker Spaniel De Beers Blount VIII, we do not salute you.

Owen Paul, you died in vain.

La Roux ‘Kiss And Not Tell’

‘Five Years’ is a song on Ziggy Stardust, one of David Bowie’s many guises. Five years it’s been since June ‘Ol’ Bill’ Ackland’s daughter went on the missing list. Like My Chemical No-Dance’s Gerard Way she’s rocking the Thin White Duke/Low era aesthetic and style now, because as we all know Beckenham’s Davey Jones signifies a chameleon-like shape-shifting approach each and every time. La Roux’s first release from Trouble in Paradise ‘Uptight Downtown’ was a promising return with its ‘Let’s Dance’ nods and winks, and this too is in thrall to the bouncy-pop ’80s and for that reason alone it gets both thumbs up. Who’s this aimed at? Hmm, well, there’s a microphone cord wrapped about Ben Langmaid’s throat-pipe in the bogs in the King’s Lynn Nando’s. You do the math. A word, if I may, by saying you’re not telling, you’re telling. C’mon, Ellie, you promised you’d be discreet.

Toyah, you did not die in vain.