Random reviewing

I'm writing as much as possible at the moment to build up my writing portfolio.  Yes, these 3 reviews are very random things to review here in June 2005, but I was filling in a couple of things that had been left blank somewhere in a singles review of 2004.

Britney Spears – Everytime

The third and final single from ‘In the Zone’, ‘Everytime’ was released at the height of Britney’s trailer trash, look at me I’m getting married, yay cigarettes, yay alcohol period. Couple her frenzied press coverage with a video starring Stephen Dorff and Britney’s death, and you are well on your way to a number 1 single. ‘Everytime’ was a dramatic change of tone from the squelches and crazy hooks of previous single ‘Toxic’. Singing with emotion and fragility, Britney tells of how she misses a lover and wishes she could be forgiven or at least get him out of her head (Justin Timberlake anyone?). It’s probably her best ballad, but I doubt it’ll be remembered in the annals of pop history as a corker.

D12 – My Band

This was the record that made me sit up and say HELLO to D12. Later, after being playlisted to the max on every possible radio station & music television channel in the country, it was also the record that made me want to gouge my eyes out. But enough of that. Casting aside the tedium of its overplayedness, ‘My Band’ eclipsed anything else the ’12 had released, and hit the number 2 spot in April 2004. It was cheeky, a little menacing, and self-mocks Eminem’s ‘I am the big I am’-ness. Hell, members of D12 we probably didn’t even know exist are given a verse to sing here, and it's sure as hell fun to have a sing off with your mates to!

Blue – Curtain Falls

Oh Blue! The loveliest of boy bands. Oh Duncan, you made girls across the land tremble with excitement every time you appeared on television. Curtain Falls was here, as the name may suggest, to draw the career of these 4 strapping young men to a close after 12 top 20 hits in 3 years. Sampling the riff from Coolio’s 1995 number 1 Gangsta’s Paradise was a bit of an odd choice, but hey ho! Reaching number 4 in November, this returned to the styles of Blue’s first few tracks even including a rap from Simon. We were too busy swooning at Duncan, mind.