6 May 2016 Entertaining as the Kendrick - Drake beef has been, I have one teensy reservation: it's only Drake. Surely there a worthier foe for the lacerating rhymes of Pulitzer Prize laureate Kendrick Lamar than Toronto's most prominent rapper since Snow. Drake is hardly the Napoleon of rap, not least because the Napoleon of … Continue reading Drake ft. Wizkid and Kyla – ‘One Dance’ →

1 April 2016 Sia's public standing doesn't seem to have recovered from the controversial depiction of autism in Music, the 2021 movie she co-wrote, co-produced and directed. Matters weren't helped by Sia's initial response to such criticism: effing and jeffing at disgruntled autistic people on her socials. Her 2017 Christmas single 'Snowman' returns to the … Continue reading Sia ft. Sean Paul – ‘Cheap Thrills’ →

25 March 2016 Back in 1992 The Shamen had to invent a spurious Dickensian oddball called Ebeneezer Goode to get their ode to ecstasy onto the radio, TV and top of the charts. No subterfuge required in free-thinking 2016 - at least not in the lyrics. I felt a bit hoodwinked, though, to discover that … Continue reading Mike Posner – ‘I Took A Pill In Ibiza’ →

19 February 2016 You may recall the Irish connection here. Lead singer Lukas Forchhammer had an Irish father - a Mr Graham, hence the band name. '7 Years' is about him. You may therefore also recall '7 Years', unfortunately. Nizlopi's 'JCB Song' mashed up with 'In The Year 2525' and The Script, performed by an … Continue reading Lukas Graham – ‘7 Years’ →

5 February 2016 Well, here we are now: the first One Direction solo single and chart-topper, and it's not by Harry. With hindsight, even with 1D mania and the sensation of Zayn's departure the stakes here were quite low; all his first freelance track has to be is better than the solo debuts by Robbie … Continue reading Zayn – ‘Pillowtalk’ →

27 November 2015 It would have been a baller move indeed, and in keeping with his apparently homeopathic levels of tact and decorum, if Justin Bieber had styled out his 2013-14 string of high-profile misdeeds as a series of promo events culminating in the release of a track called 'Sorry': a Super Bowl half-time ad … Continue reading Justin Bieber – ‘Sorry’ →

30 October 2015 One-off Bond title song aside, how do you follow 'Someone Like You'? With something like 'Someone Like You', of course! In fairness, the whole world loved 'Someone Like You' to the point that it overshadowed Adele's other hits and defined her sound. So, why not give the people what they want? Also, … Continue reading Adele – ‘Hello’ →

23 October 2015 A few months earlier in 2015 we saw Ireland's last number one from an Irish boyband, HomeTown's 'Cry For Help'. Now here's Ireland's last number one from any boyband. We'll still have a chart-topping single from a girl group, though, plus solo number ones from former band-boys including two of 1D. But … Continue reading One Direction – ‘Perfect’ →

4 September 2015 I had just got undressed when I looked out the window and saw Justin Bieber right outside. His visit to Bushy Park in Dublin to shoot some hoops in June 2017 was one of Ireland's more unexpected celeb-sighting stories. The basketball court in Bushy Park happens to be just beside the men's … Continue reading Justin Bieber – ‘What Do You Mean?’ →