A God-awful Small Affair

It's fair to say that few have courted controversy as consistently and arduously over the years as Madonna and her juggernaut pop career have. She's pissed off Catholics, she's got her Madge out for a sex-book, she's adopted, she's divorced, she's a bitch, she's had more style-changes than...well anyone, she's had spats with Elton John and most recently there's been a fixation with trying to instigate a rivalry between her and Lady Gaga. The title of 'Queen of Pop' seems to be a genuine battle nowadays (although personally I couldn't care less, considering the title was invented for Madonna for Christ's sake, and Gaga's been around for, what, 3 years?) and whether it's part of my ongoing love/hate relationship with the internet's music corners or just a waning interest in pop, I can't help but feel the whole thing's a contrived mess of publicity and falsehood. Certainly, recently, Madonna's music career has la

It honestly doesn't feel like it was over 3 years ago that the likes of Animal and Black & Blue were enduring botherers of my playlists. In the time spent between debut and sophomore album, the Swedish electropop outfit have seen a fantastic collaboration with Mark Ronson and Boy George on Somebody to Love Me , co-written Bruno Mars' Grenade and Britney Spears' Trip to Your Heart , and, as Bloodshy & Avant, enjoyed a host of well-received remixes and EPs. On home turf, however, they've yet to crossover into mainstream success. Critically, too, they've only ever been lukewarm at best, being dismissed by the likes of NME and Pitchfork on the ground of... well I don't know. Not recording the album in a forest, maybe. The overall sound of Happy to You , as its title may belie, is a twee and chirpy selection of sugary electropop. Opener 'Enter the Jokers Lair' entwines almost birdsong melodies with a screeching synth loop for a pretty unstable warm

Nearly 5 years ago now the seminal American Boy was dropped and everyone seemed to go mental. The world was a simpler place - the Friday Night Project was very much "a thing", Gavin and Stacey had just started (and featured characters reproducing the Kanye verse word-for-word) and Lady GaGa was only just on the verge of breaking out of underground New York. It won a Grammy and ended up on many best-of-the-decade lists, but in the process became a bit irritating for Estelle: “Sometimes I get off stage and want to punch people,” she told the Washington Post. Some of us might remember as far back as her breakthrough - the single 1980 was as summery and infectious as American Boy but only enjoyed mid-table chart success. Still, 8 years on and Estelle's still courting cross-atlantic attention, and to only put out 3 albums in that time demands respect. Straight away she commands attention with the self-referential 'The Life', namedropping Tinie Tempah, 1980 and Kanye