A God-awful Small Affair

So another Christmas has just passed and with it another Rebecca Ferguson album cycle; but does her sophomore effort offer any more than Heaven did when it comes to sustaining us for the rest of the year? Well, no, but it comes a lot closer. There's always going to be a cosy element about Ferguson that prevents her from setting charts alight during the summer months, and that's fine: her voice is so distinctive that trying to grab a spring dance hit or an autumn hip hop feature would be bizarre. The problem is that last year's (and the year before that's) charts were dominated by someone with a very similar-sounding album to this. The Sand é . For now, Ferguson doesn't have the ubiquity to turn her into the UK's most defiant television-guest-with-shit-hair, so she wins that battle by default, but it's a risk to play it safe today and there were fears she'd blur into the background after this. What Ferguson has in her favour though is that voice,...

Where does one start with introducing this one? 2013's standout pop event was the sudden release of Beyonce's fifth studio album, hands down. Not that there was much competition: Lady GaGa was at a creative nadir, Katy Perry was borrowing Sara Bareilles songs and Britney might as well have thrown herself in a blender, it would've made a better noise (and impression on the charts) than Britney Jean. Aggravating three very strong online fan communities out of the way, and over a month after the release, it's probably time to tackle this review. Production-wise, there's a stellar lineup as usual. Pharrell, Ryan Tedder, The-Dream and Timbaland all make reappearances, whilst new talents to Beyoncé's roster include Sia, Boots, Justin Timberlake and Miguel. Her music has always come under scrutiny for having so many helping hands but with such a talented collection it's hard not to get excited; but at this stage in her career it's actually what's so u...