Shuffle

EOIN BUTLER's guide to downloads, singles and free audiostreams

THE ANIMATORS

Marvellous ***

“I’m the chip shop champion/ The tip top tracksuit man.” Dublin rap ensemble The Animators burnish their street cred here with a video filmed on . . . Grafton Street? Come on lads, that’s the least ghetto place in Ireland! It’s pedestrianised! The Brown Thomas sign is right behind you! For the love of God . . . youtube.com

ZOOEY DESCHANEL & JOSEPH GORDON- LEVITT

What Are You Doing New Years Eve? *

Zooey and Joseph are so cute I want to reverse over them in a giant sports utility vehicle. Repeatedly. For two and a half years. And call it Eight Hundred Days of Hummer– yee-haw! youtube.com

REN HARVIEU

Through the Night Kid Gloves Records **

Half a decade on after Back to Black, the British retro soul boom shows no sign of abating, with a slew of critics tipping this 21-year-old Salford singe for success in 2012. And critics are never wrong, are we?

WE CUT CORNERS

It’s a Pirate’s Life for Me ***

In the spirit of the title, I taped this track off the radio. And in the spirit of the band’s name, I only listened to it once. It sounded, er, pretty good. I think. Or bad. I mean, what do you think? wecutcorners.net

SCISSORS SISTERS v KRYSTAL PEPSY

Shady Love Polydor ****

Scissors Sisters’ Jake Shears and Ana Matronic team up with hip-hop It Girl du jour Azealia Banks on this glitter- ball ode to a girl who’s “gonna vote for Obama and likes to dance to Madonna”. An irresistible cure for the January blues.

FRANK OCEAN

4 Tears Def Jam ****

“I won’t cry in the car/I won’t cry in the bathroom stall/I won’t cry when I’m home alone/No, I won’t cry at all.” Frank Ocean’s latest jam is part meditation on masculine inhibitions, part lost Dr Seuss classic. frankocean.tumblr. com