Singles

Eoin Butler's guide to singles, downloads and free audiostreams

TAKE THAT
Up All Night Polydor★★★
Up All Nightis a straightforward Beatle-esque rocker, with Mark Owen handling lead vocals. It's a likeable effort, but one curiously ill-suited to the male vocal harmony format. Indeed, the video acknowledges as much, casting Gary, Jason and Howard as pianist, drummer and guitarist respectively – no doubt to obscure the fact that they're not actually doing much else.

GLASVEGAS
Flowers and Football Tops Columbia★★
More shameless mawkishness from the dour Scottish rockers. This cheery ditty is about child murder. The band's previous hits were about societal dysfunction and parental abandonment. Potential future singles include Aberfan School Disaster, Madeline McCann Had Her Whole Life Ahead of Herand Bambi's Mother: Not Coming Back You Know.

THE KILLERS
Spaceman Island★★
Brandon Flowers gets it. He knows there's a recession on. He knows people are losing their jobs and would benefit from some light relief. So he dons this ridiculous costume to cheer us up (see the video, please see the video). Trust me, he knows how much of an idiot he looks. But he does it anyway. Because that's how much he cares. The starmaker says that it ain't so bad? Oh, but it is, Brandon. It is.

LILY ALLEN
Everyone's At It EMI★★
"I'm not trying to say that I smell of roses/But when will we tire of putting shit up our noses?" Like Noel Gallagher more than a decade ago, Lily here postulates the thesis that, while drugs aren't necessarily a good thing, everybody takes them. Not to disparage Allen's sociological methods, but it's possible her findings are not based on an entirely representative sample of the public at large.

BEYONCÉ
Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) Columbia★★★★
All the Shuffle readers, all the Shuffle readers, all the Shuffle readers . . . Put your hands up! Bah. Why doesn't it work when I do it? Maybe my dance routine needs more work. I've just got to get that wiggle down.