Singles

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

STEVE APPLETON City Won't Sleep RCA **

The video for City Won't Sleepfinds cheesy acoustic heart-throb Steve Appleton alone and brooding in his Los Angeles motel room, fashioning a crude lyric sheet from a collection of trite lyric clippings, evidently kept stored in his rucksack. Staring wistfully out a window, he admits that he's a thousand miles away from any place and any face he's ever known. Thirty seconds later he's driving around in a convertible with three attractive members ofthe opposite sex. Yip, the boy moves fast!

THE KILLERS A Dustland Fairytale Island ***

The video for this song, basically The Wild Onemeets Rebel Without a Cause, is epic. But, lyrically, Brandon Flowers still sometimes comes across like a bad Bruce Springsteen impersonator. As always, however, Flowers gets a bonus point for not being afraid to appear vaguely ridiculous.

TINCHY FT AMELLE BERRABAH Never Leave You Island ***

The British grime superstar teams up with Sugababes third wheel Amelle Berrabah on this, the third single from his forthcoming Catch 22album. The track has already gone to No 1 in the UK.

SLIIMY Paint Your Face Perezcious Music ***

If I told you that French popstar Sliimy recently became the first act signed to Warner’s Prezcious imprint, which happens to be run by celebrity blogger Perez Hilton, would you hold it against him? If you’re even remotely sane, you probably would. But this is surprisingly likable, in a gratuitously quirky Mika/Feist way.

VOIDED BY PONCES My Valuable Hunting Knife ***

Ireland's most dubiously monikered Guided By Voices tribute band cover this track from the American indie rocker's Alien Lanesalbum. www.myspace.com/ voidedbyponces

IAN BROWN Stellify Polydor **

Not due for official release until late next month, Stellifyis the lead single from the former Stone Roses frontman's sixth solo album, My Way. To be brutally honest, the Human Genome Project is more readily comprehensible to me than this man's enduring popularity.