Hey, if you can say one thing about Robyn’s collaboration with the Swedish “kings of tropical house”, it’s that she’s clearly having a HELL of a lot of fun.

Savage Skulls are on Diplo’s Mad Decent label, and have been putting out some pretty good remixes over the past year or so, notably Taio Cruz’s Break Your Heart (see below).

Back to Robyn though: We all know she loves to indulge in a bit of cute faux-rap every now and again, and now she gets to do it on top of some proper, banging, and crucially “authentic” beats. Is it anywhere near as good as Robyn doing what Robyn does best? Course not.

But it’s loads of fun, and you can’t help but smile at the video.

Taio Cruz – Break Your Heart (Savage Skulls Remix)

Given this blog’s subtitle is “a blog about pop”, I sometimes think I do a pretty poor job of writing about, well, pop.

Anyway, this is definitely pop. Early Lady Gaga + Robyn = not to everyone’s tastes, but most definitely to mine. Love this.

Fun facts about the delectable Ms. Somajo:
1. She co-wrote Robyn’s 100% amazing Time Machine
2. She’s about to make her major label debut, but has been around for a while putting out nice little tunes like “I-rony”(video below the cut).
3. The slightly misleadingly named Chinese Tekkno (check those kkkkkkks, love it) is definitely a step forward though.
4. She’s also done a duet type thing with Juvelen, who is also pretty awesome, and it is really quite good (again, see below)
5. She’s not just another interchangeable performer – she writes her own stuff and is heavily involved with her creative “angle”. Now I’m about as fussed about “authenticity” as I am about insurance, but in this case it does seem to promise a bit of inventiveness that not everyone in this “market” possesses. Yes.

Thanks to the ever-reliable Arjan Writes for bringing her to our attention.

Sophia Somajo – Chinese Tekkno by UniversalMusicSweden

Time Machine by robyn

And more below…

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The Best of British

OK let’s kick this thing off with a great big BLAH. Yes, the Brits are necessarily a big old corporate shambles. Yes, we know what they’re for. Annie Lennox. Nothing new. BLAH.

But, come on, wouldn’t it be nice if they weren’t so predictably rubbish every year?

Elements of this year’s list are Not Awful compared to some recent years, but mostly it’s just all so DULL. Is that because music is dull at the moment – if so I hadn’t noticed – or that the charts are (perhaps)>?

Anyway.

BRITISH MALE
Crappest nomination: Robert Plant (sorry to any Dads reading)
Surprise nomination: None
Yawn: Paul WellAH, Mark Ronson
SHOULD win: Tinie TempAH.
Will win: Plan B

BRITISH FEMALE
Crappest nomination: Rumer
Surprise nomination: Laura Marling
Yawn: Cheryl Cole, Paloma Faith, Ellie Goulding
SHOULD win: ?!? Marling is the least yawn.
Will win: Ellie Goulding

BRITISH BREAKTHRU”’
Crappest nomination: Mumford & Sons (runner up: Rumer)
Surprise nomination: None
Yawn: Ellie Goulding
SHOULD win: Tinie Tempah or The XX
Will win: Mumford & Sons

BRITISH GROUP
Crappest nomination: Mumford & Sons
Surprise nomination: None.
Yawn: Biffy Clyro, The XX
SHOULD win: Gorillaz
Will win: Probably Take That, but that’s OK

BRITISH SINGLE
Crappest nomination: Olly Murs v Scouting For Girls
Surprise nomination: None, this is alway inexplicable
Yawn: All of it, especially Florence and Plan B
SHOULD win: PASS OUT
Will win: Something godawful like Florence or Plan B

BEST BRITISH ALBUM SUPPORTED BY MASTERCARD
Crappest Nomination: Mumford
Surprise nomination: Emphatically none
Yawn: Plan B, Take That
SHOULD win: The XX (or Tinie Tempah)
Will win: Plan B or Mumford

INTERNATIONAL MALE
Crappest nomination: Bruce Springsteen in 2011 (not that I have anything against The Boss in general, mind)
Surprise nomination: Not sure Guetta counts given his omnipresence
Yawn: Cee Lo Green, Eminem
SHOULD win: KANYE
Will win: I have literally no idea

INTERNATIONAL FEMALE
This category is actually really good, but in fairness it would be really, really hard to fcuk this up
Crappest nomination: None!
Surprise nomination: ROBYN
Yawn: Kylie in 2011 perhaps? Alicia Keys now and then
SHOULD win: A MILLION TIMES ROBYN
WILL win: Rihanna, which will suffice I suppose

INTERNATIONAL BREAKTHRU”’
Crappest nomination: Bruno Mars
Surprise nomination: Glee Cast. WTF?
Yawn: The National, The Temper Trap
SHOULD win: None of them
WILL win: Justin Bieber

INTERNATIONAL GROUP
Crappest nomination: The effing Script
Surprise nomination: None
Yawn: Kings of Lyawn, Vampire Weekend, Arcade Fire
SHOULD win: Oh I don’t know, Black Eyed Peas?
WILL win: Arcade Fire

INTERNATIONAL ALBUM
Crappest nomination: Kings of Lyawn
Surprise nomination: Katy Perry
Yawn: Arcade Fire, Eminem
SHOULD win: Oh I dunno, is Cee Lo’s album any good beyond the single?
Will win: Arcade Fire

I’m skipping over Critic’s choice. We’ve all had that conversation.

BRITISH PRODUCER
Crappest nomination: I had to look him up, but “Ethan Johns” does not sound like My Kind Of Guy
Surprise nomination: Mike Pela (Sade I think)
Yawn: John Leckie, “Markus Dravs” (Arcade Fire)
SHOULD win: Stuart Price!
Will win: Oh I dunno.

The only bet I’d place on the back of this is that all my predicted winners will be wrong. Occasionally something even worse will happen, but mostly we’ll just go ‘meh’ and continue throwing things at James Corden’s face.

Hopefully Robyn will sing, then everything will be OK.

AM I WRONG?

Yes, it’s here, the actual top ten. I felt like expanding my annual top 50 to 75 was a clever move. I now feel like I’ve been writing about songs pretty much FOREVER. It’s a good job doing so is such fun.

Anyway, as this is the top ten, you will not be surprised to find some GUSHING contained within. It builds slowly, but it’s definitely there by the end. Not everyone will have heard the track I’ve chosen as this year’s number one, but I strongly recommend you all give it a whirl. I’m just as happy with it as I was with ‘With Every Heartbeat’ in 2007 and ‘Bad Romance’ last year, and that’s saying something.

Previous parts of the list are linked at the end of the post, and I’ll consolidate the whole lot into one list at some point in the near future. The full Spotify playlist (minus 4 pesky tracks including #3) is now complete.

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I have an internet again! After rather a long time. I don’t think I’ll be fully reawakening Instant Hits ’til the new year, but in the meantime there’ll be the odd post here and there, and of course my annual top 50 tracks. Here’s a post that’s definitely odd, to kick things off.
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