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New Music Friday: Vera Blue at the top, 'Chad Cooper' at the bottom, various songs in between

Song of the week:
Vera Blue — 'Lady Powers'
Vera Blue is an inter­est­ing one: today she releases her debut album, except it's not quite a debut album because she pre­vi­ously had one out as Celia Pavey, which was the name she used when she was on Australia's version of The Voice. Still, as Lana Del Rey has shown the world, there's nothing a decent rebrand can't fix: Vera's album is brilliant, and 'Lady Powers' is a super-smart pop single. If you like it, make sure you give the full album a listen.

Wrong of the week:
Chad Cooper, Robaer and Kepler — 'Happy Song'
Imagine Justin Bieber's 'Sorry' stripped of any ori­gin­al­ity then combine it with all the least ima­gin­at­ive lyrical, melodic, sonic and vocal tropes of every big-streaming song of the last 18 months, and that's 'Happy Song'. Naturally it sounds like it could be catnip for Spotify playlists. Spotnip, if you will. Shall we try to make Spotnip a thing? Shall we? No let's not do that.

Additional notes:

  • Desperate times call for Despacito measures: for his 'launch' single X Factor winner 'Matt Terry' has been slapped onto a new version of Enrique Iglesias' pre­vi­ously-and-in-fact-still quite brilliant 'Subeme La Radio'. We're sure 'Matt Terry' is a really nice guy and that's all we have to say about this release.
  • Speaking of Syco-related releases from people who are pre­sum­ably Really Nice Guys, Louis Tomlinson (and Digital Farm Animals) join Bebe Rexha on what is essen­tially a Bebe Rexha single. There is swearing on it to show everyone how grown up everyone is.
  • MORE SYCO: Pretty Much, the US boyband they've been working on for a while, release their first single today. Perky sexu­al­con­sent­banger 'Would You Mind' pulls off the inter­est­ing feat of being quite excellent while also sounding like a mid-ranking 911 single.
  • Lana Del Rey's released her album again and it's mostly very good.
  • For reasons unex­plained Lykke Li has covered 'Unchained Melody'.
  • For reasons unex­plained Ember Island have covered 'Umbrella'.
  • Sadly the wheels have totally fallen off the WSTRN thing now, which is a shame but what can you do? ("Release better follow-up singles" — The World.)

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