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My Cousin Karen had always insisted she didn't like the Prodigy, being "too dancey and hardcore" for her delicate, refined, Snow Patrol-esque tastes. But when my dad (yes, really, my dad), convinced her not to go back to the comfort of her hotel but to hang around for their live performance at the Isle of Wight Festival earlier this year... well, let's put it like this: she threw shapes that you're definitely not taught in geometry.

You see, this is what the Prodigy do to people.

Even Cousin Karen.

So, with the festival season well under way, it's only fitting that the royal veterans (well, minus the walking sticks and cod liver oil) of live music choose to make their mark by releasing a single so explosive it'll leave wannabies Pendulum quaking in their festival-ready wellie boots.

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If I had to give five stars to a song this year without actually hearing it, this would be the one, hands down. I haven't been this excited about an artist line-up, since Elton John teamed up with Blue.

When the royal family of Hip-hop and R'n'B get together, you'd think there'd be no point in writing a review, just label it with 'Guaranteed Number 1', give it five stars and send it on its way. But for the sake of objectivity and the possibility that Fraser would never let me near the Chart Blog again, I'll carry on. All I'll say is, it's going to take something serious to convince me otherwise.

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Oh, the irony. Here I am, about to write a review of a song called 'Holiday' (which incidentally is where Fraser is this week) and not only is it raining outside, but I am stuck in bed, ill, feeling very sorry for myself and very bitter that I have to write about such a subject. Hmmm... not the best start to a review, is it?

So, bitterly, I press play and, bitterly, I listen to Dizzee Rascal's new track. In an instant I am taken back. I'm taken back to the festival from the weekend just gone; I'm taken back to last month's Cyprus break; I'm taken out of this flipping bed and taken well and truly on a little holiday of my own. There is no bitterness and there are no snotty tissues (ming). In fact, the experience is a lot like that exotic juice advert where the working girl is whisked away to a tropical paradise, but there are way less men in sarongs here (never a good look).

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Ok, let's not muck about today. Let's dive straight into the review. Here it goes... The Dolly Rockers new single 'Gold Digger', their first 'physical' release (last release was download only), is a very decent debut. The 'wonky' pop sound gets you bopping from the off and the quirkyness of their style matches the eccentricity of the song. It has all the ingredients to a perfect modern pop track until that is... they start speaking.

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It's got to be tough to keep a successful pop career going. Much tougher than it is for rock bands. With rockers, all you need to do is get your sound together, stick to it, write a few songs in the same vein, stick 'em on an album or three, and you're set for life. Pop is more meticulous, has higher standards on a song-by-song basis, and risks total failure every time. Which means that even our most succesful pop acts are only one or two duff songs away from collapsing like a winded smoker.

This is where musical recycling comes in handy. Fellow Sugababes fans will remember that their career was largely saved by a cover version set to the backing of another old song ('Freak Like Me', for Suganewbies). If you can get people to listen to your song because it contains bits of other people's songs, and then buy it, you are officially GOOD TO GO.

It's not just pop stars in trouble who use this tactic either. If Lady GaGa can release a song which quotes liberally from 'Barbie Girl' and 'Ma Baker' by Boney M, and it's still brilliant, clearly this means it's fine to snatch bits from other cheesy pop songs and sort of string them together using glitter glue. Of course, the more brazen the theft, the more you'll need to strut about as if we're all stupid for being bothered about it.

It's fair to say the Sugababes are going to have to give it maximum rooster if they want to get this mess to fly.

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I was brought up in a household that did not enjoy slang terms for women, like bird, or honey, or chick. The logic being it's not nice to blend lots of different people with their own brains and character and wit and charisma all together as if one girl is very much the same as another. Katie White of the Ting Tings wrote a very good song about it, it went to No.1.

Akon, as a performer, likes to write songs about seeing a hot girl in a club - it can be a normal club or a strip club, he's that kind of classy guy - and how watching her dance makes him feel a special tingly sensation. The kind of sensation that makes him reach for his wallet, so he can fan his hot brow with a wad of notes.

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Gentle reader, I come bringing words of advice. Bitter experience has taught me a valuable lesson, and it is one that I wish to share with you, right here and now.

Do NOT settle down to listen to this song on a weekday morning, at a time when it still feels like the most precious element in the known universe is moresleepium, and then crank it through your headphones so that the bass makes your teeth rattle. If there is such a thing as a perfect way to make yourself hate a song before the chorus has even started, that's probably it.

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Some things are stupid, some things are clever. Then there are things which are stupid-clever, like 'Bonkers', or 'Boom Boom Pow', and things which are clever-stupid, like Razorlight, or Peter Andre claming he won't talk about Katie Price in the press because his children will read it one day, and then doing exclusive interviews with the press about Katie Price, while making a TV documentary, and releasing a song about it, all at the same timzzz...

Stupid-clever things are the best, clearly, because you can giggle at how dim they sound and marvel at how brilliant they actually are at one and the same time. Here's a good example: Punk pioneers the Ramones were once asked why their songs were so short, and Johnny Ramone replied "well, they were long songs, played quickly": Stupid, and yet clever.

This is why the bits in this song where an un-named shouty man bellows "ONE-TWO-THREE-TWO!" are fantastic. Particularly with Esmée emoting all over the shop about self-empowerment and not taking any rubbish any more.

The message seems to be, if your man can't count to four, get the hell out.

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Tinchy Stryder was our guest in the studio on Sunday alongside the electronic master Calvin Harris. They both release albums this week...so see who will be number 1 in the album chart on Sunday!

So just how tinchy was Tinchy?

We can reveal that he is a very healthy 5 foot and 5 inches...which makes him bigger than Prince, Emma Bunton, Kylie and Little Boots..so not so Tinchy really!

Just got back to Radio One HQ after a good old natter with Victoria a.k.a Little Boots. She had literally just finished her session with Jo Whiley and was smiley as ever breaking down why she decided to cover JLS in the Live Lounge.

After embarrassing myself on her Little Boots branded Tenoir-on (odd little light box she tinkers with during live performances, around 700 quid apparently) we spoke about her obsession with gardening, The fish that eat the dead skin off your feet, her earthquake experience during a trip to Japan and her bathing naked ON MASS!

Good times...good times

Check the show on Sunday to see how she charts and to hear the interview!

Reg

It's probably a result of some deep-rooted shallowness on my part - and by 'deep' I'm talking at least 2cm, maybe 3 - but there's something amazing about the first single from a new album by an established artist. It's like the slate has been cleaned, but expectations are still high, so you're sort of reliving what you first liked about someone, but in more detail, cos you're REALLY paying attention this time, while being impressed at how they've grown.

It also marks a cut-off point between what they have done up to now, and the future. It's too late to go back and mine the last album for extra thrills, because whatever we may think about the artist in question, it's almost definitely out of date. They've since gone off to the foothills of Mount Creativity, and dug up a fresh new batch of amazing-ore, and this is the first, freshest example of what they have found.

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Hmm... I'm not sure what happened with the Lily Allen singles-release programme there. I know there was a video made for...well it's the song on her album with a title which is definitely too rude for public consumption. The one where she calls out someone for being a racist and homophobe, and then swears at them in a righteous but very cute fashion. Definitely not the kind of song you could write about on a family-friendly blog like this one without the risk of getting yelled at by someone.

It was a really good video too, it didn't illustrate the lyrics particularly, mainly because they really didn't need acting out. Course the censored version did rather leave you with the impression that the main hookline of the chorus was aimed at someone in a queue.

And not just half-heartedly in a queue either. Very, very much in one.

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The plot thickens. This is, if you believe everything you read, Mariah's answer song to Eminem's claims that they were once an item. She does not believe this to be true, he does. One of them is lying, both of them have put their claims to music, and it's unlikely that we're ever going to know the truth.

And, as is often the case when people bicker, we've gone past the nuts and bolts of who said or did what, and we're now into making up reasons as to why they would behave in such a way in the first place.

We've all done it, in the heat of the moment, right? You do a minute or two of "no, I didn't!", "YES YOU DID!", and then it becomes "why are you lying about this? Is it because you were bullied at school?", or "it's not my fault you've got issues", or "for the last time, Fraser, you are NOT a woman, so TAKE MY MAKEUP OFF!", right?

Hello?

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Eating my body weight in Cookie here in the studio with cotton and Tinchy. Loving today's show, remember get in touch guys we love hearing from you.

Cookies are good

That is all.

Reg

Cakes at the ready
Star in the Hood T-Shirt on (not really)
Chart show from Four!!

Hope your ready!

Reg

I have a glass bowl on my desk. Once upon a time it used to contain apples, as I've always had a thing about the humble granny smith, but it's been a while since I've remembered to get any, and in the meantime, it has become a perfect receptacle for the CDs I've been sent which have failed to win me round after the first couple of listens. That way they're still accessible, but clearly not for daily use.

The process goes something like this, CD goes on, I potter about, doing emails and whatnot, pressing play again when it finishes or maybe skipping through some of the remixes, and then, assuming all has not gone well, it'll be returned to its cardboard shell and hoicked into the fruitbowl, otherwise it goes on the teetering wall of CDs I'm building between me and the outside world.

Guess where I had to rescue this CD from, when it came time to review it?

And the reason for this is it became too tiring to work out if this was a parody of a sexy song, or a sexy song written by someone who doesn't really know what sexy is, or an actual sexy song (and I don't know what sexy is). Life's too short, y'know?

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Should I start this review off with a spoiler warning? I don't want to get into trouble for revealing the plot, especially considering it's another example of Jack's finely-honed traditional performance poetry, with a proper story winding its way through the whole song. People hate finding out the end of a proper story before they start, don't they? And there's definitely a thing which happens in the song which you might want to enjoy in all its spontaneous glory, rather than sit and squirm and anticipate all the way through, with nothing but a feeling of oncoming dread for compan...

*checks the song title again*

Oh right. So, what, you already know? Bah!

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ChartBloggerers, this is the lovely Reggie and the equally lovely Fearne, Reggie and Fearne, these are the mighty ChartBloggerers...some of you may already know each other but it's always nice to start these things off with a welcoming handshake.

Cool! So, here's the thing. As of this weekend, Reg and Fearne are going to be joining us here in our little blog jambouree, because, well, they love us.

They will be writing about the Radio 1 Chart Show, how's it's going, who's coming in to chat, what they said, people they've met, things they've seen...stuff like that.

I can't be any more specific at the moment because, well, that's part of the fun, but have no fear, your regular ChartBloggery will not be affected. It's a coming together of TWO MIGHTY FORCES, PEOPLE...

Or, to put it more realistically, one mighty force and a blog. Join us on Sunday afternoon to see the fun.

Now, would anyone like a biscuit?

Oh. Man. This is really it. The apocalypse is upon us. It's the end of days, the beginning of the final act, the dark times are here. Death and his three cohorts - y'know, Famine, Pestilence and Lack Of Internet Access - are saddling up and preparing to ride the black winds down upon our cold and sorry world.

They'll have a job finding their way around, mind, seeing as the world itself is now upside down: it's raining in summertime, up is hot, left is chirpy, the lion lays down with the lamb, the Anti-Christ is among us (his flat-top is the only reason the horns don't show), and, the greatest proof of all, Enter Shikari have recorded a slick pop song (by their standards), complete with...oh crikey...I can't even bring myself to say it...people are gonna hurl...complete with...with...a Westlife key change at the end.

May [insert creator of choice] have mercy on us all...

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PREPARING TO LISTEN: Based on his work in the field of music so far, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna hate this. 'Beautiful Girls' was cack. I mean really, really bad cack. The kind of cack that gives cack a bad name, and it's not like anyone was claiming cack as a cure for the common cold in the first place. And before anyone starts spluttering and listing novelty songs or the complete works of Lisa Scott Lee or that time Take That ...just stop. I'm not claiming that 'Beautiful Girls' is the worst song ever made, that would be a bit much. It's still cack though.

LOT of ground to make up, 'swot I'm sayin'...

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In all the noise and mess surrounding the return of the Arctic Monkeys - a perfectly poised Culture Show appearance here, a brilliant 7" release through Oxfam there, endless tales of them recording their new album 'Humbug' under a strange dome in the desert with Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone Age EVERYWHERE, it's easy to forget that they started out as just a bunch of mates with guitars, who decided to get together and make music as a way of passing the time, and happened to end up being really good at it.

It's going to get progressively harder too, as they're no longer that same gang. Changes have occurred, strange forces have been at work, there's talk of alchemy, of glowing charms, of shady pacts and supernatural incantations. Beards have been grown, and then lost overnight, as if by (whisper it) magic.

So, against this Harry Potteresque backdrop, you'd be wise to cling to this one central question: What is the new Arctic Monkeys single really like?

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Imagine for a second that you're one of Metro Station. Let's say Blake, the bassist/synth player. In your home country, you are very popular, off the back of a much loved pop-rock album and just the right kind of Disney connections - including both Hannah Montana and Camp Rock, but missing that all-important High School Musical hookup. Being ambitious, you start to release singles all around the world, and play gigs all over the place, winning new friends and new fans with every performance.

Then, without any warning at all, suddenly it's two years later, and you've essentially lived the same day, with very little variation, every day until you are no longer sure what your family look like, or if it's Christmas.

This is when the call comes from some silly British radio blog, wanting to ask you questions about your life in showbiz...well, it's enough to make anyone confused, frankly.

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First things first, I feel I should admit something controversial: I have always been a 'Team Katie' girl. Yes, I know what you're thinking: a) surely that is no way to start a Peter Andre review (and in that, you're probably right) and b) Team KATIE?! 'WHAT THE...'

Well, until recently, why not? My argument was always that even though she appears to be cold, heartless and dead behind the eyes, these were always the things we loved her for. But then those pics started to emerge of her, you know the ones, the jacuzzi + random guy ones, and my opinion started to shift. Man, Katie - that was way harsh. Suddenly I'm thinking "Is it too late to swap sides?"

So, now, with one foot in each camp, I'm aware I can't keep my balance for much longer. Which way will I fall? Well, Mr. Andre, let's just say if your single is good enough, you could (almost literally) sway me.

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If, Mr Carey, you wish to "go crazy", and indeed "break the rules" as a kind of wind-down after a hard day's studying at school, is Shaky really the person you want with you? I mean sure, he's a well-respected entertainer, can pretend to be Elvis with the best of them, and has a way with a '50s rock 'n' roll classic that few modern singers can match - outside of karaoke, that is - but as a provider of after-hours childminding, maybe not.

I mean, where are you going to go? Into his old house? Behind the green door? And whose rules are you planning on breaking anyway? Shaky's? Cos that, my friend, is a rockin' good way to feel the toe of his artificially whitened plimsoll up your rear end, and no mistake.

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I've never been a massive fan of remixes. There's always the suspicion that they largely exist to pad out single releases and save artists from having to put out their every tiny musical thought as a b-side or an extra track - and therefore expose their weaker ideas to a fickle public. And more often than not, they leave out the bits of a song that you want to hear, in favour of sound fragments being scattered across new music which might as well be an entirely different tune, one that you're not really in the mood for, so it's an unsettling experience all round.

There are exceptions, naturally, lots of them, and my list is probably just as long as yours, but the rest of them come across as just a way of diluting a very good musical idea across someone else's half-hearted dance music.

Hats off to Bloc Party, then, for cutting to the chase and putting out songs which already sound like remixes (and then, bizarrely, putting out remixes of these songs). In this way their ideas always sound minty fresh, the song remains at the core of things, and the synths and drum-machines are already here.

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Ah Calvin Harris, Calvin Harris. A very nowadays sort of a pop star. He's on Twitter, he's good with the synths and he likes to sing his own songs, he makes little videos for YouTube, he's a festival regular, he's got the clever ideas, and the tunes, he's got that 'Can Do' attitude, and he effortlessly overcomes the fact that his records are not selling on the back of his astonishing good looks and vocal charisma, by making them stick in the mind like a harpoon in a watermelon.

Heck, he can even get away with the autotune in this song, by drafting in a proper singer to make it take off just at the point when it starts to get a bit monotonous.

And this is where a new Calvin Harris song requires proper scientific analysis. How else can you accurately rate the quality of a song like this, when it hops over the gulf between 'amazing' and 'a little drab' with such nimble grace?

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Of all the musical surprises which have happened in 2009, the en-good-ification of Paolo Nutini is the one that no-one could have predicted. Not even his most ardent fans. In making his comeback album 'Sunny Side Up' sound like a brilliant collection of some of the best musical ideas of the last 500 years - from folky flutes to Jungle Book jazz to jumpy ska - all delivered in a witchy Scots crone voice, he's jumped over all the other moany old singer-songwriters queueing up to let the world hear their timid thoughts in their weedy squeaks, and nabbed a well-deserved No.1 album into the bargain.

What's more, people are talking about this record, and recommending it, and passing it along, in a way that all record companies DREAM of. Dad's birthday present has never been so easy, and for once, the same goes for the entire family, from elder/younger siblings to groovy uncles, grans and grandads to pre-nage jitterkids. So long as you can get past the old lady voice, great treasures await you.

This, while a nice song, is not one of the most precious treasures. Which makes it an odd choice for a single.

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When I first bought Hot Fuss, I thought "blimey, this is amazing" and played it for the next three months solidly. It was amazing because it seemed to combine wonderful, anthemic, almost hymnal songs based around angry, hurt teenagers and a sense of detachment and a need to be comforted, which was exactly what I wanted when I was seventeen and still is now most of the time, although I'm obviously not a teenager anymore.

The sweetly naive "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" part aside, I used to listen to 'All These Things That I've Done' on repeat, with my head in my hands, full of teenage self-hate and revulsion for All Those Things That I'd Done and there was something hugely comforting about it, similarly to the rest of the album, especially in its darker and angrier moments like the aforementioned anthem to walking in on your fiancee getting off with someone else.

The thing about the Killers since, though, is that they seem to have been taken in by this hymnal quality, not because it was sweetly naive and made no sense, but because it was INCREDIBLY DEEP. Which it wasn't. Which creates a conflict of interests insofar as what I wanted them to do was make more songs about possibly killing your girlfriend and that endless late-night "ARGH!" feeling, in a jaunty pop style and apparently what they wanted to do was go completely blimmin' mad.

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Ah, there is nothing like the sweet euphoric rush of pop music: The tightening of the chest, the raised hairs, the goosebumps, the fizzy feeling that makes you wonder if you're about to suddenly burst into tears or out laughing, the swelling of excitement, the desire to be carried up into the clouds by the dazzling explosions of light and joy which are bouncing around inside your skull, the tingling, the restless twitchy fingers, the desire to squeal and jump up and down when you discover than someone else gets it too...

...in short, the power pop music has to take sane, calm, rational people, worm under their defenses - their cool, their snoot and their poise - using tricks which are not new or particularly clever, and force them to act like toddlers on The Sugar Rush Of All Time...well that is the thing we are all chasing. We might pretend that we want a balm for the soul, or to have our intellect tickled by wry observations, or to feel part of a People's Republic Of Rockular Togetherness, but actually, all we really need is THAT feeling, and we're not too fussy where we get it from, frankly.

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