2025: The Final Quarter - Singles
- kevpalowe8
- Mar 22
- 7 min read
Originally posted Dec 2025
I won’t say a lot hear as my ‘end of year’ posts will come in late December. There is still technically a month to go but, because of Christmas streaming, nobody in their right mind releases singles in December anymore. Although its to a lesser extent, its a similar situation for albums too. Some of the singles commented on here are actually from earlier in the year.
Richard Ashcroft “Lover” (from earlier in the year but its becoming a favourite so........)
Built around a sample from Joan Armatrading’s song “Love and Affection” (1976) (the most well-known and memorable bit when it ‘kicks in’); this track has real impact. That sample over and over is quite addictive. But, beyond this, is the track any good? Is that even a fair question? Afterall, it IS part of the track. Whether or not the core (and best bit) of the track is Ashcroft’s work this is still his ‘creation’. So, I’m a bit confused by my own ponderings but there’s no denying that I really like it. Of course, its very interesting because the track Ashcroft is by far most famous for is the Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony” (1997) that is built around a sample of a string orchestra’s version of “The Last Time” (1965) by the Rolling Stone’s (as well as quoting the melody from that). It seems he’s quite apt at this.
Tate McRae “Tit For Tat”
I like McRae although I have to say it is all sounding a bit the same now.
Taylor Swift “The Fate Of Ophelia” (#1)
I’d say this is the best from her as a single track in a while. Its fairly straightforward – no frills – but it has a somewhat better melody that I’m used to hearing from Swift and I like the persistent extended phrases – its like events are constantly being delayed and there’s a ‘frustration’ to the song.
Sienna Spiro “Die On This Hill”
Although I cant claim this is a particularly ‘original’ track – its a brilliant song and a powerful performance. The more I listen to it, the more I like it. It may end up in my top singles of the year.
HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters “How It’s Done”
I think this is my favourite of the Kpop Hunters tracks and the closest to what I believe Kpop ACTUALLY is as opposed to what I perceive as its massive mis-representation by this whole Kpop Hunters thing.
HUNTR/X, EJAE, AUDREY NUNA, REI AMI & KPop Demon Hunters “What It Sounds Like”
Another one. Its OK. It quotes the most successful of the track (and one of 2025’s most successful tracks) “Golden”.
Sam Fender & Elton John “Talk To You”
A dull as any other Sam Fender track.
Olivia Dean “So Easy (To Fall In Love)”
This is brilliant. I’d say its the best of the singles from the album. Although, I’m not sure if it was officially a single or if it just streamed well – being the lead track on the very popular album. Either way, it has the best melody, lyric, and arrangement (with its intricate backing vocals, piano and trumpet). Its a breezy jazz-pop track, with a bossa nova back drop. The lyric is more interesting than it first appears. Its definitely light hearted but that joyful affirmation of ‘its so easy to fall in love’ also acts as a warning that........ well...... ‘its so easy to fall in love’. I say its the lyric that’s interesting but I actually pick this up from the music accompaniment. The music at this point is the most harmonically ambiguous of the whole track. It took me a very long time to work this track out sat at the piano. If you strip away all the rich jazz embellishments, you are left with a fairly simple chord progression at the track’s core. But, of course, the jazz element is NOT stripped away! This made working everything out quite difficult. In jazz, you may have a very simple chord, but once a guitars adds a major 7th to ‘jazz it up’, then the bass adds a different note to it, then the vocals add a further different note, then a trumpet goes in a different direction........ analytically you’ve got your work cut out. Because even after you’ve figured all the notes, have you identified the ‘root’ note? Even then, f you have 5 notes, there are not just 5 possible chords depending which note is the root, because for each one of those 5 there are 4 other possibilities called ‘inversions’ of that chord. So even those all the notes are identical and in the same order, you have 25 chords you could make an argument for (by my maths). Anyway.......... I went off on a tangent there......... the line ‘its so easy’ is sung over the most ambiguous bit. There is an F in the bass. Building from there, it seems logical to suggest we have an F-minor-flattened-7th with 9th and flattened-11th. (F, Ab, C, Eb, G, Bb). But there are some problems. Firstly, the 9th and 11th could also be a 2nd and 4th because they are the same notes but in a different octave. I’d argue the former rather than the latter because of the way the chord is spread. But after all that explanation, I wouldn’t argue this anyway. It doesn’t hit my ear that way. Because your ear is usually naturally drawn to the melody, that makes the notes of the melodic line the most important. In this case, the notes a descending arpeggio of C-minor-flattened 7th (Bb, G, Eb, C – descending). An F-minor would require an A-flat and I’m not convinced we can hear one. But, even if we can, it could be a flattened-6th in C-minor. There is, however, an F at the bottom (which is why I outlined the ‘F-minor with all its added things’ option). But the F could be an added 4th to the C-minor-7th chord. And THAT is what I think we have. A C-minor-flattened-7th-with-added 4th (or 11th) in its 2nd inversion.............. except I DON’T really think that. I actually think its a C-minor-flattened-7th and the bass is just doing its own thing (playing something ‘wrong’ if you will) to deliberately throw us off. So......... lol....... the point of all this its that its very ‘ironic’ (I’m not sure that’s the right word but I’ll go with it) that the most ‘problematic’ chord is featured at the point the lyric states ‘its so easy’. All of this occurs after a tense diminished 7th chord (very unusual in pop) on the word ‘agree’. The diminished 7th chord contains the interval (the space between 2 notes) of a diminished 5th (in fact several of them but lets not go down another bunny hole) known in classical music as ‘the devil’s interval’. The arrangement also becomes notably sparse at this point. All these elements lead me to believe its all not as light-hearted as it seems. Its a warning. Yes, it IS so easy, and lovely, and a great feeling......... but is that necessarily a good thing? An absolutely superb track!!!!
Lily Allen “Pussy Palace”
I think its cleverly chosen title meant that this was the most streamed of the tracks on the album and consequently found its way into the top 10 of the singles chart. That said, its catchy and you do find the chorus swirling round your head.
Katseye “Gabriela”
Katseye are a girl group put together by a few record companies via an audition process called “Dream Academy” in the UK, America, Japan & South Korea, that was featured in the Netflix show “Popstar Academy: Katseye”. They are globally very popular but haven’t massively dented the UK charts yet. I thought I’d check them out and they’re pretty good. I’d say they are a bit better than most of the pop groups I’m hearing recently. This one has a Latin-pop feel. Its good enough although didn’t ‘wow’ me.
Katseye “Gnarly”
This one DID ‘wow’ me. Its much closer to what I believe K-Pop is than anything else I’ve been hearing in this whole ‘K-Pop invasion. And I don’t even think Katseye are meant to be K-Pop (?). The idea of a music genre invasion that, to my ear, contains none of the genre in question – confuses me somewhat. Anyway, this is unconventionally structured and arranged, hard-hitting, chaotic and wonderful in its awful sound. That summary brings us to the lyric and the world ‘gnarly’. It seems to mean everything and nothing. I’m amused by the way the opening statement claims everything is this one word – and the examples move from one word ‘Tesla’ to longer phrases ‘partying in the Hollywood Hills’ – I think it amuses me because the longer phrases have to be said much quicker to keep in the sane time. So, it means everything. Good or bad. Wonderful or awful (remember I said the music is ‘wonderful in its awful sound’?). There’s definitely some social commentary here concerning mass consumerism. Arguably, there’s also commentary about people like the members of the group being commodities. Although, I picked this up more from the music video, where one of the group are depicted as a rubber face in plastic packaging. There is also a sense of the futility of trying to intelligently negotiate the modern world and all its confusions both on and offline. Yea. Its all gnarly. I get it.
Courting “Lust For Life”
I wasn’t particularly down with this track until it appears concludes but then a ‘part 2’ of sorts kicks in like an entirely different song. I played this to Simon Ore and he commented, if you were listening to an album, you’d assume we’d moved to track 2. Its an entirely different tempo, feel and sound. The reason I wasn’t overly impressed with the track at 1st was because its very ‘classic’ and ‘conventional’ (at least at 1st). That said, Simon did also point out that is was enjoyable to hear the instruments come in one at a time in a way you don’t hear that often any more. The 1st part of the track is about the person’s hopes and desires, with a down beat serious tone. The 2nd tells a story that is more upbeat, where the person meets someone. But by the end that somebody puts a gun to the person’s head. There, the track abruptly ends. Brilliant.
Lucky Dog & Brody Grant “All Talk”
I quite like this but struggle to get past the fact that you could map the structure and arrangement of Wheatus’s “Teenage Dirtbag” over it. There’s also a melody – its the ‘saying you’re sorry’ bit – that definitely sounds exactly like something else........ but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Quite good, however.
That’s it. And that’s it for me reviewing singles this year. All that’s left is for me to select my favourites at the end of the year. The final album reviews are next.
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