THE BIG PINK
TONIGHT (ALEX DROMGOOLE MIX)
(REMOTE CONTROL)
New Kids On The Block’s 1990 single Tonight never even made it to the top 10 in Australia, but it’s actually one of their more redeeming pop tunes. Despite not having cornered the tween market in pencil cases, sticker books and fully poseable Hasbro figurines, UK duo The Big Pink are making waves with a completely different tune of the same name two decades on from NKOTB. With a Happy Mondays lope and a nod to The Clash’s Train In Vain, the A Brief History Of Love version of Tonight has now been slightly tweaked by Alex Dromgoole (Bjork, Depeche Mode, Goldfrapp). A few of the industrial tassles have been removed (there’s less of a the meat-grinding abattoir ambience and the bass no longer sounds like an explosive bowel accident is imminent), but it’s still a ferocious pop tune. It’s like there’s an orgy in my ears and they’re giving my cochlea a reach-around.

THIS WEEK’S SINGLES PICKS INCLUDE:

HOLE
SKINNY LITTLE BITCH
(UMA)
At Sydney’s Big Day Out in 1999, Courtney Love invited Hoodoo Gurus guitarist Brad Shepherd on stage and stumbled through a cover of the Australian rock band’s Bittersweet. A decade later and with her career as patchy as Dave Faulkner’s hairline, Courtney Love now sounds like she’s plundering The Right Time for her demented Hole comeback single Skinny Little Bitch. It’s a feeble appropriation of her past glories, the former Miss World now broken and burnt. I was going to make a cheap joke as a parting shot, but having just listened to the power of Live Through This the comedy of Love’s new release turns to tragedy. Beyond fake.

EVERMORE
UNDERGROUND
(WARNER)
Even if this tune contained the secret code to getting in Katy Perry’s pants, you couldn’t get me to listen to it again. It’s like Evermore unearthed a Noiseworks B-side on their descent into pop limbo. Enjoy your stay, boys!

BRITISH INDIA
BENEATH THE SATELLITES
(SHOCK)
When they were young, they shone like the sun… I don’t even know what vim is, but when British India burst out of the Melbourne scene a few years back they had buckets of it. The cocky confidence was warranted – Black And White Radio and Tie Up My Hands were two of the finest indie releases of 2007 and often got by on nothing more than sheer energy. After tempering their spittle and venom with just the right amount of self-doubt and intrigue on their albums Thieves and Guillotine, suddenly British India have made a monstrous miscalculation with Beneath The Satellites. They’ve delighted in lifting from Blur and The Who in the past, but the chorus of Satellites is a career-stalling rip-off of polly wolly crappy Mavis’s tune Cry. The kids are all trite.

British India play Clipsal 500’s Jim Beam Track Sounds concert with Eskimo Joe and Galleon on Thu Mar 11.

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