Oscar predictions, 2019

I did rather well last year, guessing every category bar the short film ones correctly. Let's see if I can match that form this year!

Best Picture: Green Book 

Guess the Footballer: Hard

Finally, here are eight from The Times, plus an extra (rather awfully drawn, far too on the nose) one that I did.

The answers to yesterday's medium level puzzlers are at the end of this blog.

Enjoy!

1. 

OOTD: And there's a million things I haven't done

Outfit of the Day featuring me looking extremely pleased with my Hamilton guitar book!

 A picture without the book covering my dress:

Album review: REPUTATION (Taylor Swift)

A month shy of turning 28, Taylor Swift has been around the block and suffered a few knocks to her standing (not to mention her heart) for her troubles. Her sixth album comes at some time when some self-reflection is much-needed.

With a title like ‘Reputation’, she’s certainly cognisant of that artefact. It would be trite to dub her 15-track album as a ‘confessional’, as she’s always been very forthcoming about wearing her heart on her sleeve, and channelling her painful life experiences into song-writing inspiration, but there's a salient self-awareness in this album that was perhaps lacking in her previous work.

Bar review: PIANO WORKS BAR (Farringdon)

I love singing. Whether it be Disney songs, RnB, Broadway showtunes, power ballads, I’m happiest when I’m warbling along to music (and often getting the lyrics wrong in the process). Piano Works allows you to do this to live piano music, along with a percussive and jazz band, and a lead singer, whilst dancing in a night-club-style venue. That was my Friday night sorted, then.

The band played their instruments really well, with flamboyance from the electric guitars when the occasion called for it, and more nuanced accompanying for other songs. The band shrewdly rotated singers depending on the flavour of the song. Sometimes, as was the case with Kanye West’s Goldigger, more than one person sang at a time. They had a fantastic female singer who belted out How Far I’ll Go from Moana. Given I have recently just watched Moana and the song is fresh in my mind, that in itself made that Friday one of the best nights out I’ve had in a long time.

The song choices at Piano Works were on point. They played Uptown Funk, Piano Man, American Boy, Grace Kelly… basically, crowd pleasers. And the crowd was very pleased. Here’s a clip of their performance of What Makes You Beautiful. The One Direction song is only my fourth favourite of all-time, so I had a whale of a time dancing to it!

Review: ALL SHOOK UP! (Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes)

Fun night outs dancing in London were a staple of my late teen and early-20s, and I wished this to be the same for my brother. So last night, me, Tom, and two of my friends hit the London’s 1950s & 60s Party at Bloomsbury Bowling Lanes for some good old fashioned rock n’ roll and jive-style boogying.

Look what Cara Delevingne’s bad acting made Taylor Swift do.

Just like every other woman with a perpetual mental age of about 15, I watched Taylor Swift’s ‘Look What You Made Me Do’ music video as soon as it dropped, and have re-watched it several times to unpack all the shady Easter eggs not-so-subtly littered throughout.

I’m a fan of the regression-to-playground-levels-of-petty on display in the video (Amy Dunne recognises Amy Dunne, shall we say), and absolutely belly-laughed at the dig at Tom Hiddleston (he deserves it for being in High-Rise).

I noticed something curious in the coda of the music video, however, that piqued my interest. 

It's when Taylor Swift has 15 versions of herself lined up and riffs on the public’s perceptions of her. In the Taylor Swift of You Belong to Me era, she is wearing a T-shirt with several of her squad’s names on (for example, Selena [Gomez], Lena [Dunham, ew], Ed [Sheeran] and the three HAIM sisters). Look...

Cara Delevingne is missing!

Bar review: THE REDCHURCH BAR (Shoreditch)

The last time I had cocktails using a Groupon deal with my friend Rebecca was The Escapologist in Covent Garden, which, despite a customer who rudely pushed in in front of me, was a thoroughly enjoyably evening. Rebecca and I had had our boozy night back in September of 2016. Almost nine months later, here I was, taking advantage of another Groupon deal, again with the same babe.

However, the original plan had to been to visit The Redchurch Bar with a friend on May 20th. We arrived in Shoreditch at 4pm (where both the Groupon deal and Google say the bar is open from), but the doors weren’t open. We assumed the bar staff were just running a little late, so settled up shop in The Verge across the road, where, graciously, there was also a Happy Hour (review of The Verge coming soon).

We sat in The Verge until 7pm, occasionally popping over to see if it had opened yet. It never did, although at some points, a man (presumably the manager) was standing behind the locked door, furrowing his brows whilst on his phone. Eventually we gave up hope on our Redchurch cocktails, and went for dinner in Brick Lane. But that was really, really annoying. Of all the problems I’ve had with Groupon, up until then, I’d never experienced a place not actually being open.

So, of course, it was with trepidation that I approached the place with Rebecca some 10 days later. Amazingly, it was open! Admittedly, we got there a bit later, 8:30pm, but the lack of staff was telling immediately; it was a fairly spacious bar, yet I only spotted two couples in The Redchurch bar.

Something inconvenient that this place did with their deal which both The Escapologist and Adventure Bar eschewed (by allowing the deal-holder to open up a tab) was that we had to order all our cocktails at once. This wasn’t ideal because it meant some drinks lost some of their chill towards the end, and as we all know, if there’s anything I need more of, it’s chill.

Even more annoyingly, was the fact that they didn’t have ingredients for a bunch of the drinks. As I’ve stipulated in past reviews of Groupon cocktail deals, if I’ve shelled out £24 for six cocktails, I want to maximise my returns by ordering the most expensive drinks. There were several which were £11.50 here, and the one which caught my attention was the ‘Chinese Cosmopolitan’. I’m Chinese, and I love Sex and the City, so that drink sang to me straight away.

Even more worryingly, they didn’t have lychee to make that drink, and they also conspicuously lacked the ingredients for several of the other drinks which cost £11.50. To not have the ingredients for one cocktail is bad enough, but for the waitress to continually tell me I couldn't have what I desired because they didn't have the components? Poor af.

In the end, Rebecca and I were able to find three drinks apiece that we liked, and here they are:

Tale as old as time... (that Emma Watson can't act)

Out of tune singing is out of tune, and clunky guitar-playing is clunky, but at least it's not quite as questionable as the other two Emma's, Watson and Stone.

That was the first take, so a bit rubbish. I preferred this audio recording, but annoyingly, couldn't upload it as a video, so if you're not too bored, give that superior version a listen. 😎

I saw Beauty and the Beast on Thursday, and whilst being predictably bored by Emma Watson's blank, passionless face in all her scenes, actually quite enjoyed it. Some of the musical numbers were very entertaining, especially 'Gaston', a song which aptly sums up the mentality of the vast majority of clown guys who I've had the misfortune of having gone on dates with in London.

Only difference is Gaston has more humility.

Bar review: ADVENTURE BAR AND LOUNGE (Covent Garden)

Continuing with my reviews of bars and restaurants in the Covent Garden is Adventure Bar, which boasts a healthy menu of creative drinks and generous Happy Hours. I probably saved a bit more money than I would have spent in the presence of Happy Hour, with a Groupon voucher that entitled the buyer to six cocktails for £24. 

Unlike some other Groupon deals which restrict you in the choice of food and drink you can buy with your voucher, this deal was valid on all the cocktails. An Old Fashioned and 50 Shades of Earl Grey were the first drinks sampled:

Bar review: OLIVER'S JAZZ BAR (Greenwich)

A labyrinth-style underground bar that features live jazz acts in Greenwich, this was my first time in seven months listening to live music, and the performers were so adept at their music that it definitely didn't disappoint. 

Womancrush Wednesday: Kate McKinnon.

Kate's moving, passionate performance of Hallelujah moved me to tears; the lyrics and choice of song carried extra poignancy given the tragic passing of Leonard Cohen last week.

I was super-impressed at not just how well Kate sung, but how naturally she played the piano. A quick perusal of her Wikipedia page tells me that she also plays the cello and the guitar; what a talented woman! Plus, she read Drama at Columbia university. So not only is she a supremely talented comedienne (her Hillary impression is on point, as is this sensational Carol parody), but lady is musical, and boasts and Ivy League education! Goddess!

Loving on Kate (her show-stealing turn as kooky Dr. Holtzmann in Ghostbusters is currently top of my list of Best Supporting Actress 2016) and the fact that me watching Arrival means I've now seen 50 releases, segues me nicely into listing my current top 10s of 2016.

Film

01. A United Kingdom
02. I, Daniel Blake
03. Zootropolis
04. Café Society
05. Arrival
06. Kubo and the 2 Strings
07. Someone to Talk to
08. Hell or High Water
09. Nerve
10. Captain America: Civil War

Actor, Leading Role
01. David Oyelowo, A United Kingdom 
02. Chris Pine, Hell or High Water 
03. Jesse Eisenberg, Café Society
04. Jonah Hill, War Dogs 
05. Hai Mao, Someone to Talk To 
06. Miles Teller, War Dogs 
07. Jake Gyllenhaal, Nocturnal Animals 
08. Dave Johns, I, Daniel Blake 
09. Michael Fassbender, The Light Between Oceans 
10. Yoo Hae-jin, Luck-Key

Actress, Leading Role
01. Emily Blunt, The Girl on the Train
02. Amy Adams, Arrival
03. Adriana Ugarte, Julieta
04. Mary Elizabeth Winstead, 10 Cloverfield Lane
05. Rosamund Pike, A United Kingdom
06. Emma Suárez, Julieta
07. Kate Beckinsale, Love and Friendship
08. Amy Adams, Nocturnal Animals
09. Blake Lively, The Shallows
10. Alicia Vikander, The Light Between Oceans 

Supporting actor 
01. Alden Ehrenreich, Hail, Caesar! 
02. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Nocturnal Animals (massive improvement from his wooden performance in Anna Karenina!)
03. Ben Foster, Hell or High Water 
04. John Goodman, 10 Cloverfield Lane 
05. Jeff Bridges, Hell or High Water 
06. Tom Bennett, David Brent: Life on the Road 
07. Michael Shannon, Nocturnal Animals 
08. Tom Bennett, Love and Friendship 
09. Tom Holland, Captain America: Civil War 
10. Tom Felton, A United Kingdom

Supporting actress 
01. Kate McKinnon, Ghostbusters
02. Jena Malone, The Neon Demon
03. Hayley Squires, I, Daniel Blake 
04. Viola Davis, Suicide Squad 
05. Haley Bennett, Magnificent Seven 
06. Rooney Mara, Kubo and the Two Strings 
07. Rachel Weisz, The Light Between Oceans 
08. Terry Pheto, A United Kingdom 
09. Kristen Stewart, Café Society 
10. Kristen Bell, Bad Moms

Actors with multiple entries (for now): Amy Adams, Tom Bennett

The Girl on the Bus

I’m a huge Emmy Blunt fan. She’s gorgeous, talented, and that West London accent does funny things to me. I even stood outside in the rain last year during the Sicario premiere just to get a glimpse of her, which resulted in me having a cold for a week just as I was beginning my thesis, so that was a bit foolish. (To add to the nonsensicalness of that exercise, I still haven’t gotten round to seeing Sicario . It’s just not my genre).

Anyway, I was really excited by The Girl on the Train trailer when I first saw it. The content looked extremely intriguing and dark, invariably evoking memories of Gone Girl. After all, both are big-screen adaptations of best-selling thrillers with a beautiful British actress playing the lead, unreliable narrators and the word ‘Girl’ in the title.

Furthermore, the employment of a remix of Kanye West’s Heartless was dope; it rivalled War Dogs’ using a cover of No Church in the Wild in terms of ‘using a Kanye song to entice the audience’ stakes (although the best use of Kanye West in a film trailer is still, IMO, Power in The Social Network trailer. The conflation of the lyrics [‘No one man should have all that power’] and the plot of that film, especially Jesse Eisenberg’s superb performance as a hubristic megalomaniac, is just so astute).

However, my interest in The Girl on the Train dwindled slightly when I saw it only got rated 15. I was hoping it was going to be the second 2016 film that I’d seen that was 18-rated, the other being the rather unremarkable The Neon Demon. I saw 5 2015 releases that were an 18 (Diary of a Teenage Girl, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Hateful Eight, Legend, Knock Knock), so I’d really be hoping to match that amount of 18s watched this year. But nah, The Girl on the Train is only a 15.

Not only that, it got a 15A in Ireland, who unlike the BBFC, have the 16 rating that they slap on movies that sit in that awkward 15/18 hinterland. But the fact that the Irish film board didn’t even need to get a 16 out tells me it’s not even gonna be a hard 15!

Boring.

So there goes my hopes of this film being 2016’s Gone Girl.

How could they be so heartless?

Bar review: THE ESCAPOLOGIST (Covent Garden)

I visited The Escapologist bar with my friend Rebecca to use a Groupon deal (here we are at the place in question), where I’d bought six cocktails for £24. Unlike previous experiences using Groupon, LivingSocial or Wowcher, where the vendor gives you a completely different experience from the one advertised by way of passive aggressive punishment for you had the temerity to buy their product from a discount website, The Escapologist’s cocktails were just as immense and fabulous as if we’d gone there and paid full price for our drinks.

The cocktail menu of this Covent Garden bar is an absolute beast, and the waiters and waitresses certainly don’t scrimp on alcohol content of the drinks. My Old Fashioned was actually even more boozier than the one I’d had at Dandelyan’s, despite the fact that £24 would not buy you even two drinks at Dandelyan, haha. By the end of the night, the three cocktails had gotten me thoroughly drunk. Three drinks of comparable size in Slug and Lettuce won’t even make you vaguely merry.

The first drink I had in The Escapologist was the Flaming Zombie, which, true to its name, was served in a zombie skull and even featured the visual flourish of having a passion fruit on top, set on fire. This meant that in addition to it tasting great and getting me in a suitably light-headed mood to chat crap with my girl, I was also treated to visual pyrotechnics with my drink! Video below.

Obviously, because the deal is £24 for any six cocktails on the menu, it makes economic sense to order the most expensive cocktails, so in addition to the Old Fashioned and Flaming Zombie (both retailing at £11.50) I had an equally priced Cuban Orange, which I don’t think I’ve ever (knowingly) ordered before. It was sweet but not saccharine and the amalgamation of vanilla-infused Bacardi Oro, Gran Marnier, fresh lime and brown sugar worked a treat. I have a new tipple to order when I'm in bars now!

It wasn’t just the flavours and alcohol-levels of the beverages that were on point in The Escapologist, because the music was ace, and after a few sips of my first drink, I was bopping along, imagining I was singing it at the karaoke [admittedly, it doesn’t take much for the inner out-of-tune songstress in me to be unleashed]. The background music in The Escapologist was a great blend of popular music that’s currently in the charts, as well as hits from previous years that you might have forgotten about. Eminem and D12’s ‘My Band’ is an example of this – after my visit to The Escapologist, I had it stuck in my head for days.

Overall, I had a sick time at The Escapologist. I do, however, have to retell a sorry incident that happened at the start which made me feel sick in a different sense of the word. Before the serving of our first drink, a guy pushed in in front of me at the bar, and the waitress served him, despite the fact that I’d been queuing quietly and politely for well over ten minutes (it was Happy Hour, thus, rammed).

I know it’s churlish to fault The Escapologist for this, because it’s not like the waitress had eyes on the back of her head and could be aware where everyone was every second of the day, particularly as it was packed. How was she to know that I’d honoured the code of common decency and he had not, but merely been ruder, and thus, inadvertently awarded him for it?

It’s definitely the bellend who did so (#WhiteMalePrivilege, just saying) who was in the wrong, for being so entitled that he thought nothing of trampling all over me. The alacrity with which he swooped in ahead of me indicated that this wasn’t the first time he’d pushed in, so I shouldn’t take it so personally. But, nonetheless, this incident was fairly irritating.

I would love to make like the Taylor Swift lyric and Shake it Off, but these microaggressions happen far too frequently in popular London bars and I’m sick of this shit plus when have I ever been the bigger person and passed up the chance to hold a grudge about anything? #GoneGirlDNA. Thus, it is perhaps a little unfortunate that I must dock points from The Escapologist for what would otherwise be a perfect A grade.

Grade: A-

Film review: DAVID BRENT: LIFE ON THE ROAD (Ricky Gervais, 2016)

15 years on from the BBC's mockumentary covering Britain's thirstiest boss, Brent is Back. Except, rather than back in the domain of being a Regional Manager, he's now a sales rep for Lavichem, a toiletries distributor. His heart, however, doesn't lie with tampons; he wishes to make it as a rockstar. So, impetuously and not at all financially judiciously, he cleans out his pensions fund to pay four musicians, an aspiring rapper Dom (Doc Brown, aka Ben Bailey Smith aka Zadie Smith's brother) and a sound engineer to go on tour with him as the band 'Foregone Conclusion'. A three week tour around Berkshire, to be precise.

As a big fan of the TV show, I was expecting cringe and situational comedy aplenty in David Brent: Life on the Road, and to that end, the film certainly delivers. Probably a little too much so. Brent's self-funded tour is, not surprisingly, a complete crash and burn. The four musicians can play their instruments and the sound engineer (played by Tom Basden) has experience aplenty, but no amount of aural wizardry could come close to atoning for the sheer egotism of the band's frontman.

Brent's delusions of grandeur, thinking he's singing about matters of substance (from racism, to disabled people, to the plight of the Native Americans) is toe-curdingly embarrassing. The cringe factor is compounded by his complete lack of self-awareness, and the earnest look on Brent's face as he delivers lyrics like 'they fly like an eagle, sit like a pelican' about the Native Americans. As audience numbers dwindle and Brent's sense of isolation kicks in, he actually has to pay his bandmates just to have a pint with him. It's mortifying, and where there should be laughs, we're just feeling unease.

But there's now a glossiness to David Brent: Life on the Road that betrays the films' TV roots. The film looks like a film, what with overhead tracking shots and excellent sound design (which must have been down to Gervais wanting the best possible platform to exhibit his pipes). But in having good production value, the intimate air that the TV show has been lost. And, even more of an issue, because the film uproots Brent to a new company with a new group of colleagues, you're not able to engage with them in the film's 90 or so minute running time.

For example, David Brent's only friend at Lavichem, Nigel (played by Phoneshop's Tom Bennett), admits that nobody really gets him, and hence why he and Brent gravitate towards each other. His social clumsiness make him a sitting duck for the rest of the office. It's not nice watching him get bullied, particularly as he definitely isn't an ill-meaning person, and I feel more character development on his part would have made the movie a more satisfying viewing experience.

The fact that Nigel doesn't get to come into his own and is relegated to the role of a sideshow is because this film, quite clearly, revolves around Ricky Gervais David Brent. Gervais writes, directs, stars, and, much like his cinematic counterpart, he can't stand it when the spotlight isn't on him. The fact that Gervais' most authentic acting in David Brent: Life on the Road was the scene in which  Brent jealously watches Dom, the rapper he 'befriends' (mainly as a get out of jail-free card for his un-PC jokes) rapping to the adulation of a crowd, speaks volumes.

Still, credit to the supporting players who are still able to make an impact despite their paltry screen time. Ben Bailey Smith captures the viewers emotions perfectly in terms of his reaction shots to each of Brent's misguided quips, and his rapping style is understated but incisive; the perfect foil to Brent's bloated singing style. Tom Bennett genuinely moved me as Nigel. His character has a bit of Mackenzie Crook's Gareth's zaniness, a bit of Martin Freeman's Tim's quiet compassion, as well as injecting a third element, of the overgrown schoolboy who sadly never outgrew getting picked on. And finally, Tom Basden, as Foregone Conclusion's Sound Engineer, is a dignified presence throughout the film, his low tolerance for Brent's crap gradually softening as his watches him go through degradation upon degradation. 

These three British talents are good factors that contribute to the quality of David Brent: Life on the Road. But what stops the film from achieving greatness is the sheer, unrelenting narcissism of Gervais. This was never really a film that needed to be made; The Office's co-creator, Stephen Merchant's absence on this film speaks volumes. Like Finding Dory, the superfluous sequel that should never have been made, this film is overkill.

The Office Christmas special was the perfect time to end it, because it balanced tying up story loose ends with long-suffering characters getting some well-earnt redemption. I really cared about Tim and Dawn. By the end, I'd even cared about Gareth. But I didn't care about David Brent a fraction as much as Ricky Gervais wanted me to, and tries to get you to, working overtime, in this film.

Because his affection for a character he created is not mirrored by the audience, after a while, the novelty of watching Gervais play himself wears thin.

There's a sequence in the film where David Brent pays for a photoshoot, where he goes through all the masturbatory notions of gazing into the camera in all manner of provocative poses. Brent really fancies himself a lead singer in a band.

Despite all the humiliation, the awkward silences and the tiny crowds throughout the film, it's quite clear that so does Gervais.

6/10

REVIEW: Daria van den Bercken: Handel and Scarlatti at the Keyboard

Two weeks ago I visited Kings Place for the first time. Up until then, I’d been avoiding this venue like the keyboard warrior that I am, as it’s very close in geographical proximity to where The Guardian headquarters are, and, naturally, I’ve had some beef with more than one Guardian football writer. So for my own safety, I’d decided it best to stay out of there way. Hahaha. 

Anyway, I grew a pair and manned up, because I wanted to watch a piano concert. I’ve been to my fair share of orchestral concerts, both amateur and professional, but never actually watched a solo pianist of any kind live, so what better way to start than at Kings Place @ 90 York Way, a very reasonably priced venue in King's Cross to let up-and-coming musicians exhibit their many and varied talents. 

The musician in question was Daria van den Bercken, and she certainly knew her way around a piano. Her fingers dextrously hit all the right keys, she was comfortable with the music, and her passion for Baroque music was clear; she wasn’t just playing the notes (and what difficult notes they were!), but making the pieces come alive. As a violinist and a guitarist myself, I always enjoy listening to sad pieces more than happy ones, and her performance of Sonata in C-sharp minor, K 247 was on point; the use of dynamics would surely have made Scarlatti proud. 

In fact – and I feel churlish for saying this – but it was probably van den Bercken’s overzealous passion for Handel, Scarlatti, and their life stories, that let the recital down a little. Before playing the piano, she gave us a brief history of the musical beef between Handel and Scarlatti, which was fair enough. But then, after playing Handel’s Suite in E, HWV 430, she picked up the microphone again, to tell some other musical anecdotes which might have been interesting to her, but weren’t too fascinating to me, and, judging from the impatient looks on the audience faces, weren’t too much to their liking either. I mean, to lay a setting for the pieces you’ve chosen to play is prudent. But to throw around non-sequiturs that are more about your development as a pianist rather than the two men who’s pieces are headlining, is meandering, bordering on narcissistic. 

That said, I really did enjoy listening to her piano-playing. The piano is an instrument I’ve always struggled with, and I have the utmost respect for people who can play it, and play it well. Daria’s talent, confidence, and musical panache were clear. I would be interested in seeing how she fares with romantic and modern pieces too. I just don’t want the 45 minutes of one-woman-show that gets tacked on with it. 

Grade: B

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Some other photos I took from Kings Place...

ALBUM REVIEW: Dangerous Woman (Ariana Grande)

From the first time I heard Ariana Grande’s collaboration with Iggy Azalea, ‘Problem’ in 2014, which, along with the film BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOUR, epitomised my feelings towards my a certain someone (#cryptic), I have been staunchly #TeamAri. The Italian-American songstress is great to look at, has fantastic vocal range, and effortlessly exudes sex appeal (the élan with which she peers up from her white Lolita sunglasses in the 'Bang Bang' music video is a kind of sultry swagger I can but only dream of). So it was with great excitement that I waited for Dangerous Woman, her third studio album, with. So much so, in fact, that I’m currently writing a female version of TRAINING DAY, and, have assigned it ‘Dangerous Woman’ as the film’s working title.

The album’s eponymous lead single is terrifically catchy. ‘Something about you, makes me wanna do things that I shouldn’t’, Ariana croons, whilst in the music video, she slinks around provocatively in lingerie, showing that she is well and truly through with the good girl image which she initially sported when she first became famous. If Yours Truly was clean!Ari, My Everything, with songs such as 'Love Me Harder' and 'Hands On Me' were suggestive-but-PG-13!Ari, then Dangerous Woman is full-on femme fatale, R-rated!Ari. And she’s not here to half-step. She’s owning it.

‘Side to Side’, Ariana’s third collaboration with Nicki Minaj, is probably their weakest so far, but it says a lot about the collective quality of the music these two women make together that it is still a more than solid 8/10 track. I loved the reggae vibe of the song, as well as the employment of Nicki’s verbal fireworks for the rapping, but I thought the actual lyrical quality of the rap was a bit weak, with practically every other line being an allusion to one of Nicki’s previous hits. By contrast, the employment of Macy Gray in ‘Leave Me Lonely’, one of the few melancholic songs on the album, works a treat, with Gray’s gravelly voice suiting the sombre words she’s singing perfectly.

As with her preceding two albums, the tracks I tend to enjoy more are the upbeat, funky ones. ‘Greedy’ tells the story of a woman’s high appetite for a certain something (spoiler alert: it’s not for food), and with electro-pop beats, a brass band, and best of all, her voice hitting stratospherically high notes, makes for a great musical party. ‘Everyday’ is very similarly thematically to ‘Greedy’ but the beats are more RnB-infused, demonstrating Grande’s musical versatility, and how her voice is so strong it crosses genres. The album’s only major misstep is ‘Sometimes’, a slow-moving guitar-led track which sounds like a lazy B-side that is just at odds with the musical flavour with the rest of the album.

The standout track of Dangerous Woman, for me, is ‘Let Me Love You’, an unashamedly saucy song in which Ariana Grande gets to put her vocals to their breathy best. (Some people aren’t such a big fan of the way she sounds out of breath when delivering her lyrics, but I really dig it). Lil Wayne’s rap on it is a good foil to her verses, and his bluntness in ‘I said girl you need a hot boy / she said you need to stop fucking with them thots boy’ evokes memories of his featuring credit on Kelly Rowland's 'Motivation', another brazen foray into smut where his rhyming was both irreverent and intelligent. Furthermore, the cavalier little nod to Beyonce’s ‘Irreplaceable’ when Grande asserts ‘I know they'll be coming from the right and the left, left, left’ shows she KNOWS she’s the ish. Arrogance among popstars is obviously a double-edged sword; you need to acknowledge the fact that you’re HBIC, but at the same time not become insufferable. Egotism is justified if it's merited. Within that lyric, we have the album in a microcosm: a woman discovering, nay, asserting her allure. In Ariana Grande’s case, it’s well-deserved.

Some music fans are perturbed that Ariana Grande, who despite being 22 old, still looks like a little kid, being so overtly sexual on Dangerous Woman. But, in her defence, she’s already had her squeaky clean period, and she’s over that. She gave us a hint of her more carnal instincts when she told us ‘she might have let you hold her hand at school, but Imma show you how to graduate’ and other such double entendres on her second album, but Queen Ari isn’t here for innuendo any more. To paraphrase Dennis Hopper in BLUE VELVET, "Ari wants to fuck". This pretty doe-eyed girl is blossoming into a dangerous woman. And her music has never sounded better as a result.

Grade: A

Girlcrush List, 2014.

We are not talking about the horrendous American Hustle love-in that was the BAFTAs last night. I'm delighted 12 Years a Slave won Best Film, because it was comfortably the best movie of 2013 and possibly one of the best of all time, and Barkhad Abdi winning Supporting Actor was awesome. But as for the AH love-in, and to a lesser extent, the Gravity one, the less the said the better.

So, to take my mind off that shambles, it's time for the 2014 edition of my lovely ladies!

10. Taylor Swift (new entrant)

I don't know if it was when I was thinking about the poignancy of the lyrics of Teardrops on my Guitar, or bopping along to I Knew You Were Trouble., that I realised, I really appreciate Swift's failed love life. Because it allows her to write some incredibly perceptive, true pieces of the messiness that is amour, set to her country music surroundings. Furthermore, her music has evolved with time, so that now and then there'll be a trendy smattering of dub step in her ditties, but she never deviates too far from the Nashville roots that served her so well. Plus, despite having legs all the way up to heaven, she doesn't flash her skin that much at all, which for a young woman trying to sell records, is mighty refreshing. Unlike the likes of Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift doesn't have to work her ass off trying to shock. She just lets her sweet music do the talking.

09. Lupita Nyong'o (new entrant)

To say I was displeased when Jennifer Lawrence won Supporting Actress at the BAFTAs last night is an understatement. How Lawrence's overbaked caricature of a New Jersey housewife won over Nyong'o's measured, heartbreaking turn as poor abused slave Patsey is a goddamn travesty. Now, the way the precursors have gone, it looks like Jlaw will indeed win her second Oscar in a row, so stealing the crown that is rightfully Lupita's. But no matter who wins the golden statue come March, Lupita owns Jlaw, nay, all of Hollywood, in the fashion stakes. From the moment she rocked up to the Golden Globes in a red cape, to the dazzling emerald ensemble she wore last night, Nyong'o is queen at rocking block colour in a less-is-more approach to high fashion. Oscar or not, this Yale graduate is a brilliant actress with fantastic sartorial choices, and will go far.

08. Sarah Hyland (new entrant)

Famous for playing the bimbo big sister off Modern Family, the most striking part of Sarah Hyland's appearance are her big beautiful eyes. These are complemented with other classical beauty features - button nose, soft cheeks, gorgeous smile, as well as a skinny figure I'd simply kill for, and decent cleavage that is sported proudly throughout the show in a, to quote Phoebe off Friends, "obviously, yet classy way". Hubba bubba.

07. Miranda Kerr (up 3 places)

I like it when strong, attractive women shed themselves of their deadbeat spouses, and when I heard Miranda Kerr had dropped her crap actor of a husband, Orlando Bloom, I loved her even more, so propelling this dime of a lady even higher on my girl crush list. She's all over Mango when I go in, and I think she's the perfect choice for that store, as their outfits are as sleek, classy and chic as Miss Kerr herself. And let's not forget her knockout bod; you don't become a Victoria's Secret model for nothing, after all.

06. Cara Delevingne (new entrant)

Such is Cara's swaggering confidence, that I was surprised to discover she was only 1m 71cm tall. Not that that's short by anyone's standards, but to be a catwalk model you generally have to be 5'8''. That Delevingne could toss out the rulebook shows she had a certain je ne sais quoi that dazzled all the chief designers. Her striking eyebrows remain her most famous attribute, but this sleek-limbed queen also has a tidy body, great skin and beguiling grey-blue eyes, the latter of which reel you in in every photo I've seen of her. Verily I say, in a few years time, she will have displaced Kate Moss as the alpha supermodel.

05. Kristen Stewart (up 2 places)

Poor, beleaguered Kristen. Mocked for her acting, and now, mocked for her poetry, as she bared her soul by revealing some of her scribblings. Granted, it was a little overwrought. A bit try hard. That enjambment tho!!!

Literary pretension aside, verily I say, this list isn't an acting competition, and Stewart's awkward, aloof presence at awards ceremonies and promos is miles away from Anne Hathaway's polished Oscar campaign last year, where she kept insisting repeatedly that she wasn't fussed whether she won or not (she was only convincing herself). Stewart may not be the most likeable, but she is 100% herself, and for that, I thoroughly respect and admire her.

04. Mila Kunis (up 1 place)

Last Friday, in the Wetherspoon's at Victoria Station. I was talking to two of my colleagues about the scene in Black Swan where Mila Kunis goes down on Natalie Portman. "It's really intense", I'd said. "At one point, when she's really getting into it, she looks up from what she's doing and Mila's eyes look SOOOO BIG".

That is all.

03. Selena Gomez (up three places)

What I said previously about how I love it when powerful women ditch their loser spouses? Well Selena Gomez did the mother of all ditches when she rid herself of Justin Bieber, who, it was rumoured, couldn't deal with Gomez's fame and fortune. Well he can shove it, because not only is SG a great screen presence (on TV, movies and on stage), but her baby-faced cuteness is now evolving into something darker, showing hints of a tigress veneer under the innocent smiles. She was the best thing about the shambles that was Spring Breakers, and Come and Get it was one of my jams of 2013. Keep being awesome, Selena.

02. Dianna Agron (non-mover)

Whilst I'd deem some of the other girls on this list as sexy, Dianna Agron will forever be beautiful. She is beauty personified. The epitome of elegance. Pretty blonde hair, those cut-glass cheekbones, plump lips and best of all, her amber eyes, which are Disney-wide and hold my gaze whenever I'm watching her. Now that she's not on Glee, I don't even bother with that crap any more, and only Dianna Agron's loveliness could entice me into parting dollar to watch ballacks like The Family.

01. Lana del Rey (non-mover)

Ohai. My Queen Lana. Hated by many but never bettered, Lana's alternative, kooky charms will never be for everyone, but are fully for me. Her song Young and Beautiful was the only highlight (bar Leonardo DiCaprio) of Baz Lurhmann's messy Great Gatsby remake, and whilst it's been a quiet year for her overall, when she does pop up with songs, they never fail to satiate my appetite - she did a haunting cover of Once Upon a Dream for the upcoming Disney movie Maleficient, which is now top of my most eagerly awaited 2014 releases because of that. I'm hoping 2014 will be a bit busier than last year for Lana on the music front, but even if it isn't, she'll probably top this list next year anyway. She just has that kind of spell over me.

*Frankie Sandford off The Saturdays, a frequent entry on my girl crush list, missed it this year, because, unlike Miranda Kerr and Selena Gomez, she hasn't shed her deadbeat yet.

ALBUM REVIEW: Midnight Memories (One Direction)

(this review is of the Deluxe addition of Midnight Memories, which features three more songs than the standard version).

A year on from Take Me Home, the nation’s most lusted after boyband have gotten up to all manner of adventure, from Harry’s failed relationship with Taylor Swift irking her so much that she felt the need to blast him on various public occasions, to Zayn being accused of cheating on Little Mix’s Perrie, only to follow it up with a proposal, classic. The boys have shown they are now fully-fledged #adults by inking various parts of their body (even little Niall has a tattoo now!), and in between that, they’ve managed to star in a Morgan Spurlock documentary, and, oh yeah, make some music.

The album opens with the somewhat ambitiously titled Best Song Ever. It’s not quite that, but it’s a sufficiently cheerful pop number with a catch chorus, making it a shoo-in for playlists in upcoming Christmas parties (I’ve already heard it in upmarket bars!). Happily has a charming country music vibe to it, all strings, banjo, and feet-stamping. Perhaps I’m biased, but I really don’t see the criticism that the boys can’t sing, especially when their voices sound so strong on this track, all without an autotune in sight.

Story of My Life has deepness and maturity that we normally expect these five to eschew, featuring Zayn’s heartfelt delivery of “but baby, running after you is like chasing the clouds”, a gorgeous line of poetry that drives home the sad point that no matter how much you love someone, it might not work. Unfortunately, it was slightly let down by the Mumford and Sons-esque riff in the background, a band I associate with mawkishness. Don’t Forget Where You Belong channel Take That, in a good way, with a cheeky WMYB nod: “and the proof is in this song”. The refrain is absolutely swoon-worthy, exhibiting the vocal talents of the band’s two fittest members, Louis and Zayn (just dictatin’), who’s voices complement each other’s terrifically.

It doesn’t take Alfred Kinsey to work out that in the three years since the band’s inception, One Direction have racked up a few notches in their bedposts, and this worldliness comes across in their music, which is more adult, more self-assured. The album’s title track Midnight Memories serves up GQ-type swagger, boyband style. The line “5 foot something with the skinny jeans” hails 30H!3 Starstruck and its more lascivious “tight jeans, double DDs” with a sexy, rock-style, whilst teetering on the right side of naughty (“Same old shhhh but a different day”) such that pre-teens’ parents won’t refuse to buy the album. Little Black Dress, a throwback to vintage rock that Louis and Liam helped co-pen, simply exudes sex, and is all the better for it. And Alive, which casually glazes upon the topic of sex addiction, features angel-faced Niall reciting “I whisper something in her ear that I just can't repeat”, which is certainly something.

These days, it seems an album isn’t anything without a cheeky bit of dubstep on it, and the token dupstep track of Midnight Memories is Little White Lies, a song which addresses an issue that is under-represented in mainstream pop music by men: that woman want sex just as much as guys do. “I know you want it/ I know you feel it too/ Let's stop pretending/ That you don't know what I don't know/ Just what we came to do” they sing in two-beat, and because this is One Direction, the topic of female desire makes for jaunty music-making, whereas in the hands of Robin Thicke, it just sounds creepy. You see, presentation is everything.

At 18 songs, the law of averages would dictate that there will be some non-entities, and this album has (possibly more than) its share. Diana is filler song in motion, and the Tears for Fears vibes of Everyone Wants to Rule the World-sounding in the background cannot redeem the ambiguity with the lyrics “I don't think you even realize baby you'd be saving mine” with regards to whether the song is about Princess Diana puts it in the vaguely poor taste category. You and I isn’t as affecting or sweet as their other love songs, and “not even the gods above can separate the two of us” reminds me of the first song (can’t remember the name) on Miley Cyrus’ Bangerz album. It’s never good when a song reminds you of Miley Cyrus, just truthin’. And Strong is a tad corny for me, whilst Does He Know is forgettable, and two of the few songs I would angle the “all One Direction songs sound the same” criticism at. And whilst Midnight Memories had a tolerable amount of Mumford and Sons similarity, Something Great sounded too much like M&F than I felt permissible.

Where I complimented the lads on their braveness to try their hand at falsetto in the Take Me Home album, they clearly had fun doing so, because there’s some more on Right Now, with Zayn pushinghis vocal range at “You know I can't fight the feeling” like a pro. The final song of the deluxe edition, Half a Heart, seems a gloomy tone to depart on, but what it lacks in happiness it makes up for in pure emotion, with Zayn belting “I'm half a man- at best / With half an arrow in my chest/I miss everything we do/ I'm half a heart without you”. It really is true what they say; an artist has to suffer to produce true art, and in the same way, it helps, as a someone appreciating the work if you’ve suffered the pangs of disappointed love, because the lyrics of Half a Heart really resonated. And it seems quite apt that the legendary player of 1D, Harry, ends the song, and the album, with the last sad word.

Persevere with Midnight Memories. Sticking two filler songs within the first five tracks of the album wasn’t too clever, but there is quality on it, not to mention some emotional lyrics that render some of the songs almost as layered as an onion. That being said, I don’t think it surpasses Take Me Home. It ends with less of a bang, and whereas even the filler songs of Take Me Home survived the repeat listening test (I’ve since completely altered my view of Heart Attack, which I’ve decided is brilliant), I imagine you’d have to pay me to re-listen to some of the duds on this album again. However, it’s still better than 99% of the crap that’s out in the music industry, and once again, exhibits that One Direction are so much more than just five pretty faces.

Grade: A-

Album review: SALUTE (Little Mix)

Little Mix’s second album is as bright and bold as their previous, with the girl group having newfound swag from their globe-trotting exploits to add to their music-making. As with DNA, Little Mix take co-writing credentials on the majority of their album, meaning that Salute is truly the concoction of fierce foursome Perrie Edwards, Jesy Nelson, Leigh-Anne Pinnock and Jade Thirlwall, as opposed to the bland music industry play-by-numbers girlband that many would expect from the product of a Simon Cowell TV show.

Romantic “Towers” exhibits their growing emotional maturity, a moving ballad about doomed love, a theme that I am personally feeling too strongly too much right now. “Once we were made like towers / Everything could've been ours / But you left it too late now my heart feels nothing, nothing at all” they croon forlornly, to a swelling, majestic string orchestra overlayed with RnB beats. It helps that all four of them are all talented performers, so the delivery of the lyrics sound heartfelt, when the song could have turned out mawkish in lesser vocal talents.

Being unafraid to borrow from their hip-hop sisters is another thing I really rate about Little Mix. They channel both Amerie and Lady Gaga in standout track, “About the Boy”, a feisty, sexy track about a fella who’s just got that one thing. Fabulous harmonisations, an extremely catchy beat, good blend of singing/spoken word and another topic that I have a personal experience or ten of makes for a wonderful song. And the crème de la crème comes at the jazzy refrain, where soon-to-be Mrs. Zayn Malik, Perrie Edwards gets to exhibit her fantastic pipes in her high note, which has to be heard to be believed. And then heard over and over again, because it is just that good.

Like the sass in DNA’s “How Ya Doin’”, the four girls strut their stuff proudly here too, with lyrics like “Boys will be boys, I got plenty knocking on my door / but none of them compare, you’re the one I’m waiting for” in "Nothing Feels Like You". For some reason, Little Mix have the likeability to carry off lyrics like this, whereas in lesser talents, such as Pussycat Dolls’ “Don’tcha”, they could have simply come across as arrogant.

As with most albums, there are a few duds. “These Four Walls” didn’t affect me in the same way as “Towers”, despite it going for the same thematic field, and the frailty that the producers were going for in the girls’ voices comes across as just weak vocals, which definitely undersells them. Similarly, in “Good Enough”, the girls demanding “Am I still not good enough? / Am I still not worth that much?” simply comes across as needy, and jars with the girl power vibe of the rest of the album, however well-sung.

Thankfully, the rest of the album is all about unabashedly celebrating girls and how terrific we are. “Boy” has serious Destiny’s Child-esque vibes, in both the beat, singing style and the Say My Name-type themes. Their single, “Move”, which they performed recently on X-Factor with gusto, is a hugely enjoyable dance track that is pure pop, with some cool rapping to boot. Perrie is my favourite singer of the four, and she belts out the bridge tremendously, showing an enviable opera-esque quality to her voice that complements her band members well.

In the void left by Girls Aloud, there hasn’t really been a girl band that have reached the heights of them. The Saturdays made a fair crack of it, but they lack a certain je ne sais quoi. Little Mix may have been fashioned as a cynical money-making ploy to fill that gap, but the make some damn good music. From the military-style Beyonce-esque drumming, messages of not allowing men to play us and cheap and cheerful RnB components, there is nothing in Salute that you won’t have heard before in millions of other songs, but such is Little Mix’s energy, that it all comes off into a pretty decent end product. I salute their second album.

Grade: A-