³ÉÈËÂÛ̳

Several years ago, a cheeky-yet-brilliant hip-pop duo called Outkast had a string of hits with songs that melded the charismatic vocals of Andre 3000 with the rapping skills of Big Boi, all blended in with . They were jolly successful and very brilliant. They still are, in fact. Their big successes, 'Hey Ya' and 'Miss Jackson,' were going on for half a decade ago, though. Which either means the emergence of Madcon, a hip-pop duo with a rapper and a singer, is entirely uncoincidental and I'm just being deeply cynical or someone somewhere has a concept of timing that probably makes public transport a total impossibility.

This song, to my ears at least, has all the marks of attempting to reproduce Outkast's charismatic pop, without any of the actual charisma. It's got a bit of that Ronson-esque soul revivalism to it but it's so utterly sanitised as to remove all possibility to excitement or interest from it; it's the safe sound of an advert for a 50% off weekend and buy-now-pay-later offer at a furniture shop.

(Watch the video )

It repeats itself with vitriolic determination, yet even the performers themselves sound a bit like they're standing around in a studio thinking "blimey, is this bit still going on?" There's nothing per se wrong with the premise of a funky beat and a bit of chirpy vocal; s'good to dance too, got a lively upbeat feel and it's emo-in-disguise (lying girl breaks heart, etc.) which as I've said many times, is my favourite musical genre EVER and yet this is, basically, boring.

I keep waiting for it to do something, yet nothing ever comes; I'm not sure you can actually call the refrain a chorus because it's essentially the entire song, give or take about four lines as the first verse, which might be alright if it was accompanied by a faintly interesting accompaniment but even that sounds completely weary after about a minute.

Don't get me wrong; this song makes me want to dance. A lot. And I'd quite happily get up and do so right this very second, but I think this might be more to do with the fact the song is so repetitive it's kind of reassuring (in a sort of "ooh, I know this bit" way), rather than it being an irresistible dancefloor stormer in the same way, say, 'Hey Ya' actually was.

Then of course there's the video, presumably intended to show a cheeky edge to the song but actually just leaves me more-than-slightly weirded out that the idea of two men looking to be in their thirties invading a high school girls' changing room is intended to be funny. This might possibly be me being joyless but I'll be frank, it just seems downright creepy, which is never the right sort of "interesting" to try and inject a song with.

Download: Out now
CD Released: February 23rd

(Hazel Robinson)