Darren Hayes - Who Would Have Thought

In the late 90s, there were few voices more ubiquitious on the radio than that of Darren Hayes. In the span of just two albums. his band--Savage Garden--managed to sell 10 million records in the US alone (double that globally) and record the two-longest running hit singles in Billboard chart history. Then, the band broke up, Darren's first solo record, a largely pop-by-numbers exercise called Spin failed to generate much interest and Hayes was yesterday's news.

In the ensuing years Hayes issued a f*ing brilliant, but criminally under-heard electro-pop opus The Tension And The Spark, a contract closing Savage Garden greatest hits record for Sony and now, a new indie released double-album This Delicate Thing We've Made following the musical path laid down on Tension.

In short, "Who Would Have Thought" is no "Truly Madly Deeply."

In fact, the track harkens most back to a maturing of the artist who recorded "To The Moon And Back," arguably the Garden's best single, whose sound was abandonned in the hunt for soft rock platinum. Hayes' latest work is an ethereal, propulsive, moody five minutes of electro-pop that reaches lyrical and sonic depths far more profound than anything typically embraced by drivetime radio.

Material like this doesn't sit comfortably next to a booty shaker like "Umbrella" and that's OK. "Who Would Have Thought" is definitely a headphones record. Pensive and yet thoroughly accessible, this is the kind of record Coldplay, Justin Timberlake or George Michael could sign their name to and change the course of the pop genre. But frankly, it's Darren Hayes who may be operating, thoroughly under the radar, as the most interesting male voice in pop.

FYI, even without the machinations of the big label machine, this guy remains a serious live performer and with material like this, we urge you to stop, look and listen.

Snowfight In The City Centre - No Light Left

Sometimes, on rare, quasi-magical occasions, a new band will slip, almost unnoticed, through your earbuds and over the course of four sparkling minutes convert you from curious listener to furious evangelist. Such was my first encounter with Snowfight In The City Centre.

It's obviously a tall order being a musician from Manchester. Between Oasis, New Order, Morrissey, Jamiroquai and the Bee Gees, the ghosts obviously loom large for any lads with guitars. Armed with a sound that could well carry them to the top of the charts on both sides of the pond, Snowfight In The City Centre, however, is ready to take on those demons, full force.

Without a hint of pretense, posing or pomposity their single "No Light Left," shapes up as a worldbeater of a rock song. Think the Arctic Monkeys on enough E to keep all of 10th Avenue loved up. All hummable melodies, shimmering guitars and a gently insistent vocal from frontman Adam Jennings, this track has the words "huge friggin' hit" practically etched into the plastic the CD was pressed on.

Signed to a UK indie, Something In Construction, these guys aren't on the global radar yet, but this time next year, remember where you heard it first.

Download "No Light Left" on their MySpace

Mark Ronson f. Daniel Merriweather - Stop Me (Allido/Columbia)

There's been a very short list of singles that have stopped me in my tracks, (or in the middle of a spreadsheet as the case may be) leaving me to remember the first time moment I heard it; and inevitably scouring the world for any trace its origins. Considering it's a rare day that goes by that I'm not listening to music for hours on end, I can only remember Everything But The Girl's "Missing," Madonna's "Music," Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," and Hard-Fi's "Cash Machine" pulling that off. Turns out this time it was Mark Ronson turning my productivity at the office to nil.

This isn't the "celebrity DJ's" first fruitful trip to the other side of the needle. Back in '04, his Nate Dogg-featuring single "Ooh Wee" did some serious dancefloor damage and he's bringing it to the tables again.

First comes the voice of Aussie blue-eyed soul singer Daniel Merriweather, not sounding far removed from Timberlake or UK-based namesake Daniel Bedingfield (before he went to shit). Then Ronson's deft production hand drops us into a sonic past/present splitscreen of breakbeats and string-laden Motown-kissed soul. The melody and lyrics do the same, mashing up The Smiths' "Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This Before" and the Supremes' classic "You Keep Me Hangin' On." You've got a sonic collision of the 60s, 80s, 90s, and every major outpost of the English-speaking world and yet it's never an iota as burdened by its ambitions as the listing of its parts would have you believe.

This is simply a groove-laden hip-hop jam of the first order. One so damned good that we forgive him, despite his being responsible for all the hipsters telling us how much they love Lily Allen.