EOIN BUTLER's guide to downloads, singles and free audiostreams

JAMES BLUNT

If Time Is All I Have

Atlantic *

“When you wake up turn your radio on/And you’ll hear this simple song/That I made up for you.” Typical James Blunt: using his establishment connections to rig radio playlists and inflict this wibbly-voiced palaver on the masses. Have you no shame, man?

ROYSEVEN

We Should Be Lovers (Alternative Version)

Roadrunner ***

What would you do if you found your partner in bed with someone else? Well, odds are your reaction might be a little angrier than that of Royseven’s Paul Walsh. Let’s just say he’s a forgiving man. youtube.com

FIGHT LIKE APES

Jenny Kelly ***

Their critically acclaimed second album (Body of Christ, Legs of Tina Turner) gets a belated UK release later this month. Maybe that’s inspired them to pay tribute here to that most English of pastimes: cheese-rolling. I’m not kidding.

RUMER

Goodbye Girl

Atlantic**

My God, I’m getting flashbacks here. This sounds exactly like one of those godawful Helen Reddy albums my mother used to listen to in the car when I was a kid. Turn it off! Turn it off! And buy me Tayto!

MUNDY

It’s a Wonderful Lie **

The Offaly troubadour must be a fan of this column: he’s just named his new album after it. But that’s not enough to curry favour round these parts. Like most of Mundy’s recorded output, this Paul Westerberg cover is difficult either to like or dislike. In other words, it’s the aural equivalent of a Digestive biscuit. Shuffle follows on May 13th. mundy.ie

TREY SONGZ FT NICKI MINAJ

Bottoms Up

Atlantic ****

Bottoms Up is a slick, bass- thumping ode to oversized posteriors, rescued by a star turn from Nicki Minaj. Rapping as her even-more- bonkers-than-usual alter ego Roman Zolanski, Minaj once effortlessly steals

the show

from her male collaborators.

shuffle