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

BEYONCÉ

Run The World (Girls) Columbia ****

The (leaked) first single from Beyoncé’s as-yet untitled fourth album is dance-floor filler driven by a distinctive drum roll sampled from Major Lazer’s Pon de Floor. Beyoncé’s thesis here seems to be that the world is ruled, not by a sinister cabal of Judeo-Masonic-lizard people, as has been alleged elsewhere, but rather by a new generation of feisty, ass-kicking independent single ladies. Of course, that’s what the illuminati would want us to think, isn’t it?

MORRISSEY

Treat Me Like a Human Being EMI **

Morrissey then? Sometimes he teeters on the brink of self-parody. And sometimes he drives right over that cliff. But we love him anyway.

ELBOW

Open Arms Fiction **

Like virtually every single song in this band's arsenal, Open Armsis an overblown and sentimental effort, whose appeal is beholden entirely to the singer's own Herculean "niceness". It's Mull of Kintyreminus the bagpipes, basically.

UNA KEANE

Mr Icarus Marabou Records ***

The second single from Una Keane's debut album Treesis a beguiling piano ballad. She begins a six-date Irish tour with an appearance at Féile na Bealtaine in Dingle tonight.

BLUE

I Can Polydor **

On the UK’s Eurovision entry, the newly reformed Blue offer a masterclass of boyband cliche: skyscrapers, slow-motion shots and demonstrative hand gestures. As an additional flourish, concocted perhaps with one-eye on Düsseldorf, the chorus consists of a succession of random vowel sounds (“I can, I will, I know, I can”), likely to appeal to, or possibly even written by, someone with an incomplete grasp of the English language.

JEDWARD

Lipstick Universal *

Not to be outdone by our neighbours, Ireland’s Eurovision entry seems tailored to the tastes of an audience whose home planet is not Earth. Best of luck, boys!