MARLENE
Sweet ★★★
Swedish singer-songwriter Marlene follows up the her well-received All I Want single earlier this year with this new sports-themed video. I'd say I haven't seen pretty people play tennis this unconvincingly since Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and Scarlett Johansson co-starred in Match Point. But that might sound like a backhanded compliment.
DANNY BROWN ft. KENDRICK LAMAR, AB-SOUL & EARL SWEATSHIRT
Really Doe ★★★★
Warp Records
Sticking with racket sport, and considering he retired two years before rapper Earl Sweatshirt was even born, hot-headed tennis great John McEnroe must surely be pleased at being name-checked as a badass on this cut from Danny Brown's forthcoming Atrocity Exhibition album. The four featured MCs trade verses, referencing such heavy topics as God, gang violence and the occult. And why not – after all, who ever said you cannot be serious.
JAMES ARTHUR
Say You Won't Let Go ★
Columbia
Once-disgraced former X Factor winner James Arthur here returns with a highly unlikely comeback single. One which manages to combine the melody of The Script's The Man Who Can't Be Moved with the mawkish ghastliness of Ed Sheeran's Thinking Out Loud. By all accounts, it's shaping up to be an enormous hit. So what can I say? You just can't keep a terrible singer down.
PROPHETS OF RAGE
Prophets of Rage ★★
Comprising various members of Public Enemy, Rage Against the Machine and Cypress Hill. Prophets of Rage are a (self-described) "elite task force of revolutionary musicians determined to confront this mountain of election year bullshit". Their five-track The Party's Over EP, and 35-date Make America Rage Again tour, make them essentially a greatest hits nostalgia act for the middle-aged radical, left-wing agitprop crowd. Sufficed to say, 'The Man' won't be quaking in his boots this time around.
