What's going on in the world of One Direction? Well, they've just announced their new single: It's called Got To Be You and comes out on the 13th November, a week before their debut album.
If it's anything as catchy as What Makes You Beautiful then it'll be a guaranteed smash - more lines about flipping hair please, guys!
The video for the track was recorded in New York and apparently the lads got told off while filming it - typical boys eh!
Do a band that have been in the game as long as Coldplay have any right to still be as good as this? Paradise is the proof, if anything, that this year's Glastonbury set was only the first of many re-affirmations that Coldplay will be retaining that 'best band in the world' tag for quite a bit longer.
Paradise is a little bit of Lost, a big dash of Viva La Vida - all the various elements you'd cross off the checklist when composing the ultimate in Coldplay epics. A smattering of synths, massive guitar solo outro, and of course those chanty stadium singalong bits.
With its title, Paradise sets expectations high - the music of the heavens, as it were. Countless bands entering that shaky mid-career stage return with mediocre new singles, a 'oh it's good enough' comeback that does little more than tread the water. Not Coldplay, Paradise is the sound of a band every bit as energetic and unwilling to sit on their laurels as they were ten years ago.
And with the news that the band's new album Mylo Xyloto will feature a duet with Rihanna on track Princess of China, the first signs of Coldplay-mania are creeping back into Britain again.
Remember Viva La Vida, the iTunes adverts, the veritable rush of love for a band that have truly carved out that notion of national treasures into the British - or indeed the world's - consciousness.
Speaking of the Rihanna duet, all round good chap Chris Martin said:
'The album is designed as a whole piece. It has boy and girl lead characters and top of our list for the girl part was Rihanna, but it took a while to pluck up the courage to ask her. We did a show in Las Vegas and I met her and said, 'Do you think there's any chance?' I was very Hugh Grant-like and spluttering about it.' 'She has such an amazing voice and it's so different to mine. When the vocal happened I thought 'Wow, you sound different' but I think that's also because she was singing a different song to what we are used to hearing from her and it is written by a bloke from Devon.'
We can't wait to hear it!
The full tracklisting of Mylo Xyloto is as follows:
'Mylo Xyloto'
'Hurts Like Heaven'
'Paradise'
'Charlie Brown'
'Us Against The World'
'M.M.I.X'
'Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall'
'Major Minus'
'U.F.O.'
'Princess Of China'
'Up In Flames'
'A Hopeful Transmission'
'Don't Let It Break Your Heart'
'Up With The Birds'
One of the nicest surprises in music is when an act that you previously weren't that fussed about comes back with something jaw-droppingly good and just completely blows you away.
It happened with Adele and her all-conquering 21 album. And it seems it could very easily happen to Florence Welch too.
While What The Water Gave Me doesn't have the ready made 'hit' feel of the likes of Dog Days Are Over, what it does most definitely have is an infinitely richer sense of production and fullness than anything on her first album did.
Everything about the song feels richer, more lush, more involving. From its subtle, gentle beginnings, soaring up into its epic, sky-piercing chorus, the song is quite simply beautiful.
The bass positively purrs as it creeps back and forth beneath the classic Florence blend of harp, piano and other assorted bits and bobs that help conjure up that spider's web of musical foundations.
Best though is when the track takes on a satisfyingly weighty rock punch, the bass strumming faster and faster as it flies into the final chorus.
It's like the sunrise breaking free on the grimmest, most grey of rainy days - the glorious radiance of pure heat and light bursting through to envelop the listener in a wash of pretty noise and an inspired guitar outro. Perfect.
Of late, Snow Patrol have been rather hard to pigeon-hole. It used to be so easy; those big sweeping rock ballads Run and Chasing Cars, those perenial favourites of any self-respecting radio station in the land - that was what Snow Patrol were about.
They'd soundtrack every 'emotional' moment of reality TV, they were the 'rock' band that it was ok for slick city profesionals and middle class Mums to love.
But new single Called Out In The Dark couldn't be further from that - and it all began with 2009's Just Say Yes. Like so many before them, Snow Patrol took that tried and tested route of 'going electronic', shoving a few synths on their latest single and seeing what happened.
What came out the other end was an exceptionally good track, a chilly, glacial bit of synth-pop that saw the band rejuvenated, interesting again, yet still possessing that 'Snow Patrol sound' - namely Gary Lightbody's resonant tones.
Called Out In The Dark is something of a mixed creation - the verses are on very shaky foundations, feeling way too slow, laboured in their plodding bassline. Every part of them seems designed only to get you to the chorus. But oh what a chorus it is...
The chorus is everything to Called Out In The Dark, literally everything. Without it, this song would be nothing, But with it, the track transforms into something magical, enchanting, truly beautiful. Like something from Depeche Mode/Erasure's radiant 80s heyday, Called Out In The Dark suddenly bursts into a full on pop moment, the kind of arms aloft on a glittered dancefloor instant that marks the sign of a truly brilliant chorus.
Even better, the accompanying video throws in some Tron style dancers, bathed in neon light, twisting and twirling around a glossy actor substitute for Lightbody himself. It's a simple narrative, a basic idea, but it's done with just the right amount of comic intention to keep you interested - oh, and it does wonders to perk up those badly lagging verses.
Following on from Just Say Yes, this new, synth-led Snow Patrol makes for a considerable fighting force. Not every band makes the transition from staid commercial rock favourites to pop perfectionism, but Snow Patrol are sure making a good go of it. More like this on the new album please!
Called Out In The Dark is released on the 5th September.
When it comes to TV performances of your brand new single, The Saturdays sure know a thing or two.
Last night's spellbinding All Fired Up routine on John Barrowman's entertaining Tonight's The Night was a case in point, a real good old fashioned proper pop 'moment' - the kind of thing you'd tune in especially to Top Of The Pops or CDUK to watch in days gone by.
With more lasers than a Star Trek movie and the girls looking super-hot all in black (My God are Una Healy's legs amazing!), the girls showed just why their upcoming arena tour is going to be one of the highlights of the year.
Today we have the pleasure of bringing you the video from the Girls Aloud star's latest single, and we think you'll agree it's every bit as wonderful and cute as Beat Of My Drum was.
Where Nicola's previous single was the spark and fire of a solo career bursting into life, Lucky Day takes that sound and allows it to blossom and grow into a fully fledged thing of beauty that really is the epitome of everything Girls Aloud fans have always loved about Nicola.
The video was directed by Stephen Agnew (he's previously worked with The Vaccines and White Lies) and sees Nicola taking a sunny stroll through New York's East Village.
With the help of some nifty little visual effects, Nicola paints a veritable rainbow of colour through the streets, stamping down that unique, lovely, effortlessly charming personality that is just so 'her'.
Co-written by Canadian electro-poppers Dragonette, the track definitely bears the hallmarks of their influence too - judging by the recent success of Martin Solveig's Hello, which featured Dragonette leading lady Martina, Lucky Day looks primed to follow in its footsteps to the upper reaches of the charts.
Snappy, feisty, Lucky Day is the song not only Nicola fans always wanted from her, but it feels, without a doubt, like the kind of music Nicola always wanted to make too. Cinderella's Eyes is her project, her life and soul, and it's already shaping up to be one of the best pop albums of the year.
Kasabian are never ones to let the public down. And after all, where would they be without those seething crowds to sing back every word of the likes of Club Foot to them?
No, Kasabian are one of those precious few bands who seem to live an almost symbiotic existence with their fans - feeding off their very energy and channelling it back into their latest musical creations.
Maybe this, then, is the secret of their success. The reason why they remain at the top of their game when so many others have faltered. When we covered their new teaser single Switchblade Smiles back in June we loved how it felt like a return to the darker, more brutal sounds of their first album - Days Are Forgotten feels much the same.
With its classic, jabbing, bassy guitar hook, like its predecessor, it already seems destined for the soundtracks of Top Gear episodes and sports montages.
Indeed, this is Kasabian at their most epic; a Good, The Bad, and The Ugly meets James Bond composition of anthemic proportions.
Days Are Forgotten wears those filmic influences bared on its sleeve and boy does it merit from them - the chorus is one of the band's most slick to date, a monster of a thing that screams 'hit'. Add in those eerie vocal wails and you have something completely and utterly thrilling.
Four albums in, and Kasabian still at the top of their game, you wonder how many bands would kill to get their hands on that magic formula.
The band's new album Velociraptor! is released on the 19th September.
Example can do no wrong at the moment. Every artist (if they're lucky) goes through that phase of their career where they bang out hit after hit, a veritable torrent of amazing tuneage.
New single Stay Awake picks up where the masterful Changed The Way You Kiss Me left off, an assault of domineering dancefloor magic. Example's all-inclusive calls to the 'leaders of the messed up generation' feels buoyed up with the confidence of a man who now has a Number One single under his belt.
Seeing Example play the Capital Summertime Ball at Wembley, he was clearly in his absolute element - 85,000 people arrayed before him, all dancing away.
Indeed, it was quite possible that he received the best reception of anyone that day; whipping the crowd up into a frenzy despite the apocalypticly dismal weather.
Stay Awake is the sound of a man so versed in producing an anthem you feel he could probably just as easily do it with his eyes closed. Melody, lyrics, rhythm - listening to Stay Awake is like seeing a master-technician at work, fine tuning a high-end sport car for the race. And when that machine is unleashed, boy does it fly...
Hard-Fi have been turning heads recently, and for all the right reasons. Let's add another reason then, and that's that their new single Fire In The House - the second from third album Killer Sounds - is all kinds of fabulous.
Unlike the bold, striding swagger of the Jay-Z/Stone Roses aping Good For Nothing, this feels more subtle, more melancholic, but equally drenched in the sounds of the past. Half storming Brit-pop anthem, half moody synth epic dredged up from a shady nightclub, this is Hard-Fi doing what Hard-Fi do best.
Remember when Hard To Beat and Living For The Weekend came out, charming a nation with their perfect twinning of shouty indie credibility and big pop hooks. It felt so effortlessly spot on, so in the moment, so much like songs for the time - and Fire In The House feels the same.
Good For Nothing was aptly, rather good - great even. But this is on a whole other level - epic is a word that has been immeasurably cheapened over the last few years, but Fire In The House *is* undeniably epic.
The real test, of course, will be if the album can remain of a similar quality. Consistency, the great holy grail that so many aim for. Of the bands of Hard-Fi's generation, only a few remain, even fewer still delivering on the same scale. Kasabian have managed it, remaining eternally popular - and Fire In The House is exactly the kind of track that will ensure Hard-Fi stay up there with them in the premiere league of British rock acts.
Seeing the band perform at T4 On The Beach the other weekend, they felt like the band you always knew they had in them - not just Stars of CCTV, but real, genuine stars.
Mojo Fury stride the difficult middle ground between the unkempt power of hard rock and the intricacies of deliving into everything else on the sonic platter.
New single We Should Just Run Away initially presents itself as an electronica-tinged slab of Biffy Clyro-esque punch. It's weighty, bulky stuff, but also feels surprisingly agile - a kind of younger, Northern Irish cousin to their Scottish patrons (Mojo Fury previously supported Biffy Clyro on tour).
You get the sense that the band are fighting to stretch the boundaries at every level - but We Should Just Run Away's real charm is the good old fashioned stomp it carries itself with on the immense singalong chorus.
Fury? It's here in copious amounts; bursting from the guitar licks - but there's also a sense of community too. Like the best moments in music, Mojo Fury's sound is something to be shared with others - both massive and for the masses.
We Should Just Run Away is released on the 17th July.
Films Of Colour piqued my interest a while ago, debut single Actions driving up a real buzz across the radio-scape, with even the esteemed Steve Lamacq singing the band's praises.
Determined to justify the buzz, follow up track Capital is the definition of a 'stormer' if ever there was one. Bleepy video-game synths play into riotious, sprawling guitar lines remiscent of Muse. Capital is all about the scope and scale, the sheer imensity of sound being crammed into its four minute duration.
It's the kind of track you can already envision as a firm live favourite - fitting then that it's already positioned as the band's gig opener. Chaneling a dark intensity that the likes of Editors have done so well in the past, Capital makes for a powerful, pacy introduction to new converts to the band's cause.
