Aiden Grimshaw - Is This Love

Right from the outset, Aiden Grimshaw established himself as one of the most interesting contestants ever to grace the X Factor. With his moody, sometimes overbearingly theatrical demeanour and performances, it always felt like he was underserved a little by what the X Factor could offer him. He was certainly never going to win, no, he was too much of an acquired taste for that. He was too much an undefined quantity - you just know that if he had gone on to win he'd have been morphed into a formless Joe McElderry clone and have descended into z-list-dom less than a year later.

But life post-X Factor throws up some fascinating surprises, and one of them is Aiden's actual debut single; a synth-tastic journey into dream-kissed airy pop heaven. It's like Frankmusik rebooted for 2012 pop market, laced with dub-step beats, 80s gloss and vocals that really capture a sense of who Aiden is as both person and potential star. It's a clever move too, with all the shiny pop appeal to grab hearts and minds of a horde of teen girls, but the trendy dance credibility to make its own way into clubland domination.

So, with fingers in both domains, Aiden has recast himself as quite the aspiring dance-pop prince, and it's a look that suits. Is This Love is a terrific debut, and if the rest of his album is as good as this, it could land itself up there with Rebecca Ferguson's Heaven as one of the best LP's ever produced from the ITV ratings giant.

Listen to Is This Love HERE.

Erasure - A Whole Lotta Love Run Riot

When I first listened to Erasure's Tomorrow's World album, A Whole Lotta Love Run Riot was the track that instantly stood out, a full-on dance banger as glamtastic as any of their past greats. It also felt like the song most thoroughly representative of the working relationship between the duo and Frankmusik - a glossy, intensely modern take on Erasure's synth-pop, remodelling them into a heavily produced, more digital-sounding outfit.

For me, part of Erasure's enduring appeal has been the slightly rubbery nature of their largely analogue tracks, but as a standalone piece, A Whole Lotta Love Run Riot and its parent album by extension represent an exciting, contemporary evolution of Erasure. A sort of Transformers 3D switch-up for them then. And here, the formula undoubtedly works - A Whole Lotta Love Run Riot is everything you want from an up-tempo Erasure club-stormer. Friday nights out on the town pumped through the synth-pop machine; letting loose in careless abandon of love and, well... love.

Colette Carr - (We Do It) Primo

What do you get when you add a stunning blonde, a Keane sample (amazing!) and Frankmusik (also amazing!) all together? Well, you end up with Colette Carr's new single (We Do It) Primo, that's what.

Hailing from Malibu, California (can we live there please? It sounds really sunny!), Colette is a feisty electro-popping rapper whose previous single Back It Up reached Number One on MTVMusic's Top 100 back at the start of 2010.

The closest thing I can really compare Primo to is Miley Cyrus's Party In The USA; it's got that same youthful exuberance, that real hands-in-the-air vibe. On one hand you have the glorious 'pop' of Colette's vocals and bouncy synths; on the other hand, a real urban credibility.

Artists like Jessie J have helped open the door wide open for quirky, forthright female artists to make it big and Primo is precisely the kind of track ready to take that opportunity and really make a go of it.

Of course, there's always a danger when sampling a song as popular as Keane's Somewhere Only We Know that it could alienate fans of the original - but Primo cleverly only uses the briefest of moments of the song, cherry-picking the catchiest hook of the chorus; a cornerstone that the rest of the song can launch from.

As for Colette herself, she's obviously got a keen sense of style too, presenting herself in some really eye-catching, glamorous outfits that match up to the striking, individual sounds on offer in her music. It's well worth checking out her rather amazing blog too, complete with smileys and a hell of a lot of pictures. Very colourful, super-bright, and like Primo itself, immensely fun.


Colette Carr - (We Do It) Primo by CherrytreeRecords