Kate Nash - 'Mouthwash'
When it comes to splitting opinions, and keeping people so far apart they can't even SEE each other, the benchmark until now has always been Marmite (largely because they say so). But you have to admit that in recent months, their lofty claims of being the only thing that people either love or hate have actually been taken over by a young lady singer and her tales of bitter lemons and sick on trainers. Move over, toast-gunk, when it comes to being adored/despised with a passion that knows no bounds, NO-ONE beats the Nash.
Pro-Kate factions have been openly warring with Nash bashers, pitting friend against friend, brother against sister, dog against cat, acorn against mushroom...THE WORKS. Heck, even within Team ChartBlog, massive rows have broken out about whether Kate is a wide-eyed innocent with a fresh style, pretty voice and sharp way with words, or a squeaky helium harpy with designs on Lily Allen's millions and lyrics written in crayon by a team of shadowy record company songwriters in a smoky back-room somewhere.
It's fair to say that this song is going to do NOTHING to change the situation.
Literally everything that everyone likes or hates about Kate Nash is represented within this four minute wonder. THAT voice is a given, seeing as this is a Kate Nash song, and so not really worth debating. Kate h8rs (or K8rs, as we should really call them) won't be won over, and the tremulous warble which won the hearts of the Nash massive (the Nashive, naturally) will certainly do the same trick again, given half a chance.
The lyrics are going to be where the bulk of the battle is fought. "I use mouthwash, sometimes I floss, I've got a family and we drink cups of tea" is going to be teeth-itchingly twee and annoying to some people. It just is. And the verses, where Kate lists various parts of herself and explains why you can't break her, will read like a heroic lack of inspiration OR a nifty, undramatic way of re-stating the kind of lyrical self-re-biggering that you used to find in songs like 'I'm Every Woman' or 'I Will Survive', depending on your point of view.
Then, to make matters more complicated, there's the members of the Nashive (Old Skool division) who object to the makeover some of Kate's songs have been given in the recording of her album. Having got used to her rough demos, the superfans now feel that their quirky songstress has been over-polished for the commercial market, and again, this song contains enough evidence to support this claim too. It's a minefield, I tell you!
So, having sat on the fence thus far, which side is ChartBlog on? Well, as I said, opinion is deeply divided across the team, but then, reviewing singles isn't a democratic process so...I'm gonna have to go with the Nashive over the K8rs.
In fact, normally this would be a dead-cert for a five star song, but for the fact that it isn't either 'Merry Happy', 'Foundations' or 'We Get On', which are slightly better, IMHO...don't beat me up!
Download: Out now
CD Released: September 24th
(Fraser McAlpine)
Comments
We Get On really is amazing. Not too keen on Mouthwash, personally. Bad single choice, maybe?
Iyahh lucy hun erm i love eastenders and you are fab actor please send back plz
I'm very dissapointed with this song , after loving foundations soooo much , thyis is just plain rubish!!!!
hiya im at school
It is agood song. It is catchy, but the lyrics 'mouthwash..blabla...' are hard to understandwhat they mean or are they just something to fill up the space, or do they rhyme, I can't remenber, does it rhyme? Well, I don't understand, I like to understand a song if I am going to sing along to it.
Hiya, I'm at uni.
Killing time because you landed classes 2 hours apart is FUN.