Common - 'I Want You'
Post-breakup songs are a tricky beast., especially when you discover that you didn't really want to break up in the first place. And just like securing a new record deal for East 17, it's all about getting the tone right. You can go for broke, and plead for your ex to come back in a sobbing, tear-jerking, great-big-wobbly-heap-of-jelly sort of way, and veer wildly between disgusting the very person you hope to impress the most and impressing some attractive bystander with your passion and commitment (or disgusting the bystander and impressing your ex, it's all in the delivery).
This, gentle reader, is not the route Common chooses to take. No, when Common wants to tell someone he thinks the breakup was a mistake, he breaks out the Funky Backbone. Now, in many ways the Funky Backbone is a high-risk strategy. On the plus side, a beefy breakbeat which sounds not a million miles away from the Beautiful South's 'Perfect 10' is always a welcome distraction from any emotional showdown. Plus it displays a certain confidence, making with the sexy at the point when all you really want to do is get down on your knees and BEG...
On the other hand, the begging thing is probably a bit more honest, and less stagey (assuming you really mean it, and you're not just after a goodbye snog). And if you listen to Common's lyrics, he's not even trying to prevent a recent breakup from, y'know, breaking up. No, he's sending out a message to a former flame - the song equivalent of a Facebook poke to an ex, which leads to a reminiscence and maybe a rekindling of The Heat and stuff.
In the end, what saves this from being an unsettling eavesdrop on a private moment between two friends is Common's very measured and sensible delivery, and the fact that when you've got a Funky Backbone, people are always pleased to listen to what you've got to say. It's a self-respect thing, you see.
And what better way to see the new year in than a last-minute romp around one of the highlights of the old one? Apart from someone giving you an actual unicorn loaded down with bags of gold dubloons, obv.
Download: Out now
CD Released: December 31st
(Fraser McAlpine)
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