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I'm not a superstitious person, but when this week's horoscope told me I'd be torn over whether to follow my heart or my head, I was a little bit worried. You see, I have this sort of war with myself constantly. It's like I've got two little guys, one on each shoulder, each telling me to do or think things. And the result is usually a terrible mess. How else would I end up trying bourbon biccies dipped in humous?

(They're surprisingly good, actually)

So anyway, if this is a daily occurrence for me, I figured maybe a HUGE dilemma was in my stars. I had been torn recently over whether or not to get a Disney Princess duvet set, but this felt like it was bigger than that. Maybe this would be something at work? Or something hot boy-related? Of course, I more than slightly hoped it would be the latter (any hot boy dilemma is always welcome), but upon listening to Little Boots new single, I realised that I had been wrong. My dilemma was something far more serious. It was, and is, clearly: do I give this song five stars or not?

Right shoulder guy? Left Shoulder guy? Brace yourselves. This. Means. War.

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This, ladies and gentlemen, is Girls Can't Catch (left-to-right: Daizy, Phoebe and Jess): Girls Can't Catch, this is ChartBlog.

You may already know Phoebe from such television shows as The X Factor, but she's put all that behind her now, in order to become one third of a kind of Sugababes-junior, set up to rival the Saturdays' mini-Girls Aloud, or something.

These comparisons are entirely based on the number of people in each band, you understand. Maths is a more definite science than music.

Their debut single 'Keep Your Head Up' is a very nowadays sort of pop song, in that it sounds not unlike 'Up', remixed in a '80s style by La Roux, with some speedy rhythmic Flo Rida-style tongue-twisters in the verses. And if you think that's a lot of name-dropping for just two short paragraphs, you're right, but these are all plus points.

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Forgive me, ChartBloggerers, but as there is a LOT going on in this song, for reasons of space, we're all going to have to forgo the usual opening paragraph shenanigans and just get straight down to business. I know we all love the bit where we would normally have a bit of a think about pop music in general, or where an artist is up to in the career so far, or what the writer may be having for their dinner, but all of that is going to have to go, or we'll end up with a massive essay that no-one is going to read.

And yes, I know, it's entirely possible that no-one is going to read this in any case an...OH MY GOSH I'M WAFFLING. QUICK! WE NEED TO GET TO THE STUFF ABOUT 'FUNHOUSE' BY PINK! RIGHT AWAY!

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As we all know, Eminem is at his peak when he's being brutally honest about his life...or writing sex jokes about celebrities... or constructing scary stories about killing people...some of whom are real people from his real life (it gets a little circular and confusing at this point, so let's just keep moving).

It's tempting, therefore, to view this as a companion to 'Sing For The Moment', especially as it is musically based around a mid-tempo rock ballad, the chords to which circle doomily while Marshall once again raises the portcullis and invites people to view the inside of his castle of pain.

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I have just had the most AMAZING idea for a film. Who wants to hear it? All of you? Marvy.

So, it's set in the future, although not too far, otherwise you'd have to have the people evolving extra ears and stuff. I'd be tempted to set it in 3008, just so we could see if Fergie is SO that year or not, but actually, I'm thinking maybe closer to 2109, because who wants to have to invent 1,000 years of popular slang? This way, the dialogue is easier to write and we won't need the subtitles.

The plot is a bit like Terminator, in that human things have been replaced by robot things - for example, you don't even have to take tissues when you go and see a drippy movie, there's a robot there who will do the crying for you - and the humans are feeling a bit lost in this technological wonderland.

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I am not here to cast aspersions on Britney's art. I am sure she has very good, artistically pure reasons for doing what she does, in the way that she does. And clearly 2009 is going to go down as The Year Robots Took Over The World's Pop Throats whether I scream and shout about it or not, so acting the Canute about the changing tide is just a waste of time and my good shoes.

In fact, when Britney chooses to dust down a song from her 'Blackout' album and re-release it on 'Circus', presumably because it's another swingin' electro sassfest, with froggy throatal croaking, like that '...Amy' song, there is no need for any of us to act like something is amiss. And when she takes that same song and releases it as a single, presumably as a cleaner version of that '...Amy' song which may win back the mums and dads, it is our job to stand in wonder at her creative process. She is Britney, her life is not like our lives, she makes decisions based on conflicting situations that we can only dream of, not the least of which is "are the paps watching?".

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What do Zac Efron and Beyoncé Knowles have in common? Well, other an array of totally inappropriate dance moves and Efron seeming to be a corporate robot and Knowles looking like one in her new vid, they have both felt the need to scream on their songs in recent times.

And trust me, Efron's embarrassingly half-hearted attempt, that makes him sound like he's just discovered a really good shampoo (see High School Musical 3 for details, or y'know, because it's good) is rather outdone by Beyoncé's banshee wail, which you could use to actually remove ears, should the need arise.

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Anyone who has read a music blog or Twitter feed since the announcement of this year's Mercury Prize nominations will tell you that Kasabian are a troublesome band. Actually, they probably enjoy this fact. They probably tell themselves it's their duty as artists to rub some people up the wrong way, just as long as they raise a land army of The Kids On The Street while they're at it. They probably look back over the history of rockular music - and make no mistake, as far as attitude are concerned, Kasabian are all about The Rock and The History - and reassure themselves that they're doing everything right.

The Stones were outcasts, rebels against an outmoded society, the Who were sonic visionaries, using the very latest technology to break boundaries in sound. Somewhere between these two archetypes - and 40 years on - here's Tom and Serge and the bass player who looks like a bored Eddie Izzard and the drummer, makin' waves, rockin' houses, changin' vintage guitars for other vintage guitars with every song, and generally acting like curators of the great rock archive.

That's the attitude, anyway. As far as The Actual Music is concerned, things are very different. For starters, the six-string electric guitar - the instrument which defines rock music - is not a prominent noise in their records. Fuzz bass, yes, but guitar? Less than you'd think. And barely any here.

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The West Country is a strange place. It exists outside of that whole north/south divide thing, containing as it does many areas of opulent wealth and many areas of post-industrial poverty. Also, the further south and west you go, the more you come across signs and remnants of lost civilisations, which never got wiped away by the passing of time (and humans with tractors). Things like stone circles, dolmens...why I have even seen an original 1980s goth with MY OWN EYES.

And last weekend, the Kooks, who are, in their own way, a tribute to times past, came down to Cornwall to play at the Eden project. They brought Ladyhawke with them, so it's was like a historical re-enactment from two different pop eras. Being friendly sorts, Luke and co also arranged a little interview time, and we sent Matt and Sophie - two cub reporters from ´óÏó´«Ã½ Blast - to go and interview them both.

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I known it's the height of ignorance, and impossible to defend, but am I the only person who wonders if people talking in a different language (to any that I understand) might just be making it up?

It's not a thought that I condone, nor is it anything to be proud of, but I have a very dear friend who is Spanish, and he talks to his family - often quite heatedly - in Spanish on the phone, and it always makes me giggle. The reason for this is very simple. I do not speak Spanish, so the difference in sound between him talking in the language of his forebears and him just yelling random syllables in a Speedy Gonzales accent is close to nothing.

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Man, it must KILL Kanye West that he can't sing. I mean sure, he's lucky that the overvocodered throatal wobulator is such a hot sound right now, and he's definitely getting kudos for using technology to overcome his vocal deficiencies. And on his album '808s And Heartbreak' it made a certain kind of sense to force his weedy voice to stretch and warp and twist like Mr Fantastic trying to put a flea-collar on a wasp, in a cathedral. That was just part of his journey as an artist, and it's a good journey, with many interesting twists and turns.

But still...put him next to someone who can actually sing, and sing in a manner which is sonically appealing, and things start to come apart. And I'm guessing Mr West is not a man who ever enjoys being the weakest element in a tune.

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Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey, Peter Andre and Katie Price, Hulk Hogan and Mrs Hogan. What do these three couples have in common, apart from enough dosh to fill a gold plated indoor pool using £50 notes? Well, if you dangle your celeb relationship out for all to see, it will inevitably end messily, and possibly with a prime time TV slot, being interviewed by a Britain's Got Talent judge.

Frank (or Mr. Musik as I like to call him) may think he's doing something very clever by using Holly Valance - his celeb girlfriend - in his new vid, but he does not know what forces he is unleashing, especially when she looks like she's just come back from a really heavy night out on the town.

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Storm clouds are gathering, there's tension in the air. Gangs of dour indie kids are gathering at bus stops and libraries, and an ominous muttering hum is tugging at the attention of unsuspecting music fans, up and down the country. People are uneasy, they can sense the metallic tang of danger in the air, and yet they are not sure where it comes from.

Seasoned forecasters are predicting that this, while not as severe as Hurricane Jeff - which swept over the musical landscape just before Christmas - is going to be a class 2 botherance front, and will result in a flood of blogging, tuts and impassioned self-righteousness.

Batten down the hatches, people, this could get messy...

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Everyone got their hiking boots on? Machetes at the ready? Mosquito net secured in your backpacks? Good, we're going for a little wander into uncharted (and therefore unChartBlog) territory, and while it's very likely we will return transformed and improved by our experiences, there is an element of risk.

Check the name of the band if you don't believe me, we're heading into the section of the music map which is blank, save for the words "Here be monsters" and a drawing of a dragon eating a unicorn. The very least you will need is insect repellant.

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It's that time of year again. The time when Cornwall's Eden Project plays host to a gaggle of gigs from the nations favourite hitmakers (and Razorlight). Some of you regular ChartBloggerers may remember last year's interviews - KT Tunstall, Kaiser Chiefs and Guillemots, every one a doozy, and set in a beautiful location.

As a certified local, it is of course my civic duty to tut, roll my eyes and complain bitterly that these pop stars come down here, play their music, entertain their fans and leave nothing to the good people of Cornwall beyond a heightened sense of their place in the world and a ringing in the ears.

It is also my civic duty to point out that this year's Eden crop - Kasabian, Razorlight, Paul Weller, ChartBlog's Beloved Maccabees, the Kooks, Ladyhawke - represent a cultural highpoint for the county, unmatched until someone amazing comes to play in Falmouth or Truro or Penzance, or elsewhere in the vicinity.

Heck, we've even had Oasis! This very week! Look!

All of which is a long-winded preamble to unveiling the interview I did with Florence from out of Florence & the Machine when she came to play last week. It's all about making your own garden of Eden here on Earth (yes, yes that IS clever), and takes place in her bedroom/dressing room. Enjoy!

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I'm sure I must have said this before but, in the words of the White Stripes, it bears repeating: you have to be really careful with samples, because they can turn out to be a double-edged sword with no handle. If you're lucky, people will hear the sample, recognise it, remember how they love the original, and then grow to love the new track as a result. If you're not, people will hear the sample, recognise it, remember how they love the original, and then go "what the flip is this, please?"

Unfortunately, for all that this is a song about people taking daring steps with the music they make, and keeping well clear of what you're expected to do, I had the latter experience with this song.

I was in my car and I switched on the radio just as it was starting, and whooped in joy because from the familiar guitar lick I thought they were playing 'Echo Beach' (originally by Martha and the Muffins, more recently covered by Gabriella Cilmi for use as the theme tune to the ill-fated ITV1 soap), only to discover quickly that it was just a sample

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Time to ask one of the Big Pop Questions Of The Age: Is Trace Cyrus secretly Mr Fantastic - the superhero - or are he and Mason Musso secretly Wallace and Gromit? He's certainly skinny enough to be the former, and looks like he could probably slide under a closed door, if there was something he wanted on the other side - clue: not food.

There again, there's something about his larynx which is pure plasticine, especially as it seems to be interchangeable with Mason's. Their voices are kind of soft, kind of squishy, and leave the impression that you could probably leave your fingerprints behind, if you were to push hard enough.

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Did you know James Morrison attributes his gravelly voice to a near-fatal childhood bout of whooping cough? I'm sure you did, it's the kind of biographical detail that tends to crop up in the early days of a singer's career, and stick in the mind, plus it makes a kind of sense. Whooping cough can tear a larynx up something cruel, and so can excessive singing.

So when you're listening to James, try not to be fooled into thinking that he's got The Soul. That's patronising. He's trying as hard as he can to sing properly. It's not his fault, it's just that damned illness and its devastating effect.

No, don't stare! It's rude.

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Embarrassingly '90s boyband atmos? Check. Squee!-worthy glimpse of torso? Check. JLS colours in the background? Check. Literal dancing to illustrate the lyrics? Check, check, check, cringe.

Thankfully though, I'm just cringing at the terribleness that is the new JLS video and not the song itself. Because, you see, the thing with the song is, well, it's quite simply...hmm...let me think how to put this...

I know...TOTALLY SWEETING AWESOME.

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Interesting fact: This is not the first time the number three-hundred-and-three has made an appearance in the world of popular music. There's the legendary Roland 303 bass-synth, responsible for many a squitty noise in the acid house era, then there's the A303, which is the road that leads from London, past Stonehenge and off towards Glastonbury. Kula Shaker (ask your Britpop uncle) did a song about it, as they believed the road itself had mystical powers.

To be honest, I've driven on that road a lot, and it does get you from A to B well enough. But Bank Holiday traffic jams, even ones near the ancient vale of Avalon, are in no way spiritual, unless you believe in exhaust-fume elves.

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Oh weird. In the same week the 'comeback' single from the Twang hits the shelves, here's another musical return, with a song that sounds exactly like I always hoped the Twang would from reading the NME's frothy up-biggery, even though they never actually did.

They still don't, in case you're wondering.*

Meanwhile the RevMakers, a group which has had a similarly rough ride from the music press, a group which also emphasises streetwise feeling over bookwise reading, and a group which likes to mix its gritty social commentary with a bit of a dance, is in severe danger of being entirely eclipsed by the political activities of Jon 'The Reverend' McClure, which does beg the question...can't the Twang have the song and the Rev do the politics? That would be a bit fairer.

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Poor old Green Day, always pretty good, sometimes amazing, but never quite escaping the headmasterly tut of, well, anyone who's investigated rock music back far enough to spot where they seem to get their ideas from.

Want proof? Well, Noel Gallagher - the self-appointed curator of all things 'proper' and 'right' - hates them, by all accounts. He's wrong about that. He's wrong about a lot of things, but his voice comes back to haunt whenever the song doesn't quite eclipse the other songs it's partly made from.

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Oh blimey, my spider-sense is tingling...

Now, it's fair to say there's a certain overlap between the vocal work on the verses of this pretty pop song and that of Ms. Amy Winehouse, and by rights, Paloma Faith could come over here and start some trouble, especially after the way I treated her, not that long ago.

BUT, the thing to bear in mind before laying siege to Castle ChartBlog is that I was making a point about the marketing of Paloma, especially in the video. It seemed to be a deliberate attempt to make a link between her and Amy in the minds of the record-buying public, and that it's a shame to taint a new artist with another, bigger artist's vital essence.

There is no such problem with VV Brown, as her bubbly, fizzy personality takes her laughing and skipping away from the smeared-lipstick, decadent-lifestyle, faded glamour thing and into a much more fun area.

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I am all for people taking inspiration from the artists they love the most. There's no other way music could work, and in a way it's an act of supreme arrogance to assume that you are bringing anything actually properly NEW to the table, when you're still dealing with the same 12 notes and the same set of tempos as everyone else.

That goes double for rappers, who may claim to be the most original and distinctive people in the world, but don't even have a distinctive melody to show this off. It's all in how they choose to say the words they use.

Having said all that, if Chipmunk's impression of A Certain American Boy were any more pronounced on this record, we'd have to start calling him Kanye East.

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This is not a good week to be trying to make an impact in the singles chart. I don't want to give away any secrets about who is where in the mid-week charts so far - and indeed I won't - but let's just say that some new releases are doing OK against the sudden onslaught of Michael Jackson songs, and some are not.

What you would be well advised to do, in fact, is listen to this week's chart rundown - Sunday afternoon, 4:00pm, Radio 1, as well you know - with the idea that anyone who has managed to outsell a Michael Jackson song this week has probably reached the equivalent of a Madonna-level of chart success on any other week, and should therefore be treated as some kind of musical royalty - a stand-in King of Pop, if you like.

As I said, nothing will be revealed here, except to say Cascada are possibly due some sort of jewelled hat. That is all.

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If you notice anything different about ChartBlog this week, do not panic, your monitor is not shrinking, nor are your eyes wandering off in different directions. We're stretching the blog out, making full use of the screen, and getting rid of that blank area down the right hand side, which I always used to use for shopping lists and doodles of Cheryl Cole on stilts*.

So, if everything looks different today, that is why. If it looks the same as always, it hasn't happened yet. And if you find you're reading a lot of stuff about sport or the news, and nothing about pop music, you're probably looking at the wrong blog.

Thank you for your time.

*actually, it ended up being Cheryl Cole on stilts, on a skateboard, on a man's head, on a car. It was a bit like a totem pole, only less true to life.

I've decided that the third single is crucial when it comes to making your mind up about a new act. Take Katy Perry, for example: I loathed 'I Kissed A Girl' with the burning intensity of a red-hot poker in the sun, but follow-up 'Hot 'n' Cold' was rather good, and left me wondering if I'd been too quick to judge.

Then the third single was the execrable 'Thinking Of You' and demonstrated that my gut instinct had been right all along.

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