Like a whale swimming triumphantly up the Thames and setting free all the slaves that the queen keeps in the palace and bringing peace to the land:

Kanye West 'Touch The Sky' (Mercury)
If Kanye ever did touch the sky, his midas touch would turn it to gold in an instant and that would be so much more exciting than living under the rubbish old blue one we’ve got now. Kanye made us want to party and even if we had the sneaky suspicion that the choice of sample was a bit lazy this time around at least Jamie Foxx kept his paws off this one. “Kanye has such musicality in his flows,” a very wise and learned member of staff quipped. The rest of us carried on throwing around the ham we found behind the bin.
Out on March 6

Matt Willis ‘Hey Kid’ (Mercury)
Where did you go on your holidays? Somewhere nice? Good. Matt Willis, we’re guessing, went to the eighties. While he was there he went to see lots of rock concerts and luckily, brought back a little bit of stadium brilliance and, after hovering his wizened fingers over the permed hair and tight white denim, chose, wisely, to leave them behind. Block out thoughts of the faces he might be pulling and that ‘wacky’ eye thing he does, and wave goodbye to Fightstar and Son of Dork.
Out on February 27

Spank Rock 'Rick Rubin' (Big Dada)
The way to our hearts is neither through our stomach nor a shotgun to the ribcage, but, indeed, through the shrewd use of a robot voice. Until now, the robot voice started with ‘number 5 is alive’ and pretty much ended with ‘robots in disguise’. But in the ’06, all sorts of people are using the robot voice trick to convince us their songs are brilliant. And guess what, it works! ‘Bleepy rap goodness’ we say, but Mr. Spank Rock ought to blow his nose next time. He sounds like he’s coming down with something. Hopefully not bird flu.
Out On February 20

Like a whale swimming up the Thames but the very next day snuffing it after some eco-do-gooders get involved:

Tim Deluxe 'I Don't Care' (AT)
We don’t know much about these ‘rave drugs’ but apparently the violent swinging between brilliance and nausea this caused us to experience might be close to educating us in such pastimes. Remind us never to go to a rave. “This was rubbish until the singing started,” we groaned after telling each other how much we loved each other, “Why the long intro?” And why the long faces? Because there’s a lot of us and only one bowl to do our party sick into.
Out on February 13

All American Rejects 'Move Along' (Interscope)
Where is the justice in this world? If a pop band makes a rock song, everyone gets all shouty at them, but if a rock band makes a pop song then we all want to be best friends with them. Well, perhaps not all but ‘some’ of us. The half who weren’t furiously dusting off their Star Trek shrines to this were moping with their hands in their pockets muttering ‘absolute toilet.’ Where is the justice indeed.
Out on February 20

Neyo 'So Sick' (Mercury)
All the surprised cries of ‘this is really quite nice’ and ‘I’m going to make this my winner’ were silenced by a lone voice of misery. His muttering of “So shit,” brought our moment of 'quite-nice' to a shuddering halt. Just as we were enjoying it too. Shame and all.
Out on February 27

The Chalets 'Theme From The Chalets' (Sentanta)
Not as good as the Maisonettes or Caravan or Flat Eric or Wigwam or any sort of House music or Palace Brothers or Nick Cave or Shed 7 or the Lighthouse Family or the Housemartins or Shack or Marquee Mark or Tent Icicles.
Out on March 13

Cagedbaby 'Hello There' (Southern Fried)
Remember the Beloved? If not, then well done you. The memories we’ve worked hard to suppress are now open wounds of nineties rave trance. We like Cagedbaby better when they are being Cagedbaby instead of old beardy ravers.
Out on March 13

tATu 'Friend Or Foe' (Interscope)
Call us shallow if you must, but now that they are no longer honking great lezzers, there’s a lot less to get in a froth over about tATu. Even the wonky spelling of their name can’t stir us like the girl-on-girl action once did. “Better than Jack Johnson, but then so is being stabbed in the neck,” said the one who likes lesbianism the most. “Proper pop music sounding like it’s made by aliens,” said someone who refuses to be saddened the lack of lezzing.
Out on February 6

The Feeling 'Sewn' (Island)
It’s not tinnitus but the bells of ‘earnestness’ you can hear. The Feeling are great. This isn’t. Mostly because they’ve gone from acoustic aceness to sounding like Athlete’s simpering nephews. We’re still, ahem, ‘feeling them’ however.
Out on February 27

Jack Johnson 'Better Together' (Brushfire)
“This is making the hairs on the back of my neck lie down and die” sobbed one of our number who definitely isn’t looking forward to the Brit Awards. “Come back Blunt, all is forgiven,” we screamed out the windows. Even though a lone voice was already booking himself a surfing session with a simple, “This rules.” Bless.
Out on February 27

Like a dead whale floating down river on its back in a stream of human poo and old bikes:

Jeff Klein 'Kiss and Tell' (One Little Indian)
Utter horseshit. He must be so embarrassed about this.
Out on February 20

Pretty Ricky 'Your Body' (Atlantic)
After pooling our spare cash, we scraped £6.73 between us. We now need to find someone who will take that money and go and kick Pretty Ricky in the scrote. We’ll stand at a safe distance yelling, “Tedious dullard”, “Fuck off fuck off fuck off”, “This is the shit ridden sewers,” and “This is absolute arse.” We don’t like this one. Much.
Out on February 13

Arab Strap 'Speed Date' (Chemikal Underground)
Arab Strap never used to bother writing songs, instead they just made an unlistenable racket. They have decided to start writing songs now and would you bloody well believe it, it’s still an unlistenable racket. “Boring, shit and miserable”, we said, and apparently that’s an improvement on how bad they used to be! Shudder.
Out on February 13

Anyway, the winner is Kanye West! Thank goodness for that!

Actually out on your real life monday are:

50 Cent ‘Hustlers Ambition’ (Interscope)
"His flow is wack and his dildos are too small"

Ashlee Simpson ‘Boyfriend’ (Geffen)
"No one likes you. What part of that don't you understand?"

Beth Orton ‘Conceived’ (EMI)
Zzzzz... Time for a nice nap.

Bon Jovi 'Welcome To Wherever You Are' (Mercury)
"Please fuck off you utter bastard"

Camera 'Out On The Water' (My Kung Fu)
The full tedium of 'Cold Feet' set to music.

Chris Brown ft Juelz Santana ‘Run It’ (BMG)
"What's the point in this again?"

Magik Johnson 'Malone' (Underwater)
Ten whole minutes of, literally, nothing good.

Ms Dynamite ‘Fall In Love Again’ (Polydor)
The best song on a terrible album.


Find out what’s out when!