[15] Annie, ‘Chewing Gum’

Annie

This is a “nice” song, so says Junior. She might not peg it as all that nice if she knew the dirt behind the lyric – yet AGAIN; what’s with all the naughty female soloists this week? – but it’s just as easy to engage with its surface gloss.

Annie from Norway is a darling of the blogosphere, and that’s pretty much where her darlingness ends. It’s a low down tawdry old shame that these pop scholar artists don’t actually appeal to the pop kids, whether they’re mixing it with Richard X or Xenomania or whoever, and gorgeous albums like Annie’s debut gather dust in the racks. Her second’s suffered an even worse fate, its release postponed endlessly until the label finds a hit – any hit – to give it a launchpad. ‘Chewing Gum’, with its hugely irritating hooks and synthy marvellousness, should’ve been one of those gold dust hits – that it wasn’t is YOUR FAULT.

Oh no: