There’s a tiny part of my brain that is convinced that Lemar releases a new single every three or four days, or maybe it just seems that way. He returns (again) with his second release from ‘The Hits’ collection. Maybe I’m just numb from the weekend but ‘Coming Home’ (out May 17th) is as inoffensive as anything Lemar has done so far. As always he delivers a rich vocal and once again offers up a ‘pleasant’ mid tempo number with club friendly bass and beats. It is of course radio fodder that might find more of an audience with the more daring darlings of the Radio 2 set and with the right remixes it might get the Sharon’s and Neville’s dancing badly at some gaudy pre kebab club or other. I often wonder what would happen to Lemar if he was given some really cracking material, sadly it’s not happened yet.

Taio Cruz is up next with his new single ‘Dirty Picture’ featuring Ke$ha. The lyrical premise of this single is essentially Taio begging his lady to send him well… a dirty picture, all set to an astoundingly over produced backdrop (huge trance riffs and a piss weak attempts at a dubstep bassline). While Taio incessantly begs for said candid snapshot, Ke$ha’s role in proceedings is purely to say “Ok, I’ll send you a dirty picture”. I mean really, you cant take this seriously because all it summons up is a mental image of Taio as a dirty young man who masturbates over email porn. Mate, that is not a cool image to be cultivating, sort yourself out. It’s out on May 3rd.

Today’s final offering is ‘The Flood’ by Katie Melua, long term readers of 020magazine will know of my slightly fraught relationship with Katie’s music. This time round she has tried to appease my wrath by drafting in Guy Chambers to help with the songwriting (you know him, he did all that stuff with Robbie Williams before he got crap). Anyway, as songs go this is all over the place. Seriously, it wanders here there and everywhere like a fucking drunk. Starting off all overblown and dramatic with dare I say it slightly celtic overtones (I winced at the slow ponderous drumbeats). Katie comes on all whispery and pensive and we get something of a dramatic build and before you know it the song has gone all acoustically driven and up tempo with a weird funk wah wah thing chucked in for good measure (I’m not kidding, just pass us the kitchen sink…everything else is in there). Quite possibly the most inappropriate clashing of styles I’ve come across in ages, saying that though she has done shed loads of stuff that is worse, I mean people have been hanged for lesser crimes than ‘Five Million Bicycles’. This time round however this isn’t so much a bad record, just a strange messy undecided thing that only serves to confuse the listener. Its out May 17th.