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Daisy Dares You ft. Chipmunk - 'Number One Enemy'

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Fraser McAlpine | 10:06 UK time, Thursday, 25 February 2010

Daisy Dares You

If I could offer one piece of advice to all aspiring young performers, it would probably be "CALM DOWN!". But if I could offer several pieces of advice, and there was a chance my sage wisdom would be heard and acted upon, I would suggest that making an explicit link between the thing you make and the stuff you personally like is probably a bad idea. And here's why.

Daisy Dares You's MySpace has a column of photographs, tributes to performers and singers and bands of the past who have played some part in sculpting the band's mental landscape. Jeff Buckley's in there, so is Buster Keaton and Debbie Harry and Rage Against The Machine and the Smiths and Robert Johnson and Nick Drake and Smokey Robinson, heroes all. And Mr Hudson.

The implication is that the 'You see themselves as fitting into a lineage of challenging, timeless performers, people who've broken moulds, set standards. It's as if the very act of listening to Nirvana and talking about it will protect them from accusations of making silly pop music. Or worse, accusations or making silly pop music which is aimed as a cash-in on the success of A Certain Other Youthful Blonde Pop Star Of The Moment.

But that's not how it works. I love a bit of Nick Cave as much as anyone, but I can't BE him, or write like him, and I certainly can't wear his reputation as a shield against someone who thinks ChartBlog is just a fourth-rate Popjustice. Although it would be fun to try...

You make the thing you make, people experience it and make their own minds up.

(Here (finally) is the video. Where've Daisy's top teeth gone?)

'Number One Enemy' is a bubblegum pop-punk sort of a song, not a million miles away from Katy Perry's 'Hot And Cold' in the verses and middle-eight, with an Avril Lavigne sort of chorus. Daisy's got this sullen, half-awake, half-disapproving tone to her voice which, once you mentally scrape the studio effects off, is brilliantly bratty and feral.

Chipmunk's guest rap section is fine, does the job, although it's kind of distracting from the story of the song, especially when he sings "Daisy's 'bout to take off" as if this is the sole reason he agreed to appear in the first place.

He does say one good thing though, Daisy points her finger at a former friend and yells "you're stuck in between what you want and what's the right thing to do" as if she's not doing the exact same thing with all this "I'm a real musician, just like my real musician heroes" silliness. And what does Chipmunk have to add? "Put the past behind you".

That's good advice, is that.

Four starsDownload: Out now
CD Released: March 1st
www.myspace.com/daisydaresyoumusic
BBC Music page

(Fraser McAlpine)

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