THE LATEST ALBUM REVIEWS Electric Banana, www.electric-banana.co.uk The greatest fruit-themed music website in the Midlands

Damon Albarn is living very dangerously indeed. Concept album? Hip-hop? Mark E Smith? These are three things that Electric Banana stand firmly against!

But his third Gorillaz album will be one of the best records of 2010. A release to stand alongside the greatest "human" efforts that Albarn's ever been involved with and a new benchmark for collaborative music as a whole.

Best guest appearance goes to Lou Reed on Some Kind of Nature, which is a marvellous piano croon! Rhinestone Eyes is the pop song MIA has threatened to write but never has. You all know about first single Stylo, but it improves with every single listen. Even Mark E Smith's Glitter Freeze cameo is enjoyable - despite the man being a complete arse. However, it is Albarn's vocals that is the glue that keeps the album together.

Albarn might not be up there with Walt Disney, Matt Groening, or err....Bob Hoskins yet, but this crazy/great album should make 2010 a great year for the popularity of cartoons.
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Glittery 23 year old Ellie Goulding has already wowed the masses by winning the BRITs Critics Choice award. However, she now takes on the mighty Electric Banana!

Amongst first rate remixes and her catchy covers, the evocative electro Starry Eyed has been happily pumping its way through our airwaves. Always armed with sparkly knits and flawless pink lip gloss, this stylish Ellie girl does not disappoint either with other songs like Not Following You, which is a bouncy, almost Reggae-like track with indisputable strong vocals.

Along with the simple and beautiful Wish I'd Stayed, the haunting Fighter Plane, the head nodding Under The Sheets, and the fiery Guns and Horses, this whole album line-up is already looking like a total hit.

It seems starry eyed Ellie seems set to conquer galaxies this year, but most importantly she has already conquered this Electric Banana writer. Result!
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Music critics picked out Marina Diamandis as "one to watch" for the year ahead, as she came second on that BBC Sound of 2010 poll thing.

There will be many who find a great deal to love about Marina and her pop songs; but there will be just as many who hate her for her annoying "demented female with an attention deficit disorder"-style singing. After giving this debut a good few listens, I still can't decide if the Beeb were right or not!

Mowgli's Road is all catchy pounding beats and is like the Sugababes running around a zoo while off their tits - in a good way, while album highlight I Am Not A Robot is a great tender "slowie" like Regina Spektor covered in glitter and crazy glue.

Her debut album has just enough catchy choruses to just scrape a positive review out of us, but hopefully she will consider taking sedatives for the next album.
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Kinda like a musical version of Manchester City Football Club, a bit of hope has been given to a previously unfashionable Manc band.

Falcon is being billed as the album to launch The Courteeners into the Champions League of music. The boys have been scouting from table-toppers like Oasis, Smiths, Elbow, Arctic Monkeys, and err....Rod Stewart, on this occasionally tremendous release.

The opener is a love letter to Manchester called The Opener - a track which Guy Garvey would be proud of. You Overdid It Doll falls on the right side of Rod Stewart's disco phase and is a welcome direction change. But Liam Fray still sometimes allows himself to write piss-poor Oasis b-sides as filler. STOP IT FRAY!

You want a concluding football analogy? Well, the band have just scraped into the Europa League places.
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Dev Hynes releases his follow-up to 2008's Falling Off the Lavender Bridge with this "quirky" second album.

The album is certainly jam-packed with ideas and genres, as indie, glam, country, classical, pop, prog and new-wave all have their boxes ticked - and he sometimes seems to travels at....err lightspeed - obviously like a champion - between them all.

Highlights are numerous and include the epic Faculty of Fears, OTT soaring ballad I Don't Want to Wake Up Alone, and lead single Marlene is a nice little indie-pop masterpiece.

Listening to this mini-gem of an album makes life sound sweet and Electric Banana highly recommends that you arrange a nice meeting between your ears and this so-called Mr Lightspeed Champion.
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Owl City is Adam Young's creation and actually started life in his parents' basement. He is another one of these prodigal myspace artists who built themselves up a pretty good rep using the social networking site and recently cracked the chart with his first UK number 1 - Fireflies.

The album itself is very much like marmite; you'll either love it or hate it. Despite Fireflies getting a lot of air play in the UK, The Saltwater Room is easily the best track on the album, using male and female vocals in the chorus to giving the song some dimension.

Young has managed to create a very unique and individual sound with his synthpop-electro-happy-go-lucky melodies. If you like what you hear you are bound to enjoy the entire album, mainly because most of the tracks sound the same.

Likewise, if you didn't like what you've already heard, then steer well clear! Because of this hit or miss approach scoring the album is a bit difficult but, because the upbeat feel to the record put me in a good mood - I'll give it a positive 7/10. I also quite like owls.
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What? Another sodding Greatest Hits album? This time it's to cash in on that recent Super Bowl appearance.

You really can't argue with a cheap-ish package of Who classics though - as the quality of song speak for themselves! My Generation, Substitute, and Pinball Wizard still make you want to smash your guitars and kick over your drum kits.

Fans will be annoyed with a few glaring omissions like The Seeker, 5.15, and Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere - plus there are other better collections (with twice as many tracks) available for the same kind of money.

However, this decent collection is a good starting point for beginners if nothing else, as the majority of their hits are here. WARNING: if yet another Who Greatest Hits collection gets released, then our reviews will start to get a lot harsher. Be warned.
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