Paul Potts - One Chance

Bit of a relaxation of normal policy for Paul Potts, Brother Number One, to give you even the one chance.

Ordinarily it'd be: Out to the country with you. Work on the farm. If you don't like it, you can go for some 're-education' at Security Prison 21 or maybe just get shot down at the Killing Fields.

Oh, wait. Paul Potts, you say, not Pol Pot?

I'm not a man who's easily deterred from an obvious joke which has already been done to death.

Robyn - Robyn

Skyscrapers? Androgyny? Y instead of I? I'm not happy. I'm not happy at all.

Here's Amazon's artist description:

"She is Robyn. The most killingest pop star on the planet. A pint-sized atom bomb dosed on electric and dispensing wisdom in three-minute modernist pop bulletins on the post-adolescent condition."

That's awful enough without the nagging suspicion that it was penned by Robyn herself.

'Three minute modernist pop bulletins on the post-adolescent condition' - it's what the world's crying out for.

Why doesn't anyone pen songs about grouting the bathroom or the perils of randomly selecting a take-away menu and ordering from it?

Korn - Untitled

I'm not sure whether this album's untitled or whether it's Untitled. That is to say, is it entitled 'Untitled' or has it not been named?

If it's 'Untitled', then that's really annoying. If it's untitled, then it's a bit annoying, but I can live with it.

Korn. We're on solid ground with 'Korn'. It's like 'corn' only much, much scarier. So dark, sinister and untamed that the C has been replaced with a K. There's no more powerful weapon in the band namer's armoury than the use of a K in place of a C.

Interestingly, Korn's singer is called Jonathan Davis. I was really, really hoping it was the same Jonathan Davis who represented Wales in Rugby Union and Great Britain in Rugby League, but it isn't. He's Jonathan Davies with an extra E in his surname.

The difference one letter can make, eh?

Newton Faulkner - Hand Built By Robots

"Ohjesus, ohjesus, ohjesus, ohjesus, ohjesus. What did they build in the night?

"When I open this door, I'll find out what they've been up to. I can barely imagine.

"Let's go about this logically. Last week they built legs, a head, a torso, feet, upper arms, forearms and one hand. What could they have possibly built last night?

"It's no good. I'll just have to open the door and see...

"It's... It's... Another hand!"

Newton Faulkner's real name, according to Wikipedia is 'Sam Newton Battenberg Deutoronomy Faulkner'. Where do we stand on that? Is that 'true' or 'bollocks'?

Newton Faulkner's got ginger dreadlocks. Where do we stand on that?

Kate Nash - Made Of Bricks

Is it a house? It's a house, isn't it? Or a robust garage. More likely a house though.

What else could it be? What else do you make out of bricks? A pile of bricks is made of bricks. A raised flower bed?

The single off this album's called 'Foundations' which is also a piece of construction terminology or 'jargon'. Is Kate Nash a builder? I don't know. I've only heard that one song and it was a bit embarrassing actually, so if it were made by a builder I'd feel better, because at least I'd know she had a career to fall back on.

There's a song called 'Shit Song' as well. People always do this on records these days to try and pre-empt and therefore nullify criticism. Robbie Williams did a song called 'Dickhead', but, undaunted, I called him a dickhead anyway.

I'll go so far as to say that 'Shit Song' is a shit song as well - and I've already admitted that I haven't heard it.

Manic Street Preachers - Everything Must Go

"I'm paunchy and sport a 1950s haircut. You're really short and look like a boulder. He's far too tall. Do we look like a rock band or do we look like a rock band?"

Here's my 'Design For Life': There's nothing to do. No-one talks. You 'make your own fun' only it isn't actually much fun. Nobody likes anybody else, but nobody has to see anyone else, so it's okay. And everything's cheap, only you don't have any money.

Doesn't that sound brilliant? Vote for me. I'll make it happen.

Michael Jackson - Off The Wall

He was once the King of Pop. Now he's at best a relatively high-ranking clerical worker of pop.

So can he once again work his way up to pop's zenith? I've come up with an ingenious one step plan. It was going to be a two step plan, but then I realised that 'being a bit weird' was really one of his selling points.

Step one: Release some music of some description.

It could be pretty much anything. He could do folk interpretations of Akala records. He could team up with Siobhan Donaghy and do a version of Ghostbusters. He could bang a tea tray with his elbow while pretending to be a mirkin.

There's three perfectly decent suggestions. There are plenty more.