Altsounds - Flo Rida - Sugar [Single]

Look, I'm not one of those guys who get really pissy about hip-hop's loss of direction, spitting out an arguement which runs roughly along the lines of nothing good coming from it since Wu Tang's '36 Chambers'. I don't mind that the high top fade has gone out of fashion, or that like most art the sound of angry street New York has transformed itself over a thirty year period into a commercially successful global entertainment industry.

The Dade county strain is probably as party orientated as any - hell, even Rick Ross amongst the guns and bitchez manages to sound like a fucked-up Barry White - and Tremor "Flo Rida" Gillard knows how to wreck it with the best of them. He's also come along way since those early days with 2 Live Crew, and Sugar - despite sliding in with the vocal melody from Eiffel 65's europop irritant 'Blue' - 'Sugar' seems to have been written specifically to soundtrack cocktails at a beach front bar.

Sophisticated? More of a straight up pop single in reality, with guest Wynter phoning in her performance and a gentle four note piano riff working underneath fake strings and an array of the usual synth bleeps.

All the same, nobody gets hurt. Like I said, sometimes it's OK if music doesn't doesn't speak to us at all.