Altsounds - JLS - Beat Again [Single]

See, here's the thing. Up in those tall glass buildings, the marketing men look out from behind their Gucci shades and plot how to sex up everything. Their preference is to get us as early as possible; the logic is that the sooner we get it on with each other, the sooner we realise that 99 times out of a 100 it's pretty much as John Lydon described it; two minutes and fifty two seconds of squelching noises. From that point on, we're either buying what they're selling, trying to convince someone to fuck us or buying things to take our minds off the fact that we can't find anyone to fuck. Not convinced? Try watching Bratz.

Music has a big part to play in this process of adolescent sexualisation; the fact that it's ostensibly without censorship can result, one night in you coming home to find your eight year old singing along to Justin Timberlake and gyrating like a tip-free pole dancer. JLS (That stands for Jack the Lad Swing, folks) were spewed out of the X Factor and have probably had 99% of their body hair waxed off in order to appeal to it's audience of mums and twelve year olds. Were I in Year 7 at school I'm sure I'd be bankrupting my parents to ring in a vote.

'Beat Again' has in fact already been to number one in the singles chart, but as you'd expect it is as insipid and pasty as all modern R&B gets. Sadly, the title isn't an autobiographical reference to the quartet doing a PA in Macclesfield and being met outside afterwards by a Stella'd up mob of tracksuited neds. I console myself with the fact that in a year's time, that's hopefully the only gig they'll be able to get.