"Bad Boys," Alexandra Burke f/ Flo Rida

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The debut single from Alexandra Burke. Produced by Phantom Boyz.

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This features Flo Rida.

[Grenade]

Sounds terrible.

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This debuts this Tuesday morning on Chris Moyles' breakfast show on Radio 1.

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So - the Alexandra Burke single


Think of 'Hallelujah', then think of the opposite.

Some important points here, in no particular order:

» The single is called 'Bad Boys' and it features US rap gentleman Flo Rida.

» The writing credits are Larry Summerville Jr, Busbee, Lauren Evans and Alexander James. The song is produced by The Phantom Boyz.

» The song's intro is a brilliant hybrid of the intros to Britney's 'Womanizer' and Girls Aloud's 'Biology' (ie it's quite noisy and exciting sounding) except with Flo Rida shouting over the top and a demented elasticated siren effect bouncing from speaker to speaker. The track's definitely in the same ball park as things like 'Womanizer', but with a slightly more euphoric disco feel.

» 'Bad Boys' is about Alexandra fancying dangerous men. "Some people call them players but I'm far from terrified," she says in the song's opening lines, "somehow I'm drawn to danger and have been all my life." The nature of these boys' actual 'badness' is not specifed. We're not sure if it's Josef Fritzl level badness or just 'has three points on his driving licence after doing 37 in a 30 zone'. Probably the latter, on reflection. Still, imagine the video for the former.

» The chorus has a really strong melodic topline - the lyrics are "the bad boys are always catching my eye, the mad boys are always spinning my mind, even though I know they're no good for me it's the risk I take for the chemistry, and the bad boys are always catching my eye".

» This is NOT A BALLAD. This is THE OPPOSITE OF A BALLAD. (Mind you it would probably lend itself quite well to one of those stripped down piano versions that seem to be all the rage these days.) We estimate this song to be about 140bpm and HIGHLY DANCEABLE. Alex's vocals sound very Whitneyish in parts and this is the sort of song we'd like to imagine Donna Summer coming out with if she was twenty years old in 2009. Sadly she is not twenty years old in 2009. She is far older.

» Flo Rida is in two parts of this song - the intro ("FLO RIDA! ALEXANDRA GIRL I KNOW WHAT YOU LIKE!" yeah alright calm down mate) and the middle eight. The middle eight is Flo explaining to the listener to just what an extent Alexandra Burke is actually fond of 'bad boys' and badness in general. One particularly earth-shattering moment comes with the announcement that "with even the alphabet she only sings the crooked letters". (Amazing.)

» In terms of vocal acrobatics 'Bad Boys' has a singy chorus but it's not a 'look at me I'm a singer' chorus, and the same goes for the rest of the track. It works briliantly - sometimes we can't help but feel (this is probably just us but still) that there's something quite exciting about an incredible singer being forced to follow a very strong and melodic topline instead of going all over the show. It's like pop singer bondage. *Cut to shot of Eoghan Quigg wanking with orange in mouth*

» There's no fade at the end, just an amazing BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG BAD BOYS BAD BOYS which will hopefully be accompanied by an eyebrow-burning quantity of pyrotechnics when Alexandra turns up to The X Factor in order to warble the tune on the day of its release.

» 'Bad Boys' is out on October 12. As is the modern way, Alexandra has also recorded an 'album' - a dozen or so songs grouped together - and that will be released on October 26. You can hear 'Bad Boys' tomorrow morning on Chris Moyles' Radio One breakfast show.

» We have listened to this song 41 times since it arrived in the post earlier today. It's basically brilliant.

[duh5]

Interesting. I hope she's successful, she's infinitely better than Leona.

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Oh sh*t. This is a JAM. The chorus is crazily anthemic.

[Franck]

This is a nice song. The beat is really cool, I also like Flo Rida's part.

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It's cool because the verses sound really urban, but then the chorus hits and it's so poppy.

[Grenade]

This sounds way too much like "Womanizer" for my liking.

[Robert J]

This is definitely not what I was expecting based on the descriptions, but it's bloody hot.

[CLEM]

Did Tedder produce this? this is a hot mess.

[duh5]

This is so cheesy.

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I'm gonna keep this in the International forum. When we get word on the US release, we can start another thread here.

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Oh, sh*t. The HQ is INSANE. Pop perfection.

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Lookin' good!

[RedDragon]

Based of her new look, the title of the song and Flo Rida, I was expecting something darker and aggressive, but after all, it sounds like the uptempo you would expect from a "big voice".

It's really catchy, and I love it.

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[I'M ON ONE]

That's so cheesy...anyone could have made that.

[TotallyEnormousExtinctDinosaur]

This song is HORRIBLE. I heard it for the first time in my friend's car yesterday and we changed it after 30 seconds. This will NOT be a hit in the US, there's no way.

[Chains]

The video:



I love the part when she throws the guy through the door and walks through like nothing happened.

[RedDragon]

I like it! She's already showing more personality than Leona, that's good.

[Robert J]

I like the video. It's better than any of Leona's videos, that's for sure.

[CLEM]

Sept 13, 2009 9:19:18 GMT -5 TotallyEnormousExtinctDinosaur said:

This song is HORRIBLE.

[duh5]

This still hasn't grown on me, the video certainly didn't help matters. It's straight-up dated CHEESE.

That said, she's still better than Leona.