Australia’s Operator Please fitted right into 2007’s Nu Rave scene with their magnificently-deranged single, Just A Song About Ping Pong, which sounded like CSS overdosing on E-numbers. It’s present on Yes Yes Vindictive, along with the band’s two earlier — and equally fun singles — Get What You Want and Leave It Alone. Apparently, the band only formed to take part in a school Battle of the Bands competition a couple of years back, which possibly explains just how they’ve managed to capture the sound of youthful exuberance so successfully. There’s nothing deep or cerebral on here, but if feelgood, deranged dance beats are your thing then Yes Yes Vindictive should be on your shopping list this year.
MORRISSEY — GREATEST HITS (Decca): No Interesting Drug or We Hate it When Our Friends Become Successful? What goes on? Oh, I see. These are Morrissey’s greatest hits insofar as they are the singles that charted the highest, rather than a best of compilation. I’d imagine that any self-respecting Mozz fanatic would already own these songs in one form or another, which is probably why two previously-unreleased tracks have been included here. Leaving aside the breathtaking chutzpah involved in putting unheard songs on a greatest hits collection, this is still an entertaining album, albeit one that doesn’t quite tell the full story of Steven Patrick Morrissey.
DONNY OSMOND — FROM DONNY WITH LOVE (Decca): Donny Osmond obviously didn’t have a very heavy paper-round when he was a kid . . . he looks years younger than me on the cover of this CD, despite the fact that he reached his half-century sometime in 2007. It kicks off with Puppy Love, a song that I had mentally filed under “evergreen slush classic”, possibly because I hadn’t heard it in years. A quick revisit made me revise my opinion somewhat . . . it really is a total ripe cheese of a tune, isn't it? Also included here are Donny’s bland take on the Bee Gees’ How Deep Is Your Love and a co-write with his spiritual heir, Mr Gary Barlow. I’m afraid to say that, along with the rest of the album, neither is any great shakes.
