I Can’t Work Out What Yr So Bitter About

Shrag “Why Are You Here? – The sloooooow drip of new Shrag tunes continues with this forthcoming single on the Where It’s At Is Where You Are label. This time, team Shrag takes on dreary borecore audience members who come out to shows as if they were under duress, and drag down the mood of the entire room. Whereas a lot of bands seem to go for a “Why aren’t you dancing??? You should be dancing!!!” message regardless of whether their music is actually good enough for dancing, Shrag have a less entitled tone, opting to interrogate the motives of a disagreeable audience member in the hope of understanding why they would choose to come out if they were going to refuse to have a good time. (Click here for Shrag’s MySpace page.)

Lady Sovereign “Love Me or Hate Me” – I don’t see this burning up the American charts any time soon, but it’s got the makings of a great underground hit, and so can we just refrain from Arular-style hand-wringing about whether or not bloggish UK rap has any crossover potential for a little while? The fact that Jay-Z is putting this out as her lead single on Def Jam is a major vote of confidence, but more than that, it’s a progressive step away from the sort of insularity and conservatism of mainstream rap. This could be long game thinking — obviously there’s a decent market for artists like Lady Sov, M.I.A., and The Streets, and if those artists don’t score massive hits of their own in the short term, they make help usher in another wave of artists in the not-far-off-future who might score a really big hit on the foundation of a growing subculture. “Love Me or Hate Me” is definitely a step in the right direction for Lady Sov. The track is strong but not especially weird “Push It”/Arular-ish electro funk, and the focus is kept on the quirks of her voice and persona. She’s still pushing the “I’m so gross! Really!” thing a bit too hard, but whatever. It’s her thing — love her or hate her, you know? (Click here for the Lady Sov MySpace page.)