HOLIDAY SIDEWINDER
Forever/Whatever
(Personal Best Records/MGM)
Ms Sidewinder is back with what we’re told is the title track of her next album, but could just as easily work as a calling card.
She’s begun by bringing 1980s Sheffield to the table: those so ancient they feel like prototypes keyboard sounds; that semi-industrial atmosphere; the voice set about halfway back in the mix.
To that she’s added 2000s R&B: the verses slinking around the beat; the vocals lounging over everything; the bass teetering between heavy and funky. And in its groove is some leering rock, a bit chunky and leather-booted.
Eventually, there’s even some straight pop as the backing vocals swell up and chime off each other.
By the time you’ve reached that point you’ve probably been dancing with your feet shuffling and your fists punching out a rhythm. Maybe even a little of what Billy Crystal called the white man’s overbite move if you’ve never really been able to carry off the Billy Idol sneer.
Naturally there is also the quintessential Sidewinder element: attitude. “There’s no way to own me,” she says but queries whether a potential lover can really live in the moment when the truth is they’re falling for her, and she isn’t shy about letting them know how and why.
How? Heavily. Why? Well, she is Holiday Sidewinder. But don’t pitch your tent here people. Oh it’s possible “we could make a home, have a family of five”. Sure, sure, anything’s possible. Even “a white picket fence and a new four wheel drive”.
But “I know what I want, and I know what I like”, and that isn’t going to be playing nice in gingham and lace is it?
Which leaves us where most Sidewinder tracks leave the aspiring/deluded/brave among us, asking – “am I feeling lucky?”
Well are ya, punk?