Annie Dislikes Your Musical Performance Group

You might remember a while back I posted about poor Norwegian poppet Annie who, despite a (violently) loyal fanbase, had been dropped by her record-label last year just before her sophomore album, 'Don't Stop', was due to be released.

Well, as I mentioned at the time, plans are afoot to get a re-swizzed version of 'Don't Stop' to the masses and now, the first of the new tracks has surfaced on the interweb. Good news: it's whopper.

A slinky electro-pop number entitled 'I Don't Like Your Band', the song features lyrics that are quite fitting in light of the convoluted history of the album: "You gotta ditch your instruments/And start it up again/Buy yourself a sequencer/And let the games begin." In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the song is a tongue-in-cheek swipe at her former record label bosses.

In anyways, here's the track, courtesy of Mr. Dylan 'Finger On The Pulse' Newe:



Ailbhe Malone, one of two wonderful ladies responsible for Bluebirds Are So Natural, has reviewed the album for NME and you can read what she has to say here.

How Does It Feel To Hear Your Songs On The Radio?

Well, it seems Norwegian pop pixie Annie may soon be able to answer that question.

Annie's album, 'Don't Stop', which was shelved last year by Island Records after its lead single 'I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me' bombed, looks set to be given a release.

For a while, Annie was the acceptable face of bubblegum pop, garnering rave reviews from the likes of Pitchfork and NME. However her critical success didn't translate into sales and, after being abandoned by Island, it looked like the follow-up to 2004's 'Anniemal' may never see the light of day.

However, indie label Smalltown Supersound are now poised to release the album in October, complete with some new tracks. Better news yet is the announcement that 'Songs Remind Me of You' is to be released as a single. The track was one of my favourites of last year and will hopefully help Annie to re-establish a fanbase.



[Image: Popjustice]

About Annie

One of the first posts I made when I resurrected this blog last July was about Norwegian popstar Annie.

Annie was a darling of the blogosphere back in 2004 when uber-cool music site Pitchfork took a fancy to her debut album 'Anniemal'. The album was moderately successful but its follow-up, 'Don't Stop' was shelved last year after it's lead single 'I Know UR Girlfriend Hates Me' failed to make an impression on the charts.

It's a pity the release was scrapped because there were some fine pop tracks on 'Don't Stop', most notably 'Songs Remind Me Of You', one of my favourite songs of 2008.



Annie subsequently 'parted ways' from Island Records but, perhaps anticipating such an eventuality, Annie had stipulated in her contract that she would retain ownership of the master recordings. She intends to release the album, after some re-working, at some stage this year but it's unclear how exactly she'll go about doing that.

In the meantime, we can look forward to her new single 'Anthonio', which is being released on Richard X's independent label 'Black Melody' next month. A snippet of the track appeared on her myspace today and it's pretty promising. It reminds somewhat of Sally Shapiro's Italo Disco-influenced grooves and suggests that Annie is more at ease without the pressures of a major label on her shoulders.







[Images: Myspace]