Each week on the FACT Singles Club, a selection of our writers work their way through the new music of the week gone by.

With the way individual tracks are now consumed, the idea of what constitutes a single has shifted dramatically in the last half a decade, and its for this reason that the songs reviewed across the next six pages are a combination of 12″ vinyl releases, mixtape cuts, Soundcloud uploads and more. All are treated equally – well, most of the time – with Mariah Carey & Miguel, Jeremih, Lil Durk, MGUN, Annie and more in the line of fire.

Use your keyboard’s arrow keys or hit the prev / next arrows on your screen to turn pages (page 1/10)

Mariah Carey feat Miguel – ‘#Beautiful’

Chris Kelly: Call me old fashioned, but no classic song will ever have a hashtag in its title. (5)

Joe Muggs: Love. I saw Mariah on stage with Busta Rhymes once, and she matched him for stage presence. The production on this gives me tingles, the song’s good, they sing great, their voices complement each other, it sounds like they had fun making it. I can’t stop listening to it. (9)

John Twells: You just can’t deny the sheer brilliance of this can you? Miguel’s Kaleidoscope Dream was a highlight of last year and his knack for elegant and incredibly memorable harmonies is shown yet again on ‘Beautiful’. I must have listened to the track about fifteen or twenty times trying to pick holes in it but it gets me every single time. Sure the video’s a bit of a wrong ‘un (do we really need to see Mariah Carey trying to seduce Miguel while he sits in a vintage car? I think not) but musically… damn, they’re on form. I was ready to write her off and make some marginally funny crack about reality shows and getting owned by Nicki Minaj but now I can’t. Screw you Mariah! (8)

Arron Merat: Overwrought pop shouldn’t simply be dismissed out of hand but you’d expect Mariah and Miguel to come up with something catchier between them. It would make a great montage to the final prom scene of an American high-school movie but if you’ve got to imagine elaborate film sequences to make ‘#Beautiful’ work then it probably don’t cut it. (4)

Chal Ravens: Remember when we had pop music like this, before David Guetta became the Overlord of the Dance? Like when Black Eyed Peas were all about “where is the love” not “lovely lady lumps? All acoustic and happy and sing-alongy and really just as fucking banal as ever, but hey, a change is as good as a rest and I’m sure that’s prompting the warm reception this song is getting. It’s the best thing Mariah’s done in ages, and she wins extra points for calming down the dog whistle voice. (5)

Steve Shaw: Somewhere, a Hollyoaks music supervisor has been hospitalised by the most violent orgasm of their life. I’d have given it a 10 if they’d actually dared to sing ‘hashtag beautiful’. (3)

5.7

Lauryn Hill – ‘Neurotic Society’

Joe Muggs: Neurotic rapper. If this is what the inside of her head sounds like no wonder she forgot to pay her taxes. Good track though. (7)

Arron Merat: No-one likes a tax dodger. Nor do they like a garrulous evangelist nutters with Messiah complexes but Lauryn Hill is always forgiven for being behind two best albums of the 1990s: The Score and Miseducation. This new single is impressively inventive and I like Hill best when she’s rapping and that’s all you get here. The production sounds quite Stones Throw – even got a Quasimoto echo on her voice at points – and makes me even more excited about the putative upcoming album. (8)

John Twells: She’s had a rough old few weeks hasn’t she, comparing the payment of taxes to slavery and then getting three months in prison? The prison term may have been a step too far, but I do worry whether she’s going a bit borderline Republican and doesn’t want to admit it. Anyway, despite all this we have been gifted a new track, a real new Lauryn Hill track, and it’s pretty good. It’s really good actually, but the big problem with ‘Neurotic Society’ is that it could have come out at any time since her peerless debut The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. Her vocals are typically pointy, her voice is on form, but c’mon, we’ve really heard this kinda stuff before – hopefully it’s not a sign that she’s actually stagnated creatively. (6)

Chal Ravens: Hill on terrifying form in this shock comeback, ranting like a foamy-mouthed street preacher about the evils of Babylon and all that cliched conspiracy bunkum. The relentless double-time suits her choice of clunking multisyllabic rhymes (lobotomy, dichotomy, sobriety, anxiety, ad infinitum) and brings home the neurosis of the title, and the production is fresh too, although it does sound like Kevin Shields spent five years tweaking it. If it’s meant to sound this completely batshit then it deserves at least an eight, but a) I think she means it and b) she’s a bloody tax dodger. (6)

Chris Kelly: Expecting anything approaching Miseducation-era Lauryn is a pipe dream, but this was still disappointing. The sun-dappled instrumentation is pleasant enough, but Ms. Hill’s forced double-time “flow” makes me want to listen to her anti-everything screed even less; when a song entitled ‘Black Rage’ is practically buoyant in comparison, there’s a problem. It’s almost as if this song was thrown together in a last ditch effort to avoid (undeserved) jail time… (1)

Steve Shaw: Holy shit, where did this come from? I’d never have expected this kind of material from Hill, and it’s a really interesting direction. Personally, I’d have preferred it more stripped down like Antipop Consortium; I could probably just listen to her do this with a kick and some tweaky samples. Still, it’s a belter for modern pop music. (7)

5.9

Lil Durk – ‘Dis Ain’t What You Want’ 

Steve Shaw: Future may be the immediate reference for some, but Lil Durk is the Chicago Mavado. Really strong. (9)

Chris Kelly: Rap is often accused of aggrandizing drug dealing and crime: this ain’t that. Durk uses Autotune as a means of expressing street-life sorrow; it’s more Kevin Gates than Future. When Durk delivers lines like “I can’t do no shows cause I terrify my city,” that’s a matter-of-fact declaration, not a blustery boast. It may be heart-wrenching, but at least it’s honest. (7)

John Twells: To the casual listener ‘Dis Ain’t What You Want’ might sound like yet another Future-lite autotune anthem, but trust me there’s more depth to Durk than might be initially obvious. Harking from the Windy City’s notorious Englewood neighborhood, Durk’s painful street tales are laced with an eerie gravitas and the kind of melancholy that smacks of genuine experience (take that Rozay). It’s in smart contrast to the middle class whine of The Weeknd and Drake, and unlike Keef’s autotuned 2012 smash ‘Love Sosa’, ‘Dis Ain’t What You Want’ is surprisingly lyrical. There’s probably way too much onus put on ‘realness’ in rap music, but Durk’s reality is told in stark, gritty monochrome and it feels painfully true to life. (9)

Arron Merat: Lil Durk has made the mistake thinking he can pull off a don’t-front-to-my-crew video. He sounds far too cute to pull off gangland posing and gun signals even though he is from the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago and isn’t putting on an act – I’d rather have a charlatan with a convincing act rather than a real deal but boring rapper. The dream is to have both, which is why I loved Giggs’ Let Em Ave It’, but this is just a bit of a piss-poor attempt at social commentary. (2)

Joe Muggs: So this is how the world ends, not with a bang but with an autotune. This is really, really grim, like some Frank Miller kind of thing. I like the hi-hats. (7)

6.8

Julio Bashmore & Kowton – ‘Mirror Song’

Steve Shaw: Oh. Wicked. UK house. (2)

Joe Muggs: When I first arrived at university, years and fucking years ago, I met a Cockney pill-dealing law student with a greasy ponytail, and we got chatting. He asked what sort of music I liked and I said “all sorts of things” and mentioned a few styles. He seemed genuinely taken aback that I would go on about music like that. “What are you into then?” I asked. “Four to the floor, banging piano and some fat black bird giving it loads on top,” he said, emphatically. I don’t endorse his particular mode of expression, but sometimes, when I hear something whose appeal is this instant, I’m reminded of him. Drum machine, sample, distortion, job done. Bosh. (9)

Arron Merat: Great ’90s disco woman over decent stabby 2-step and old school drum machine sounds to an Orson Welles flick. Well done. (8)

Chal Ravens: On one hand this is almost extravagantly boring, a real straight-laced effort from Bashmore – perhaps that’s Kowton’s more austere influence – but then again it’s a welcome change from his T in the Park Dance Tent offering reviewed by our crack team six weeks back. Unfortunately the vocal sample makes me want to plaster over my ears. (7)

Chris Kelly: Bizarro world ‘Au Seve’. (7)

6.6

 MGUN – ‘Laser Jam’

Steve Shaw: Always a danger of coming across as pure novelty when making electro of this kind, but MGUN nails the bassline and ragged production fidelity enough to keep everything else in check, with some nice idiosyncrasies to boot. Props for keeping it slow too – I like to think he’s keeping the poppers in mind. (7)

Chal Ravens: Is that fake vinyl crackle I’m hearing? It might just be some faint clicky percussion, but if that’s fake crackle this shit gets its score slashed immediately. I don’t really get the point of this – there’s no element that moves beyond a pastiche of that proto-techno, Kraftwerk-meets-Detroit sound, except its superior production quality. Granted, it’s a great sound – but it’s nearly 30 years old. (4)

John Twells: This is a freakin’ revelation, I know very little about MGUN, but on the strength of ‘Laser Jam’ and his recent If You’re Reading This EP I’m a confirmed devotee. It has a plenty of elements I’m a confirmed sucker for; saturated analogue beatbox rhythms, cheap synthesizer sounds and a loose electro flair that we haven’t heard for way too long. MGUN is a million miles from the chin-strokey dark electro that plagued the early ’00s, and ‘Laser Jam’ is a reminder that the genre can be grimey, invigorating and to be quite honest, fucking awesome. (9)

Joe Muggs: Dirty drugs music. Funky as a fat man’s nutsac. (8)

7

Tree feat. Danny Brown – ‘No Faces’

Joe Muggs: I like Danny Brown, I really do, but he just set my nostrils on edge when he started up here. I could listen to the first half on loop for ages, but his hyper routine breaks the groove massively. (6)

Arron Merat: Danny Brown and Tree both have great nasty flows but I wish Brown would stop tricking me into nodding away to rhymes about imprisoning and hitting women. (7)

Steve Shaw: I’m sure Tree and Brown said something during this, and that soul sample sounded lovingly morose, but frankly I was too busy spinning out to the perfect kick and hi-hats. (7)

Chal Ravens: Though we haven’t reached the nadir’s of last week’s Winehouse-mauling, this round of the Singles Club was feeling desperately average until this treat, which I actually wanted to listen to again when it ended. So I did, and liked it a little more. This is the sort of thing that PR dimwits say, but the vibe here is all about “fresh, yet classic”. Best of the week. (8)

John Twells: Chicago rapper/producer Tree might not be the most visible in his city’s rapidly swelling underground at the moment, but he’s without a doubt one of its most original voices. What I love about his production is that he’s able to fuse the giddy sample-fetishization of Kanye or even (dare I say it) Dilla with his city’s obsession with rapid-fire beats and come out the other end with a product that doesn’t sound forced or janky. ‘No Faces’ benefits a lot from the inclusion of nasal shouty type Danny Brown, and funnily enough Brown sounds right at home spitting over Tree’s ‘soul trap’. Well good. (7)

Chris Kelly: Self-described genres are usually asinine, but I’ll give a pass to Tree’s “SoulTrap,” as it’s probably the most efficient way to describe his singular strand of hip-hop. Tree’s raspy growl is sweet but strong, like good bourbon, and his hook has a hint of bluesy twang to it. Danny Brown is in fine form, dropping lines like “more smack than a tambourine” in that instantly-recognizable squeal. Anticipation for Tree’s Sunday School II is at an all-time high. (8)

7.2

Annie – ‘Tube Stops and Lonely Hearts’ 

Chal Ravens: Totally spooked by the fact that ‘Heartbeat’, a.k.a. one of the most perfect pop songs ever recorded, is nearly 10 years old. Ten! The single best thing you could do right now is open a new tab and bring up that tune. This one seems like a sketch for something that was meant to get polished up later – the ideas are there but it doesn’t quite go off, and finishes with a whimper. (6)

John Twells: You can’t moan about new material from Annie. Her last full-length Don’t Stop was a gem, and even though she’s been notably under-appreciated since the phenomenal ‘The Greatest Hit’ she still doesn’t seem to get the attention she deserves. ‘Tube Stops and Lonely Hearts’ is a low-key number, but in typical Annie style offers something unusual, in this case the rather peculiar slightly detuned vocal part. That might sound like a negative, but it works and the result is a slightly dark pop gem that will probably get brushed under the carpet like everything else in her catalogue. (7)

Joe Muggs: Sun-tanning, hard exercise, Reese bass and a great singing voice. Absolute banger. (8)

Arron Merat: Absolutely nothing whatsoever to dislike about this song. Lovely rave stabs, decent bass and slightly unhinged vocals like she’s welcoming you to a séance. Straight forward pop like this is hard to do without sounding like everyone else but Annie possesses the imagination to sound unique, notwithstanding the worst video in the world. (8)

Steve Shaw: I was lucky enough to live in Bergen for a little while, and can understand how this kind of song came about – everything is so, so mixed up there, with independent regional pop music getting respect alongside a really active music and art scene of all kinds, and from all extremes. But I still don’t like this. (4)

Chris Kelly: If the last forty years has taught us anything, it’s that Nordic dance pop is indestructible. With that in mind, Annie has a knack with releasing saccharine singles just when you’ve built up enough nostalgia for her last one. On ‘Tube Stops and Lonely Hearts’, we view Annie through a rave, darkly. (6)

6.5

Final scores:

Tree feat. Danny Brown – ‘No Faces’ (7.2)
MGUN – ‘Laser Jam’ (7)
Lil Durk – ‘Dis Ain’t What You Want’  (6.8)
Julio Bashmore & Kowton – ‘Mirror Song’ (6.6)
Annie – ‘Tube Stops and Lonely Hearts’  (6.5)
Jeremih feat. Big Sean & Paul Wall – ‘Ol’ Skool Pontiac’ (5.9)
Lauryn Hill – ‘Neurotic Society’ (5.9)
Mariah Carey feat Miguel – ‘#Beautiful’ (5.7)