Umlauts:

Quick!

Go here now and hope it's still up for download because "Crazy", the new single by Andy Bell, best known as half of Erasure is a complete mindfucking stunner of the highest calibre.

It's one of these things, the word "disco" in the purest sense of the word (forgetting things like say, "Dove" or "Groovejet") hasn't been made in years, so what hack critics (hi!) mean when they say it isn't what it really is, but it's still a useful term because usage dictates definition in lexicography. Anyway, disco lately seems to have been swept up with glam. And punk. Not the much more obvious (and well-visited) bed-fellow of synth-pop. And that's what "Crazy" does. It is simply the most propulsive dance pop single I've heard this year. That bass line is dirty, throbbing and almost certainly 100% fake.

Andy's vocals - he hasn't sounded this good in years - are astonishingly emotive; uplifting and passionate. His little dramatic inflections and ad-libs are fantastic, and the strength of his voice is incredibly nuanced and rich. Synth strings come into your ear as sirens during the chorus before sweeping across much like Andy's Erasure partner Vince had a hand in it - he didn't, but he is doing one of the remixes - and basically, every ingredient necessary is present and correct.

For starters, that chorus is a gigantic fuck-off massive thing, yelled at top volume as if its words are the most important message communicable. It's got lyrical hooks everywhere that will function as clarion calls to, and on, the dancefloor if you're lucky enough to hear it near one ("When you put your hand in my hand/I go down and I go crazy for you" chief amongst them - you've got to hear it to understand, mind). There's a constant ebb between euphoria and tension. It's lovestruck, giddy and yet still cautious. It's a great pop song for the kids, made by a 40-year old man, and that thudding beat may as well be the sound of Jimmy Somerville collapsing with sheer jealousy.

It's exceptional pop music, and I don't think I've heard very many better in 2005 - I'll wait a week before declaring it the best song of the year, but the odds are very much pointing to it at present.

posted by Edward O @ 10:35 PM