EOIN BUTLER's guide to downloads, singles and free audiostreams

WESTLIFE

SafeSyco

“How you gonna love?/How you gonna feel?/How you gonna live your life like the dream you have is real?” Westlife’s next album is due later this year, and the iPhone app for writing mawkish Westlife ballads can’t be far behind.

JANICE WHALEY

Panic

San Franciscoan Janice Whaley is a working mother bent on recording her own version of all 74 original songs recorded by The Smiths in a single year. This is No 54. The polyphonic, almost Bobby McFerrin- esque arrangement rather undercuts the urgency of Morrissey’s original lyric. But there’s something admirable about Whaley’s singularity of purpose. the smithsproject.blogspot.com

JON DOTS

The Great Dictator

Dublin electro artist Jon Dots plans an ambitious series of single releases themed around classic movies. The first is inspired (very loosely, I would imagine) by Charlie Chaplin's anti-fascist satire The Great Dictator. We look forward to his forthcoming homage to Herbie Goes Bananas.

BRIAN ENO

2 Forms of AngerWarp

His Small Craft on a Milk Seaalbum isn't due for another month, but if this taster is anything to go by, Eno's recent alliance with Warp Records has inspired some of his darkest, most introspective music in years. Hurrah!

THE TING TINGS

HandsSony

The Ting Tings' misfortune is to be a mediocre pop act whose one moment of true inspiration ( That's Not My Name) came at the very outset of their career. Hands is mixed by the don of appalling chart pop, Calvin Harris, but it fails to land a punch.

ELTON JOHN & LEON RUSSELL

If It Wasn't for BadMercury

This isn’t a version of Albert King’s blues classic Born Under a Bad Sign, but an original composition from the two old codgers’ forthcoming The Union album. On the cover, Elton looks like a honky tonk Thunderbird, while Leon resembles Wilford Brimley playing Santa Claus. You just know they’re having fun.