Annie - Chewing Gum

It's hard to breathe for the amount of shiny, futuristic, chart-conquering pop singles Sheffield-based svengali Richard X has had a hand in. Sugababes, Liberty X, Kelis and Rachel Stevens have all hit the upper recesses of the chart and benefitted from his midas touch production skills.

Richard X 2004 has moved swiftly on and contributed to this, the first single from forthcoming album 'Anniemal' by Norwegian cool-as-ice queen Annie. Annie is not exactly a newcomer, yet not quite a household name either. A few years back, a classic Madonna-sampling, slinky disco-house tune (''The Greatest Hit') was released to almost universal acclaim.

The ubiquitious uberlord of post-modern, electro-pop strikes again & sprinkles his magic dust on a quirky 80's production which, owes a heavy debt to Tom Tom Club's 'Genius Of Love'. Synths are playful, cartoony & colourful, while a phat punchy drum loop interspersed with sporadic bongo fills, brings a touch of studied electro-funk cool to proceedings and almost brings to mind, the pioneering likes of 'Planet Rock' by Afrika Bambaataa.

Richard X makes doubly sure that he pulls out all the stops but this wouldn't quite be the token package if it weren't for Annie's input; a breathy, high-pitched cutesy girl vocal errs on the kitsch side but, it never once makes you wince. It's the kind of ludicrously catchy and ingenious chorus that will be mimicked everywhere; chanted in playgrounds, casually hummed on the bus & printed all over the pages in teenybopper magazines.

Set to the kind of robotic synth / electro-pop that makes you want to jack your body, pop your booty and shimmy like your sister kate. It can hardly fail to entice you into it's sticky little world of pure glitterball pleasure. Undisputably one of the highlights of the year, in what is shaping up to be a very good one for innovative pop music. Make this an essential purchase so you can wear it up and use it out.

9/10