The Undertones

When time is of the essence and you need a quick fix you require some succinct songs to get you through the day. On the shortest day of the year your time is precious but you don't have to forego anything, you just need to scale it down. When daylight is scarce and the temperature is dropping a short sharp super-charged dose of high octane music is just the ticket. To help you through the day we've put together a playlist of some of the best short songs we could think of. Our top ten has all you need and it comes in at less than 19 minutes in it's entirety.

 Blur

The White Stripes - Fell In Love With A Girl.

Continue reading: Short Songs For The Shortest Day: When Brevity Is A Necessity You'll Want This Playlist

As it's Fibonacci Day we thought we'd engage the left side of our brains to come up with a sequence of numerically based tunes that hopefully won't divide opinion. Mathematics, rather like music itself, is generally regarded as an international language of it's own so what better way, in these unprecedented times(!), than to put together an eclectic mix of number themed bangers?

Ariana Grande

Ariana Grande - 34+35. Ariana's latest single release from her new album, Positions, brings us bang up to date. The saucy, NSFW, lyrically explicit tune, is not shy in coming forward. Ariana's sweet, high, vocal still seems far too innocent to be delivering up such suggestions but hey, she's now the ripe old age of twenty seven so can speak her mind whenever she pleases.

Continue reading: Fibonacci Day: Inspiring A Numerically Based Playlist That Really Adds Up

One Direction have proved that they will top the charts 'one way or another' with their Comic Relief single featuring a mash-up of Blondie's hit song and The Undertones' 'Teenage Kicks'.

The boyband's new cover song 'One Way Or Another (Teenage Kicks)' has become the fastest selling single of 2013 yet selling a massive 113,000 copies just in its opening week. It now serves as the pop group's third number one chart hit following 2011's 'What Makes You Beautiful' and 2012's 'Little Things'. It is also their sixth top 10 single in 18 months with the boys selling over 14 million singles in their short career and 8 million albums; the second of which, 'Take Me Home' was a worldwide number one hit.

1D performed the new track at the BRIT Awards this year where they also received the Global Success award. They didn't win the award for Best British Band, however; that went to indie folk group Mumford & Sons who, despite their coveted accolade, felt the need to snub their pop counterparts backstage for winning in another category. 'Mumford's reaction was disappointing', Louis Tomlinson told The Mirror. 'We're really big fans and wanted to congratulate them. It was a shame.'

One Direction are taking an unusual… direction… for their next music video. Recorded in aid of Comic Relief, the teen boy band have decided to release a mash-up of two punk classics – Blondie’s ‘One Way Or Another’ and The Undertones’ ‘Teenage Kicks.’ The music video for the fundraiser single will feature a very special guest, in the form of the UK Prime Minister David Cameron.

As hideous as this all may sound, the new single’s raising money for a very good cause, so we’ll gloss over the content and focus on the cause. The government has already agreed to make a donation to Comic Relief to cancel out any VAT that would normally be paid on the single’s sales, The Guardian reports. David Cameron tweeted that he enjoyed filming his cameo in the video and posted a snap of himself and the One Direction lads standing outside Number 10 Downing Street, adding “Glad to help with the filming location.”

Not all of the video was filmed in Downing Street though – the boys also headed to Accra in Ghana and to Japan to film scenes there as well. No word so far on whether Cameron’s a fan of the band… or indeed, whether the 1D boys are fans of the Tory party. As charitable as this political hook-up is, however, it somehow lacks the edge of Tony Blair getting knee-deep in the Britpop scene back in the ‘90s. The video is scheduled to air this Thursday (February 21, 2013). 

Continue reading: One Direction Go Punk... And Invite David Cameron To Join Them?