ANNIE | Loco

Available on:
x Annie - Don't Stop (2009) album

Credits:
Written by Anne Lilia Berge Strand, Miranda Cooper, Brian Higgins, Nick Coler and Tim Powell.
Produced by Brian Higgins/Xenomania.
Mixed by Jeremy Wheatley for 365 Artists at Twenty One Studio, London. Assisted by Richard Edgeler.
Vocals: Annie.
Keyboards: Tim Powell, Brian Higgins & Nick Coler.
Programming: Tim Powell, Brian Higgins, Nick Coler & Matt Gray.
Guitars: Nick Coler, Alex Kapranos & Nick McCarthy (appear courtesy of Domino Records UK).

Copyright Control, Warner Chappell, Xenomania.
(P) 2008 Universal Island Records Ltd. A Universal Music Company

Notes:
Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy from Franz Ferdinand play guitar on "Loco".

REVIEWS:
x It's the Girls Aloud track that was never recorded by the girls. "Long Hot Summer" is the most obvious similarity here, but it plays like a true What Will The Neighbours Say? album track. I think this one would be more fun if it were sung by the group, but that's not fair to say really. It's a 8/10'er for me. MuuMuse

x Easily one of Annie's best songs. "Loco" screams summer pleasure. Another thing to note is the noticeable improvement in Annie's singing since her debut. Her once thin voice has gained some boost over the years, and here it works beautifully. 10/10 Glitter Lust

x Annie employs a jangly guitar (gasp!) riff over a hopping dance beat and soaring synths. Of course, it 1000% works. Not that there were any doubts, mind you. It's funny, but one does not usually associate guitars with Annie, thus evidence that her music isn't just rehashed bubble-gum pop from 2005. Nope, homegirl is putting out some nice tracks. Olga Loves Yuri

x She's flattened by "Loco", a terrific song that is nonetheless so Xenomania-by-numbers that it simply sounds like a Girls Aloud single dropped in the middle of an Annie album. It's not all her fault, though. The Xenomania sound is just so overpowering that you'd never guess that Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy of Franz Ferdinand happen to play on the track as well. Pitchfork

x There are tracks aplenty here that would comfortably merit a warm public embrace in the arms of a Girls Aloud (and that Annie, frankly, does right not to squander on lesser lights). 'Loco' careers along like the motorbikes of the 'Wake Me Up' video, only with with glitterballs in the headlights. The Quietus

x I don't know what it is: the driving synth beat, the post-punk mopey guitars or Annie's sweet voice. But if I could transform this song into a pop-bliss serum and enter it intravenously, I would. Thomas Porteus

x "Loco" is a bit glossier than Annie's other Richard X-produced efforts, tempering the mid-'80s electropop feel for a smoother sound with slippery vocals that bring to mind Girls Aloud and Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Is that a complaint? Not at all; I can see this being an even more formidable summer-jam candidate than "I Know Ur Girlfriend Hates Me," even. (Plus any song that has a stuttery guitar-solo outro is 100% fine by me.) Idolator

x With a vocal coming on like early Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne but with all the bristling, bustling energy that's to be expected of some of Xenomania's finest moments e.g. Girls Aloud's "The Show" or Sugababes' "Red Dress" (...) Seamus_01

x 'Loco' is a sort of Blondie-esque belter whose chorus trills "you're so loco, everybody says that you're a no-go" - a lyric which is probably the only misfire on the whole album. Popjustice