Anniemal

The past decade has witnessed an Orwellian re-writing of the pop annals. We've forgotten - or at least been encouraged to forget - that pop music used to be devastatingly clever.
Pop stars, you see, weren't always pawns; once they were preening queens who loomed magnificently.
One may dismiss the Pet Shop Boys, Human League and their ilk as callow and throwaway, the essence of consumer-age disposability. However, beneath their shallow symphonies glittered ferocious intelligence, a biting self-awareness.
Hailing Annie Berge-Strand, a Norwegian former DJ and sometime Royksopp collaborator, as the saviour of sussed chart music is possibly an unfair prognosis. Yet halfway through Anniemal, her cheeky and eloquent debut, you almost start to believe it.
Her songs, crafted with Richard X and Royksopp, are knowing and accessible, spilling over with nagging choruses and whipsmart melodies. You can dance to this LP - occasionally it's difficult to do anything else - but it satisfies at a deeper level also.
Last year's lost club classic 'Chewing Gum' is the immediate standout, a presumptively addictive mishmash of juddering electronica and swooning synth licks. It is by some distance the smartest no-brainer tune you will encounter in 2005, a jab of pure pop adrenaline in your jugular.
Elsewhere, Annie dabbles in giddy paeans to Motown (current single 'Heartbeat') and refracted soul ('No Easy Love') while 'The Greatest Hit' suggests Dusty Springfield jamming with Daft Punk.
At a time when skinny guitar bands with sharp haircuts are what passes for mainstream, Annie's feral cyber-pop has the air of a subversive tract. Hyperbole be darned. Pop's resurrection starts here.