Beat of My Drum has been available to download for a month, but the CD version offers this John Prescott-referencing B-side
Releasing a single in 2011 is complicated. With the introduction of On Air, On Sale, songs by big acts are entering the chart lower than expected with the expectation they will rise once radio play picks up. This didn't quite work with Nicola Roberts's excellent, Diplo-produced solo single, Beat of My Drum, which stalled at No 27 and didn't make it on to the Radio 1 playlist. If radio can't see that people are buying it then they're reluctant to play it, the catch 22 being that if they played it perhaps people would buy it. This has lead to the creation of what labels refer to as the "impact date". So, Beat of My Drum, for example, may have been available to buy on iTunes since the beginning of June, but it's impact date (it's CD release) is next Monday.
It's all a bit confusing (not least because no one really buys CD singles any more), but it does mean we get to hear the brilliantly titled Disco, Blisters and a Comedown, the B-side of the single. While Beat of My Drum wasn't quite what people expected ? or wanted, perhaps ? from a Nicola Roberts track, Disco, Blisters and a Comedown is the kind of pulsating electro-pop you'd expect from one fifth of Girls Aloud. It's also funny with Roberts describing a typical weekend of drinking, dancing and suffering the morning after. There are a handful of choice lines ? "2am I think I am Gaga, maybe I've gone too far, I'm dancing on the bar", "5pm my Topshop order's here, I sent my best friend home, looks like she's been Tango'd" ? but the best is saved for the chorus, our legless hero staggering around a kebab shop, conjuring an image we'd prefer not to dwell on: "Why do the lights in the kebab shop make this guy look less hot? He's looking like John Prescott."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2011/jul/07/nicola-roberts-disco-blisters-comedown
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