poptimists | BUMPER VIDEO CLUB: got me out here in the water so deep

First up, Estelle and Kanye's 'American Boy'. I have been waiting for this video to emerge for an age and it is now HERE. When I interviewed Estelle the other day she said the track came about as a complete joke, when she and will.i.am were trying to get John Legend into house; but then 'Crazy In Love' started off as a joke too innit. It's a brilliantly breezy track - her voice is light and supple and works really well over the casual 4/4 strut. I love the lyrics too. (I mean Estelle's lyrics, not Kanye's rhyming "UK" with "you, 'K".)

Next, Hercules and Love Affair's 'Blind'. H&LA is a DFA project which involves some producers and some singers, one of whom is Antony Out Of Antony And The Johnsons. I'd never been a fan of his voice - too much tremolo! - which stopped me enjoying the Johnsons' stuff, but I think it works magnificently when it's buffeted by H&LA's disco revival beats - it sounds grand and flamboyant rather than quavery and prissy. Queeny, but in a majestic way. Anyway: like all formalist retro projects there's the danger that H&LA just end up sounding like a tribute act, and the album does get boring in places, but I think for the most part there's enough fun and soul and personality in their music that it works. The video for 'Blind' is good! It features annoying bit-part British actress Jaime Winstone wandering into a Roman orgy.

Finally, and probably best of all, Jordin Sparks and Chris Brown's 'No Air': a supermegapowerballad to end all supermegapowerballads, full of surging chord changes and nihilistic despair. The video redefines 'overwrought' (a good thing, as the song does too), but it's all in the details as well as the hammy acting: I believe Popjustice has already pointed out Chris's little foot dance, but we also get Jordin drawing a heart in window condensation (at this point, I MELTED) and Jordin seeing Chris in her garden but as she gets closer he VANISHES. This is so real. Pas d'embedding but watch and be amazed here.