Guetta Blaster

2004 certainly seemed to be David Guetta's with "Just A Little More Love" and "Stay" almost permanent fixtures on daytime radio. The former such an international hit that Simon Le Bon personally approached the Frenchman to ply his remix skills to an upcoming Duran Duran single.

His second album, the cleverly named Blaster (as in Guetta Blaster) again finds him working with gospel-trained vocalist Chris Willis (of the band Nashville), and is similarly weighted more towards the mainstream than underground.

David and Joachim Garraud (the first album's co-producer) once more applying their collective skills to create songs modelled on pop classics of the eighties from the same mold as Depeche Mode, Yazoo, Dead Or Alive and New Order.

The upcoming 45, "The World Is Mine", built around a Simple Minds sample, reeks of New Orders' influential electronic textures and monotone verses. It's one of the few tracks not to feature Willis - sessioner J.D. Davis (lead singer of Sinema) providing the starker male lead on this electro-pop pastiche.

Dance music's current obsession with rocky guitar riffs dominate much on display here: "Open Your Eyes", which marks the return of the Stereo MC's, owes much to the Prodigy built on a stark break beat foundation and acid sequence which harks back to their classic "Connected" days. "Time" sounds uncannily like the bastard child of "Sweet Dreams" and Slash's handy guitar work was clearly the inspiration behind "Money". There's even a track called "ACDC" as if further proof were needed.

Guetta certainly seems to have grown up from the pop-dance that made his name, and in Blaster has successfully avoided the all too common pitfalls of the second album. However, whilst launching himself as a born again rocker he should be weary not to alienate the audience that feeds him.