Matt Cardle & Melanie C – Loving You

“It sounds like it could be from a High School Musical film.”

Tim: Matt Cardle: one of the less impressive X Factor winners. Melanie C: easily the best post-Spice Girls Spice Girl. So let’s combine the two, and see what happens.

Tim: I promise I mean this in a good way: it sounds like it could be from a High School Musical film.

Tom: Crikey. I know you mean that as a positive thing, but it’s a difficult sell.

Tim: Admittedly “I wanna get under your body” probably wouldn’t make it past the Disney execs, but for comparison, I recommend Can I Have This Dance, the peak of the franchise in terms of cheese (so much so that if you stay with it until the two minute mark you’ll hear Gabrielle singing in harmony with herself).

Tom: More than that: Cardle and C have a patchwork of musical… well, shall we say “homages” to other tracks? I’m sure I’ve heard most of this before, just in a different form, and not put together quite as slickly. You’re right: it’s a Disney number.

Tim: It didn’t hit me until the second time I heard it come back from the middle eight, but it’s got all the hallmarks: a vibrant chorus with a decent earworm for a hook, a pause before said chorus to emphasise said vibrancy, instrumentation that’s as standard as it possibly could be, a quiet middle eight coming back into a triumphant closing section, and then the killer feature of two people singing at each other and not really paying attention to what the other is saying.

Tom: Russell T Davies describes dialogue as “just two monologues clashing”. This pretty much sums that up.

Tim: Top that off with a slight laziness when working the harmonies, and you’ve got everything you need. This is a textbook Disney song, and it’s pretty great for it.