Tim: Given the title, and the fact that it’s from the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack —
Tom: I’m still astonished that the incredible version of Crazy in Love cover from the trailer hasn’t been released yet, by the way.
Tim: — you may well think that this song is basically all about the old you-know-what.
Tim: And yes, basically it is, but it’s bloody brilliant.
Tom: It is, isn’t it? At this point I’m going to end up buying that soundtrack CD, and that’ll be an embarrassing thing to have in my library.
Tim: Writers include such pop royalty as Max Martin and Savan Kotecha (and let’s face it, if pop had a royal family they’d be battling it out for top place) and also Tove Lo and Ali Bayer, so it’s a good thing it is bloody brilliant, really, because otherwise we’d all be very upset.
Tom: That explains a lot: that’s a heck of a writing team there.
Tim: It says a lot about Ellie’s voice that even though the massive BOOM into the second chorus (of which more later) doesn’t hit until two minutes in, the first half of the song is nowhere near as uninteresting in comparison than it might seem with a less talented vocalist.
Tom: It’s rare for me to prefer the warm-up and the build to the proper big chorus, particularly a big chorus like this, but this is one of those rare songs: that is a brilliant first verse.
Tim: Oh, I don’t deny that at all, but back to that BOOM, and that second chorus, and the final chorus with the strings in and the wait-for-it-patience-please pause before it, it’s just incredible, really, isn’t it?
Tom: It is, and I’m not arguing with that, but do go back and have one more listen to the first couple of minutes. That’s a really well-written bit of pop music on its own.
Tim: I always thought it would take a lot for Anything Can Happen to be beaten, but then Burn came along and actually managed it, and I’m not sure if this quite hits Burn levels of brilliance, but it’s very very close.