Tim: WELL THEN. Juno Im Park are a German duo, Hannah’s British and off YouTube, and this song is, well, I’ll copy and paste:
“With Rick Astley having just secured both a UK no.1 album and a silver record, alongside British supporters of the European Union unofficially adopting the song and slogan as “Never Gonna Give EU Up”, the long-planned collaboration has unintentionally surfed the zeitgeist to become extremely topical.”
Tom: I dislike pretty much everything about that statement. Does it get worse?
Tim: Topical (as long as six weeks afterwards still counts as topical), and TROPICAL – they’ve got palm trees in the video and everything.
Tom: Okay, I’ll say this much: those are lovely vocals, and the retiming and occasional changed notes work really well.
Tim: Hmm, yes, that’s all true, but it doesn’t help with my biggest problem, which starts with the “long-planned” bit. Why? That implies there was a distinct importance to this, and yet let’s face it that there is a cover that never, ever needed to happen. I’m going to be harsh about this, because, well, it deserves it.
Tom: Why?
Tim: I don’t often think this about a track, but I genuinely can’t imagine any situation where anybody would ever think “I want to listen to a tropical house version of Never Gonna Give You Up”. What was the thinking behind this, beyond “that song was big on the internet for all the wrong reasons, so we should absolutely rerecord it in a modern yet increasingly stale sound”? I can’t fathom it, I really can’t.
Tom: See, I think there’s almost always room for a good cover, and this is at least a cut above the normal.
Tim: Oh, sure, it’s competent enough – decent vocal, above average production values – but just… why?
Tom: You could ask that about any human endeavour, Tim. Because it was there.