David Lindgren – Move That Thing

Crikey, that kicks in hard.

Tim: The new single release from Melodifestivalen finalist David Lindgren, here, and a healthy dose of EDM for you.

Tom: Crikey, that kicks in hard.

Tim: With the plethora of tracks that get released every month, it takes a lot these days to stand out with tunes of this genre, and to be honest I kind of think this has it. Not enough to be an international breakout, mind, but good enough to get heard on the dance floor fairly regularly. The title on its own, or at least the repetition of it in the chorus, is probably good enough to get some people dancing, and if not then the decent tune underneath it all should do it.

Tom: I’d say it risks getting a bit too repetitive: the trouble with starting off with that level of intensity is there’s not really anywhere for the song to go. Even at three minutes long, I felt it was starting to outstay its welcome. That said, what a welcome.

Tim: The only thing that’s bad is the awful autotune near the beginning; that aside, I rather like this, and would happily RAVE to it.

Tom: Oh, I agree. RAVE ON.

Adrian Lux – Damaged

“A somewhat ethereal quality to it.”

Tim: The song’s been around a couple of months, but the video’s a bit recent; I awaited until now to bring it out because it turns out I like watching the video more that hearing than song.

Tom: Is that a…

Tim: Compliment? I’m not sure.

Tim: I’m not even a big fan of skateboarding, so I don’t know what it is about that video that gets me, but I was sort of mesmerised by it. Though that might be the song, because there’s another (completely different) video for it here, which has a similar effect.

Though I don’t know, I might just be in a mesmerisable mood. Either way, I like the videos, and that enjoyment permeates through to the song. First time I heard a while back it didn’t do much for me, but now, well, I quite like it.

Tom: I think “mesmerised” is the right term: it has a somewhat ethereal quality to it that means it might not be the best for the dance track, but would work well in the middle of one of those chillout-dance compilations.

Tim: Ask me tomorrow morning, when the video isn’t fresh in my mind, and I don’t know what I’ll say – the vocals are a little sour for me, and the backing could possibly do with being lightened up a tad – but right now I’m happy with it, and would definitely dance to it. So that’s good then.

(time passes)

Tom: So what do you think now?

Tim: I like it. It’s good.

Saturday Flashback: Litesound – We Are The Heroes

Mediocrity, but I really like it.

Tim: Last Saturday, a track from Eurovision 2012 that didn’t do anywhere near as well as it should have done. This week, a track that was my third favourite that year but didn’t even qualify to the final. I present to you: Belarus.

Tim: Yes, it’s basically a Nickelback track popped up slightly, and I suppose hits roughly the right level of mediocrity to garner nowhere near enough votes, but I really like it, and I do wish it had done better.

Tom: Oh my word, you’re right. He’s even got some of the same vocal inflections, where he doesn’t quite get the right note to start, and then rolls his voice towards the right pitch.

Tim: They didn’t wear the best outfits on the night – mostly chain mail, which hasn’t really worked as a fashion choice for at least half a millennium – but that shouldn’t be a reason for them to be knocked out, surely? Oh well, Europe’s loss.

Tom: It is generic, it is a bit Nickelback, but it’s not inherently a bad track. It is, as you say, just a bit generic.

Tim: I like the literalness of the video with them being actual heroes, and I particularly like the woman who’s just pulling at her seatbelt wondering why it won’t fall apart. Clearly an overconfident flyer who didn’t pay attention to the flight crew’s instructions. Also the explosion that hits with the second chorus is wonderful, and almost as good timing as another Belarus music video, from three years back.

Tom: Full marks for them not being superheroes. Not so full marks for endangering wildlife.

Tim: Okay, I know that’s a serious article, and I read that Pat Stanley is from Leicestershire, but I can’t help but read “next year I’m going to have dead cows” in a Somerset accent, and now I’m giggling stupidly. SORRY PAT.

Kelner – Deeper

A decent dance beat, and a melody that’s varied and pleasant.

Tim: “Deeper is a song about helping someone who has reached the bottom – because you believe in them,” says vocalist Kenneth Gutterup, 25% of this Norwegian band.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZ8uCpcc1W0

Tom: What an odd video. I wonder how many of their younger fans recognise what analogue film is?

Tim: Oh, let’s not go there. They’ve previously been doing mostly rock stuff, but this seems to be their first ‘proper’ single, for what that’s worth, and it’s fairly dancey instead. By and large, I really like this – I doubt you’ll need me to specify the bits I don’t like, but since they’re not a massive disjoint that spoils the rest of the song I can live with them easily enough.

Tom: I know the bits you mean — the not-quite-dubstep, almost guttural sounds — but I thought they worked rather well, myself. As, indeed, does the rest of the song: a decent dance beat, and a melody that’s varied enough and pleasant enough that I find myself nodding my head along.

Tim: Hmm. I might not choose to play it all that often, mind, but based on this I can imagine them bringing out a decent album, and if they did I wouldn’t skip over this.

Saturday Flashback: Kurt Calleja – This Is The Night

One track comes on and you suddenly realise that everything’s brilliant.

Tim: Tom’s away at the moment, unfortunately, so it’s just me, but hopefully I can cope. You know how sometimes you’re out for an evening, and it seems a bit iffy, but then one track comes on and you suddenly realise that everything’s brilliant?

Tim: Well, I didn’t really mention it, but I went to see the truly wonderful Hera Björk performing in a club last Friday, and I never had that feeling at all, because this Eurovision track was playing as I walked through the door and I instantly had confirmation of what I’d already suspected: the night was going to be utterly fantastic. And it really, really was.

Sadly, that night in Baku wasn’t really The Night for Kurt, as this only came 21st out of 25, but as for last Friday – that really was the night. Hera is ABSOLUTELY BRILLIANT.

Saturday Flashback: Bjørn Olav Edvardsen & Arcteec – Mountains

“Hello, dance-flavoured ballad.”

Tim: What would you say to a dance-flavoured ballad?

Tom: “Hello, dance-flavoured ballad”?

Tim: Because that is what Norwegian Idol graduate Bjørn and dance person Arcteec joined forces to bring us back in March. (And you’ll want to skip to 1:40 in the video – all that happens before then is him walking to a train station in black and white.)

Tim: Right then. I’m not sure if part of this is the wonderful scenery in the video, but I think this track is just lovely.

Tom: See, I tend to be a sucker for Americana: Googie architecture and desert road trips in a video will mean I’ll feel much better about it. You’re right that rhe scenery here is gorgeous, though; it gave me a serious case of wanderlust although I’m not sure it affected my opinion of the music.

Tim: I’m a little unnerved by the structure of it, with it ending after the second chorus without a single thought for the surely requisite middle eight and closing chorus.

Tom: I’m increasingly of the opinion that, unless you’re chucking out a Proper Pop or Proper Schlager song, composers should be able to play about with the structure if it works for them. It didn’t put me off.

Tim: No, it didn’t put me off – it was more of a ‘wait, why has this finished?’ disconcertment.

The 2-step backing of it means it wouldn’t be the easiest to dance to, but as a song to listen to it’s very enjoyable indeed. The earnest high pitched vocal goes nicely with the ever-present but not too intrusive backing track – it’s almost unusual to have a dance track that isn’t constantly screaming for attention, and it make a nice change, I reckon.

I’m bringing it up now because Oslo Pride happened recently and the SX Summer Radio Remix got put out as the official song, and it’s…well, it’s alright.

Tom: That’s… that’s just the same track with a THUMPING BASS, surely?

Tim: Pretty much: they’ve stuck a big four to the floor beat on it to make it club friendly and played around with the chorus backing a bit, but it doesn’t really work for me – the drawn out vocals of the chorus just don’t mesh with a regular dance beat, which is a shame. I don’t know what they could have done with it to make it work given that restriction, so maybe they should have left it as it was; it’s not like they destroyed the original, though, so let’s push play again, shall we?

Eric Saade – Winning Ground

Football?

Tim: Football!

Tom: Football?

Tim: Nope, me neither. But here’s a song about it anyway, or at least vaguely associated with it – UEFA Women’s Euro 2013.

Tom: Crikey, that’s a minute or two longer than it needs to be.

Tim: You reckon? See, I really like this, but weirdly it took the fake ending to make me realise that. When it ‘finished’, I thought, “Oh, that’s it. Oh well, move on,” but suddenly found myself very happy when it came back for that closing section.

Tom: The middle-eight “look at the stars” was really the only standout part for me: that middle eight promises so much, and the rest of the song just didn’t deliver it.

Tim: Well, I really liked the “oh-oh, we’re winning” chant, but the chorus had seemed somewhat damp and dreary until the end bit, when it suddenly made sense and struck me as somewhat euphoric, especially once I realised the literalness of “calling out for another round, won’t stop now”.

Tom: That final chorus isn’t too bad, I suppose, but it took its time getting there.

Tim: It also became apparent that they missed a trick by not making more of the speedy “calling out for another round” that closes the song, because that’s a very good bit and it should have been used more. So overall, good, but if I hadn’t stuck with it to the end I probably wouldn’t have known that.

Zara Larsson – Bad Boys

It is, to say the least, “stripped down”.

Tom: Our regular reader Roger sends this in. It’s a live performance, but let me assure you — having checked the other performances — this is how it’s supposed to sound.

Zara%20Larsson%20-%20Bad%20boys

Tom: It is, to say the least, “stripped down”.

Tim: Yeah – you could say that.

Tom: Perhaps the single version has a bit… well, a bit more to it? Because the last minute or so of this track would make a great intro, but that’s about all I can say.

Tim: Hmm. You’re right – when it starts to build up a bit it gets a bit good, but that’s really a long way away from being the sort of big summer tune you might expect to be performed there.

Tom: There’s a cracking track in there, but it just seems incomplete right now. For a “world premiere performance”, I’d expect more.

Tim: Credit where it’s due, though: the dancing was fully present, and all the more for there not being much to dance to.

Tom: A bit of history that I’ve just found: she’s 15, and her first shot at fame was when she was 10 and on Sweden’s Got Talent. It took a while for her to become a pop star: but she’s certainly made it now.

CRASH feat. Sunshine Gillz – I’m Alive

It’s not a bad track at all. Except…

Tim: We got sent this, which is three minutes and forty eight seconds of brilliance, and thirty seconds of utter rot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyO5hE8lSKc

Tom: An “unlisted” video on YouTube. One upvote, four downvotes, at the time of writing. Tons of stock footage to make the video look more expensive. Slightly, ineffably ‘off’ editing in parts. Someone’s trying to punch way above their weight. Normally I’d be mocking that, but… they’ve actually done a pretty good job.

Tim: The verses, the chorus, the backing track, the snare drum buildups – it all sounds like a perfect fit for a 2003 club night out.

Tom: Ouch. That’s a much sharper burn than I suspect you think it is.

Tim: It’s a burn at all? Wasn’t meant to be. What’s wrong with a 2003 club night out?

Tom: Well, it’s 2013 for a start. But still, it’s not a bad track at all.

Tim: Except. Except. Oh, except for that awful, dire, shockingly terrible middle eight. It comes out of nowhere, it goes back to nowhere, it doesn’t remotely fit in – what the hell’s it doing there? What is the point of it? I’d be angry about it, except I’m a bit confused by it, because it has no place here at all. It sounds a bit like it’s snuck in from another video, Wreck-It Ralph style, and has thought “Oh, I might as well stay.”

Tom: Ha. There’s a movie in that. Well, I suppose there was, and it was Wreck-It Ralph, but you get my point.

Tim: All I can say that it’s NOT AT ALL WELCOME. To be honest, I’d be happy if it ended just before he joins in – three minutes is a decent enough length, and the end bit doesn’t add all that much. So basically, his thirty seconds has made me wish the whole song was a minute and a half shorter. NICE ONE SUNSHINE.

Emmelie de Forest – Hunter & Prey

“This appears to be the same song.”

Tim: The follow-up to Only Teardrops – let’s see if she can keep coming up with the goods.

Tom: You know, I’m still not sure if she “came up with the goods” during Eurovision. I didn’t actually like Only Teardrops all that much.

Tom: …and this appears to be the same song.

Tim: Well, stylistically it is very similar: the drums and breathiness of the verses evoking images of music from millennia ago, as in fact does the whole hunter/prey metaphor that the song’s carried by.

Tom: Mm. I suspect it’s more evoking images of Peter Jackson’s “Lord of the Rings” films rather than actual music from millennia ago, but I see what you mean.

Tim: That’s then brought way up to date with the guitars and pop melodies in the chorus, and again it works very well and I like it. Certainly show she’s not a one-hit wonder, although I am curious as to how long the ethnic power-ballad thing will be played out for – there are some very different tracks on the album with a great deal of variety, so it’ll be interesting to see if she sticks with what works for the third single, or branches out a bit.

Tom: Branches! Ha.

Tim: Erm, ha?

Tom: Because, you know, her last name is “de Forest”.

Tim: Oh. HA!

Tom: Oh, suit yourself.

Tim: Yes. Speaking of different tracks on the album, the symphonic version of Only Teardrops is worth a listen – remarkably different, and considerably calmer.