Saturday Flashback: Antti Tuisku – Jää tai mee

“It’s a builder.”

Tom: Suggested by an anonymous reader, this track’s in from Finland. It’s a couple of months old now, but I’m running with it anyway because first: it’s a builder, and second: I bet you’re surprised by the direction it builds in.

Tim: Hmm – mildly unexpected, I’ll grudgingly admit.

Tom: I was expecting a four-on-the-floor club banger, and what I got was something a bit more interesting: it’s up-and-down like a roller coaster, with more euphoric builds than should rightly fit into four minutes. I was surprised, actually: I thought it’d outstay its welcome, but I enjoyed it to the end.

Tim: As did I – there’s no real opportunity to get bored, what with the regular up and downing. I particularly enjoyed the video – I see quite a bit of myself in his often ridiculous dancing, and I appreciate it when that happens.

Tom: Finnish is a difficult language to translate, but one lyric stood out: “Have mercy on me now, do not play with my emotions”. He’s asking his partner to either stay or go — but just make their mind up either way. Not typical fodder for a dance track, that.

Tim: No, I guess not. Good work all round, then.

Saturday Flashback: Peter Bič Project – Thinking About You

“It’s a builder.”

Tom: Another cracking track from Slovakia, now: it’s a builder, and it’s got a properly inventive music video.

Tim: Fascinujúce…

Tom: How did they get those shots? How on earth? There’s no camera track in sight, so it must be a very clever motion-control rig.

Tim: That is very impressive, although it did instil a slight sense of vertigo on a couple of occasions. But I’ll forgive it that. I’ll also happily forgive it the opening two notes that makes me want to go into Walks Like Rihanna, because that’s entirely on me, not them.

Tom: And meanwhile: the track builds, layering instrument after instrument over that basic vocal melody and piano counter-melody. This is just a stunning track, as far as I’m concerned.

Tim: Yes – given that my only two issues with this are one two-note progression and a slightly-too-speedy camera, I am more than happy with this.

Tom: I also sort-of want a thumping club remix, but don’t take that as being unsatisfied with the original: I just wonder what it’d sound like if cranked up to 11, rather than 10.

Tim: Interesting thought. Do we know any Slovakian DJs?

Saturday Flashback: Kristina – Viem Lebo Viem

Let’s head to Slovakia!

Tom: An anonymous reader dropped a whole load of Slovakian songs into our suggestion box last week, and this was the standout, for me at least. Let’s head to Slovakia!

Tim: Skvelý!

Tom: And isn’t that nice?

Tim: That right there is someone who know hows to use an unexpected dance beat, and knows it very well.

Tom: It starts by summing up the last few lazy days of summer, complete with happy lyrics and harmonica, and then somehow turns it into a dance track that could have come out of the good parts of the nineties.

Tim: Oddly, both parts of this are great – the first acoustic bit never really puts a foot wrong, and the dance section could easily have been stretched out to be a big summer beach party track. Combined…

Tom: “Viem lebo viem” translates as “I know because I know”, and even an automated translation of the lyrics provides a rather poetic phrase: “I can read you perfectly, you’re ‘momentary’ / What you’re looking for is just few moments of fun”

Tim: Well how right it is that’s she’s provided a few moments of fun. Poďme tancovať!

Saturday Flashback: Dina Garipova – What If

I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE OF HAPPINESS.

Tim: This, Jenny Red, is how you do a proper key change.

Tim: When those wristbands turned out throughout the arena, I THOUGHT I WOULD DIE OF HAPPINESS.

Tom: Ah, what more can I say? It’s textbook Eurovision heavy ballad. It actually did better than I thought it would: fifth is pretty damn respectful.

Tim: This was originally my fourth favourite of this year’s Eurovision, though with repeated listenings it’s actually crept up to joint first, with Iceland’s Ég á Lif (currently my favourite ‘shout out loud in the shower’ song).

Tom: I feel a little bit sorry for your neighbours.

Tim: It’s a great track – it’s joyous, it’s uplifting, it’s remarkably different from what’s actually going on in Russia at the moment, and it’s just wonderful.

Tom: And that outro. That is an old-school, glorious outro.

Tim: This key change just makes it that much better.

Saturday Flashback: Boys Like Girls – The Great Escape

Tim: I’ve no idea why, but this 2007 track has been getting a bit of airplay on Radio 1 recently; I can’t find any reference to a re-release or new marketing, but anyway, let’s have a listen because it’s good.

Tim: Yep. Good. As mentioned on Monday, I’m a bit of sucker for a rock track with a big drawn-out chorus hook, and this fits that nicely.

Tom: Ha. Now, you say that, but I don’t like this nearly as much as Monday’s track — which you didn’t think much of. I reckon the hook, and the verses, and both a bit dull. It’s generic pop-rock, and while there’s nothing wrong with it, there’s nothing really right with it either.

Tim: You think? Well, please yourself. We’ve mentioned this band before, back when they had a new track out last year, and if this is the start of a new push I do hope it succeeds. I doubt it is, if for no other reason than that the line-up’s changed since then, but anyway. Still worth a listen.

Saturday Flashback: Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams – Get Lucky

“A confession.”

Tom: Our reader, Isabella, writes in and notes that we never actually covered this, the song of the summer.

Tim: True.

Tom: She likes it, as – evidently – do most of the record-downloading public: “the only criticism I can find for it,” she writes, “is that it’s more of a Pharrell track produced by Daft Punk than a Daft Punk track featuring Pharrell and Nile Rodgers.”

Tom: So, a confession: I disliked it on first listen; it seemed monotonous and not particularly inspired. And then, as it became the soundtrack to everything this summer, it grew on me.

Tim: See, I never even got to the growing on me part of it. I just don’t get it – I find it, well, dull. Their last album, the Tron: Legacy soundtrack, was fantastic (and the remix album even more so), but this is just boring.

Tom: And I find myself agreeing. Because now the glow has faded; the mists of autumn aren’t far away; and I find that it’s started to irritate me again. It doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t do anything. It could be two minutes long or ten minutes long, it’s all the bloody same. It’s impeccably produced, incredibly catchy, but I’m just bloody sick of it.

Tim: You’re right – it doesn’t go anywhere at all. The underlying beat – that eight second, four bar loop – just doesn’t change. Throughout the entirety of the song, it’s there. I don’t want to call it cynical, but it’s perfectly mastered to get stuck in your head and never ever leave, and to keep you listening in the subconscious hope that it’ll break out of its minor-key loop and do something interesting.

Tom: Is it possible to review something properly when it’s been burned into your brain?

Tim: There’s an argument that that’s the only time when you should review something – you’ve had time to digest it, tracked your enjoyment of it, can provide a thorough description of your thoughts, as we’ve done. Unfortunately, they’re not positive thoughts.

Tom: PS: Ed Balls.

Tim: Of course.

Saturday Flashback: Frankmusik – Map

I have found myself yelling it out, apropos of nothing at all.

Tim: Another track off the previously mentioned Poptronik compilation, from February of this year.

Tim: The chorus is fantastic. Isn’t it? Yes, it is. Since I first heard it, I have found myself yelling it out, apropos of nothing at all, just because the vocal on it is so loud and passionate that it’s just great.

Tom: What’s startling to me is not just the strength of the vocal, but that it’s able to compete with — and come out on top of — all the other loud, busy, thumping instrumental bits that are going on at the same time.

Tim: Well, there’s that as well. And you know, for the first time ever, I slightly understand what people mean when they say it’s good for an artist to write their own tracks. Obviously I still don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with not doing, because as I’ve said before songwriting and singing are two completely different skill sets, and it still annoys me when bands say they want to write their own stuff just to be ‘authentic’.

Tom: Let’s be fair, though, singer-songwriters rake in the cash. Authenticity may not be their first priority.

Tim: A good point. But even so, here I really get the feeling that the singing and feeling comes from deep down, rather than singing words off a page, and it works so so well.

Saturday Flashback: Osvaldo Supino – I Have A Name

I put my head up in surprise.

Tim: There’s a new Poptronik album out, a reliably decent electropop compilation that last year introduced us to, amongst others, Bright Light Bight Light. And now this, from an Italian bloke who brought it out in April.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFnBoVTXpg8

Tom: After living in London for four years, I reckon I can name every place used as a background in that video. It seems strange to film in so many iconic locations and reduce them to depth-of-field blur – but never mind. The music.

Tim: The music indeed, and what a lovely track it is, don’t you think? Things I like include: the occasional dropping of the American singing accent so we hear his normal voice, the strings, the bass note before the key change, the extra vocals after the key change, and the key change itself.

Tom: Especially that key change. I wasn’t convinced by that track before it came along.

Tim: Right, and it’s weird how suddenly hearing the key change made me pay attention to it – I was sat at work with this on in the background, not paying a huge amount of attention to it, and then when the key change came along I put my head up in surprise, thought “wow”, and definitely didn’t scrape a screwdriver along a replacement display I’d just fitted to a customer’s laptop.

Tom: Definitely?

Tim: Oh, definitely. Probably. Maybe. ANYWAY, it’s not that it necessarily makes it a better song, it just draws your attention to how good it already is. Admittedly it’s not perfect – the first chorus could perhaps be livened up slightly, just to give the impression of actually being the chorus – but by and large this is a lovely track.

Saturday Flashback: N-Force – All My Life

Tom: The track and video are from All Around The World Records. Tim, you know exactly what to expect here.

Tim: Certainly do – SteveAATW is often my go-to YouTube channel if I’m getting ready for a night out.

Tom: I reckon this track’s a cut above the normal generic-dance music, although I can’t really work out why.

Tim: Familiarity, perhaps? It took me a while to realise what it was a cover of, but then I placed it and realised that this is vastly superior to that R&B balls.

Tom: And I’ve got no reason for putting it here other than “well, this sounds good”. Because it does. Deal with it.

Tim: It so does.

Saturday Flashback: Lindsey Stirling – Elements

Tim: I found this from the sidebar videos next to the Adrian Lux track we did a few days ago, and was intrigued by the description in the title of ‘Dubstep Violin’. Have a listen.

Tom: Ah! Lindsey Stirling. YouTube star, with astonishingly good production values.

Tim: And you know, I actually quite like it, in the sense of, “Ooh, that works. I’d not thought it would.” It’s a weird combination, but arguably no more so than symphonic metal, and that’s brilliant if you’re in the mood for it. Maybe it’s the novelty that keeps me listening, but the violin has a fairly soothing effect on top of the harsh dubstep grinding so I can listen to it easily enough.

Tom: It doesn’t last for me. Maybe I’m just used to pop tracks with vocals? It’s nice, I guess, but it needs to be the soundtrack to something else.

Tim: Perhaps, and I suppose that might be where the aforementioned production values come into it – if you’re standing in pouring rain, or surrounded by fire, or in the middle of an ice cave, you could just let the music accompany the scenery.

She herself was on America’s Got Talent a few years back; got through to the quarter-finals even though apparently Piers Morgan wasn’t a fan, and has since then gone on to do lots – she even has her own iPhone app, so that told him.

Tim: True, but so does T-Pain. That’s no guarantee of quality.

Tom: Hmm. Fair point, so as an actual indicator of quality, you could know that along with quite a lot of original violin dubstep stuff, she also does regular violin covers of various songs, some of which are worth a listen, and apparently does funny videos as well, though I’m not interested enough to check those out. So there you go.