Tom: In the middle of winter, as the rain pours down and the cold keeps us indoors, I reckon it’s the perfect time for some late-90s moderately-successful movie-soundtrack pop-rock.
Tim: Yeah, sounds good.
Tim: Nice.
Tom: I’ve got not much more to add to this, really. The lyrics are mostly meaningless, the tune is your standard bubblegum-rock… but there’s something about that chorus that’s meant it’s stuck in my head over the past… wow. The past thirteen years or so.
Tim: A good length of time, and not a bad song to have stuck in your head for a gloomy winter day.
“Beats listening to a tramp wailing into a microphone.”
Tim: James Arthur, winner of The X Factor 2012, released a cover of this as his winner’s single, but we really needn’t go any further with that one.
Tom: Because of the Curse?
Tim: There is that, but there’s also the fact that it’s just bloody awful. Fortunately, this is quite good instead.
Tim: Isn’t it? Yes, you spend the first chorus hoping it’ll eventually get somewhere, but then when the second chorus comes along and it does get somewhere it’s really quite nice to listen to; it sure as hell beats listening to a tramp wailing into a microphone for three and a half minutes.
Tom: A Cursed Tramp, no less.
Tim: Well, quite.
Tom: You’re right, though: this track takes a while to get there – and there’d be an argument to say that first verse and chorus is a bit superfluous – but when it does finally arrive it’s been worth the journey.
Tim: Outside the UK, where she’s had two hits, she’s largely a one-hit wonder (or, given her first album’s title of Shontelligence, a Shone-hit wonder, HAHAHA), which I suppose isn’t much of a shame, as far as we’re concerned, as there are plenty of people like her, but this is a perfectly decent record and worthy of being listened to at least a couple of times.
And if you’re wondering, yes, I did bring up the success of her career purely to make that Shone-hit wonder ‘joke’.
Tim: We’ll finish the Christmas week with this 2006 track. According to the lyrics, we should do this on the 17th, but this year that’s a Monday; needless to say I’m incredibly annoyed I forgot to do this as a Saturday Flashback last year.
Tim: Let’s get the disappointment out of the way first: that was so clearly building up to a key change, so where the hell was it?
Tom: Musical blueballs, Tim. And I’m not sure, but I think the 90s just came back to haunt me. Talk about ghosts of Christmas past. That’s not a bad thing – I just reckon it was about a decade too late.
Tim: Mr Carlsson has recorded a number of Christmas covers (notably of Mariah Carey and John Lennon), but this is his first original track, and it comes with such a disturbing idea that I’m really rather glad he didn’t do another.
Tom: Oh good, I’m glad it wasn’t just me that picked that out.
Tim: Good lord, no. Dedication to your loved one is all well and good, but he’s going to be wrapped up under the tree for eight days. No food, no water. And to be honest, however much he may want to provide her with a perfect present what with all his love and all that, his rotting carcass is probably not what she’s going to expect, or really appreciate.
Tom: The worst part is that “It’s Christmas in a week and a day” could easily be replaced by “just one day”, or even “Christmas is just hours away” or something like that. I know songs don’t have to make sense, but this is more noticeable than most.
Tim: “Did you get what you were hoping for?” “Sort of – my boyfriend promised his everlasting love, which was nice and all that, but now I’ve got his corpse to keep forever, and it’s starting to smell a bit, so am I allowed to throw it out?”
Tim: I bring this 2003 Swedish Eurovision entry up for two reasons: firstly because I started playing it accidentally as I was scrolling on my phone just now, and secondly because it’s flipping brilliant.
Tom: It opens with some “ooh-ooh, aah-aah” harmonising. Man, this is classic Melodifestivalen right here.
Tim: Oh, it certainly is. I love so many things about this – firstly there’s just the fact that it’s a well-done girl/boy duet, which so often goes wrong but can be wonderful when it works. From the song itself, there’s the ‘hmm-mm-mm, ah-ahh-ahhh’ intro, the lovely key change, the brilliant rolling strings on the bridge into the chorus and the general joyous message of the whole thing.
Tom: It ticks all the boxes perfectly, doesn’t it? Crikey, they’re even in matching all-white outfits, like rejects from a Christian revival meeting.
Tim: Way up at the top of the list for me, though, is the rampantly aggressive “give me ALL. OF. YOUR. LOVE.” towards the end, which almost seems to give the impression that the two of them want to just get their kit off and do it right there on the stage. Probably for the best that they didn’t, though.
Tom: Speak for yourself.
Tim: Dirty boy.
This eventually came 5th – for a bit of context, the winner was Turkey’s Every Way That I Can (where the backing singers were actually more like erotic dancers, so maybe getting their kit off would have helped), and as for our entry, well, we needn’t mention that.
Tom: The 2012 season for the Australian X Factor has just drawn to a close, and let me tell you – it’s almost exactly the same as the UK version. There’s a few more adverts. There’s a bit more product placement. Most importantly, they have a different cast: no Dermot, no Voiceover Man, and Gary Barlow has been replaced by Ronan Keating.
So let me round out my Australian tour with the winner of last year’s, the Scunthorpe-born and irritatingly-young (he’s 18 today) Reece Mastin.
He’s already on album number two, and while his most recent single didn’t get into the top 10, the first one most definitely did. And unlike the UK version, this isn’t a cover: the single was written for whoever won the show.
Tom: Yes, he’s got a bit of the Olly Murs about him with the prancing about, but that clearly ties into the stage presence – and I can’t let that take away from the fact that this is a CHOON.
Tim: It really is. And that’s not so much prancing around as just jumping around entertaining your audience. Which is a good thing, surely?
Tom: That final chorus is just stunning – and the message is ‘shut up and dance’. If this came on in a British club? I would shut up and dance.
Tim: Part of me thinks we should have original songs. Then the rest of me remembers that That’s My Goal was an original song. And then all of me listens to that and realise that I actually quite like it. Hmm. What a quandary.
Tom: I’ve still yet to hear any actual Australian pop music on commercial radio while I’ve been down under: admittedly, I haven’t been listening to much of it, but it all seems to be tracks that I recognise from the US or UK.
Tim: Fair enough; what’s this, then?
Tom: So here’s a track from one of the more popular Australian bands of the 2000s, two-piece girl alt-rock band the Veronicas. Their third single, oddly enough, but it’s the one that had just been released last time I was on this continent. It actually managed to get some airplay – although in the northern hemisphere it’s pretty much unheard of.
Tom: It’s mostly by-the-numbers, without a particularly inspiring verse, but somehow that chorus (and that brief middle-eight) got stuck in my head and wouldn’t leave.
Tim: That’s all fair enough – it’s a decent chorus. It’s not quite as catchy as Untouchable, their only track that really made it over here, but it’s still very enjoyable.
Tom: There’s not much more I can say about it, really, other than it really is Genuinely Australian.
Tom: As regular readers may remember, I’m in Australia for most of this month. I was meant to be reporting back about Australian pop music, but since it’s basically identical to the UK (as I write this, “Gangnam Style” is number one) there’s not much to tell.
Tim: You know, if this was a serious site we could have a talk about globalisation and why it applies to some tracks and not others and oh God, I’m bored already, so let’s move on.
Tom: Instead, here’s an absolutely amazing 1991 single from British synthpop duo Erasure, that I first heard last time I was in Australia. Close enough.
Tom: Everything about this is brilliant. The subtle sample (or “blatant rip-off”) of I Will Survive. The nonsensical lyrics. The disco beat.
Tim: That is brilliant – especially the sample.
Tom: And the video: oh my, the video. It’s like they had a hundred brightly-coloured ideas and said “screw it, put them all in”.
Tim: I particularly like the sweater he’s wearing in the flat that looks like they’ve shorn a sheep, gathered it all up and thought “this is what clothing’s made of, right? Let’s just wear it as it comes, then.”
Tom: One of you dancing in a wetsuit while the other looks on like a Michael Stipe impersonator? Sure. Do it. Give us another chorus.
Arguably the defining song of the Eurotrance genre
Tim: I know we’ve had two “ten years ago” posts already this year, so sorry for the lack of originality, but we surely can’t not feature this, arguably the defining song of the Eurotrance genre, which a decade ago entered the UK chart right up at number 1. So sit back, try not to pay too much attention to the weird video that came with it, and enjoy it.
Tim: Vastly better than Bryan Adams’s version of the song, of course, but then cover versions rarely beat the originals, so that’s only to be expected.
Tom: Eh? That doesn’t make sense – the Bryan Adams version is from 1985…
Tim: Oh, God, you haven’t been brainwashed by his lot as well, have you? Look, follow the logic: in a lot of songs, it is entirely possible, from as early on as the first chorus, to see exactly where it’s going, yes? So therefore, by extrapolation, in the land of music it’s entirely possible to predict the future, and thus have a song being covered BEFORE the original was actually written, as happened here. DJ Sammy wrote the brilliant original, and Bryan Adams did a fairly dull cover of it seventeen years earlier. FLAWLESS LOGIC.
Tom: Right.
Tim: Now this has everything a decent dance track should have, and it should rightly be celebrated here and now.
Tom: Yep, there’s a reason that it’s still a standard – and still getting re-edited into new cash-in compilation CDs – ten years later. It’s one of the tracks that can tie most of a generation together: they’ll recognise it even if they don’t know where it’s from.
Tim: It’s also notable for being the song that gave birth to the idea of the Candlelight Remix; whether that’s a good thing or not is debatable, but it didn’t stop Cascada doing the same thing several years later. And actually, I’ve just listened to both of those and it was a brilliant idea, so well done to whoever did that. In fact, well to everybody involved in this, because it’s just brilliant all over.
Tom: But there’s one wonderful, standout track that I loved on first listen and which, I suspect, will never get old for me.
Tom: Do ignore the video – it’s fan-made – and concentrate on that astonishing voice. Can I get away with calling that voice “sexy”? I’ve never used that description in all the time we’ve been writing this. Perhaps “sultry” would be more accurate.
Tim: I think those words are entirely appropriate – feel free to use them.
Tom: Even the extended coda, the over-the-top sitar instrumentation, and all the other ridiculous things can’t turn me away from this song. I can see why others might dislike it, but my word, something in it just worked for me.
Tim: It’s not my favourite, but I can see why you’d like it. Besides, it’s always nice to discover new things, and since I’ve got nothing better to do this evening I think I might listen to the rest of that album.
Tim: We haven’t had any massive schlager tunes on here for quite some time, and that’s a shame.
Tom: Good grief, you’re right. We started this to talk about schlager, and we’ve all but forgotten about it.
Tim: Let’s rectify the issue with this, which, you may recall, was the track that finally got everyone dancing after an hour of everything else seeming to fail (even Aqua) at that Eurofest night you & I went to back in January.
Tim: Sorted.
Tom: Indeed.
Tim: Although…
Tom: What? That’s a top Eurovision track, that is.
Tim: Oh, it really is, but you may have noticed there was missing something from the usual formula – perhaps a second verse & chorus before the middle eight? So let’s hear it again. But the full version. The Hungarian version. The four minute version that got released earlier this year. Basically, the awesome version.
