Category: Saturday Reject

Saturday Reject: Kalle Johansson – För Din Skull

“He looks like he’s on Glee.”

Tim: This here is a guy who won a Swedish radio competition, Svensktoppen Nästa, to get onto Melodifestivalen, and in the tradition of all such winners, was likely to come dead last. So it was a pleasant surprise when he actually only came 6th with this, translating to For Your Sake.

Tim: And I’ll tell you the problem with this: he looks like he’s on Glee.

Tom: Oh my, he really does. The stares into the camera, the happy walk through the crowd. The jump as he comes out of the middle eight.

Tim: And that is quite the jump – it’s all there. It also doesn’t help that he bears more than a passing resemblance to evil competing singer Grant Gustin, but all combined together it’s really the enthusiasm that makes it – obviously it’s necessary with any major-key performance, but he comes across less as “this is great, join in!” than “OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M HERE”.

Thing is, it’s a very good song – they’re giving it everything with the lights and the glitter and the backing band–

Tom: Speaking of which, are his backing band in fast forward or something? It’s like they’re being played back in the wrong speed.

Tim: They do look a bit sped up, don’t they? Huh. And the song’s also co-written by the ten-trips-to-Eurovision Thomas G:son, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with his voice.

Tom: I think it’d be a solid middle of the table at Eurovision: there’s nothing to make it stand out, but it is at least a good song.

Tim: Harsh as this may sound, I can’t help feeling that a more experienced singer might have done very well with this; I do hope he doesn’t get discouraged by this, though, because there’s a lot of future potential.

Saturday Reject: Eeverest – Love It All Away

“It could easily have been so much better.”

Tim: Eeverest, a new dance trio who claim they will “bring mayhem to the dance floor with their own solid sound!”

Tom: That is a very 90s slogan. Will they, indeed, bring mayhem?

Tim: Well, not yet, no, as they were kicked out of heat 2 of Finland’s Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu, and the two words that scream out to me here are: missed opportunity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7Qgd4rsmHg

Tim: Because that’s a decent dance track. Good tune, good beat, but OHHH, it could easily have been so much better.

Tom: You’re absolutely right: it’s got a lot of brilliant ideas, but the execution just isn’t there.

Tim: First off: it’s about the performance, and however much the two guys are jumping around behind their keyboards, you’re not going to bring mayhem by standing still in a black dress, nervously moving your hand up and down a bit. Second, and I know this sounds harsh: that vocal doesn’t come across anywhere near strong enough.

Tom: Yep. It is harsh, but that seems like a really nervous and weak performance. Not even will.i.am would hit his button and spin his chair for that.

Tim: Admittedly it’s better in the studio version, but there on the stage? It’s drowned out, and no country is going to send a dance track, however good the production is, if the singer’s just putting out a seemingly very uncertain performance.

Tom: It’s better, but it’s still not Big Enough for a track like that. You need someone who’s belting out the notes — and while you’re at it, cranking the bass EQ up a few notches wouldn’t hurt.

Tim: No – dammit, it could have been so much more.

Saturday Reject: Rickard Söderberg & Elize Ryd – One By One

“Hahahahahaha. Hahaha. Ha.”

Tim: Yep, with three months to go it’s that time of the year again, where we look at all the tracks that were good, but not quite good enough. First off, to Sweden (where else?), and this, an opera singer paired with the lead singer of metal band Amaranthe.

Tom: They’re going to have to beat Malena Ernman and Casablanca’s La Voix performance in my head. High bar to clear.

Tim: It is indeed. Have a listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu8Jmr2xCJE

Tom: Hahahahahaha. Hahaha. Ha.

Tim: Ermm, okay, so this got knocked out in the very strong first heat of Melodifestivalen, disappointingly, what with it almost being my favourite song of the night.

Tom: Wait, what? Really?

Tim: Oh, hell yes. Every now and again, I do love a good operatic rock song when it’s done well, and here it very much is. The two vocals combine very well, almost in a Nica & Joe style, and while I wouldn’t have said no to an even more out there female vocal, possibly even hitting Malena Ernman levels, I do think this combination works very well.

Tom: It really doesn’t. I mean, don’t get me wrong, they’re both brilliant vocalists, but the combination sounds like an incompetently-produced mashup. He’s got a voice for opera, and it just sounds wrong here.

Tim: Oh, please – it sounds great here.

Tom: No. No it doesn’t. Again: the voice on its own? Brilliant. Great opera singer. But it’s completely, utterly, out of place.

Tim: I think you are entirely wrong. Mind you, I wouldn’t listen to a whole album of it, but as a Eurovision competitor, many countries could (and, let’s face it, will) do a lot worse, because, well, to pick just one point, that return from the middle eight is just brilliant.

Tom: No, for once I completely disagree with you: it’s ridiculous, and it’d end up near the bottom of the table. The whole setup: the wind machines, the moustache, the bizarre eyeliner, and creepy stares at the camera: it’s just not a good track.

Tim: Well, I’ll grant you him looking ridiculous, but I reckon everything else about it is great.

Saturday Flashback: Klostertaler – Freunde bleiben Freunde

“Hahahahahahaa oh that’s WONDERFUL. “

Tom: Here is an Austrian folk-music band covering a song that probably should never have been covered by an Austrian folk-music band.

Tim: Hahahahahahaa oh that’s WONDERFUL.

Tom: So it turns out there’s an entire album devoted to covers of Scooter songs. This is perhaps the highlight.

Tim: Oh, what a highlight.

Tom: The main thing this shows is just how repetitive the original track actually is. With the trappings of trance music removed, it starts being just a bit of a dull song — and perhaps it gives us an insight into how those who don’t like trance feel about Scooter.

Tim: Thing is, Friends isn’t the best Scooter track by a long way, in terms of actual music. It is repetitive, yes and the lyrics are, well, not exactly thesis length. It is, however, one of the tracks that’s guaranteed to put a smile on my face, because of its simplicity, its happy melody and just general, I don’t know, friendliness, I suppose. And this? I reckon this has it just as much, and I almost prefer “Blieben Freunde” to “We’ll all be friends” rhythmically. This is GREAT.

Tom: Klostertaler started in 1976. The year after releasing this, they broke up. I don’t know if the two events were connected.

Saturday Reject: Helena Paparizou – Survivor

“A song you can properly get your strut on to.”

Tim: The day is HERE, so let’s have a quick look at what was quite possibly the very very best of however many hundred contestants there have been this year, which is this. You’ll most likely remember Helena from her 2005 victory for Greece, the rather good My Number One. This year she went for the other half of her ancestry and entered Sweden’s contest with this, which got through to the final via Andra Chansen and is even better.

Tim: When I said ‘even better’, what I really mean, of course, is UTTERLY MARVELLOUS.

Tom: Crikey, when that kicks in, it means it. I’m not sure about that sudden quiet bit as it goes back in the verse, though.

Tim: Like I said, it was my favourite of all the songs in all the contests, musically at least, because it’s a song you can properly get your strut on to.

Tom: I’m sorry, you… what?

Tim: You can STRUT, man, STRUT. I know this because that’s exactly what I do regularly on my walk to work, shouting the chorus to myself because I know that I AM A SURVIVOR. So everyone should JUST CALL ME A SURVIVOR. SUCH A STRONG DESIRE. GONNA LET YOU GO, LET YOU GO. JUST CALL ME A SURVIVOR ETC ETC ETC.

Tom: I’m not going to argue with that. It’s a strong mental image.

Tim: Anyone who doubts the true validity of her sentiments only needs to look at her face as she rips the microphone off its stand, because SHE IS A SURVIVOR. I AM A SURVIVOR. SO JUST CALL ME A SURVIVOR and now fade out.

Saturday Reject: MadCraft – Shining Bright

“Hey, that nearly lives up to the hype!”

Tim: MadCraft describe themselves as “the superpowered pop punk band from Helsinki”, and, well, how often do you get superpowered pop punk these days? We can’t not feature it, really.

Tom: Hey, that nearly lives up to the hype! That said, for a pop-punk band, the mix feels a bit… muted.

Tim: That’s the proper music video there, as on both UMK live performances the levels were catastrophically miscalculated resulting in the vocals being almost inaudible; to what extent that affected their poor placing throughout we’ll not know.

Tom: You say that, but the main single mix sounds a bit like it’s being played through slightly broken speakers. Maybe that’s YouTube compression, maybe not, but either way it needs kicking up a notch or two.

Tim: Perhaps, but I reckon overall it’s a good track, as far as pop punk goes, and I suppose superpowered isn’t a terrible description – it’d certainly be a decent Blink 182 album track.

Tom: Ooh, that’s a backhanded compliment there.

Tim: Digging around this band, I find a lot to like, such as their excitable website that, once you’ve read to the bottom, invites you to read it all over again. There’s also their previous music video referencing various video games, such as Madtal Kombat, Madtar Hero and, well, I’ll let you guess what they renamed Super Mario Land to. What I see is a band that likes having fun, and entered the competition to have a bit more fun. Well done everyone, it’s nice when this happens. Even if it didn’t lead to victory.

Tom: Agreed.

Saturday Reject: The Bandits – One

“There’s some good bits in there.”

Tim: This Belgian boyband, despite looking barely old enough to understand the concept of musical history, have chosen to model themselves on the Beatles.

Tom: There are certainly worse role models for musicians, but those are big shoes to step into. The Beatles changed the world: how about the Bandits?

Tim: Well, they’ve certainly got the screaming teenagers, but do they have the music?

Tim: Ehh, sort of. It’s not a bad track, when it jumps back out of the middle eight and finally picks up the steam it should have had throughout the entirety of the song.

Tom: There’s some good bits in there – that descending scale on “brand ne-e-e-w” is lovely, but yes: it takes a while to get there. Early Beatles songs didn’t really build: they just started at full throttle and never stopped. That was the only way they could be heard over the screams.

Tim: Ha, true. Really, if a band like this is going to enter Eurovision, it needs to be big – at the very least State of Drama levels, and unfortunately this isn’t. It could be – there’s potential here – but annoyingly it’s just not enough. (Admittedly, given the awful, awful eventual winner of Belgium’s contest, even the actual Beatles wouldn’t have won.) Come back in a few years when you’ve, you know, done drugs and all the other stuff you need to do and maybe you’ll have a shot, but right now it’s just a pipe dream, kids.

Saturday Reject: Knut Kippersund Nesdal – Taste of You

“A damn good staging get-up.”

Tim: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.”

Tom: Oh blimey, I remember you tweeting about this one.

Tim: God, in this case, is a rather smooth-looking Norwegian with wonderful blonde hair and legs that seem to magnetically repel each other, which I’m happy to accept. I’m also happy to accept the lyrics (and indeed the title), “the taste of love, the taste of you”, as, well, anything. Some will be somewhat grossed out by it, some will happily take it as a sort of metaphor, and some (hello!) will happily take it literally.

Tom: I’m just going to let you have your moment there. Personally, I think he just looks a bit like Andy Crane visited Jedward’s hairdresser.

Tim: No. Whatever your thoughts on the lyrics are, though, this is (a) a damn good staging get-up and (b) a very good key change, being as it is one that sort of gradually happens over a few notes rather than being a sudden BOOM, which is quite refreshing.

Tom: Agreed: well done that set designer, but more importantly well done the songwriter. I don’t reckon it’d have won Eurovision, but it’s pretty catchy.

Tim: It is – I like it a lot, so well done Knut, and if you’re ever in London let me know and I’ll be happy to compliment you in person.

Saturday Reject: Danni Elmo – She’s The One

“Combine it with a bigger voice, and this would be a wonderful entry.”

Tim: Here’s a bit of advice for future Danish music show producers: if you’re going to have massive smoke cannons, try not to get your microphones right on top of them.

Tom: Oh crikey, it’s like Morrissey had a breakdown and started liking pop.

Tim: Erm, yes, well, regardless of that, what a chorus. And, in fact, what a song.

Tom: Yes. That build and lead-up into the chorus promises so much — although I’m not quite sure that Discount Morrissey can live up to that promise.

Tim: No. Combine it with a bigger voice, though, and damn, this would be a wonderful entry. It has the melody, the title (which in a song that most people hear just once is probably more important than the lyrics) and the staging with the lights and, yes, that dodgily-executed smoke. But I suppose that extra volume does make it seem like the audience is going utterly nuts for it, so it possibly wasn’t entirely accidental. Oh, what a cynic I am.

Tom: Cock-up before conspiracy, every time.

Tim: Fair point. Anyway, give us a stronger singer and this could have been a fantastic entry. As it was? Not quite enough, unfortunately, but oh, the potential.

Saturday Reject: Santiano – The Fiddler On The Deck

“An actual shanty, without going too far”

Tim: So many good rejects, and so little time, so let’s pretend this whole week is a Saturday, shall we?

Tom: Fine by me. Do I still have to go to work?

Tim: Ermm, oh, why not, let’s all take the week off. BECAUSE IT’S ALMOST ON. But for now, let’s go to Germany, and hear what is basically a sea shanty, so have an advance warning of Dick van Dyke levels of accents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SP2-CGwO50A

Tom: They get a few marks for doing an actual shanty here without going too far towards the pirate stereotype.

Tim: I really, really like this – it’s great fun to watch, it appeals to my inner Captain Jack and it would take quite something to beat that for an example of WE MEAN BUSINESS staging.

Tom: Yep, the set design team clearly went all-out with this one. Or just hired a prop ship, one or the other. And musically, if you wanted to merge together “folk shanty” and “Eurovision”, I can’t think of a better way to do it than this.

Tim: What my mind keeps wandering back to, though, is those lyrics, as with voices like that it’s impossible not to hear them, and they’re confusing. (Lyric video here if you need it.) My initial assumption was that ‘fiddler on the deck’ was a nautical metaphor for impending doom or stuff, which would make sense given the lyrics – “he’s the one who laughs when the storm begins to roar”, “when his fiddle starts to play, better hide away, if you don’t wanna die” “he’s like a cutlass in your back/needle in yer neck”.

But no. I can’t find any reference to that, so all I can see is that they’re being literal – the actually fiddler is a right arsehole standing on the boat. Yet he’s on the deck of the boat, fiddling away, so this is basically a song saying “hello, I’m annoying.” Which is fair enough, I guess, but hardly endearing to a continent.

Tom: I just keep hearing it as a euphemism.

Tim: Oh. Oh. Ohh, really?