Sia feat. Labrinth – To Be Human

“Love comes with pain, deal with it.”

Tim: With Wonder Woman, Warner Bros. finally created something a lot of people had forgotten was possible: a happy, enjoyable and flipping brilliant DC film. As for the soundtrack that goes with it, I had high expectations as her theme was one of the occasional good things about Batman v Superman. But the proper song that goes with it?

Tim: Well, happy certainly wouldn’t be the perfect word to describe this, portraying as it seems to the idea that love comes with pain, deal with it.

Tom: From your introduction, I was expecting to go in and dislike this… but it’s good. I’m not sold on all of it; that middle eight sounds like it’s come from an old musical, and it’s just confusing. But that chorus — and the transition into it — are beautiful. Not happy, though.

Tim: On the other hand, I’d say enjoyable fits the bill, for a lot of it: Sia’s as on point with the vocals as you’d expect…

Tom: Although it did take me a little while to work out what she was singing. Her initial vocals seem to be a bit… maybe slurred is the wrong word, but certainly unclear, more so than I’d expect from her. Labrinth very much playing second fiddle, but that’s fine: no-one’s going to beat Sia, and he’s providing a damn good harmony.

Tim: The emotion’s layered on up to eleven – though having said that, my favourite moment of it, the bit that sent shivers through me, has no singing at all. It’s there towards the end, just as the final chorus comes to a close and the instrumental climbs back up again. I love that, and it made me realise how good the underlying instrumental is on the rest of the track. That’s the real thing that makes this sound so good. And it does sound so good.

Sigma feat. Labrinth – Higher

“Sadly, a bit generic.”

Tim: Ah, what’s brought this out of the woodwork?

Tom: Sigma, drum-and-bass duo responsible for the best Kanye West remix ever (in that it removed Kanye and got to number one). Labrinth, brilliant vocalist and writer. This should be…

Tom: …hmm. Sadly, a bit generic.

Tim: Not a fan, then?

Tom: That introduction — like the quiet middle eight — is wonderful, and promises so much.

Tim: Really? Because I find that part a bit tedious.

Tom: Well, yes, it is a bit too long, and crucially the payoff just isn’t quite worth it. I know drum and bass is ultimately a bit limited: once you start switching things up too much, it slides into being a different genre entirely. There’s a lot you can do in that relatively small sandbox — but there’s just not enough of interest here. The melody isn’t good enough to save this track.

Tim: I don’t know – ‘generic’ it possibly is, but I’d say that chorus with it’s ‘what is love?’ mantra delivers vastly more than what the meandering intro suggests. I really like this track.

Tom: My main problem with it, though: after a couple of repeats, I started hearing “higher, higher” as “hiya, hiya” and wondering how many people he was going to greet before the song was finally over.

Tim: See, I’m now working on chopping that up and setting it as my ringtone.

Tom: It’s better than that endless loop of the One Show theme you had.