Tag: Martin Solveig

Martin Solveig and Dragonette feat. Idoling!!! – Big in Japan

Less tennis, less sanity.

Tom: Last time we heard from Martin Solveig, he’d hit the big time with “Hello” and had a video of himself playing tennis against Bob Sinclar.

Tom: This time, there’s less tennis, less sanity, and a much less catchy track.

Tim: Same amount of bassline in fact. Or, more concisely, same bassline.

Tom: It’s still clearly Martin Solveig – it sounds like he’s just tweaking his synth settings a bit to create what is now his trademark sound. But the melody on top of it just isn’t the same.

Tim: No. What is it, actually? I can’t remember.

Tom: It doesn’t have that same kind of shout-along, dance-along quality that Hello did. It’s not bad – but if he’s going to put out something this close to his last big hit, then he’s got to be careful that the first thought you get isn’t “the last one was better”.

Tim: Actually, I reckon the first thought most people would have is ‘what’s this weird mash-up of Hello?’

It could be argued, though, that this is actually a very different song – the first was, let’s be honest, just a chorus (can you remember anything else of it?), whereas this one has nothing particularly memorable at all, much as a track without any chorus would likely be.

It’s not bad – danceable and all that – but with that intro, people (i.e. excited clubbers who love the big hits) will be disappointed it’s not what they were expecting.

Saturday Flashback: Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette – Hello

I defy you not to start at least tapping your foot.

Tom: This track entirely passed me by until I was in America last month. Now, the official video‘s good – high-budget and incredibly well produced, if a bit clichéd – but it’s interrupting the track regularly to spoil the YouTube jukeboxers. Here’s the track, uninterrupted. Don’t forget that this is meant to be mixed into a DJ set, hence the long intro and outro:

Tom: I defy you not to start at least tapping your foot when that beat kicks in.

Tim: It is a good track – although one I often misattribute to MGMT, for no particular reason that I can discern.

Tom: Now, normally I’d complain that there’s very little change throughout – after it kicks in, it’s basically the same song until the end. For some reason, that doesn’t bother me – even the vocal effects that make it less repetitious don’t bother me. Maybe it’s because I’ve listened to a bit of glitch lately.

Tim: I’m happy with it – repetitive it may be, but it’s not bad stuff that’s being repeated. And it is, after all, there to make people dance. And jump. Up, and down, and up, and down, and up, and ooh look we’re repeating ourselves.

Tom: This would get me straight on to a dancefloor, bouncing up and down.

Tim: In a repeated manner, no doubt.