Tom: 150 million views on YouTube, still in rotation on the radio. Why am I talking about this? Because it’s exceptional.
Tim: Bugger me, that’s a big teddy bear.
Tom: Now there’s a sentence that’s not been said before. Anyway – twice now, while listening to the radio, I’ve wondered ‘ooh, what’s this song?’ and put it through Shazam. That’s rare for me – I’ve only used Shazam a dozen or so times in the last year.*
Tim: Ah, well if you want to have fun with AI, you want to get yourself Siri.
Tom: Okay, we get it, you work at an Apple store.
Clearly something in the song really works for me; while I might like other songs on the radio, I don’t like them enough to find out what they are – twice – so I can download them later. It’s a textbook pop song, really; happy, entertaining, and a proper singalong hook.
Tim: Part of it is the unexpectedness of it – you’re sort of thinking it’ll be along the lines of Do It Like A Dude, or whatever that other crap one was, but it’s actually good. (Think I might have made this point before – I remember saying California King Bed was a fantastic prime example.)
Tom: And here’s the bit that really gets me: a rap bit that works. B.o.B is damn good at what he does, and he’s mellow enough to fit with the rest of the song. Put Flo Rida in here, and it’d be bloody awful.
Tim: I have a new-found annoyance about rap bits in songs: ever since Tulisa became an X Factor judge, it has seemingly become compulsory to rewrite the words if you’re performing it yourself (or even add new ones to originally good songs). I find this HORRIFICALLY irritating.
Tom: My word. That’s the first I’ve seen of this year’s X Factor. It’s… it’s terrible.