Ellie Goulding – Power

“Title’s a tad misleading, I felt more power than that last time I accidentally zapped myself with my electric fly swatter.”

Tom: I was about to write this off, and then the chorus hit.

Tim: Title’s a tad misleading, I felt more power than that last time I accidentally zapped myself with my electric fly swatter. Nice sound, though, and yeah, the chorus improves it a lot.

Tom: Ha, you’re not wrong there: when the second verse came along, and everything fell apart again. I mean, it’s not a staggering chorus, it’s doing that thing where most of the line’s just on the same note, but it at least stands out a bit.

Tim: You know, I often feel that “damning with faint praise” is an overused phrase, but here you’ve very definitely earned that, congratulations.

Tom: Thanks, I’ll take it. So here’s my question: does this dark-and-brooding Tesco-Value-Billie-Eilish count as Good Pop these days? Are my tastes old-fashioned? Or is this just a bit duff in the verses?

Tim: Well, Good Pop is obviously subjective, but as for Modern Pop – certainly one variety, yeah.