Frida Öhrn – Fading Like A Flower

“Fewer guitars, more synths, as we’d expect”

Tim: April 1991, Roxette went top 10 in a whole load of countries (though only number 12 in the UK, shame on us) with Fading Like A Flower; 29 years later, here’s Frida.

Tim: Fewer guitars, more synths, as we’d expect, though I’ve no issue with either of those things.

Tom: Yep: it’s a cover that changes enough to provide a new take, but keeps enough of the original to be familiar. It’s not bad at all.

Tim: What I do have issues with, though, are two things, at least compared to the original: number one, she got rid of the key change, and although I’m well aware that a key change wouldn’t suit this version at all, actively getting rid of one should be an imprisonable offence.

Tom: Harsh, but not unfair.

Tim: Second is the genre change: by and large a good thing, because this does sound great, but it does mean that every time the chorus comes around I get a brief flash of Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, which for some reason the original doesn’t give me – maybe because the vocal’s not as prominent in the mix there?

Tom: Ha! I got a flash of Alice Cooper’s Poison and Faith Hill’s This Kiss, so, yes, let’s just agree this sounds like a lot of other tracks.

Tim: Aside from both of those things, though: I like this a lot. It is, in fact, a great example of how well making a song sound ‘up to date’ can be done: there’s plenty of the original still in there to keep the spirit of it going, and just enough modern sounding stuff (such as that vocal sample bit at 2:32, which I love) that it sounds like a current track. Job well done, I think.