Author: Tim

Ella Henderson – Ghost

‘It says quite clearly “listen to what I can do”.’

Tim: What would you say if I offered you one of the best tracks to come out a X Factor finalist in recent years?

Tom: I’d say it was probably “What Makes You Beautiful” by One Direction. Why, what’ve you got?

Tim: I’ve got this.

Tim: This is a great debut, in that it says quite clearly “listen to what I can do”. It demonstrates a nice variety of singing styles – a deep, rich and almost soulful voice in the verses, slightly more lightweight and haunting in the middle eight, and a gentle, more ‘standard’, if that’s the right way to describe it, voice throughout the chorus.

Tom: It’s no small feat, being able to convincingly pull off those styles. You’re right: it shows off a heck of a range.

Tim: Not only that, but the backing instrumentation also changes in style quite significantly between the verse and chorus to match those voices, which goes well, as long as you don’t find it slightly jarring which a tiny part of me does.

Tom: Yep. I didn’t expect that to have quite as much… funk.

Tim: Mainly in the “listen to what I can do”, though, is that chorus. Because what a chorus it is – one I really could listen to over and over again. And, in fact, did, on the bus home from work the other night – who’d have thought looping a YouTube video would drain a phone battery?

Saturday Reject: Oda & Wulff – Sing

“I’m not sure there’s anything I don’t like.”

Tim: Christer Wulff and Oda Kvingedal Larsen wanted to sing for Norway, and, since they presumably thought their names were too long, adapted a moniker that would be well-suited to a mad old woman and dancing dog routine on Britain’s Got Talent. This song here got them through to the final, though not the Gold Final, and I reckon it’s worth your time.

Tom: Side note: the Melodi Grand Prix graphics are rather nice and minimalist, aren’t they?

Tim: I suppose so, but mostly because here they can be – the music has absolutely everything, because isn’t it a happy happy track? The first time he starts singing that chorus melody you get taken straight in there with smile forced upon you.

Tom: Oh. Um, alas, I didn’t.

Tim: Oh. Really?

Tom: It was all a bit too much for me: there’s some weird dissonance where they don’t sound enthusiastic or sincere enough. And there’s at least one, possibly two, too many “sings” in each line of that chorus.

Tim: I’d dispute all of that, to be honest, though let’s not get distracted from the main thing: you might notice in the background the bloke standing on the platform, wondering what he’s doing there, and then come the end of the chorus you’re “Ah! That’s what it is. That’s why he has pride of place.”

Tom: Yes, to be fair, I can’t fault the trumpeter.

Tim: I’m not sure there’s anything I don’t like about this song – the only criticism I could level is that I’m not sure either of their voices is quite strong enough to carry the verses solo), but while in most songs that would be enough to kill it, here it really doesn’t matter that much, as there’s EVERYTHING ELSE.

Tom: Such as…?

Tim: The aforementioned trumpeter up on Pride Rock, the random high five for emphasis, the ‘look at us pretending we’ve already won’ confetti, the way there are spare instruments lying around that the singers pick up and play when they get bored in the middle eight – this whole song has a massive sense of fun to it, and all it’s really missing is a dancing dog.

Tom: For me? All it’s missing is heart. And I know that’s a terribly vague criticism to level, but that’s how I feel.

Tim: As is your prerogative, though it’s pretty much the opposite of what I feel.

Oscar Zia – Ballare Con Me

“All of the necessary bits for a balearic dance tune”

Tim: Let’s pretend yesterday never happened, and go back to the pleasing sounds of beachy summer summer.

Tim: I know we don’t normally go with live performances, but this one’s good and actually fairly similar to the studio version so it’s fine.

Tom: “Fine”?

Tim: Not only is it fine, in fact, it’s great. It has all of the necessary bits for a balearic dance tune, right down to the foreign in the chorus.

Tom: I was about to call you on using the word ‘foreign’, and then I realised I wasn’t immediately sure what language it was either. It does say something that most of the pop stars from non-English-speaking countries still sing at least partly in English, though.

Tim: Yes, though it’s worth remembering that Oscar is Swedish rather than anywhere Mediterranean. I’m not particularly sold on the slightly grouchy breakdown, which almost breaks the track a little bit, but that aside it’s pretty great. Oh, and since you mentioned it, it’s Italian for ‘Dancing With Me’.

Tom: Italian. Got it.

Ricky Martin – Vida

“Strumming guitars! Summery drums! Actual foreign!”

Tim: Football!

Tom: Really?

Tim: I know, sorry. But you’ll forgive me once you hear this, a track off the official album of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Tom: I think my first reaction is “crikey, Ricky Martin’s still going”.

Tim: Oh yes – 42 and he’s still got all of it. Strumming guitars! Summery drums! Actual foreign!

Tom: “Actual foreign”? Let’s not forget that Livin’ La Vida Loca came in two versions, complete with near-identical videos.

Tim: What a partying, beachy, summery track this is, and the video makes it abundantly clear that that is precisely what it’s meant to be.

Tom: Yep. It’s basically the last World Cup song, “This Time For Africa“, only filtered through a Latin American lens.

Tim: What with it being his second turn at doing an official World Cup song, it’s hard not to compare it to The Cup of Life, and I think it stands up very well indeed. A great track, for a competition I would otherwise do my best to avoid.

Tom: It’s not my cup of tea, but it’s good to know that they’re following the true meaning of modern sport: product placement.

Tim: Right – who’d have thought that Sony makes a phone that’s waterproof?

Ktree feat. Robin Stjernberg & Flo Rida – Thunderbolt

The producer, the talent, and the other bit.

Tim: Typically, when I see a song, I’ll listen to it before deciding whether or not we should review it; it may be dull, awful, or entirely unremarkable. Here, though, with Melodifestivalen winner Robin Stjernberg on the same track as professional musical dick Flo Rida, I’m fairly sure that, whatever we think, it won’t be entirely unremarkable.

Tom: Much like Cher Lloyd and Demi Lovato, that’s an international pairing that I’d never have expected — but which makes sense. Does it sound as good?

Tim: And as it turns out it’s mostly pretty good – we have Ktree (from Germany), the producer. Robin, the talent.

Tom: And what talent — from both of them, too. Robin’s got the voice for a song like that, and Ktree’s production is just incredible: that build is just astonishing. And then…

Tim: Flo Rida, the other bit. And just what is that other bit? Really? Because to be honest, it’s hard to think right now of anything that sounds quite so, well, just wrong (aside from possibly the lack of a chorus in Dark Horse, which gets me every time I hear it).

Tom: Not only that, who puts a camera that expensive into sand?!

Tim: It’s thirteen seconds of almost entirely unintelligible nonsense – I don’t know who wrote it, or what the point of it is. There’s are mumblings about bitches, shawdy and supermodels, which is basically what you’d get if you stuck him in a bingo machine and plucked parts of him out at random. The vast majority of me suspects it was only there to attach a big name to this – in fact, call me cynical, but I’d put quite a bit of money on this being the case.

Tom: Agreed. Note that they couldn’t afford to get him in for the video either: at no point does he actually lipsync. Maybe they just took some of his outtakes and shoved them into a track?

Tim: Wouldn’t actually surprise me. All that aside, though, this is a pretty great track – great vocals, the howling of which is becoming of a trademark for Robin, and a decent production underneath. It’s all good, really, with the exception of those thirteen seconds.

Cher Lloyd – Sirens

“Light years away from the dodgy pseudo-rap she’s tried on the past.”

Tim: God only knows why, but Cher Lloyd has actually become somewhat successful over in America – if I had to guess, I’d say it’s because they didn’t see her personality on The X Factor (bit harsh, sorry).

Tom: I had to apologise for Cher Lloyd to an American friend of mine recently. What’s she got this time?

Tim: This, the lead track from her new album.

Tim: And actually, that’s why she’s successful. Isn’t it very Demi Lovato-esque indeed?

Tom: Good grief, yes. And it’s light years away from the dodgy pseudo-rap she’s tried on the past.

Tim: So much so that I do often think it’s going to splurge off into Skyscraper at one point in the chorus. It’s not all that surprising – if you’re going to model yourself after a young female pop star, Demi’s a very good choice, and Cher was a featured artist on a track on Demi’s most recent album.

Tom: Oh! That’s some very good management work indeed.

Tim: What we have here is a vastly more mature track than the previous crap we’ve heard, and much as I’m surprising myself by saying this, I really like it. It’s not quite amazing, but there’s certainly a lot of potential, and it’s actually making me want to listen to her second album when it arrives in a month. I’m surprised, but I’m definitely not disappointed.

Saturday Reject: State of Drama – All We Are

“Three great things about the song.”

Tim: You may remember a while back I said my top four Andra Chansen songs came in the top five; this here was number 5.

Tim: The old “don’t bore us, get to the chorus” adage is clearly something they take seriously, which is a good thing because the chorus is by far and away the best of the three great things about the song.

Tom: And the other two?

Tim: Well, without the chorus we’d still have the key change and loudhailer gimmick, but as it is we have all three, and they all come together a great track.

Tom: He does appear to be genuinely using the loudhailer too, which is… well, it’s something.

Tim: Lyrically it’s basically “we’re young people, we get pissed and party, we’re awesome” which, well, it’s not particularly endearing, but it’s at least something most people will have identified with at some point in their lives. Musically, it gives a very similar impression, and all summed up it’s a schlager-rock track that’ll suit me very well.

Tom: If I’m honest: that middle eight completely loses it for me, and even with a key change and a three-minute duration it seems to go on a bit.

Tim: Hmm, now you mention the middle eight, it does somewhat break the momentum; I reckon it hangs together well enough throughout the three minutes, though.

Tom: It’s probably not a Eurovision track, but it didn’t deserve to do too badly.

Tim: As indeed it didn’t. Nice one.

Ellie Goulding – Beating Heart

“Musically I don’t think I can really fault it.”

Tim: Divergent, a film released last month. Beating Heart, the second single to come from the soundtrack. This, the lyric video because the clips from the film in it are a bit more interesting than the ones in the full video.

Tom: Man, there are a lot of young-adult dystopia books being turned into films right now, aren’t there?

Tim: Oh, this is just the first of a trilogy. And this accompanying it is a very very good Ellie Goulding track. Slightly, um, interesting metaphors in the lyrics (departure lounge of disbelief, anyone?), but musically I don’t think I can really fault it.

Tom: It’s a Soundtrack Song: not going to light up the charts, but it’ll work over the closing credits.

Tim: I’m still a real sucker for her voice, and paired with that big (though admittedly not, by her standards, huge) chorus it sounds just wonderful.

Tom: It is a really distinctive voice, and a perfect match for that chorus — although I’m not sure about “big”.

Tim: Often when I write about a song I’ll just listen to it once or twice before thinking “right, that’s enough”; here I’m ion to my fifth listen already and it’s showing no signs of getting old whatsoever. It’s a great addition to the Goulding catalogue, and I reckon everyone involved should be proud of it.

Darin feat. Prophet of 7Lions – Mamma Mia

“It feels a bit like a dodgy summer track from ten years ago.”

Tim: There are a lot of football songs doing the rounds at the moment (apparently there’s some competition or thing happening soon); this isn’t one of them, but it does sound like it could be one.

Tom: “7Lions?” Huh. Three ought to be enough for anyone.

Tim: Not bad that, is it?

Tom: It’s not bad, but it’s not good.

Tim: Oh.

Tom: Why’s it a football song?

Tim: Well, it just seems to have a fairly summery, active, sporty vibe to it. Kicks off (ha) fairly early, calms down for some not particularly inspiring verses, but then comes back with a nice pairing of pre-chorus and proper chorus, carrying a decent hook and all in all being a fairly decent track.

Tom: It’s good enough, I suppose, but it feels a bit like a dodgy summer track from ten years ago — even down to the dodgy rap bridge.

Tim: It’s not a Nobody Knows or (obviously) a Lovekiller, but it’s very enjoyable, nice and summery and would be a pretty great soundtrack to some sort of sporting activity. I think.

Barbados – Förlåt

“I got exactly what I expected, and I was grinning for it as well.”

Tim: Barbados, a dansband group that have been going for a couple of decades now, and are here with a new schlager-infested tune, their first since 2011.

Tom: “Schlager-infested”. Nice choice of words there.

Tom: Oh crikey, they’re entirely the right words there.

Tim: Aren’t they just? It’s a whole lot of fun, that is. Admittedly, basically straight out of ten years ago, but then dansband has never really been about sounding modern, and let’s face it, it’s often all the better for it.

Tom: Agreed. I knew what was going to happen, I got exactly what I expected, and I was grinning for it as well.

Tim: We have a key change —

Tom: — technically several, I think, since I think there’s a modulation between each verse and chorus —

Tim: Fair point, and we have RIGID song structure. Textbook stuff, and exactly as enjoyable as said textbookness it guaranteed to make it. Not incredible, but not remotely disappointing. Put it on, jump around stupidly, have fun, until you forget that that sudden ending’s coming and you fall over in shock.

Tom: Damn right. It’s by-the-numbers, but what wonderful numbers.