Robbie Williams – Be A Boy

“This feels more like it should be an album track.”

Tom: Sound the ROBBIE KLAXON. And the “FEELS A BIT LIKE COLDPLAY” KLAXON. And, oddly, the SAXOPHONE KLAXON. Look, basically just sound all the klaxons, OK?

Tim: Does that include the JEDWARD AT MELODIFESTIVALEN KLAXON? Because that’s a good one to sound.

Tom: I say that the Saxophone Klaxon is odd because Robbie Williams is quoted as saying “If you ever put a saxophone solo on one of my tracks, I will kill you”.

Tim: That was a while back, though, and since then he’s put out an album of swing covers – I think we’re safe to assume his tastes are somewhat fluid.

Tom: It’s out as a single, but to be honest this feels more like it should be an album track. I think I’ve worked out what feels odd about it: Robbie’s vocals – and they are good vocals – are buried in the mix behind a wall of sound that doesn’t really add anything.

Tim: Yes, you could be right. It’s decent enough, although I should confess to think “Christ, is it still going?” when then were still ninety seconds to play. Not really a single, though since I’ve not heard the album I can’t compare to the rest of them.

Tom: There’s nothing obviously wrong with it… it just sounds like an album track that the fans would appreciate rather than a Big Robbie Single. But perhaps our expectations are just too high.

Le Kid – We Are Young

“It’s a more mature sound”

Tim: It’s getting on for eighteen months since we’ve had any new material from Le Kid, so this really should be quite good, shouldn’t it? And with a title like “We Are Young”, we’ll have at least a vague idea of what we’re likely to hear. So, the big question: it is as good as it should be?

Tim: Yes. Yes it is.

Tom: Damn right. The opening sounded a bit Aqua-ish – good, if derivative – but the rest of the track went in a different direction, and a good one at that.

Tim: It’s a more mature sound than we had on their previous album, you could say, and it’s bloody good. It’s another one that reminds me of Icona Pop’s I Love It, but is a bit less full on, and, well, in this case I almost could say that about it – it’s a fantastic ‘get up and go’ song.

The only problem is the occasional reminder of Pitbull with the “cause all…”, but I can easily cope with that when the rest of it is so great.

Tom: Wait, that’s a reminder of Pitbull? Man, he must be pretty much taking over your brain. You should get that seen to.

Tim: You’re right, actually. Sorry.

Tom: Mind you, my problem with the track is that it does start to repeat itself a lot, even in just three and a half minutes. It’s not a bad thing to repeat, but it could use some more switching up.

Tim: There aren’t a lot of songs where I could describe their repetitiveness as a good thing, but here I think it is, because that hook is really catchy and enjoyable. This is a great track, and pretty much exactly what Le Kid’s new track needed to be.

And hey – from the start of it, it could even qualify as “guitar music”. OKAY I’M DONE WITH THAT.

Tom: Good.

Saturday Reject: Ben Ivory – The Righteous Ones

“I’m not sure what it was that made me really like it”

Tim: This is from Germany, and it was one of my favourite tracks of the night. Quick warning: it’s straight-up drum’n’bass, so I wasn’t initially going to post it, but since you brought us Hadouken! yesterday, I figured why not.

Tom: Hey, there’s plenty of good drum and bass out there. There’s plenty of crap drum and bass, too. Which one’s this?

Tom: Okay, I hate to be the genre-pedant, but I’m not sure this is drum and bass. Let’s stick with ‘electronica’, or just ‘pop’. This ain’t got a patch on Pendulum.

Tim: Fair enough. That’s the actual video for the song, there; the Unser Song Für Malmö performance left a bit to be desired, as the vocal wasn’t quite as intense as it should have been, although it was proper lasers o’clock in the arena.

Tom: I want a laser-based alarm clock now. 8am, time to wake up, BEDROOM RAVE.

Tim: I’m not sure what it was that made me really like it – partly it was the lasers, and partly it was the Revenge of the Nerds vibe to the lyrics. Mostly, though, I think it was just that I was in the get-up-and-jump-around mood for drum’n’bass – I’d been slightly over-excited since I realised the ridiculousness of starting my Valentine’s Day evening watching the German business news (and since you ask, Nestlé stocks were on the way up, and there was something about Heinz as well).

Tom: Interesting. Can’t say I’m feeling it myself – is it the same for you now you’re not “in the moment”, so to speak?

Tim: Actually, yes – watching it back three weeks later I can’t get quite as excited about it, but I still think it’s a good track, and I’d actually have quite liked to see it in Malmö – it’d certainly have been more interesting than Cascada.

W&I – Love Divine

You could get distracted and it would all just wash over you in a wonderfully pleasing way

Tim: This, from a new Swedish duo, will be the second song in two days to get a Sound of Arrows comparison, but here it’s because of what it is, rather than because we’re not sure what it is.

Tim: It’s a song where, if you weren’t careful, you could get distracted and it would all just wash over you in a wonderfully pleasing way but without you really noticing it – the first time you’d realise would be when it finished and there was a sudden void and you’d vaguely remember what you were missing.

Tom: Funny thing is, that’s pretty much exactly what happened to me. I switched back in during that odd, discordant middle eight, though – and then realised that I was supposed to be listening to the whole song. I still had trouble staying focused on it.

Tim: But you shouldn’t get distracted, because this is a song that really does deserve to be listened to properly. It’s that relaxing quality that’s one of the best things about it – It’s lovely, it’s charming, you can sit back and let it sink in to you and relax you, like some sort of aural drug. It’s delightful.

Tom: That’s true. Personally, I’d prefer something that would hold my attention a bit more, but to each their own.

Tim: Also, up until recently I’d have complained about the fade-out ending, as is my wont, but I met someone a few days ago who postulated that fade-out endings were good, because they come with a sense of “always leave them wanting more”.

Tom: How so?

Tim: He made the point that if a song just ends there’s a temptation for the listener to think “Right, that’s that,” whereas if it just fades out, there’s more of a desire to hit play all over again so it keeps going. Obviously if the song’s good enough you shouldn’t need that encouragement – here I wouldn’t – but I can at least appreciate one reason for them now, even if I do still think they’re a lazy way to finish.

Saturday Reject: Amanda Fondell – Dumb

It’s not hard to see why it came seventh.

Tim: This is good. Very good. But it’s not hard to see why it came seventh in its Melodifestivalen heat.

Tim: I spent at least the first ninety seconds, maybe even two minutes, of this trying to work out what was going on. Not that it’s particularly weird – it’s just so dark that it really just doesn’t seem right. The cracked mirrors, the spikes on her fingers, the expression on her face that’s a mix of deranged and psychopathic. The minor key, the underlying strings that come from a horror film soundtrack.

Tom: You know, I think I could really like this track if it wasn’t for that “dun-dun-dun-dun” in the chorus. That sticks out like a rusty upturned nail on a park bench. And perhaps that middle-eight, where she sounds a bit like a low-rent Bjork. The rest of the track’s cracking, though.

Tim: It’s not particularly surprising – this is, after all, the same singer who provided us with Bastard, wonderfully insulting but not remotely happy – but it sticks out emotionally so much that once you’ve zoned out to it and are able to appreciate it it’s pretty much finished. Technically that means it’s a good thing that it got knocked out, as it would probably bomb in Malmö, but it’s really a shame because it is a fantastic track that was just misplaced.

Agreed: that bell-filled final chorus is amazing, but it’d never take Eurovision.

Emerentia – Wasting Water

What a chorus that is.

Tim: This is super. A Swedish 18 year old’s debut track, and a very promising start.

Tim: Super, no?

Tom: My eyebrows raised in astonishment when that chorus kicked in. That sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m not.

Tim: I mean, really, what a chorus that is. I said a couple of days ago about that Line & Basim track that I could imagine singing along to that – well, that was nothing compared to this one. Especially in the final section, where she belting it out at the top of her voice, it’s hard not to join in: “I’ll find my way BAAACK AAAGAAIN, so NO MOOOOOORE wasting WAAAAATER”.

Tom: Early, long and good middle eight, steadily building into a properly triumphant final chorus. Well done.

Tim: Well, quite – it’s not just the chorus. To be honest, there’s not a lot that can be said against this track. It gets going quickly, the verses are short to make extra space for the chorus, and the second half of the middle eight is a fantastic “you know what’s coming, don’t you?” build. LOVE IT.

Tom: Unconditional thumbs-up from both of us are rare, but yep. Couldn’t agree more.

Little Boots – Motorway

If I say this starts out sounding a lot like Hurts…

Tom: First track from the new album. Yep, an actual album – she’s been all about EPs and singles since 2009.

If I say this starts out sounding a lot like Hurts, I worry that you’ll get your expectations too high. But it does, and that’s really good.

Tim: Hmm. It’s…nice. I suppose that’s a good thing, but I’m coming to this review having listened to that Demi Lovato track on repeat for roughly nineteen and a half billion times*, so I’m not sure I’m in the best mood to appreciate it.

* Apparently that equates to about 131 millennia, which sounds about right.

Tom: Crikey, you’re really not. That’s like trying to appreciate, say, Blade Runner after watching all the Die Hard movies back to back.

Tim: It is enjoyable though – I can certainly tell that much from the fact that I wasn’t bored by it even though it’s five minutes long.

Tom: Now, it probably goes on a verse or so too long; the bit in the middle drags more than it really should, and perhaps the last chorus could have a bit more to it. Or perhaps that’s the point: it’s not meant to be end on an oomph, it’s meant to be like, well, driving down a motorway. Either way, it’s bloody good.

Tim: Bloody good sums it up quite well. Though, alas, not quite ‘just pure amazingness’. DEMI!

Tom: There’s one technical point I’d like to make: have a look at the waveform for the track on the SoundCloud page. It’s not dialled to 100% all the time, not dynamically compressed to within an inch of its life. It’s got a bit of calm in it – and that’s a rare thing in pop these days.

Tim: ATTAA-AA-AA-AAAAAAAA-AAAAA-AAAACK.

Demi Lovato – Heart Attack

Three and a half minutes of just pure amazingness.

Tim: This is almost entirely amazing.

Tim: I say ‘almost entirely’, and I think we can all identify the one thing that’s pretty bad.

Tom: True, but then Demi Lovato is not the kind of artist you’d expect a key change from. Sadly.

Tim: Oh, well I don’t actually mind the lack of key change – the extraordinary “AT-AAAAAAA-AAAAAAYY-AAAAAAH” is more than enough for me. My issue was the line “I can play him like a Kindle”, but since I’ve just realised it’s “Ken doll” instead, I have no problems with the track whatsoever.

Tom: Ha. I heard the same thing, although I worked it out a bit quicker than you apparently did.

Tim: The whole thing seems to be three and a half minutes of just pure amazingness. GROO-OOH-OOH-OOOOO-OOOO-OOOOW. SHOO-OOH-OOH-OOOOO-OOOO-OOOOW. ATTAA-AA-AA-AAAAAAAA-AAAAA-AAAACK. FLAA-AAA-AAA-AAA-AAA-AAA-AAA-AAMES. AT-AAAAAAA-AAAAAAYY-AAAAAAH. ATTAA-AA-AA-AAAAAAAA-AAAAA-AAAACK.

What else is there to say?

Tom: Not much, which is probably for the best after you’ve belted all that out.

Tim: Don’t pretend you don’t want to join in.

Line & Basim – Brænder Inde

If I know Danish I would be properly singing along to this

Tim: Line and Basim, two contestants from Denmark’s X Factor in years gone by, and now teaming up to release a duet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mnYp2urI9c

Tim: If I know Danish I would be properly singing along to this, I can tell you. There’s something about the lovely almost orchestral backing to it that seems to give it (for me at least) a strange ‘get involved’ vibe to it, which I like.

Tom: That’s odd: it seemed almost cold to me, and certainly not a singalong track. Emotional, sure; but even if I knew the language I can’t see myself belting this one out in the shower.

Tim: It’s about how the singer loves the other person but knows there’s something wrong in the relationship – ‘Brænder Inde’ translates as ‘Burning Inside’, because that’s the pain that the knowledge is causing, you see – and it works well for that.

Tom: I’m agreed with you there, though. The tone is right – it just doesn’t, well, “grab” me.

Tim: Hmm, fair enough. There’s a nice mix of love and disappointment in there (not that I generally find love nice when it’s mixed with disappointment, mind, but here it’s nice), and it really seems to come out towards the end when they’re both singing together. I like this.

Truls – Out Of Yourself

I’m not sure they all mesh together as a whole.

Tim: New Norwegian pop here, and if you want your laptop to look somewhat sinister for three minutes, why not put this on full screen?

Tim: That was interesting, wasn’t it? I don’t have much to say about it, but I think it’s worth bringing to people’s attention because I really do rather like it.

Tom: There’s many good parts in that, although I’m not sure they all mesh together as a whole. The vocals could use being an octave or so lower, and perhaps, you know, actually sounding like words.

Tim: You think? Because there’s something about those high-pitched and almost unintelligible voice that works for me.

Tom: Each to their own, I suppose. The backing’s good, at least.

Tim: Indeed, and when you combine the vocals with that good backing track and a melody that sounds strangely optimistic, I like it a lot. Good stuff.