I’m reminded slightly of Florence and the Machine.
Tim: Alumnus of Sweden’s The Voice, this is Nicole’s second single and comes with quite an aggressive tone.
Tim: I’m reminded slightly of Florence and the Machine – a voice that some people won’t like, a fair amount of ‘authentic’ instrumentation and a lack of much in the way of positive feelings.
Tom: Someone I knew once declared that while he liked The Machine, he couldn’t bloody stand Florence. Now I’m not in that group – and I think the vocals here work very well – but I can see why she polarises people.
Tim: That’s not a bad thing – it’s very competent, with a hook that I had running through my head for most of yesterday.
Tom: It’s one of those drastically simple hooks that sticks in your head. And while “competent” might seem to be a bit of an insult, it’s not: I can’t see this being on my regular playlist, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with it.
Tim: I’m not so sure about the video – while the lyrics go “conquer or suffer”, we have an image of the singer seemingly running away from something, which would imply she’s given given up on the first option. Oh well, LONG LIVE THE SUFFERING!
Tom: You’ll remember the Vengaboys’ suitably ridiculous Kiss, of course.
Tim: I do, yes. It’s about a minute longer than it needs to be, but it’s a good track.
Tom: It’s a good, cheesy pop track in itself. But I offer this remix for two reasons: first, to show just how much a track can be changed and still count as a remix; and second, because it’s some of the best euphoric trance I’ve ever heard.
Tim: That’s a remix? Really?
Tom: Now bear in mind it’s a seven-minute track meant to go inside a DJ set – I don’t want you shouting “it should be three minutes long” at me.
Tim: Absolutely not – I’m more than happy for dance tracks to be lengthy, especially if they’re as good as this.
Tom: The funny thing is, I’m normally quite good at tracking songs that sound like each other – and while, yes, you can fit the chorus of “Kiss” over the top of the main melody here, most of this seems to be original material.
Tim: Well, to be honest I’m not sure I can hear any of it in there. You’re right, you can put the chorus on top, but I’d imagine that sounding more like a mash up than anything else.
Tom: Not that I’m complaining: it’s really good original material.
Let’s analyse quite how this was both the funniest and most awful thing on TV.
Tim: It’s Danny from The Voice, rapping!
Tom: Oh, blimey. I think you’d get more support if you said “It’s chlamydia!”.
Tim: You say that, and you’re probably right – the studio version’s fairly terrible; discussing that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun, though, as discussing last Friday’s live performance with Graham Norton, which can safely be described as horrifically terrible..
Tim: Now, let’s analyse quite how this was both the funniest and most awful thing on TV that week. Sure, there’s his ‘rapping’, whose agressive tone really, really doesn’t work with the nice guy image he worked up on The Voice.
Tom: At some point he turns into his own hype man too, as his guitarist takes over lead vocal duties, and he’s rejected to… well, dancer?
Tim: Well, exactly. Mostly it’s the, well, choreography, if you can call it that, because what a train wreck that was. Right from the start we have a dilemma in his mind: “should I use my arms as props and demo objects? Or should I wave them around to demonstrate emotion? Oh, bollocks, I’ve pretended I’ve got a tattoo now, so I’ll have to keep going with that, except there’s nothing in the rest of the song that really works like that. Can I grab the mike like I normally do? No, that’ll be obvious that I was unprepared. Well, I guess it’d better be emotion then. Let’s make it INTENSE. Oh, and here’s the chorus, phew! I can be a proper singer and hold the microphone. Hmm. Arms seem to have a habit of waving now; that’ll wear off, though.”
Tom: Hang on, readers, Tim’s off on one.
Tim: “Right, second verse, this isn’t me, I can stand back and relax. Aah, this is nice. OH SHIT, I’m the lead singer, of course I can’t bloody relax! What was I thinking?! Oh GOD, this is awful. Right, let’s just stand here and repeat some of the words for a bit, see if I can string that out. Yep, we’re okay. Although is this a bit dull? Erm, maybe I can wave a bit, and CLAPPING. That works! Right, still dull, I need to do something. I know, I’ll walk around a bit. Check on the drummer, how’s he do— yep, you’re fine. Bass guitar? Also good. Bit more clapping, then. Aaaand, here’s the chorus, made it. Jesus Christ, why did I ever do this. Oh GOD, and now my arms have got a life of their own, I CAN’T STOP THEM WAVING. HELP ME.”
Ladies and gentlemen, that was guest writer Danny from The Voice.
Tom: Our regular reader, Roger, writes in with this contender to represent Finland at Eurovision, which last Thursday got sent straight through to their final. “I actually was in Finland when they aired their first preshow,” he says. “This made me lift may head and smile… you can see the same reaction from the jury”.
Now, maybe it’s just my crippling fear of commitment rearing its head, but my general reaction to this track was NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.
Tom: The track’s not bad, I guess, but oh my word, the lyrics. I can’t even write about them without my sentences ending with something like BACK UP BACK UP BACK UP GET OUT GET OUT.
Tim: In the chorus…what’s she singing in that repeating bit? The line after it is clearly “I’d do it for you”, but it really really sounds like something else.
Tom: I don’t know, because I’m too terrified by “If you run away, I’m going to find you anywhere.” EJECT EJECT EJECT.
Tim: That’s your main beef? Not “ah oh, ah oh uh ding dong”?
Tom: That doesn’t have terrifying, wedding-dress-wearing stalking overtones.
Tim: Fair point, and now you mention that line, the suggestion of doubt that it implies doesn’t quite match with proposing to her boyfriend whilst wearing her wedding dress. WHO DOES THAT?
Tim: Eurovision selection is already well underway, and we’ll probably start throwing around our annual choice of Saturday Rejects soon, but first off let’s have a listen to this intriguing cover of 2012’s winner.
Tom: Blimey. I did not expect most of an orchestra to appear there.
Tim: Interesting, isn’t it? Nica (not her real name) is Polish, Joe (his real name) is American, and together they came third in German X Factor 2011, and are competing to represent Germany in Malmö. They’ve got a couple of albums out (Spotify), largely consisting of operatic versions of popular tracks.
Tom: It’s always tricky doing something like this: if you don’t get the tone exactly right, you end up doing by accident what Max Raabe did deliberately. The only part of this that doesn’t really work, though, is the “up-up-up”; the stuttering would probably work better as one long, held note.
Tim: I don’t know, I think it works. Other highlights include an Il Divo-esque version of There You’ll Be and a rather rather fantastic cover of David Guetta’s Titanium, but I’ve chosen this one because (a) it’s the only one on YouTube, (b) it’s Eurovision and (c) I wish to express my disappointment that one of them didn’t sit back and let the other do this as a solo, because then we could have called it a Eupharia.
Tim: You’ll remember (I hope) that yesterday we featured Darin’s new single, Playing With Fire. This, though, is a different new single, targeted squarely away from Scandinavia, by which I mean it’s being released in Germany, and isn’t even on his new album for any Scandinavian people. Weird, yes, but there you go.
Tom: Advance warning: this isn’t the best quality single, and it cuts off a bit too early – but it’s all we’ve got right now.
Tim: So, as far as northern Europe is concerned, Darin has moved to being a bit darker and drum’n’bassier. For everyone else, though, he’s staying firmly put in the pop bracket. And I’ll be honest: I prefer this a lot.
Tom: Damn right. The dark drum-and-bass didn’t fit him well – this is some damn good pop. What’s your reasoning?
Tim: Mainly because it sounds like a textbook good One Direction single, which we all know I’m not remotely averse to – the opening is in fact remarkably similar to Live While We’re Young, but that’s by no means a bad thing (especially since it means it’s got guitars).
Tom: Let the guitars go, Tim.
Tim: Oh, fine. Quite why we’ve got this strange genre-split is beyond me—if you’re branching out, why go with a sound that isn’t you?—but I’d rather have one track I really liked and one track I’m half and half with than just the latter, so let’s hope this does well. Although if we could have a decent version online at some point rather than a horribly compressed fan upload, that’d be nice, and also get rid of the fade-out ending. THANK YOU.
Tom: As I listened to the first verse of this, I wrote this opening line: “Calvin Harris needs to get himself a new synth patch.”
Tom: …and then the proper chorus kicked in. Not the pump-up “We live, we die” pre-pre-chorus, not the downbeat pre-chorus, but the actual full-on Calvin Harris jump-up-and-dance chorus, and I figured that maybe he can keep using his usual one for a bit longer yet.
Tim: Pre-pre-what now? Get your terminology right, boy: a chorus is strictly vocal; the hook you are discussing is in fact the post-chorus. Dearie me.
Tom: Can I just call it the “good bit”?
Tim: Oh, I suppose so. But you’re right – could be varied, but it’s actually pretty good anyway.
Tom: Yes. The chorus on this is brilliant, and here’s the thing – I’m not sure it’d seem quite as good if it didn’t have those lacklustre verses to compare it with.
Tim: Lacklustre in musical or lyrical sense? Because I think they should get points for grouping together Cyndi Lauper, Lady GaGa and Blondie. Once you throw in Danny DeVito you’re pretty much begging for a Brit Award for the most peculiar cultural references in a song.
Tim: The second single off the upcoming album Heartthrob, this is a tad quieter than Closer, but, I think you’ll agree, none the worse for it.
Tom: Years and years ago, the local radio breakfast show where I lived had a jingle they’d play sometimes: “And now, a song with a long twinkly piano intro!” I’m not sure why that came back to me. Perhaps it’s because this intro is particularly twinkly.
Tim: It is, and right from there you know you’re in for a gentle ride, and for the verses at least that’s true. The chorus dials things up a notch, though, and has a great rhythm and vibe to it that’s really quite something.
Tom: It didn’t come together for me until the middle eight, but when it did – yes. This’ll do nicely.
Tim: Not keen on the ending – while the chorus line is lovely at the start, repeated over and over to fade doesn’t quite work so well for me.
Tom: Yep, I’d agree with that. Repeat to fade seems to be making a comeback recently, usually with an extra bit of instrumentation shoved in there; I wish it’d go away again.
Tim: Still, it’s a lovely number, and one that’s got me looking forward to the album, as has another track they stuck on the internet last week.
Tim: Yes, we did a Frida Sundemo track just a few days ago. But this is off the same released-in-March EP, quite a bit better than Indigo, and (to top it all) somewhat topical. What fun.
Tom: That’s a builder and no mistake. What a difference from a few days ago.
Tim: Absolutely – the video is not disturbing, the lyrics are not nonsensical, and even better than that, it does more than just squat. Instead, it gets up and does stuff. Not too much, obviously – it’s meant to be a sad song about not enjoying being alone.
Tom: There are parts where that comes through a little too strongly – that glitchy, repeating part at the end of the chorus grates badly for me – but the rest of the chorus is so good that I can’t really complain.
Tim: Good. And despite the song’s sadness, it makes a very good job of dancing around at times, building snowmen, and in the quieter moments you can imagine it lying down to making angel shapes.
Tom: I think this metaphor might be getting away from you.
Tim: And yet I shall persist. It might not want to be outside at all – it would probably rather be inside, being given a mug of hot chocolate from its more upbeat friends, but while it’s out there it’s damn sure it’s going to make the best of a situation that’s almost as bad as, I suppose I should agree, this metaphor has become.
Tm: So last week was pretty much the week that music came back in its entirety. First there was Bowie, then Justin Timberlake, and then Destiny’s Child. Cascada put out a track she’s hoping to represent Germany with, of which we’ll naturally have more in due course. And then, to close the week, there was this.
Tom: My word, that’s lovely. And it sounds, well, exactly like Dido used to. Like Bowie’s comeback, this could easily have been a track from Dido’s glory years.
Tim: Of course, since you’re launching on a Friday evening, you’ll want it to be a track to get people ready for the weekend, a big dance ban– no? Oh, fair enough then. But this is Dido, doing what she does best. And it’s…well, it’s alright.
Tom: I absolutely loved this on first listen – particularly when combined with the odd, ephemal-Americana video – but I suspect this may be one of those tracks that I grow to dislike the more I hear it.
Tim: You think? For me it was…okay, and then kept being okay. I was joking about the dance-ness of it (believe it or not), but I still wouldn’t mind something with a little more impact. You know, something like Hunter or White Flag – great tracks with energy, a drumbeat, something you can really get into.
Tom: See, I really got into this – but then I managed to predict the rest of the chorus based on the first line, and even air-drummed along with a drum fill that I didn’t know was coming. It’s very nice on first listen because it sounds so familiar, but it’s also so trite that I don’t really want to hear it again.
Tim: Hmm, fair enough. And don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s bad – it’s tranquil and lovely – and I don’t dislike it at all. It’s just, it’s the sort of Dido track that may well be improved by having an angry white rapper on top of it, and that’s not the style that I’d want to come back with.
