Author: Tim

Alesso feat. Michael Koma – Years

Piano dance has been huge this year, but it’s rarely been done this well.

Tim: I woke up to this last Thursday, and I thought it was great so I scribbled it down to listen to later. Then I remembered that I did the same thing with the latest JLS song, and realised I might be letting myself in for a fall. And then I listened to it and found there was nothing to worry about whatsoever. (But feel free to skip the first 30 seconds, and everything after 3:30.)

Tim: Piano dance has been huge this year – occasionally overly so – but it’s rarely been done this well. So often it’s seemed like producers thought, “Hey, that’s a decent synth line, let’s put a piano on it because everyone else is doing that,” but here it seems different – more like the piano has set the way and then everything else has been built around it. It’s a lovely melody that we hear on its own to start with, and then the pounding stuff happens, but then when the vocal comes in you realise “oh, so that’s what they were doing”, and I like that a lot.

Tom: It’s not entirely led by the piano either, which helps.

Tim: True – they’re not afraid to drop that a bit and let the synths carry the weight. But since I think I’m in danger of romanticising this a bit too much and becoming overly eloquent, I’ll move to say that the heavy pounding stuff on it is RIGHT GOOD and BANGING and AMAZING.

Tom: Can’t disagree with that.

Tim: The nerdy part of me also appreciates that it’s set at 128bpm, because it means if part of it ever does get boring we can relax in the knowledge that at every thirty second mark precisely something different will come along.*

*On a tangent, if you ever want to spoil your enjoyment of a fantastic dance track, I recommend counting the beats in Rank 1’s Airwave. Like clockwork, every 32 beats it shifts slightly, or something interesting happens, and every 64 it switches direction. The most literally formulaic track ever.)

Tom: Ha! You’re right – that’s exactly on the 30 second mark, each time. It’s as if they were writing music for schools TV.

Niki & The Dove – Love To The Test

Are those sound effects?

Tim: As mentioned in January, shortlisted for the BBC’s Sound of 2012 poll, and, as appropriate and predicted, having been paid virtually no attention since. They have, however, still been putting out tunes, such as this, the new single from their album Instinct.

Tim: If you can overlook the dodgy compression issues, this is a pretty good track.

Tom: That’s a very 80s sound – not a complaint! – although I’m not sure about her Gwen Stefani-like vocals.

Tim: The voice, yes, is as potentially off-putting as ever, but let’s be fair, there’s not a lot they can do about that. What they can do things about is the music, and there they’ve done very good things indeed.

Tom: Agreed. There’s some complex synth work there, some unexpected Big Percussion, and… are those sound effects? I’m not sure.

Tim: I think so – I mean there’s a veritable mish-mash of things going on in there, including lots of bass, some brassy stuff, a glockenspiel and what sounds like a sword fight, and I think it’s brilliant. The verses sound good to start with, but then the chorus comes along and you realise that they were actually pretty boring, and that’s a good sign in any song.

Tom: They’ve even got the repeat-to-fade at the end. I think I have a soft spot for 80s-revival tracks.

Tim: It’s a shame the BBC seems to ignore its own awards, because these guys really have the potential to break out, if only they were given radio airplay instead of being roundly ignored. Sad, really, but I guess that’s the music industry.

Amelia Lily – Shut Up (And Give Me Whatever You Got)

Wow, what a BANGER it is.

Tim: There are parts of this that I can’t help feeling were written purely to satisfy the producers of this video.

Tim: I’M DYINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG.

Tom: Pedantry: It should be “DYIIIIIIING”, but yes, that’s a nice technique they’re using.

Tim: And the sound’ll do nicely, although if I’m honest that does get a bit tedious and annoying towards the end (the sung bit, that is). But that’s my only real criticism of the track, because wow what a BANGER it is.

Tom: Oh good – from your starting sentence, I thought you disliked it, and I was gearing up to disagree with you vehemently. This track pretty much demands that everyone get to the dance floor immediately.

Tim: It is LOUD, it is ANGRY, and, yes, it DEMANDS your attention, whether as a listener or as a crap boyfriend. I like that in a song, so good work Amelia, and everyone else involved because let’s be honest all she probably did was pretty much turn up and do what she was told.

Tom: Harsh, but probably true. Cracking track, though.

Numera! – Varför Gör Du Det Med Honom

Speedy Swedish rap. Let’s do this.

Tim: Speedy Swedish rap. Let’s do this.

Tim: My brain has trouble processing this as rapping.

Tom: It’s doing the same thing that Example did in his earlier tracks – the cadence and meter suggest rapping, but it’s fully voiced and definitely has a pitch.

Tim: That’s partly it, yes, but it’s also because I’ve haven’t a clue what they’re on about (aside from the title meaning “Why Do You Do It With Him”) – my basic Swedish is nowhere near the level required to translate this.

Tom: Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t your basic Swedish about the level required to ask for a beer?

Tim: Not just that – I can ask for a vodka and coke as well. But regardless of my linguistic capabilities, it’s so quick that I had to listen to it a few times before I could even discern where the verses stop and where the chorus begins, and part of me feels I’m not quite capable of reviewing this to the extent that it deserves. I do like it, though, somewhat for the musical bits that are present, but mostly because I know I could dance very enthusiastically to it if it came on in a club.

Tom: In the end, for music like this, that’s what counts.

Tim: SORTED.

McFly – Love Is Easy

The word you’re looking for is “twee”

Tim: Here’s a video that will appeal to ukulele fans and ornithologists alike. And that’s not a sentence I ever imagined myself writing.

Tom: Man, even I can’t come up with a ukulele-ornithology pun.

Tim: And what a lovely track that is. Gentle, reassuring, calming, friendly and above all happy. I’m not sure, in fact, if it’s possible to do a downbeat track that’s backed by a ukulele – they seem to have an in-built jauntiness factor that’s somewhat infectious, and in this instance it seems to have infected my very soul. MY SOUL, I tell you. And I like that in a song, because now I can think back to that “do. do. do do doo do do do. etc.” and be happy all day.

Tom: The word you’re looking for is “twee” – and if it were relentless, it’d be too much. That birdsong-whistling, for example, nearly pushed it over the edge – but then the guitars and drums kick back in, and it’s a proper McFly song again. That last chorus is gorgeous.

Tim: Nice video as well – them all in suits spinning umbrellas in an old concert hall, lack of any real special effects or anything, bringing out a slightly old-fashioned vibe that does nothing whatsoever to take away from the jauntiness of the song.

Tom: Since when was “the bonus track on a Best Of” meant to be this good?

Tim: I don’t know, but both this and the recent Girls Aloud track seem to be setting the bar quite high. It’s lovely all round, really.

Parralox – Sharper Than A Knife

This lyric video is critically acclaimed

Tim: According to this duo’s PR people this lyric video is critically acclaimed, so I suppose we really ought to watch it. (Much as part of me wants to make fun of that, it is true, and the video is really quite inventive.)

Tom: It’s easy to make a lyric video – but so difficult to make a good lyric video.

Tim: These guys are from Australia, so this comes back more from my current enjoyment of electropop than europop or anything, but I don’t care because I think this is great.

Tom: It is – and look out for some more Australian tracks appearing here in the next few weeks, as I’m on holiday down under for most of November. Particularly if they’re as good as this.

Tim: The vocals are pretty good and the backing track is excellent, and really that’s all I have to say about this. Mainly because I’m too busy listening to it.

Eric Saade – Miss Unknown

It’s so middle-of-the-road, almost generic.

Tim: Yesterday’s was a disappointment; let’s see what today’s brings. But I’ll warn you: while that official lyric video was vaguely creative, today’s one, while still official, has made the typical 14-year-old fan’s error of prioritising fitting in as many LiveText transitions as possible over even basic proofreading.

Tom: Oh, man. I’m no professional designer, but that is bloody awful there. So many errors, so many bizarre choices. (An electricity pylon? Really?)

Tim: Fortunately, though, that lyric video doesn’t put me off it all that much; unfortunately, the music does a good enough job of doing it that the video’s become somewhat irrelevant.

Tom: I find it difficult to write anything about it. It’s so middle-of-the-road, almost generic: for someone who’s put out cracking tracks before, this is just meh.

Tim: It is – it’s just dull. I don’t know if I was expecting too much, both from this and yesterday’s, but this barely sounds special enough for an album track. There’s still a bunkload of autotune on there, though at least not quite so much; the multitude of ‘eh-eh-eh-eh-eh-etc’ towards the end of the chorus are only vaguely less irritating that INJU5TICE’s ‘eh-oh-oh’s; it fades out without anything special happening towards the end; the lyrics are massively banal; anything else I’ve missed?

Tom: I don’t think there’s anything else there to miss.

Eric Saade – Marching (In The Name Of Love)

OH GOD THE AUTOTUNE.

Tim: Two new songs from Eric Saade dropped last week.

Tom: Well, pick them up then.

Tim: Very well, I shall. Let’s start with this one, and we’ll get to the other tomorrow. Sound good?

Tom: Crikey, that’s a long build. 90 seconds of lead-in to a not-particularly-heavy beat that doesn’t last all that long. It’s almost begging for some kind of dubstep remix, particularly with that much autotune on it.

Tim: Oh, the autotune. OH GOD THE AUTOTUNE. Why? He’s a very competent singer, he doesn’t need it for that. It can’t be to sound current, because that phase seems to have finally (and thankfully) died out. It’s just horrible, and I don’t understand why.

Tom: Maybe it just wasn’t that interesting without it? It almost sounds like a track from a soundtrack album: it’s trying to be all uplifting and euphoric, but it just seems like it’s trying too hard.

Tim: And as for the rest, it’s, well, alright – it’s a decent chorus (though the intro to it does get uncomfortably close to having a Flo Rida-esque “look at me, I’m so brilliant” vibe) and a nice dance bit following it. I just wish it didn’t sound quite so 2009.

JLS – Hottest Girl In The World

Oh, no, let’s not listen to this, it’s awful.

Tim: Oh, no, let’s not listen to this, it’s awful.

Tom: Too late, Tim, this train is a-rollin’! They’re back. And… what the hell are they up to?

Tim: I don’t know, but it’s rubbish, so can’t we do something else?

Tim: You see? Told you.

Tom: Are they ripping off “Boyfriend” by Justin Bieber? ‘Cos let me tell you: that’s not the best thing to rip off.

Tim: No, it isn’t, though it strikes me more like NSync’s “Girlfriend”, though that’s not much better.

Tom: And what on earth is that “Bla! Bo-de-oh-la!” in the background?

Tim: Awful? Crap? Dire? They’re all what it is.

Tom: And – more than that – what’s with the sudden (surprisingly melodic) bridge, ruined by positively infantile lyrics?

Tim: I don’t know, I really don’t like this, and not even in an entertaining way. Can I go now?

Tom: I really have no more coherent response than “what”.

Saturday Flashback: Of Monsters and Men – Little Talk

Well, that’s just lovely.

Tim: The video you’re about to see bears very little relation to the song whatsoever, but both it and the song are bloody brilliant.

Tom: Well, that’s just lovely.

Tim: Isn’t it just? I say ‘very little’ because there’s sort of a slight link – the female voice in the song is singing about being scared and uncertain about things, and the male voice is reassuring her, which I suppose could be tenuously linked to the band being scared and the fairy thing guiding and defending them on their mystical and utterly something journey. (I’m not sure what word I want to put there, but it should definitely be preceded by utterly.)

Tom: Someone spent a lot of money animating that video, and it’s clearly paid off.

Tim: It really has. And let’s not gloss over: TRUMPETS! Isn’t that a fantastic melody? Combined with the voices, the shouts of ‘hey!’ and other standard instruments behind the rest of the sining, this song is absolutely marvellous, and I can’t believe I’ve only just found out about it.

Tom: Surprised me as well – particularly with the view count on that video being over of 25 million. I feel like I should have heard it before.

Tim: It first got released in Iceland (and then worldwide) over a year ago, although it was only this summer that it got picked up by Radio 1 and subsequently charted at number 12.

Tom: It’s got that kind of “popular at Glastonbury” vibe about it – it’s never going to be the massive, chart-topping, commercial success, but it’ll bubble under quite nicely and be happy there.

Tim: Their second single, Mountain Sound, was released last month and is starting to get airplay over here; it’s definitely worth a listen, but it’s (a) not quite as good as this and (b) so far lacking a video that’s quite so utterly.