Tom: I’ve known a few people who’ve said “they like the Machine, but not Florence”: her vocals tend to polarise people. How well does she fit with Calvin Harris, then?
Slight warning here: while there’s no actual blood or nudity, this isn’t a comfortable video to watch.
Tim: Ooh, blimey.
Tom: Somehow, despite the video, this feels like an album track.
Tim: It does – there’s nothing to really get you going on it. No massive hook to remember, no big chorus to hang around afterwards.
Tom: I can’t say why: Florence Welch sounds like Florence Welch, Calvin Harris sounds like Calvin Harris, together the two of them should sound spectacular. Were my expectations too high?
Tim: I’ll going for something like: a good Calvin Harris track needs bigger vocals than this, a good Florence track needs slightly more traditional instruments. To me, this sounds more like a mash-up that doesn’t quite hit the spot.
Tom: Yes! That’s exactly it. It’s like someone’s taken the unmemorable verses from two tracks and mashed them together, rather than the choruses that everyone knows.
Beatles covers always give me a bit of trepidation.
Tim: Here Comes The Sun isn’t the most well-known or enduring of The Beatles’ songs, but it is the one Smith & Thell have chosen to cover to celebrate fifty years of said band.
Tom: Beatles covers always give me a bit of trepidation. Sure, there are tremendous ones, but for each of those there’s a dozen incompetent ones. They’re a difficult band to cover. And Here Comes The Sun isn’t too obscure, which puts it in a tricky position: it’s not become a “standard”, but enough people will be attached to the original.
And a house music Beatles cover? Colour me skeptical.
Tom: That would be so much better if it wasn’t a Beatles cover. I like it. It’s happy. It’s danceable. But my word, when you know the original, or even the wonderful version on the Love remix album … man, I’m all for cover versions, but they should try to better the original, not make it generic.
Tim: The problem for me is that this is a tune that is precisely six months too late/early. Because it’s so not an October tune, is it? Much like yesterday’s, it’s a summer dance anthemy type track. It’s very summery, and that’s the main thing I don’t like about it, because right now it’s cold and wet and grey and I have to go outside to go to work in a bit and I don’t want to leave my nice warm house.
Tom: I’m not so sure: “it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter” is a good line for that.
Tim: No, it’s a terrible line: it implies it’s finished, it’s gone, summer’s here to stay. But NO. NO IT ISN’T. It’s going to RAIN and RAIN and HAIL and DRIZZLE and be COLD and DAMP and MISERABLE. MOAN MOAN MOAN.
Tom: Get yourself a sun lamp, Tim. Blimey.
Tim: Okay, I took it too far, so HAPPY: aside from that, it’s great. Not entirely keen on the ending – it’s not just the suddenness, it’s that there’s no actual finish at all, almost like the power went out in the recording studio halfway through. Can we not have a slightly different final line, perhaps, or just some indication that it’s meant to finish here?
But still, my main complaint about this is the release date. And if that’s the worst thing about a track, then it’s a pretty good track.
Tom: The measure of a cover version, for me, is whether I turn it off and listen to the original. And here, I did. And that’s a shame.
A decent, feet off the floor, hands in the air dance tune.
Tim: Last week we had what could have been a great dance track; today, we have what is actually a great dance track.
Tom: It also sets a new record for how many syllables ‘tom-o-o-o-ah-ah-ro-o-o-ow’ can be pronounced as.
Tim: It has energy the Cielle track didn’t, it has no pacing issues, it sounds properly upbeat – this is a decent, feet off the floor, hands in the air dance tune. And I like it a lot.
Tom: It’s a bit quiet in the verses for a proper CHOON, but not enough to actually stop dancing. And you’re right: unlike Cielle, even the quiet bits still sound… well, fun, for want of a better word.
Tim: A bit of a shame that the main hook melody sounds like an Avicii rip-off, though since that was itself a sampling no-one can really complain, which is good, because I don’t want to.
Tom: It does say something about Avicii that just “a piano melody in the back of a dance tune” is enough to remind people of him. That’s a hell of a thing to have taken as your trademark.
Tim: It really is, and yet somehow he does. And that makes me want to DANCE, and with a beat like this and a voice like this I will have no problems doing so.
I recommend hitting ‘play’ and then just closing your eyes.
Tim: Like this, do you?
Tom: Yes, I know, I’m a Pink fan, I’m biased.
Tim: But not enough of a fan to write her name properly, I notice. HMMM?
Tom: If ridiculous name-styling gets in the way of writing things clearly, then I’ll happily get rid of it. Anyway, yes, the new album’s bloody amazing. And the best track off it, by a long way, is the Big Emotional Ballad. Oh, and it’s got a lyric video, but it’s much better without: I recommend hitting ‘play’ and then just closing your eyes.
Tim: Okay, I didn’t close my eyes. And I noticed the weirdest thing ever. Well, not ever, obviously, but it’s bloody odd: the apostrophes in the “you’re” and “we’re” at 2:33 and 3:40 are far too high, unlike any of the others. Anyway, music.
Tom: “We’re not broken, just bent, and we can learn to love again.” Isn’t that gorgeous?
Tim: Yes, it is. Can’t disagree with you there.
Tom: The male voice is Nate Ruess – and if he sounds familiar, it’s because he’s better known as the lead singer of Fun.
Tim: AGAIN with the names, blimey – it’s written as fun., please.
Tom: That’s still bloody ridiculous. It’s a little odd that he’s singing in mostly the same vocal range as Pink, but once that oddity slides by, this is just a beautiful track. Piano and drumkit, simple melodies, simple chorus.
Tim: You know, I think we had pretty much exactly the same thoughts going on whilst listening to that song. It’s a lovely song.
Tom: I’m a sucker for Big Emotional Ballads, if they’re done well – and for me, at least, this track made me pause the album for a while to (metaphorically at least) get my breath back.
Tim: And it almost made me not want to be annoying with my name-pedantry up there. Almost.
Tom: It’s a new Robbie single, from a new album, backed up by some surprise gigs booked for the O2 next month. Yep, he’s still big enough that he can sell out the O2 on short notice – and, apparently, big enough that I can refer to him just by his first name there.
Tim: On Saturday, a song with a list of ways to be killed. Today, a video with a collection of ways to commit suicide. What an uplifting site this is turning into.
Tom: Now, the last big single – excepting the one with Gary Barlow – was “Bodies”, which was a grower. I hated it the first time I heard it, and now it gets stuck in my head. Out of deference to that, I listened to this a couple more times before writing this. And my opinion is this: it’s a song built around a chorus.
Tim: Okay…
Tom: The verses are awful. He rhymes “roses” with “roses” at one point. The middle eight is uninspired. The video is incomprehensible, high-budget nonsense. But that chorus is absolutely brilliant, and perfect for him: it’s catchy, it’s danceable, and it’ll be a big hit live.
Tim: Hmm. I can agree with most of that, though I wouldn’t say awful for the verses – yes, the roses bit is a low point but the rest is okay, and they’ve a decent tune which resonates nicely with the chorus. Your main point, thought: yes, absolutely.
Tom: It also suffers the curse of Robbie, which can be summed up in three words: “It’s no ‘Angels’.”
How do you make a mariachi band sound good in a pop song?
Tom: A David Hasselhoff cameo in the video may sound promising—
Tim: Nope.
Tom: Yep, fair point. But don’t worry, because the mariachi band is so much better.
Tim: That was BRILLIANT.
Tom: Wasn’t it just? I mean, how do you make a mariachi band and Spanish guitar sound good in a pop song? And how can it be so damn catchy? Well, I’ve got an explanation: it’s been assembled from parts of many, many other songs.
Tim: Well…
Tom: The verse is a Latin version of “Phantom of the Opera”. The pre-chorus line is from the same musical – the patter bit of “Masquerade” (“The toast of all city, what a pity…”) The chorus is a bit of the Vandals’ “My Girlfriend’s Dead” crossed with another song that I can’t quite place now. The horn section is straight out of “I Will Survive”. They’ve all been changed, of course – there’s still some composing in there – but it does sound bolted-together.
Tim: Right, I’m in two minds, here. I agree with you about the Phantom link, which is almost as blatant as Alphabeat was with The Who, and quite how it could be there without being deliberate is beyond me. The “I Will Survive” link is pretty much there, and the song you can’t place is Girl All The Bad Guys Want.
Tom: Ha! I even saw Bowling for Soup once live – they’re a band that clearly enjoys themselves on stage – and I still didn’t place that.
Tim: However, I want to disagree about the Vandals link. Yes, it is exactly the same idea, but the logic makes me think of everything that annoys me about that Everything Is A Remix thing, where he reckons that just about every scene in every film has been stolen.
The thing is, for any given scene, there are only a limited number of ways to frame it; with seventy years of film-making previously, of course someone’s going to have done it before. That doesn’t make it copying, it makes it an inevitable coincidence, and it’s quite possibly the same here.
Sure, maybe they did think “That’s a cool theme for a song – we should do that and hope no-one notices,” and I won’t deny it’s a possibility, but maybe it’s just two songs out of almost a century of pop music that share a somewhat unusual theme. To be honest, I’d be astounded if there were only two.
Tom: Fair point – and it would have been my default theory if it wasn’t for all the other, er, homages throughout the track.
I still like it, though. I like it a lot.
Tim: Good, because I reckon it’s great. What’s particularly good is that he’s done that thing comedy songwriters have to do (which The Vandals didn’t do), which is rewrite the chorus each time so it’s still fun.
Tom: Which, considering it’s the same Train that did the definitely-not-comedy “Drops of Jupiter” ten years ago, is quite a good thing.
Tim: Yeah, and sure, he could have just stuck with the quicksand, the shark and the sunbed, which would have been perfectly acceptable, but instead he put a bit more in and added a lion, a mudslide and a hot tub. Would have been even better if he’d done it at the end as well, but it’s still a handsome list. It’s a good tune (original or otherwise), it’s got a whole lot of energy to it and it’s exactly what I want to hear (although I’d prefer it if the lyrics reflected the video with the car one – ‘got decapitated by a purple Scion’ would be so much better).
Tom: Incidentally, who fills a cement mixer full of quicksand?
Tim: But somehow, it just misses the mark, and I don’t really know why.
Tom: I think it’s her voice. Which sounds harsh, but… I think it’s her voice.
Tim: You reckon? Because pulling it apart, it’s got everything it needs – a lively (but not overly so) beat beneath the verses, a better melody for the choruses, decent singing going pleasingly over the top in the chorus, and a nice bit to go after the chorus. But somehow it seems lacking.
Tom: It doesn’t help that the song is (I think) in a minor key – which automatically sounds sad. Apologies to any musical readers – I’m simplifying it massively. Add to the fact that she’s, well, a bit off-key… and even the most powerful voice and tuneful melody won’t help.
Tim: True. I also think it’s a bit too stretched out – they’re taking four minutes to do what could be done in a three minute song. It’s let down by the padding they’ve got between the choruses – it’s nice, but I don’t think it’s enough to hold the song together.
Tom: It’s not, which is a shame: like you say, it could be a great dance track.
Tim: This is about a year old, and flipping brilliant. And that’s all the intro you’ll need.
Tom: Well, that was a bit good. Is there a sudden trend for retro, 80s-style pop? Because I’m liking it.
Tim: Good. And while you’re still reeling from it, let me introduce St. Lucia. He started out in South Africa, moved to London for a bit before heading off to New York, where he now spends his time coming out with fantastic pieces of music like this. The thing about it is that it’s very very simple: there are a couple of tiny verses, but it’s mostly about the chorus, lengthy and fairly repetitive (especially once it’s been repeated twice without a break towards the end). But I love that repetition, because what a tune this is. I don’t know what it is – the rhythm, the notes, maybe both – but that chorus strikes me as almost perfect.
Tom: Perhaps it wasn’t quite that perfect for me, because I could have stood for a bit less repetition: but the middle eight saved it for me, and the last chorus paid off nicely.
Tim: The instrumentation beneath it is lovely as well – the closing part is wonderful, and while the sax break in the middle seems a bit out of place (at least if you’re not watching the video, where it seems oddly appropriate), when the piano hits (or when the camera pans back) you get a glorious thirty second build-up to the re-entry. However great the music is, though, it’s the chorus that gets me. It’s just brilliant.
Tom: You know, I don’t have much to add to that. It’s ace.
Tim: Last year’s C’est Cool got into the top 10 in Denmark and Sweden; previous to that, there have been no top twenty hits anywhere (Saturday Night remakes aside) since 1996. Is this the second step back to greatness, or was that merely a blip on an otherwise uninteresting radar?
Tom: Oh, now that’s a foot-tapper. I mean that literally, in that my foot started tapping to it.
Tim: As did mine. I also started bouncing on my chair gently.
Tom: That’s a really pleasant song. I suspect it’s one that’ll get annoying with repeat viewings rather than better, but hell: I’d dance to it.
Tim: Absolutely – it’s certainly a jaunty number. There’s excellent use of harpsichord throughout – perhaps too much, actually, because, at almost a full half-minute, the repetitive bit in the middle is (for me) at least fifteen seconds too long.
Tom: You are so wrong about that. It’s exactly the right length. It’s a brilliant bit of arpeggiation.
Tim: I beg your pardon?
Tom: Yeah, I said arpeggiation. Get me.
Tim: Well, good or bad as that may be, I’m hard-pressed to find much else to dislike about this – it’s bouncy, it’s friendly and it’s got a lovely ‘nice day out, fun for all the family’ vibe to it.
Tom: The lyrics are pap, and the middle eight’s not much to write home about – those hissing hi-hat taps are grating – but those are minor gripes, and seems wrong to mention them when the song’s so lovely.
Tim: It does, realy, although I would add my two: first, the line two minutes in, which until I found a lyric site confirming that it’s actually “you’re the one by faaaaar. Keep…”, I was convinced was the less than family friendly “you’re the one I [erm, thing]”, which really wouldn’t have sat right.
Tom: And now I can’t hear anything else. Thanks for that.
Tim: Then there’s the fact that this doesn’t have an incredibly famous dance to it that fifteen years from now I can ruthlessly mock you for never knowing about.
Tim: The newest single off their album, The Lion’s Roar, likely chosen because people are appreciating it on their tour and it’s the best-selling song off the album on iTunes.
Tom: Which is interesting, given it wasn’t even on the original printing of the album. Not that such things count for much nowadays.
Tim: Isn’t that lovely? I can see why it’s a live favourite – the enthusiastic instrumentation, the excited pre-chorus and then the hey, hey chorus that the entire crowd can sing along with. The vocals are like those in the last single of theirs we reviewed, Emmylou (although we’ve since missed a couple out), and are just as lovely and soulful as they were back then.
Tom: The singer’s really rather good at the “cry break”: that vocal trick where, in songs about longing or sorrow, the note seems to crack, only to switch to a different note instead. It’s not heard much outside country and western – which this almost sounds like – but it fits very well.
Tim: I’m not really sure what the lyrics are all about, but whatever they are I’m sure everything matches together well enough.
Tom: I was about to call you out on not doing the research, but then I looked up the lyrics and realised I couldn’t work them out either.
Tim: The voices and the instruments certainly work well together, and so I’m happy with this. So happy with it that I decided to get the album, and was delighted to find out it’s only a fiver. Lovely.
