Tim: “My name is Nova Delai, and these are my boobies”
Tom: And skirt. There’s a lot of skirt in there.
Tim: The thing is, they were probably trying to make some sort of point with that video gimmick, maybe like how it could be any woman in her position, wondering whether to leave her boyfriend or not, but how on Earth did no-one spot that all they were doing was filming her breasts?
Tom: Now, there’s a whole discussion to be had there on whether a torso shot – and a particularly chaste torso shot at that – counts as ‘filming her breasts’, but if YouTube comments are anything to go by, then that’s all that anyone’s noticed.
Tim: It is entirely distracting from what is actually a pretty good song.
Tom: It’s not my cup of tea really, but I’m not sure why – decent melody, decent percussion, ticks all the boxes for a decent song… but somehow it didn’t grab me. Can’t explain why.
Tim: Fair enough. And at least this ‘should I leave him?’ video doesn’t feature a beach party.
Tom: AMELIA! LILY! Sorry, whenever we get an X Factor single come along, I get Peter Dickson’s voice doing the announcing in my head.
Tim: Hmm, for me it’s just the interesting ones that stick out – FRANKIE COCOZZA! SOPHIE HABIBIS! RACHEL ADEJEJI! Anyway, just to warn you, the upcoming video is as predictable and boring as they come, it bears little to no resemblance to what the song’s about and if we’re honest probably wasn’t worth the effort.
Tom: “Road trip in America? That worked for Bromance. And it’ll mean I can get a jolly to California on expenses. BOOK ME A FLIGHT, BILL!”
Tim: Erm, ‘Bill’…?
Tom: I’m seeing him as the long-suffering PA of the music video director. There might be a sitcom there.
Tim: I’d watch that. Or certainly the first episode, to see if you’d done a good job of it. Anyway, this music.
Tim: Actually, we’ll do the music quickly, because I want to talk (and probably end up shouting) about the video. It’s a very danceable track, with nice voice and a great beat and it’s likely to be a radio and club mainstay for the time being what with it being X Factor and all.
Tom: Yep, can’t disagree with that. Found myself tapping my feet along to it – it’s a by-the-numbers track, but unlike yesterday’s robotic effort, this seems to have a bit of passion to it.
Tim: Anything else, before we move on to the important stuff?
Tom: One other thing, actually: it’s a REPEAT UNTIL FADE! How long has it been since we’ve had a repeat until fade? That’s positively retro these days!
Tim: And just as annoying as ever. But no matter, because that fades into nothing when compared to the video, which is just – what? It starts off on the right track – she’s looking a bit melancholy on the road trip, thinking back to a guy she’s recently taken a break with (I’m extrapolating a bit, but I think that’s right), and not having quite as much fun as the others in her group, occasionally accompanied by some reminiscent imagery. But then we get to a petrol station, and she meets a fit guy and – surprise surprise – goes to a beach party.
Tom: “BILL! I need some generic attractive people for a beach party. I might get drunk and try and sleep with one of them after we wrap. Get on it.”
Tim: Which would all be fine – Mr Hot Abs is exactly what she wants, a quick fling and she’ll decide one way or the other about the first guy – except that the music and lyrics stay EXACTLY THE SAME. The whole time she’s singing about feeling sad and confused but actually being all happy and well up for it, and it MAKES NO SENSE. I HATE THIS VIDEO.
Tim: Back on Wednesday, we had a vague callback to the good days of Eurotrance. Good timing, really, because 10 years ago today, this fantastic example of the genre entered the UK charts at number 3.
Tom: Oh man. This brings back memories. Specifically, a memory of being in Barry Island in Wales.
Tim: Now you know I’m not going to let you leave it there. Keep talking, boy.
Tom: UK Dance Dance Revolution championships. I was still a teenager. This was one of the songs on whichever DDR machine it was – and one of the songs that, to our brief confusion, was blasting out from a car parked at some nearby traffic lights. I guess you had to be there.
Tim: Oh, isn’t it lovely? The build under the first verse up to something great, the drop for the pre-chorus bit as the dancers start to sway their arms in the air from side to side and then that brilliant chorus.
Tom: Sing it! Go on, sing it. That’s what I’d be doing if I wasn’t currently working in a fairly quiet, library-type place.
Tim: Oh, I will SING IT. I will SHOUT IT VERY LOUD along with whoever the hired vocalist is, fists pumping with everyone else in the club*, before we calm down a bit for the second verse but then do it all over again twenty seconds later. Keep going for the middle eight, and then the final chorus where there’s really no point dragging out the ‘shooooting’ bit because let’s face it, it’s going too hard** to really be slowed down by that, so you write a few more words, fill in the gaps, and just keep going. Tell me I’m wrong, Tom. Tell me this isn’t a fantastic club tune. I don’t reckon you can.
* Can’t think of a way not to make that sound dirty, sorry.
** Again, yes.
Tom: I wouldn’t try to. It is a fantastic club tune. Are there retro-90s clubs yet? Because they should play this.
Tim: They really should. Finally, it’s also worth noting that this same week had Scooter at number 2 with The Logical Song*. I MISS THIS MUSIC BEING MAINSTREAM. Why can’t we bring it back, Tom? WHY CAN’T WE?
* It may or may not have been held off the top spot by Gareth Gates’s Anyone Of Us, but that’s not important.
The first music in ages that has made me actively sit up and take notice.
Tom: Ah! Madeon. Best known amongst internet types, incidentally, for his astonishingly good live-mashup “Pop Culture“.
Tim: Ooh, that is good, but I first heard this when I woke up to it recently and grouchily thought “why the hell is Radio 1 playing this is the daytime, when they should be playing Ed Sheeran or someone equally dull?” Then, when I was more awake, I heard it properly, and enjoyed it. (Oh, and if you’re wondering, it’s pronounced mad-ee-on. French, you see.)
Tim: It occasionally verges near territory where I’m thinking “Oh God, what a racket,” but it stays fairly melodic throughout so I actually find it more of a fairly good, fairly aggressive, dance tune. The vocal bits strike me as a bit odd, though, or at least the second batch does.
Tom: Oh, they worked so well for me. That first vocal section reminds me – and this is perhaps the highest compliment I’ve ever paid on this blog – of the legendary Rob Dougan‘s Furious Angels. It’s the first music in ages that has made me actively sit up and take notice. When the beat kicks back in, not so much: but that threatening, moody, building vocal section is just incredible.
Tim: The singer’s from an American indie band, for no particular reason that I can discern, and while the first bit, like you say, is pretty good, the sudden near-muting of the massive triumphant instrumental stuff for a dull-sounding voice to jump in and close the track sounds like a bit of an anti-climax, really.
Tom: It really is. I was expecting one last repeat there. I was, quite literally, bracing myself. That’s a shame.
Tim: That aside, though, it’s lovely to thrash around drunkenly to.
Tom: It’s the kind of track you throw your hands up for even though no-one’s telling you to.
Listen to this, and be taken back ten years to the glory days of Eurotrance.
Tim: Listen to this, and be taken back ten years to the glory days of Eurotrance.
Tom: I am SOLD.
Tim: This is a remix by Moreno & Shane Deether, whoever they may be, but it’s out there as the official version which is good because it’s flipping marvellous. Hands in the air, fists pumping, jump up and down like a maniac, who cares what you look like because you’re HAVING FUN. Unfortunately, it’s a decade too late, but that doesn’t mean we can’t review it as though it were 2002. Let’s begin.
Tom: Hmm. Well, it may be the glory days of Eurodance in 2002, but it certainly isn’t one of the glorious tunes.
Tim: At the moment, no – it’s a middle-of-the-compilation-album track rather than a lead-in tune, but it’s safe to say that the “glad I’m feeling alive” would be the line chosen to finish the TV advert off.
Tom: Over a shot of generic Ayia Napa beach shots and pictures of attractive women dancing, no doubt.
Tim: Well, obviously. If it gets picked up by Dave Pearce, though, I can easily see this being another Castles in the Sky or Heaven, so let’s hope. And if you find the ringtone composer notes for it, let me know.
Tom: Wow. I think I just got slapped in the face by nostalgia.
Tim: This was Shirley Clamp’s (who headlined at previously mentioned Europop night) most recent entry into Melodifestivalen, in 2011. (She’s the one in the middle.)
Tom: I’m sorry I missed her performance: in my defence, I had to be in Slough at 7am the next morning.
Tim: Now, Shirley’s an interesting lady. Since you left early, here are a few highlights:
– she believes I Will Always Love You is a very uplifting song, and so clearly doesn’t believe in thinking about the lyrics of songs she plans to sing.
– she seems somewhat breast-infatuated; for example, the person who sang along loudest a medley, she said, “is allowed to feel my right booby”, and he duly was.
– following that, she worried that “my left tittie is feeling a bit unloved now”
– finally, she shared with us the fact that just a few hours before this performance she gave birth, and that as she entered the last chorus here, with her baby backstage, she started lactating and pretty much ruined her dress.
Tim: Ah, good – now the world can see. Anyway, lactation and somewhat mediocre staging aside, this is a pretty good tune. Bit repetitive towards the ends, possibly, but it does have a nice key change to lift it up a bit, and that’s all we really need from a good entry.
Tom: Can’t argue with that: it’s catchy enough, although I can see why it didn’t make it through.
Tim: Oh, and finally from that night, I am appalled that you genuinely didn’t know that the Saturday Night dance routine has five sections to it.
Tom: I never learned Saturday Night. Or the Macarena, come to that. I was a stubborn youth.
Tim: Now, this track doesn’t really belong on this blog, because they’re not remotely Europop, they’re not even European and in fact they haven’t really spawned any interest whatsoever outside of North America.
Tom: Hey, we did the Offspring last week. Roll with it.
Tim: Oh, I plan to – I heard their song Love Drunk when I lived in Canada and have been a bit of a fan ever since. This is their first new song in a while, accompanied by what I think is the most impressive lyric video we’ve seen yet.
Tom: Lyric videos, as an Official Thing, are only two years old – but my word, have they ever spread quickly. They’re a quick way to get a video onto YouTube without needing anything more than a one-or-two-person team. A pre-music-video video. No-one saw that coming.
Tim: Yes, it’s towards the cheesy end of pop punk…
Tom: Pop punk?!
Tim: That’s…quite an exclamation, given the limits of plain text.
Tom: If this is punk, then so is bloody Nickelback. These guys are rock. Maybe power pop. But there’s no way in hell they’re punk. The Vandals are pop punk. Green Day are pop punk. This lot? Not a chance.
Tim: Well, take your argument to Wikipedia. Anyway, if it wasn’t cheesy like it is then I probably wouldn’t like it as much – in fact, one of my favourite things about them is their habit of putting key changes in their songs, despite the fact that they’re Just Not Done in this type of music.*
* Theory of a Deadman (known vaguely in the UK for their 2008 song Hate My Life) are also quite good at this.
Tom: Someday, I’d like to hear a death metal band attempt a key change.
Tim: That’d be lovely. But here, part of me is annoyed, because if a song’s first line is about how you can’t tell a girl you love her, surely it has to end with you actually saying it, no? But still, it’s not like he’s leaving much doubt as to his feelings so it’s not so bad.
Tom: It did take me a few seconds to work out that the “four letter word” he’s referring to in the first line is “love”. I had other words in mind.
Tim: Overall, this is one reason for me to keep liking them, so I’m happy with it.
Tom: Okay, people. It’s summer, and we have a Eurodance act with a few hits behind them, who need a box-ticking summer CHOON. Let’s TICK SOME BOXES, people.
Tim: Here’s an idea that no-one’ll possibly see coming: you be sensible with this idea and I’ll be a bit silly with the video.
Tom: Standard Eurodance beat and synth work, vocals on top with distorted versions in the background. TICK.
Tim: Ludicrously distorted mobile phone display so we can read the entirely banal text message. TICK.
Tom: Video featuring shots of generic pretty people in very little clothing on a beach. TICK, although the “random video features generator” has landed on woman in shower, DJs, and – oddly – capoeira.
Tim: Said DJs starting out by going fishing and returning with a long-lost sunken mixing deck. TICK.
Tom: Generic lyrics about having a good time, with possible vague innuendo. TICK.
Tim: People queuing for drinks, being told there are free drinks elsewhere and promptly running off to lie down on beach towels. TICK.
Tom: Title of the song spoken in sultry voice as we enter the middle eight. TICK.
Tim: Half-second shot of an incredibly cloudy day that you just know someone’s going to get fired for. TICK.
Tom: No “euphoric build” in there, and no dubstep breakdown – this is pretty traditional by dance choon standards. Boxes ticked. Job well done.
Tom: YouTube’s policy is that they “iterate quickly” on designs, so by the time this goes live they may well have fixed that. Nevertheless, it’s pretty stupid. Although not that stupid as that Rhythm of the Night cover.
Tom: Our regular Radio Insider sends us this, with the phrase “shit 90s dancepop gone rocky”. Needless to say, I played it immediately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAlZyajmcIM
Tom: Now, I like the Offspring; “Ixnay on the Hombre” was one of my favourite albums when I was younger, and it still has a place in my heart now. And this is… well, this is different, to say the least.
Tim: Is it?
Tom: Well, yes. It’s like Katy Perry suddenly discovered punk. While I hate to credit YouTube comments with anything, I have to admit that “stewartmc7” makes a valid point: “they make joke songs on almost all of their albums. But those joke songs are so catchy that some of them actually become famous and popular.” He uses Pretty Fly for a White Guy as an example. And he’s right: this isn’t some new, poppy, reinvented Busted-like Offspring: it’s them having fun and producing something poppy that’ll entice people to buy the album.
Tim: True. I’ve never really given them much attention (although I do find Why Don’t You Get A Job very good for walking quickly to) so I don’t really know, but fans aside, won’t people just think of them as a band that produces music like this and Pretty Fly For A White Guy? Basically, a slightly quirky rock band?
Tom: That’s an interesting perspective. The Offspring have always been mostly towards the “punk” end of pop-punk in my head, whereas this doesn’t even count as vaguely punk. It’s a strange one indeed. I think the irritating novelty parts are more annoying than the catchy melody is listenable, but your view may differ.
Tim: My view is that it’s standard Offspring material, and I think most others will have the same.
Tom: That sound you hear? It’s the “true” Offspring fanboys screaming.
Properly French. It’s got an accordion and everything.
Tim: Finally from France, this one from last summer is properly French. Really – it’s got an accordion and everything.
Tim: Well, I say properly French, the lyrics are mostly English but still. ACCORDION.
Tom: Disco accordion! Easily overused outside the genre of Serbian turbo-folk, but it works here.
Tim: Anyway, I’m writing about it now I’m back and it’s actually not as good as I remember. But that video’s quite fun to watch, so there is at least that. I don’t blame him for giving up on that party after the third time, personally, especially since he could quite easily go back ten minutes rather than the full two hours back to the shop.
Tom: Frankly, if you’ve got that kind of time-resetting power and you’re using it for something as simple as that, you haven’t got nearly enough imagination. I was rather hoping that, in the last loop, the bottle would point at one of the men on the table and “COMPATIBILITY: PERFECT” would show up, but never mind.
Tim: HANG ON. Who the hell goes to a party in a club and takes a bottle of vodka with them? House party, sure, but a club? Oh, I don’t know. I suppose I should be happy that it’s not just a three minute advert for a particular brand of vo—OH WAIT IT IS. Sod this, I’m off.
Tom: There’s something rare: Tim getting angry about product placement before I’ve even had a chance to measure it.
Tim: No, I generally don’t like it, but sometimes without it true works of art just wouldn’t exist.
Tom: I know what that link is, and I’m not clicking it.
Tim: Oh, COME ON. They are AS ONE with the COUNTRYSIDE. They ride on SHINY TRACTORS. And they have HAPPY FRIESIANS.
