Mainstream – Page 11

Isak Danielson – Power

“I’m not entirely convinced that a crossover of Jackass and ‘power-and-sex-charged music video’ is a good idea.”

Tim: Some say the art of lyric writing is crafting mysterious or ambiguous ones, so that different people can add their own interpretations, and maybe use a music video to do even more with the various possibilities. Others, such as Isak, prefer a more prescriptive approach to these things, bringing all the subtlety of a two ton wrecking ball.

Tom: That is an wonderfully-choreographed, impeccably-shot, frankly beautiful video that has been ruined by appalling video compression. What a shame: if that was graded and handled a little better, you’d be able to see more than dancing black squares during the dark parts.

Tim: I’ll be honest, part of me is disappointed that she didn’t end up literally going at him with a Taser, or at the very least a cattle prod.

Tom: I’m not entirely convinced that a crossover of Jackass and ‘power-and-sex-charged music video’ is a good idea, but if that’s what you’re into, then I’m not going to judge.

Tim: Fair’s fair, though, as what it lacks in interpretative possibilities it more than makes up for in sheer volume and emotion, almost begging for Take Me To Church comparisons on multiple levels. The vocal style, the cut back instrumentation, the backing vocals echoing the main chorus – this is basically a textbook emo male power ballad, and it sounds good for it.

Tom: I think the video helps sell it to a large extent: without it, yes, it’s very clearly aiming for Hozier and not quite getting there. But that’s an almost-impossible target to hit: getting this far is an achievement in itself.

Bob Sinclar feat. Robbie Williams – Electrico Romantico

“Fingers crossed.”

Tom: You know that thing when you see that two artists are collaborating, and you think “this is either going to be really good or really bad”?

Tim: Frequently.

Tom: Well, look: this is either a track that combines “Let Me Entertain You” and “Love Generation”, or it’s a track that combines “Rudebox” with literally any song Bob Sinclar has made since Love Generation.

Tim: Fingers crossed.

Tom: Unlucky.

Tim: Nice first few seconds, though.

Seeb, Bastille – Grip

“I find it incredibly creepy!”

Tim: I have a LOT of time for this video.

Tom: I find it incredibly creepy! It was creepy when CBBC did it, and it’s creepy now.

Tim: Maybe – I mean, sticking googly eyes on fruit and then putting them in a blender is almost as horrifying as that Pixar short that was played before The Incredibles 2, where the woman realises she’s been eating sentient dumplings, but at least the blender gets reversed each time so there’s a sort of happy ending.

Tom: Nope. Not happy with it. It’s just deeply unpleasant. Which I suspect my have coloured my view of the music, too.

Tim: Ah. Well, when I can bring myself to tear my eyes away from the video, I think it’s pretty enjoyable – standard Bastille stuff, with some standard Seeb bits thrown around here and there.

Tom: Mm. I agree that it’s very definitely a mixture of two styles — but it doesn’t work for me in the way it worked for Bastille and Marshmello. Although to be fair, that one may have just grown on me through endless radio repetition.

Tim: Well, maybe this one will as well.

Westlife – Hello My Love

“That’s an unfortunate series of three notes.”

Tim: Westlife have gone and got themselves a bit modern – isn’t that fun!

Tom: I didn’t even know they’d reunited!

Tim: Me neither, but apparently all it took was Simon Cowell calling them up every six months and offering then £10 million each. Seriously.

Tim: So we both like a song that you can remember afterwards (with some exceptions, looking at you Baby Shark who I once had going round in my head for an entire eight hour shift at work) – but is it good if gets a completely different song stuck in your head? It’s only a few notes, but it’s that progression towards the end of the chorus of “it’s just my” that gets my brain going straight into “driving at ninety, down those country lanes“.

Tom: Oh, you’re not wrong. That’s an unfortunate series of three notes.

Tim: Now don’t get me wrong, I love Castle On The Hill, and any song that sounds like it, such as this one, probably isn’t a bad track. But it’s not really helpful, is it?

Tom: And unfortunately, for me, it’s all that I can remember. Actually, that’s not true, I can remember the utterly clunky line “hair growing where it’s meant to”.

Tim: Yeah, that’s a bit of an awkward one.

Tom: This isn’t a bad track by any means, it’s just cursed with the Comeback Track Problem: for anyone except the fans, it’s got to be a barnstormer of a track, on a par with their best. It’s got to be a Shine. And as far as I can tell, this just isn’t.

Walk The Moon – Timebomb

“Look at me! I’m complimenting a track!”

Tom: Or “WALK THE MOON” as they’re apparently loudly styled now, but frankly that can do one. The question is, of course, is this ‘new track in familiar style’ or ‘just a slight change Shut Up And Dance again’?

Tim: That is…horrific artwork, once you start to see the silhouette of the guy as if his head’s at the back, the legs are at the front, and the light’s shining out of his, well. But the sound.

Tom: I’ll be honest, I was expecting to be far more cynical about this. I mean, the guitar sound’s the same, and the structure is roughly Shut Up And Dance, but it’s very clearly a different and new track.

Tim: Yeah, it’s pretty good. It doesn’t have the same immediate appreciation from me that Shut Up Dance, Different Colors or One Foot did, but sure – let’s have it.

Tom: And that lead vocal is great, in a way that I’m not sure earlier singles demonstrated: there are shades of Adam Levine in there, and given that he’s one of the best pop vocalists currently working, that’s a compliment. Look at me! I’m complimenting a track! That’s getting increasingly rare!

Olly Murs feat. Snoop Dogg – Moves

“Ugh, WHY.”

Tom: Okay, we’re talking about this. I know it’s been months since it came out over here, I know we said we’re not going to talk about this, but we’re talking about this.

Tim: Ugh, WHY.

Tom: Because I drove through Sweden and Denmark the other day, Tim, and this is in heavy rotation on many radio stations. I heard it four times, including once on the shuttle bus back from the airport that was apparently tuned to an easy-listening station. It’s not even in the charts there. The radio just loves it.

Tim: Hmm…ermm…sorry, just trying to think of a time when we’ve ever even slightly bothered about before. Struggling, I’ll be honest.

Tom: And not only that: it turns out there’s a new trend in music videos, which is a separate vertical video. WELCOME TO THE LATE 2010S TIM.

Tim: 🎉🎉🎉

Tom: Okay, let’s get it out of the way: hearing Snoop Dogg shout out Olly Murs is really, really strange.

Tim: Although less strange than Flo Rida doing a school register call out of the Saturdays.

Tom: Does this track sound a lot like Feels? Yes. Does it have the unmistakable smell of Sheeran all over it? Also yes. Are the lyrics bloody awful in places? Also also yes.

Tim: Yes yes yes.

Tom: But here’s the thing: I didn’t turn it off, at least not the first time I stumbled across it while radio-scanning. It is a very competent track. I’m not going to say it’s necessarily good, but I’ll be damned if it isn’t catchy, excellently produced, and absolutely made for radio airplay. And that’s still a valid way to make a track work: you don’t need to convince the public, just the people in charge of radio playlists.

Tim: It’s short. I’ll give it that.

Rasmussen – Go Beyond

“Stylistically it’s similar but PUMPED UP”

Tim: You may remember Rasumussen from the fairly impressive slightly Viking-y Higher Ground at Eurovision last year; here’s his somewhat belated follow up.

Tim: And I LOVE that.

Tom: And I’m indifferent! Business as usual, then. Why do you like it so much?

Tim: Stylistically it’s similar but PUMPED UP, and I don’t think that ever fails to improve a pop song (Time To Say Goodbye doesn’t count, wasn’t a pop song in the first place). We’ve similar millennium old instruments, even if they are almost entirely synthetic this time round, and they always work well for me.

Tom: So that does all make sense: but imagine if you hadn’t thought much of Higher Ground? Then PUMPING IT UP would just seem… well, still not that impressive. Admittedly I can remember the chorus after listing, which is usually a good sign, but this time I just don’t want to.

Tim: Higher Ground was one of my Eurovision favourites last year, and this just builds on that.

Saturday Flashback: Sam Smith – Too Good At Goodbyes (Galantis Remix)

“Still a largely dull track, but there are significant improvements”

Tom: I’m assuming you know the original Too Good At Goodbyes, Tim.

Tim: Correct. As with much of Sam Smith’s output, it is dull, tedious, insipid garbage, albeit slightly redeemed by the backing choir in the chorus and middle eight.

Tom: In which case, you should get ready for the biggest case of pop mood-whiplash you’ve had in a while. Because Sam Smith’s sad, slow, soppy song is about to become a BANGER complete with a euphoric build that sounds like a washing machine spinning up.

Tim: That…that is an unusual yet entirely correct description of that euphoric build.

Tom: I learned it from Brett Domino.

Tim: It’s still a largely dull track, but there are significant improvements – not least, chopping over a minute off the runtime.

Tom: Here’s the thing: I have no idea how, but I’d managed to miss the original Too Good At Goodbyes entirely. I just, somehow, never heard it. So when I heard this on the radio somewhere, I remembered the name of the track, searched for it later, and found the original instead of this. It was one of the most disappointing listens I’ve ever had.

Tim: Whereas this is…well, still one of the most disappointing Galantis listens I’ve ever had, but it’s still better than the original.

Kevin Walker – Send Me A Card

“Boy is it jaunty.”

Tim: Kevin’s still jumping back and forth being being a singer and professional footballer; here’s his first track since his 2015 Christmas one, and boy is it jaunty.

Tom: Here’s a complaint I’ve never, ever made before here: I despise the rhyme scheme of this song. I don’t know why, but that “all / wall / tall” just grated in the first verse and I could never let it go after that. This is a really petty complaint, I know, because like you say, the rest of this is pleasantly jaunty.

Tim: Okay, Tom: you often mention your Good Pop Song tests – do you immediately want to press play again, can you remember the chorus afterwards – and they’ve kind of buried their way into my head as well now. And with this one, I was ‘yes, but no’.

Tom: The exact opposite for me: I didn’t want to press play again, but I could remember that damn chorus.

Tim: Except, half an hour later, i had a tune going round in my head, and I couldn’t place it, until I realised it was this one. So does that count? Because I do absolutely want to keep pressing play here – the melody is great, decent enough lyrics, and all in all it just makes me feel good. Happy, in fact.

I think that’s because there are a lot of familiar components in there – nothing copied, but things like the layered vocals, the call and return in the middle eight – going together to make a song that’s basically just reassuringly enjoyable.

Tom: I’ll grant you that my heart did soften a bit for that final chorus. He needs to go to a harmony line (or perhaps even just up an octave) on that last note, though.

jens – Any Other Way

“One of the strongest closing sections I’ve heard in ages.”

Tom: What, he couldn’t afford a capital letter?

Tim: ‘jens’ is off Norway, bringing us this, with a promising start, dipping occasionally, but with one of the strongest closing sections I’ve heard in ages.

Tim: Am I wrong?

Tom: Thanks to a particular cadence and chord in that first verse, I kept singing “I Can’t Go For That” over this for a while. But, you’re right: that’s a really strong recovery out of the middle eight, and it almost saves the rest of the track.

Tim: The less enjoyable parts for me come at the start of each chorus, with the iffy vocoding; on the other hand, from 1:45 onwards it barely puts a note wrong. There’s almost a slight genre shift, really – from brooding electropop to regular upbeat pop, and I love that. The backing vocals that come along thirty seconds before the end? Marvellous.

Tom: And at three minutes long, I can deal with the slower parts. Sure, it’s not going on my regular playlist any time soon, but it gets a solid “Sure, That’ll Do” from me, which is practically an endorsement by my standards.