Mainstream – Page 53

Union J – Loving You Is Easy

“When they finally turn everything up to eleven, it’s actually a really good track.”

Tom: Cementing their position as Slightly Too Late To Be One Direction here, I think.

Tim: So close, and yet…

Tom: I was all ready to dismiss this as a bit too generic, a bit too like every other standard boyband, until they came back from that middle eight. When they finally turn everything up to eleven, it’s actually a really good track.

Tim: It really is. But you didn’t like the first part? I think it’s all pretty good – what with the recent move towards proper instruments and “rock” and stuff that most British boybands have been going for, it’s very nice to have a largely synth-backed track.

Tom: Then, of course, they dial it back down to have a Meaningful Ballad Outro, and it just fades away from me again. There’s so much potential here, and they just haven’t quite got to it.

Tim: There I agree – the crappy piano intro and outro can properly do one, as far as I’m concerned, because it’s entirely unnecessary.

Tom: That middle eight, incidentally, can quite happily have the Killers’ “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier” sung over it. Just pointing that out.

Tim: Gosh, so it can. Thanks for the heads up.

Sam Bailey – Skyscraper

Come the middle eight, BOOM.

Tim: Another year of X Factor, and for some reason the same song that Union J would have had last year. Also, the lowest-selling Christmas number one since Robbie Williams and Nicole Kidman did Something Stupid twelve years ago. (See what I did there?)

Tom: The charts are pretty much broken these days, what with downloads and YouTube. Still, there’s still a place in the history books for Christmas Number One. So, the same as last year?

Tim: Sort of, anyway – it’s weird, but for the first two verses and choruses, this was just fairly dull, really. It’s emotionally lacking, unlike Demi Lovato’s original, and it’s not big instrumentation to make up for that like Union J had.

Tom: Oddly, I haven’t heard Skyscraper before — it completely passed me by. I didn’t see why it’s much of a winner’s song until hearing the original: it didn’t seem all that memorable, or a Big Number, until it had Demi Levato’s emotional vocals behind it.

Tim: On the other hand, come the middle eight, BOOM. It’s as though the whole song dials it up a couple of notches: the voice becomes more impressive, the backing really kicks in, and it suddenly becomes worth listening to. I actually like it somewhat, and I’d certainly stick it on an X Factor playlist. Might even put it on a regular playlist, though only if I could be sure I could skip to the good bit each time.

Christmas Flashback: Jose Feliciano – Feliz Navidad

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

Tim: This is a song from 1970 that’s big in a LOT of countries, and a whole load of people such as Boney M, Michael Bublé and Artie off Glee have covered it, but somehow it’s never taken off in the UK. That’s a shame, because it’s brilliant (as is this accompanying home-made video).

Tom: Another animated GIFtacular. I’ll put it in a background tab. Fortunately, I know the song well already: I heard it years ago when I was in the US, and it’s always stuck with me.

Tim: It’s basically a fifty second song repeated way too many times, but I don’t care. You can count the lyric lines on the fingers of one hand, but I don’t care.

Tom: Indeed, which may be why it’s stuck with me.

Tim: I don’t care, because the lyrics, and the song, say everything there is to say right now. MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!

Tom: Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Asher Monroe – Christmas Is Here To Stay

Well, that is one sparkly video.

Tim: Right, I’m sorry that yesterday’s track entirely spoiled your festive spirit; let me make it up to you with this.

Tom: Well, that is one sparkly video. Not many men can pull off a sequinned jacket, but he manages it. Shame aside from the product placement, which is a bit odd: just stick the logo on the drum, it’ll do.

Tim: Yeah – it’s also very much a “look what I can do!” video, which a lot of the time I’d find annoying. But WELL DONE YOU, have an extra present.

Tom: He is managing to be utterly unconvincing on every one of those instruments, though.

Tim: Good point, I’ll take my present back. He’ll just have to stick with the crateloads of Neuro he’s probably already got.

Tom: As for the music…

Tim: Isn’t it just lovely? Slightly understated, you might say, as there’s no moment when it all kicks off and goes full jingle-tastic, but the chorus sounds wonderful with all the brass. What I particularly like is that pretty much every lyric has its own bit of Christmas, be it Christmas lights, mistletoe, tree or just Christmas singing, and you’re left with a feeling that he’s basically gone through all of Christmas and picked out as much as he can – hell, he’s even finished it off with a load of fa-la-las (which, fortunately, stop before they generate Hey Jude-level amounts of annoyance).

Tom: Agreed. It’s no full-on Darlene Love spectacular, but it’s a perfectly pleasant Christmassy song. Yes, that’ll do nicely.

Tim: Basically, this is Christmas all wrapped up for you, and I sincerely hope this improves your festivity levels.

Tom: It does. Merry Christmas, Tim.

Kingsland Road – The Kings Are Coming (At Christmas Time)

“It’s like a group of really immature teenagers got together…”

Tim: Most X Factor acts leave the competition and aren’t heard from again until a good six months down the line, around about the time everybody’s just about to realise that the obligatory “I’ll keep making music, you’ve not heard the last of me” was, as ever, utter balls. Not Kingsland Road, though, who got kicked off in week 5 and have already posted a Christmas track to sustain our interest. I’d get annoyed about it being a quick and dirty cash-in, but firstly they’re giving it away for free, and secondly…

Tim: …it’s actually really rather good.

Tom: It’s… it’s not. It’s really not.

Tim: What? It’s got Christmas stamped all over it, and beyond that it’s partly a love letter to Katy Perry, and partly a “welcome to us” track, and while I’d normally say to a band “look, keep this stuff for a blog post, put out some good music”, this actually is very enjoyable.

Tom: No. It’s not. All those lyrics are terrible. Knockers. Farting. It’s like a group of really immature teenagers got together and tried to… huh. Actually, that makes sense.

Tim: See, I think the lyrics tread a (very) fine line between clever and annoying, but for me at least they just about overall stay on the right side, mostly because not only is it almost certainly the first song to base its initial premise on an iPhone’s Location Services but also the first I know of to directly reference a current advert campaign. The only thing I’m not keen on are the weird call backs later in the song, but they do have a slight charm to them, maybe.

Tom: It barely worked for the Beatles in Yellow Submarine. It certainly doesn’t work here.

Tim: Hmm. I don’t know. It’s a very enjoyable track, though – that much is clear.

Tom: It actively wound me up. It made me significantly less Christmassy. I had to go listen to Underneath the Tree again to get me back in the mood.

Tim: Oh. Oh, I’m sorry, then. Well, there’s a video as well, compiled from a mix of X Factor footage, grainy concert footage and animated GIFs; it takes away most of what subtlety remains (for example, I’d somehow missed the line about Katy’s knockers, and I’d not noted that the passing gas is actually about one of the band members), but it brought a smile to my face.

Tom: It’s like the very worst of fan-videos. I’d ask how their publicist allowed this, but I’m not sure they have one any more.

Tim: Basically, I like this track a lot, and it almost makes me glad that they got kicked off early because if they’d stayed in too much longer we wouldn’t have this. So good.

Tim: So awful.

Demi Lovato – Let It Go

“You sure as hell won’t be able to concentrate on anything else”

Tim: Not Christmas, but very, very wintery. Lead track from the very enjoyable film Frozen, and to give it some context: sung by someone who’s just unleashed a superpower that’s been repressed for about fifteen years, to less than ideal results.

Tim: WOW. It’s not quite this much of a belter in the film, but it got rerecorded and stuck over the end credits. And boy, was that ever a wonderful decision.

Tom: So this is similar to Elton John’s absolutely brilliant version of ‘Circle of Life’ — albeit without the composer also being the singer.

Tim: Indeed. The lyrics probably won’t make much sense unless you’ve seen the film, but that music and that voice are undeniably brilliant regardless. Admittedly there’s room for more on top of the strumming guitar and drumbeat at the end, but damn, what a voice that lady has. And you know what? Even if you don’t think that backing’s enough for you: put this on in the background, work on something else, but when it comes back at the end you sure as hell won’t be able to concentrate on that something.

Tom: You know what, that’s pretty much exactly what I did.

Tim: This is a song that, despite not demanding it, will nevertheless get your attention. And that’s just great, because what song can hope for more? NO SONG.

Tom: As far as pop music’s concerned, I can’t disagree with that.

Tim: And to close off, I know we don’t generally (or indeed ever) do film reviews, but if we did, I’d say that this is the most heartwarming film I’ve seen in a good long time; if anybody’s put off by the fact that it’s a Disney animated film, you really shouldn’t be. It’s got more emotional depth than pretty much any grown up film I’ve seen, a storyline based in a classic fairytale and emboldened so much more, and enough LOL moments to make even the darkest periods (of which there are a few) very manageable. It’s fantastic. Watch the film, buy the song. That’s it, really.

Katy Perry – Unconditionally

How many different ways can you stress the same word?

Tom: “Unconditionally”. Six syllables. The title of the song is a line of the chorus. And it’s awkward.

Tim: There’s snow in that video. Do you know what? Sod the “euro” bit. Can we just be Christmasplop! for the rest of December, please? I am feeling incredibly Christmassy this year, so CAN WE CAN WE CAN WE PLEASE?????

Tom: Yes, yes. Fine.

Tim: YAY!! And can we have that amazing thing where there’s snow falling down the screen?

Tom: No. This song. How many different ways can you stress the same word? Well, I guess we’ve just found out. And it’s repeated so much that, by the end of the song, I’ve stopped even hearing it as a word.

Tim: Hmm. The times when she stresses the ‘con’ do seem a tad egregious (big word, I know), but damn, regardless of that, what an incredible power ballad that is.

Tom: Noticing that, I suspect, has somewhat tainted my enjoyment of what is otherwise a pretty good, by-the-numbers pop ballad with an expensive, well-directed, by-the-numbers arty pop video. It’s difficult to say much more than that, though.

Tim: ‘Pretty good’? ‘By the numbers’? Well, actually, yes for the second, but damn, those are some BIG numbers and this is so much more than ‘pretty good’.

Fear of Tigers – Kaohsiung Christmas

“Pretty much everything you’d need”

Tim: You might remember Fear of Tigers from last year’s pretty good Revenge of the Tripods or earlier this year’s brilliant Sound of Arrows remix, both free giveaways; since then he’s lined up a number of tracks to release properly and as an album out in March, and this is the first of them.

Tim: “MORE CHRISTMAS! WE MUST HAVE MORE!” is pretty much what I thought when I saw the e-mail, but alas it turns out that the song has basically nothing to do with Christmas, or, in fact, Kaohsiung, a place in Taiwan. I asked him why the title, then, and apparently he spent the first half of his life there, and the song is a tribute to the city, where Christmas is celebrated as a festival of love. So isn’t that nice.

Tom: You’ve done proper journalism, Tim! I think you might get a badge or something.

Tim: Oh, thank you very much. I’ll write off to Blue Peter tomorrow. In the meantime, I really love this track (and I’d like it even more if it didn’t feature its misleading title).

Tom: Agreed: when the beat came in, I was pretty much entirely sold on the track — and then, just to make it even better, the chorus came along.

Tim: It’s really got pretty much everything you’d need in a decent ‘dreamwave’ (not my word, but it does sound good) track; the Taiwanese poem at the start probably isn’t for everyone, but it does serve to add a bit of the heartfeltness that might otherwise be lost if this were stuck in with a load of other synthpop, not that that deserves to happen. Because this is great: the chorus line, the ahh-ing at the end, the instrumental line, everything, really. Great.

Joe McElderry – Wonderful Dream (Holidays Are Coming)

“I think this might actually be the end of civilisation.”

Tim: Something I only learned (and was genuinely amazed by) a few days ago: this song wasn’t written purely for the Coke advert.

Tom: Huh. And despite generally trying to avoid adverts, even I’ve heard of that.

Tim: At least, that’s what I thought briefly, until I checked a bit further and found Wikipedia was really badly worded (who’d have thought?).

Tom: Ah, fair enough. So let me get this straight: it was written for the commercial, and then got turned into a track?

Tim: Indeed – in 2001 an American singer decided to, um, expand it (probably the most generous term possible) and the result is now actually a staple of German festive radio. And now our little Joe (as, I’m reliably informed, everybody in South Shields refers to him) has gone and covered it.

Tom: So a reality show winner, singing a song based on an advertising jingle. I’m not sure, but I think this might actually be the end of civilisation.

Tim: Yeah, thought I’d have trouble getting you on board, but I actually like the whole thing. It sounded weird at first, because it’s basically two songs being played at the same time – the advert underneath it, then some verses, a new chorus and some extra tune being written around it, and so what if the choruses end up on top of each other?

Tom: Aye; it sounds like a not-particularly-competent mashup.

Tim: But here’s why it’s brilliant: first, both of the songs have amazing lyrics. “Holidays are coming” is, yes, generic American nonsense, but it’s permeated over here and it sounds great, and “a wonderful dream of love and peace/joy and fun for everyone” can only really be disliked by someone with the emotional reach of the Grinch.

Tom: Hello.

Tim: Yup. Second: because it’s from the Coke advert. I know it’s all commercial and awful and everything, but damn, that’s one happy advert.

Tom: Speak for yourself.

Tim: So is this another unnecessary cover? Well, let’s be honest, it’s an unnecessary song, because if there’s one trend we really don’t need it’s existing adverts being made into full length songs, but I reckon it’s a very enjoyable unnecessary song, and if the cover hadn’t happened I’d not have known that this song existed at all, and my life would be that much less complete. So it’s GREAT.

Daft Punk feat. Julian Casablancas – Instant Crush

“I was pretty much just waiting for it to finish.”

Tom: The next single off Random Access Memories, and a new video. And hey – it’s a good three minute track!

Tom: …stretched out to five and a half minutes.

Tim: Yeahhh… after about three and a half minutes I was pretty much just waiting for it to finish. And then when it did, it was in a very dull manner indeed.

Tom: The extreme effects applied to the voice make it sound like a Hot Chip record — and why you’d get the lead vocalist of the Strokes in and then cover his voice in so much distortion, I’ve no idea.

Tim: Only reason I can think is: just for the name. Which is surely only necessary if you’re not already a big name, but then Daft Punk are arguably bigger than he is.

Tom: And I don’t know if the video was meant to be actually tear-jerking or just mawkish or melodramatic: I certainly got the latter.

Tim: I’ll be honest: I kind of stopped paying attention the first time, and I can’t be bothered to sit through the song again just to see the video.

Tom: The chorus is absolutely brilliant, the rest of the track a bit plodding: and even that’d be okay if it didn’t outstay its welcome. But it really, really does.

Tim: I’m actually not that enthused about the chorus, but I can’t disagree with the rest of that.