Mainstream – Page 54

Foxes – Youth

Enough Christmas for now, let’s move on.

Tim: So, enough Christmas for you?

Tom: You know, I’m not sure. I’m almost disappointed. I actually got a bit Christmassy there.

Tim: Well, we still have our weekly trips to Christmas Past, but let’s move on for now. Here we have a song that has been played a lot on the radio; that’s been mentioned a lot on the whole internet thing; and that I only heard properly for the first time yesterday, so let’s do it now.

Tim: Here’s a thing: the verses are kind of, yeah, why not, it’s okay, The chorus, though, is progressive in a completely different way – same genre, but just so much more. Not just “the verse but more”, but actually a real improvement and one worth noting. And then it stops, and slightly starts all over again. Verse is low key (relatively; yes there are the good steel drums but they’re somewhat lonely), pre-chorus builds up and the chorus is lovely.

Tom: I really rather liked those steel drums. You don’t hear them much in pop, and while it brings the energy level back down it’s still a much fuller sound than you’d get from most instruments.

Tim: For the middle eight, we’re also starting again, low key and building back up to that great chorus to close us off. It’s a way of working through the song that works very well indeed. And then there’s also the video, which is, Minnie Mouse ears aside, unremarkable enough except for the few frames with the person spraying stuff on the wall. It’s not entirely clear, but it’s almost certainly “as long is the music is loud enough we won’t hear the world falling apart”, and let’s be honest that (a) very true, (b) entirely an irresponsible message to send out and (c) still very true. Let’s just listen to music. Sod politics, sod democracy, sod Russell twatting Brand. Let’s just listen to music.

Saturday Flashback: Katie Watkins – Not To Blame

“Comforting and just, well, nice.”

Tom: So after listening to that load of folk-rock gubbins you sent through for Thursday, Tim, SoundCloud decided to play this track at me. It was like a pleasant, refreshing sorbet after a somewhat chewy, bland main course.

Tom: And isn’t that lovely? Soaring strings. Gorgeous voice. Nothing particularly too imaginative about that chord progression or melody, but that’s not what I was looking for: I was just hoping for an enjoyable song.

Tim: Hmm. I’d not heard of ‘baroque pop’ before I saw the tags for this. Interesting. Can’t disagree with anything you’ve said, really (except for the ‘gubbins’ insult).

Tom: The only bit I don’t like, oddly, is the actual “not to blame” melody, which sticks in my craw a little.* I know that it’s an effect that songwriters go for, the whole “suspend the key lyric over a quiet bit at the end, like a diving board dangling over a swimming pool” thing, but it just stuck out here amidst a song that’s otherwise comforting and just, well, nice.

*That’s totally an actual thing people say.

Tim: I think “comforting and just, well, nice” kind of sums this up – decent enough chorus, gentle and unexcitable verse, but nothing particularly rousing. Which is fine, and you’re right, those strings can be singled out as a high point, but, yeah. Comforting and just, well, nice.

Christina Perri – Human

“Breathtaking, I think is the word you’re looking for.”

Tim: Have this, the lead single off the Jar of Hearts hitmaker’s second album.

Tom: Blimey, “the Jar of Hearts hitmaker”? Have you been taking cliché classes from the NME?

Tim: Breathtaking, I think is the word you’re looking for. The one specific thing that stuck out at me throughout this: the echo.

Tom: “Reverb” is the technical term. Almost always a digital effect these days.

Tim: I don’t think I’ve ever noticed a singer’s voice properly echoing before – I don’t know if it’s something that just never been done or if it’s particularly audible here, with the massive voice and tiny backing, but I quite like it.

Tom: It’s used everywhere, because it adds depth and warmth to vocals that might otherwise seem clinical. You’re noticing it here because the track is mixed to emphasise the vocal far more than most pop music is.

Tim: I’ll confess I was initially disappointed by that build to the first chorus because no track should really be allowed to do that and then just stop, unless – UNLESS – it’s there solely to draw attention to a fantastic and flawless vocal. Oh, look what it did. WONDERFUL.

Tinie Tempah feat. John Martin – Children of the Sun

There’s the chorus. Which is just glorious.

Tim: “I know, I know, it’s rap,” he said a couple of days ago as if it was banned. Not necessarily, so here’s some more. This is, you’ll notice, a lyric video; there’s an actual video but we’re having this for two reasons I shall mention in due course.

Tim: Firstly, the proper one features a lot of people staring directly at a solar eclipse, which is very dangerous and a terrible example to set, so obviously we shouldn’t have that.

Tom: I was going to be all sarcastic about that but, actually, seriously, that’s a really stupid thing to put in a video for all ages.

Tim: Secondly the fun thing about this lyric video is that it omits all the rude words; I suppose that’s a good thing but it does mean that reading along with him rapping serves only to draw attention to the missing words, and what has suddenly become my favourite line which I’d not noticed before: “I told my bro to call an ambulance cos I caught a cold and went spazz on em.”

Tom: Bloody hell. I can see why that got censored out. In fact, I’m wondering whether we should have done the same.

Tim: Nah. And as for the rest of it? The rapping is, well, good if that’s your thing and perhaps not so much otherwise, though I can’t help feeling that some of the cultural references may well date it fairly quickly (or, in the case of the Harry/Vegas line, make it already seem five years old).

Tom: It took me a while to place that reference even now. Tinie’s style isn’t my favourite, but he’s clearly got skill — and the fans to prove it.

Tim: And along with all that, there’s the chorus. Which is just glorious, and exactly why I love it so much. Because yes, after a while, the non-stop spoken stuff coming at you can get a bit too much, but you know it’s worth it because that chorus is coming back, and when it does it’s just great.

Saturday Flashback: Busted – Thunderbirds Are Go

“A very very very decent track to leave by.”

Tim: I’ve just got tickets to see McBusted next April, and I am VERY EXCITED.

Tom: I passed on it — but I’ll be honest, this song almost made me reconsider.

Tim: Well then, let’s have a flashback, shall we?

Tim: Now, whatever you may have though about the film (and let’s face it, anyone who saw it probably didn’t think much of it), it’s hard to deny that this was a cracking track to go with it, and, as it turned out, a very very very decent track to leave by. Number 1, Record of the Year, and all sorts like that.

Tom: Yep. It’s a terrible film, which is a shame because — given an actual decent script — it could have been really good. They’re rebooting the TV series for 2015, and I’m interested to see what they can do with modern CGI updating those old puppet effects.

Tim: Musically it’s pretty good, with the reworking of the original theme tune into the intro and backing, beneath what’s basically just a good Busted track. Lyrically, though, it’s genius – the ‘no strings to hold them down’ metaphor quite possibly unrivalled in, ooh, at least that week, and maybe even the month.

Tom: Damning with faint praise, but you’re right: I remember playing this, many years ago on university radio, and having the folks who were all ‘oh no, it’s Busted’ start harmonising on that glorious ‘island’ call-and-response. It’s catchy.

Tim: That bit in particular is indeed GREAT. Moving on to that video, two things spring to mind: first, even at the age of twenty I can kind of understand why Charlie felt it was time to grow up just a bit, and second, some of the expressions on their faces really do make them look like a early version of Jedward. That probably sounds like an insult; I don’t mean it that way. (Although admittedly now I’ve typed it it’s hard to see how it could have come across as a compliment. Oh well.) Anyway, crap film, fun video, great track, sorted.

Lily Allen – Hard Out Here

“Is the music any good?”

Tom: If the big “Explicit Content” doesn’t tip you off: this isn’t suitable for kids.

Tom: “Don’t need to shake my arse for you ‘cos I’ve got a brain”, she says, shaking her arse. Is it possible to be ironically doing something without, you know, actually doing it?

Tim: That’s kind of what I thought – sure, it might be ‘ironic’, but it’s still there and if you’re ostensibly trying to protest about it why do it at all? But I suppose if you weren’t doing it you wouldn’t be able to smoke E-Lite electronic cigarettes so seductively.

Tom: So leaving aside the issues in the video, ‘cos heaven knows everyone’ll be debating them for untold weeks until the next controversial video comes along: is the music any good?

Tim: Erm, well…not so much for me, no.

Tom: The production’s brilliant. The instrumental’s great. But the lyrics? The middle eight that just samples of the word ‘bitch’ – badly? The terrible autotune? No doubt the latter’s for effect, given what she’s taking aim at, but that doesn’t make it any better.

Tim: Yeah – it’s back with the arse-shaking, as thought she wants it to be a talking point. Which is sort of okay, but maybe don’t embrace it quite so thoroughly?

James Blunt – Bonfire Heart

“What a fantastic track it is.”

Tom: This has been out for ages — and on the Radio 2 playlist for just as long — but we haven’t covered it. Because, well, it’s James Blunt.

Tom: The trouble is this: despite him being easy to mock for making overly-simple, lowest-common-denominator, irritating music, he’s certainly got a talent for writing. And while the last couple of albums have just sort of bubbled under, this track has brought him back to mainstream awareness. And what a fantastic track it is.

Tim: Yes – see, I’ve been meaning to suggest this for a while. Every time I hear it I think “ooh, this is great, we should do this” and then realise it’s James Blunt, and for some reason I don’t want to. I don’t know why, because like you said, it’s fantastic. Well, pretty good, anyway.

Tom: Will it go the same way as “You’re Beautiful”, or even Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day”? Adored, played everywhere, and then so ubiquitous as to become annoying? It’s certainly possible, because it’s catchy, it’s a builder, and it’s just a plain good song.

Tim: It is, especially for a track that mostly has just a drum beat, a guitar and a voice that’s constantly on the verge of annoying.

Tom: Apart from those first two lines. I could do without those first two lines.

And what was he thinking with that video? While I’m sure it’s lovely, bringing America together like that, James Blunt does not look like a natural fit for an enormous motorcycle.

Tim: No, but then to be honest very few people are natural fits for those bikes except overweight fifty year olds who’ve grown out of decent motorbikes.

Saturday Flashback: Phixx – Love Revolution

Tim: Popstars: The Rivals – remember it?

Tom: No. Genuinely, no: I didn’t watch it when it was on.

Tim: Never mind. Basic concept: in the finals, ten males and ten females, top five of each form a band which are the titular rivals. You may well have forgotten about One True Voice, the boyband; you’ve probably not forgotten about their rivals, Girls Aloud.

Tom: I was about to ask how the sixth-placed woman felt, and whether she’d faded into obscurity: but she was Javine, who had a reasonable solo career.

Tim: And who, as of yesterday, has her voice on a not-half-bad new dance track. But you have almost certainly forgotten about Phixx, the group formed the next year from the guys that finished in the bottom five. This is them, with the second (and best) of their four top 20 singles.

Tim: So there we go. Why bring it up now? Well, why not. I suddenly remembered about them, apropos of nothing I can recall, and so here they are. It’s a fun track, and an even more fun video; despite all the oiling, writhing and vampirism that’s going on I think my favourite item is the bloke who’s casually leaning on a lightsaber. SEE ME RESIST THE WEAPON OF THE FORCE.

Tom: I enjoyed the guy at the end who appeared to just be smelling his own armpit.

Tim: Also a highlight. Incidentally, the fact that they had four top 20 singles and one album puts them well ahead of One True Voice, who only managed a paltry two songs before falling apart. Actually, now I think about it Liberty X outperformed Hear’Say fairly comprehensively as well. There’s probably some reason behind that. Buggered if I care, though.

James Arthur – You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You

“I hate the lyrics.”

Tim: Oh, must we?

Tom: He may look like a discount Professor Green, but he has the second-best-selling X Factor single. (The first is Alexandra Burke’s Hallelujah, so that doesn’t really mean much.)

Tim: Fair point. Go on, then.

Tom: Let’s get this out of the way early: I hate the lyrics of this song, in both big ways (the ‘bollocks to single people’ message) and small ways (“fill up my cup / don’t ever stop”).

Tim: And which way does “get up on top, I’ll make you pop” send you?

Tom: Into mild fury. Which is a shame, because the music’s pretty damn good: a “big sound” — I don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase before, but hopefully you know what I mean — and some pretty powerful vocal work.

Tim: When I first heard this. I think I tweeted something along the lines of “this is very ‘relevant’, isn’t it.” Which is still true. Let’s be honest: it’s a bit weird. This’ll probably sound like a compliment but: he’s kind of made his own sound. Or to elaborate, it sounds like he’s gone in saying “I want to do big brass stuff,” Syco have said “no, you’re doing heavy beats,” and this is the compromise they’ve ended up with.

It’s not a bad compromise, mind – it’s just that… oh, fine, I’ll say it: I don’t like him. He’s annoying, he’s got all the charisma of a dead slug, and on top of that there’s the whole #saynotouglypopstars thing. But, hate myself as I do, any disdain and cynicism I put out for the record is tainted by that, but also slightly manufactured by it. I don’t want to like it. I really, really don’t want to like it. But…aargh, dammit, I kind of do. Ugh.

Tom: It’s not all that catchy, though — but it probably stands more of a chance of making the charts than other X Factor winners. Not that anyone can remember them.

Tim: You say that, but we both gave an unequivocal thumbs up to Matt Cardle a few months back. Cynicism and snark is what we do, but dammit you brought this song up and now I’m open to introspection. DAMN YOU TOM SCOTT.

The Wanted – Show Me Love (America)

It’s time for BIG STRINGS.

Tom: It’s time for BIG STRINGS, Tim.

Tim: YES.

Tim: Bearded Jay looks utterly ridiculous with slicked down hair.

Tom: Leaving aside that look-to-camera to emphasise the clunking, Ernie Wise-esque “what I done” —

Tim: and the fact that bearded Jay looks utterly ridiculous with slicked down hair

Tom: — that’s a pretty damn good pop track. It’s by-the-numbers, sure, but they’re exceptionally good numbers.

Tim: Hmm. It may well be the best track (and video, despite our misgivings) that they’ve put out in quite some time. It’s not happy dancey pop like Walks Like Rihanna, but as far as showing off talent, emotion and abilities goes, this is really very good indeed.

Tom: For a band I expected to be a one-hit wonder, the Wanted have been doing well. And hey, at least the music video had a happy ending.

Tim: God, you really are a heartless bastard, aren’t you? I’m still sore from the Barlow/Fältskog debacle, damn you.

Tom: Come on, that relationship was never going to work out. Physical violence and screaming matches? They’ll be happier apart.

Tim: I’M CRYING HERE.