Mainstream – Page 60

Miley Cyrus – We Can’t Stop

WHAT THE HELL.

Tom: WHAT THE HELL.

Tim: Blimey – that’s one person who wants us to know that she’s grown up very, very quickly.

Tom: Let’s get the music out of the way first: this is a cracking downtempo pop track, apparently (and unsurprisingly) written for Rihanna.

Tim: What?

Tom: It’s catchy, it’s singalong, and – aside from the inevitable remixes – it’s pretty much perfect for the end of the night at any club anywhere.

Tim: Are we listening to the same song? This is awful – it’s pretty much just horrific noise throughout. It may have been written for Rihanna, but it was presumably immediately rejected – in terms of quality it sounds like a 2010 B-side, and not a very good one.

Tom: Blimey. Okay, I’ll admit the “dancing with Miley” line grates, although there’s some suggestion it’s a drug reference —

Tim: Along with pretty much all the rest of it, although the second chorus with the piano underneath is vaguely alright.

Tom: –but given that she’s got a history of referencing herself in songs it’s not too bad. But “See You Again” was off the Disney-branded ‘Hannah Montana 2’ album. This? This is definitely not a Disney track. It’s safe to say that family-friendly, conservative-parents-approved message has gone.

Tim: Yeah, just a bit. This is something we can agree on.

Tom: If you’re cynical, you could say that this is blatantly targeted at rebellious teenagers who grew up watching Hannah Montana but are now looking for something less syrupy: you’ll notice there’s a lot of sex and drug references in there but no actual swearing.

And if you’re not cynical? Then it’s someone who’s been under the thumb of Disney’s corporate branding finally breaking out and singing the songs she wants to.

Tim: Upsettingly, you’re right.

Tom: Personally, I don’t care which it is: this is a damn good pop song.

Tim: Utter balls. Its terrible, and easily outstays its welcome by approximately three minutes and thirty two seconds.

Hurts – Somebody To Die For

“When Hurts are good, they’re very, very good.”

Tim: Hurts haven’t yet been having much success with the singles off this album; with this track, though, they’re certainly going the right way about trying.

Tim: It may be well over a minute before anything happens, aside from the typical Hurts vocal that I find particularly enjoyable and take for granted, but when it all kicks off at 1:25 there’s no way you can deny it was worth it.

Tom: Ooh, now it’s rare for me to say that I like a long intro, but I really do here. The build was very, very much worth the wait.

Tim: The production under that chorus is really quite incredible.

Tom: No! No, it’s not! It’s awful. Really, really bad. But only on the YouTube version.

Tim: What? Oh, yes, you’re right. Sorry, I was listening in iTunes, God, that’s awful.

Tom: Seriously, if you’re reading this, listen to the Spotify version instead. All those odd volume dips and cutouts are missing, and — yes, you’re absolutely right, the production is incredible. What a shame that odd over-compression’s ruined it.

Tim: The middle eight with the strings is brilliant, and when the electric guitar kicks in with a minute to go it really is just fantastic. I don’t have many issues saying it’s one of their best yet, because instrumentally alone it’s – you know, I think I’ve run out of adjectives to describe it. I just can’t understand why they chose to lead the album with Miracle, which in comparison to this, and others on there, is just dire. This, though, this is just stunning. Ah, there we go.

Tom: I think you’ve summed up my thoughts rather well there. When Hurts are good, they’re very, very good.

Tim: Also, there was a video online for about a day but then it got taken down; not sure why, but apparently it had a load of religious imagery and stuff in it, which sounds about right, really.

Saturday Flashback: The Blam – Various Disgraces

Dammit, it’s just a good party track.

Tim: I’ve recently been gradually watching my way through all nine years of The Office —

Tom: Crikey. That’s a lot of cringe-humour: I can’t take more than an episode of it, generally.

Tim: — and in one episode there was a sort of party room set up where the employees to go to dance when they got stressed. This was one of the tracks that was played, and it’s really quite good.

Tim: It’s not a very nice track, lyrically – “you wear me out, there’s nothing I can do” – but play this loud and dammit, it’s just a good party track.

Tom: It is, and I’m surprised I haven’t heard it before. I thought it sounded about a decade old, and was rather glad a bit of research discovered that I was more or less exactly right.

Tim: You were indeed. The sound just works, like so many pop/indie/rock/punk tracks did back in the mid-00s. Stick this on a playlist with Blink 182, New Found Glory, Bowling For Soup, Boys Like Girls and all the others, whack the speakers up, splurge a load of spirits into a bowl with a token litre of pineapple juice and you’ve got yourself the recipe for a great house party.

Tom: Or a terrible one.

Tim: Ah, the wonderful Mongrels. A song for every occasion.

The Saturdays – Gentleman

“I don’t like this at all. It’s awful, it really is.”

Tim: Oh, no, really?

Tom: Disappointingly, this not a PSY cover. Even more disappointingly, I think they’re trying to rap?

Tim: I don’t like this at all. It’s awful, it really is. (Though to be honest I can’t imagine anything good coming from a PSY cover either.)

Tom: Tim, I think this might have to be one of those songs where we just list everything that’s wrong with it.

Tim: Hmm. Well, we’ll start and keep going until the internet runs out.

Tom: The overly-repeated, appallingly bad sort-of-rapped chorus.

Tim: The “let’s name actors! And rappers! And singers! And politicians! And other men!” game they’re playing in the middle eight.

Tom: The poorly-lit greenscreen and clunkingly product-placed video.

Tim: And dear God, that terrible acting. I don’t expect Oscar-winning levels in a music video, but still.

Tom: “So 1999.”

Tim: “I need a Ryan Gos-a-ling”

Tom: I mean, basically, everything about it. Mainstream pop can be so, so much better than this.

Union J – Carry You

“We’re getting the boy-band battles of the late 90s back, aren’t we?”

Tom: Union J’s motto should basically be “move over, One Direction”. Not in the sense that they’re any better, just because they’ll desperately want 1D to fade from the limelight so they’ve got a shot.

Tom: We’re getting the boy-band battles of the late 90s back, aren’t we? Westlife, Boyzone and Take That may have become groups for the mums, but that just meant all these upstarts came along. We might not have the dodgy sort-of-rap breakdowns any more, but all the trappings are there.

Tim: Hmm. And I’d often agree, and much as these guys are great, this debut single really isn’t what it should be. The verses are decent, and the middle eight’s got a bit of juice to it but the chorus just isn’t enough to, well, carry it. There’s three notes, and song can’t live on three notes.

Tom: This as a debut single? Man. They’re going darker than One Direction, for sure, and I just don’t think it works all that well. It’s well-produced, well-written, and well-sung; but this sounds more like an album track to me.

Saturday Flashback: Owl City – When Can I See You Again

“I loved it on first listen.”

Tom: I’ve been lukewarm on Owl City in the past; his tracks can seem a bit like they’re written for young kids, and they frequently leave me… well, a bit cold. Not this one. I loved it on first listen.

Tim: Even though it’s quite clearly written for young kids, given the film it’s from?

Tom: Well, that makes it more remarkable — given that it’s a movie credits song. Sure, there’ve been good credit songs in the past — but for every “Men in Black” there’s a “Black Suits Comin’ (Nod Ya Head)”. And if you don’t get that reference, try and keep it that way.

Tim: I don’t, and I shall. But I’ll also take this opportunity to recommend It’s Raining Sunshine for pure sugar overload. This is very good, though – I especially like the last line of the chorus.

Tom: And yes, you could just as easily level the usual criticisms of Owl City at this–

Tim: Well, given the film it’s from, you could certainly make your ‘made for kids’ argument again, although that’s never bothered me.

Tom: — but somehow it manages to transcend them. Listen to those string synths during the second part of the first verse: there’s a completely different counter-melody, with a different rhythm, running through this whole track and it works so, so well.

Tim: That’s very true, and I’d not immediately noticed that. It’s a nice theme, and a reminder that I’ve still not seen it – a situation I must change.

Mark Owen – Stars

“Tries to straddle the realms of both Pop and Art”

Tom: The Third Bloke from Take That — they are, in modern order, Gary, Robbie, Mark, Jason and The Other One — has a new solo album. And here’s the single.

Tom: It’s one of those songs that tries to straddle the realms of both Pop and Art with both its music and video. And it’s… well, it’s OK, I guess? It’s the kind of downbeat pop that it’s difficult to fit into a format like ours: we’re set up around Big Key Changes and Pop Moments.

Tim: Hmm. Safe to say there’s not much of either of those to go around. Chorus is nice, though.

Tom: There’s certainly the Big Instrumentation here, but minor-key guitar’s always a difficult sell to the public. (And that odd prononciation of Ver-ti-go won’t help with the pedants.) The fans may well like it, though–

Tim: Fans? Really?

Tom: –and as a solo artist he’s got a bigger leg-up than most.

One Direction – Nobody Compares

Top of the range pop music, I think you’ll agree.

Tim: This isn’t a current single; in fact, it’ll probably never be a single at all as it was an iTunes bonus track off their most recent album. However, let’s write about it now, because to be honest there’s not a lot of music I can find right now that seems worth covering after tracks that begin with a 7’8″ Ukrainian giant, but this is.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNnpUtYcgVE

Tim: Top of the range pop music, I think you’ll agree.

Tom: When you’re the biggest boy band in the world, your team get the pick of every songwriter and producer in the world: even your iTunes album tracks are top-quality pop music.

Tim: Very true. A banging instrumental, a chorus with multiple memorable hooks in it and a basically nonexistent middle eight that automatically make the final section seem amazing. Top that off with lyrics about lipstick taste that are weirdly intimate, and you’ve got yourself a nearly flawless track, I reckon.

Tom: How do you compete with that? You have to step outside the formula: if you’re trying to be like One Direction, you can never quite match up. (We’re looking at you, Levine and Bannatyne.)

Tim: Weird side note: looking for this, I found a YouTube channel with “official” music videos for various One Direction album tracks such as this; they’re entirely fan made from actual footage of the band singing other songs, put together so it looks vaguely like they’re singing this. Some people are weird. Just, really weird.

Tom: Teen crushes are scary.

B*Witched – Love And Money

There’s none of the playfulness.

Tom: B*Witched? You’re kidding me.

Tim: Absolutely not – obviously, you don’t take part in a big reunion TV show and go on its accompanying tour just to say goodbye again afterwards, so let’s have some proper new music, shall we?

Tim: And it is…entirely generic. It’s very good generic, mind – mild opening verse building into a hefty two-part chorus, good use of screaming for the title and a sensible break for the middle eight – but there’s none of the playfulness that has become regarded, for better or worse, as their trademark.

Tom: They were always seen as a bit of a novelty act for that reason. When “Some people say I look like me dad” is the rallying call for a retro-enthusiastic cheer on a cheesy dance floor, then I can understand them wanting to be a bit more respectable.

Tim: This could easily be by, say, Demi Lovato, or P!nk (especially with the bit in the chorus lifted from Blow Me (One Last Kiss)).

Tom: Yep, there’s even the cheering-sound-effect afterwards. But that said, “this could be by Demi Lovato” is a pretty good compliment.

Tim: It is – it’s very high praise indeed, but it’s still slightly disappointing for a B*Witched song. Great track, but with bad reasons for being so.

Tom: It’s not the Irish flutes and cheesy pop that some fans will have been hoping for… but then, it’s not the nineties any more.

Biffy Clyro – Biblical

“And you thought The Proclaimers sounded Scottish…”

Tim: And you thought The Proclaimers sounded Scottish…

Tom: Someone singing in their natural accent. That’s actually lovely. As indeed, is the entire track: that chorus is just glorious: the fact that the vocals and drums form a complex polyrhythm rather than your normal pop music four-on-the-floor is brilliant.

Tim: As far as I’m concerned, these guys’ tracks veer between “what a racket” and “utterly lovely”; I reckon this falls about eighty per cent of the way towards the latter. The lyrics don’t make that much sense (because however much you want to you can’t go back to the start, because that’s not how time works).

Tom: Oh come on. Really? You’re bitching about pop lyrics not making sense? It’s even an “if you want to”. I don’t hear you complaining the Aqua can’t Turn Back Time, or that Lene from Aqua isn’t actually a Barbie Girl, or that Aqua aren’t actually cartoon heroes.

Tim: See, once at Aqua’s Turn Back Time, most people would have continued the theme and moved to, I don’t know, Cher. But not us! Oh no.

Tom: I’m not sure quite why I went so Aqua-focused there.

Tim: It’s absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. The video here doesn’t really do much except convey the message “don’t owe money to a drug dealer”.

Tom: Which is a good message, to be fair.

Tim: The tune, the singing, the rhythm, and everything else about it, though, is just lovely. Favourite bit? Well, the chorus is lovely in itself, but I reckon I’d go for the closing bit, the instrumental and then the repeating “baby how can you walk away”, which I think is just great. Much like everything, really. Magical, wonderful, whatever. Though actually, what does “make this biblical” mean?

Tom: Okay, I’ll grant you, that bit doesn’t actually make any sense. It’s great, though.