Mainstream – Page 67

Steps – Light Up The World

“I am EXCITED.”

Tim: 15th October 2001. Just over eleven years ago. With the release of their first greatest hits collection, that was the last date the world heard any original material from the band originally formed just to be a one-hit wonder with 5, 6, 7, 8. Until now, that is.

Tom: I am EXCITED.

Tim: Slightly confusing start (“have they gone a bit dubsteppy?”), but then a wonderfully reassuring first verse and chorus.

Tom: See, I was expecting a big Dance Track, not a ballad. Once I readjusted my expectations, I was fine, but that’s a bit of a let-down.

Tim: The strings under the verses sound oddly dramatic – almost something that could come out of a big TV drama, and I love that.

Tom: I was thinking more “end of the first half of a panto”, but I know what you mean.

Tim: The chorus is massive, and if you’re singing along you can’t really do it justice unless you open your mouth a good few inches more than is comfortable. The middle eight, well, seems to be there only to give Lee and H something to do, but never mind because they seem to do a decent job of it. The fade-out ending is as lazy as ever, and gets in the way of a damn good closing section. So despite the very end, I like this song a lot and it’s lovely.

Tom: It is, but damn it, they’re called Steps. They’re meant to do cheesy pop-dance numbers, surely?

Tim: Well, you say that, and possibly, yes. But think back to their singles. There was Tragedy, and 5, 6, 7, 8, obviously, which were both dance routines accompanied by songs. But them aside, Steps were pretty ballad-heavy: just to name a few, Love’s Got A Hold On My Heart, Heartbeat, Deeper Shade Of Blue, Better Best Forgotten – all great, and all ballads.

The chances of a new proper album with original stuff are sadly minimal at best, but as a one-off single as the result of a Sky Living TV series, I think this is great.

Tom: Ha. I thought there had to be some kind of ulterior motive. I just assumed it was a new Greatest Hits album.

Tim: Nope. The first series led to a tour that sold out in minutes, and the second gave us this and an EP of cover tracks. I don’t know – maybe there will be a third series with a proper album, but until then I’ll cope with this.

Calvin Harris feat. Florence Welch – Sweet Nothing

This feels like an album track.

Tom: I’ve known a few people who’ve said “they like the Machine, but not Florence”: her vocals tend to polarise people. How well does she fit with Calvin Harris, then?

Slight warning here: while there’s no actual blood or nudity, this isn’t a comfortable video to watch.

Tim: Ooh, blimey.

Tom: Somehow, despite the video, this feels like an album track.

Tim: It does – there’s nothing to really get you going on it. No massive hook to remember, no big chorus to hang around afterwards.

Tom: I can’t say why: Florence Welch sounds like Florence Welch, Calvin Harris sounds like Calvin Harris, together the two of them should sound spectacular. Were my expectations too high?

Tim: I’ll going for something like: a good Calvin Harris track needs bigger vocals than this, a good Florence track needs slightly more traditional instruments. To me, this sounds more like a mash-up that doesn’t quite hit the spot.

Tom: Yes! That’s exactly it. It’s like someone’s taken the unmemorable verses from two tracks and mashed them together, rather than the choruses that everyone knows.

Pink feat. Nate Ruess – Just Give Me A Reason

I recommend hitting ‘play’ and then just closing your eyes.

Tim: Like this, do you?

Tom: Yes, I know, I’m a Pink fan, I’m biased.

Tim: But not enough of a fan to write her name properly, I notice. HMMM?

Tom: If ridiculous name-styling gets in the way of writing things clearly, then I’ll happily get rid of it. Anyway, yes, the new album’s bloody amazing. And the best track off it, by a long way, is the Big Emotional Ballad. Oh, and it’s got a lyric video, but it’s much better without: I recommend hitting ‘play’ and then just closing your eyes.

Tim: Okay, I didn’t close my eyes. And I noticed the weirdest thing ever. Well, not ever, obviously, but it’s bloody odd: the apostrophes in the “you’re” and “we’re” at 2:33 and 3:40 are far too high, unlike any of the others. Anyway, music.

Tom: “We’re not broken, just bent, and we can learn to love again.” Isn’t that gorgeous?

Tim: Yes, it is. Can’t disagree with you there.

Tom: The male voice is Nate Ruess – and if he sounds familiar, it’s because he’s better known as the lead singer of Fun.

Tim: AGAIN with the names, blimey – it’s written as fun., please.

Tom: That’s still bloody ridiculous. It’s a little odd that he’s singing in mostly the same vocal range as Pink, but once that oddity slides by, this is just a beautiful track. Piano and drumkit, simple melodies, simple chorus.

Tim: You know, I think we had pretty much exactly the same thoughts going on whilst listening to that song. It’s a lovely song.

Tom: I’m a sucker for Big Emotional Ballads, if they’re done well – and for me, at least, this track made me pause the album for a while to (metaphorically at least) get my breath back.

Tim: And it almost made me not want to be annoying with my name-pedantry up there. Almost.

Robbie Williams – Candy

A song built around a chorus.

Tom: It’s a new Robbie single, from a new album, backed up by some surprise gigs booked for the O2 next month. Yep, he’s still big enough that he can sell out the O2 on short notice – and, apparently, big enough that I can refer to him just by his first name there.

Tim: On Saturday, a song with a list of ways to be killed. Today, a video with a collection of ways to commit suicide. What an uplifting site this is turning into.

Tom: Now, the last big single – excepting the one with Gary Barlow – was “Bodies”, which was a grower. I hated it the first time I heard it, and now it gets stuck in my head. Out of deference to that, I listened to this a couple more times before writing this. And my opinion is this: it’s a song built around a chorus.

Tim: Okay…

Tom: The verses are awful. He rhymes “roses” with “roses” at one point. The middle eight is uninspired. The video is incomprehensible, high-budget nonsense. But that chorus is absolutely brilliant, and perfect for him: it’s catchy, it’s danceable, and it’ll be a big hit live.

Tim: Hmm. I can agree with most of that, though I wouldn’t say awful for the verses – yes, the roses bit is a low point but the rest is okay, and they’ve a decent tune which resonates nicely with the chorus. Your main point, thought: yes, absolutely.

Tom: It also suffers the curse of Robbie, which can be summed up in three words: “It’s no ‘Angels’.”

Tim: What is? (Aside from Year 3000, obviously.)

Tom: Let it go, Tim.

Saturday Flashback: Train – 50 Ways To Say Goodbye

How do you make a mariachi band sound good in a pop song?

Tom: A David Hasselhoff cameo in the video may sound promising—

Tim: Nope.

Tom: Yep, fair point. But don’t worry, because the mariachi band is so much better.

Tim: That was BRILLIANT.

Tom: Wasn’t it just? I mean, how do you make a mariachi band and Spanish guitar sound good in a pop song? And how can it be so damn catchy? Well, I’ve got an explanation: it’s been assembled from parts of many, many other songs.

Tim: Well…

Tom: The verse is a Latin version of “Phantom of the Opera”. The pre-chorus line is from the same musical – the patter bit of “Masquerade” (“The toast of all city, what a pity…”) The chorus is a bit of the Vandals’ “My Girlfriend’s Dead” crossed with another song that I can’t quite place now. The horn section is straight out of “I Will Survive”. They’ve all been changed, of course – there’s still some composing in there – but it does sound bolted-together.

Tim: Right, I’m in two minds, here. I agree with you about the Phantom link, which is almost as blatant as Alphabeat was with The Who, and quite how it could be there without being deliberate is beyond me. The “I Will Survive” link is pretty much there, and the song you can’t place is Girl All The Bad Guys Want.

Tom: Ha! I even saw Bowling for Soup once live – they’re a band that clearly enjoys themselves on stage – and I still didn’t place that.

Tim: However, I want to disagree about the Vandals link. Yes, it is exactly the same idea, but the logic makes me think of everything that annoys me about that Everything Is A Remix thing, where he reckons that just about every scene in every film has been stolen.

The thing is, for any given scene, there are only a limited number of ways to frame it; with seventy years of film-making previously, of course someone’s going to have done it before. That doesn’t make it copying, it makes it an inevitable coincidence, and it’s quite possibly the same here.

Sure, maybe they did think “That’s a cool theme for a song – we should do that and hope no-one notices,” and I won’t deny it’s a possibility, but maybe it’s just two songs out of almost a century of pop music that share a somewhat unusual theme. To be honest, I’d be astounded if there were only two.

Tom: Fair point – and it would have been my default theory if it wasn’t for all the other, er, homages throughout the track.

I still like it, though. I like it a lot.

Tim: Good, because I reckon it’s great. What’s particularly good is that he’s done that thing comedy songwriters have to do (which The Vandals didn’t do), which is rewrite the chorus each time so it’s still fun.

Tom: Which, considering it’s the same Train that did the definitely-not-comedy “Drops of Jupiter” ten years ago, is quite a good thing.

Tim: Yeah, and sure, he could have just stuck with the quicksand, the shark and the sunbed, which would have been perfectly acceptable, but instead he put a bit more in and added a lion, a mudslide and a hot tub. Would have been even better if he’d done it at the end as well, but it’s still a handsome list. It’s a good tune (original or otherwise), it’s got a whole lot of energy to it and it’s exactly what I want to hear (although I’d prefer it if the lyrics reflected the video with the car one – ‘got decapitated by a purple Scion’ would be so much better).

Tom: Incidentally, who fills a cement mixer full of quicksand?

Adele – Skyfall

Tom: New Bond theme! And boy, is it ever a return to old-school Bond themes.

Tim: It’s like the Bond themes of the olden days. Soulful female vocalist, big orchestra behind it, title of the film in there in a way that people will always remember, long enough for everyone in the cinema to get thoroughly bored of it while it plays out in its entirety (WHY DO THEY DO THAT? NOBODY LIKES IT.)

Tom: Well, I like it. Tradition, and all that. But after the pop-rock of “You Know My Name” and Jack White being Jack White on “Another Way To Die“, this is welcome. And if you’re going to return to form and get a diva to belt out a traditional Bond theme, who else is there these days but Adele? What a voice.

Tim: It’s basically what everybody ‘knows’ a James Bond song is. You can’t blame them for going back to basics, as Another Way To Die didn’t exactly receive rave reviews, and as far as I’m concerned the less said about Die Another Day the better, really. But does it make it a bit dull, as some have claimed? No. It’s powerful – that chanting in the background works wonders for me, for a start.

Tom: Really? That’s the only thing I’m not sure about: I heard it more as a call-and-response that didn’t work. Other than that: my word, this could be belted out by Shirley Bassey, and could have been written for her years ago as well.

Tim: It’s one you want to sing along to. I love it.

Tom: A side note: the best Bond theme ever? Aimee Mann’s cover of “Nobody Does It Better”. It sends shivers up my spine.

Josh Osho feat. Childish Gambino – Giants

Occupying a dodgy middle-ground between genre.

Tom: You may remember Childish Gambino as providing the dark and (as I called it) “plot-relevent” rap bit in Leona Lewis’ latest single. Well, he’s doing the “feat.” rounds, and I was rather hoping that he’d be bringing the same style to this.

Tom: Nope.

Tim: No…

Tom: Which is a shame, because I was – unusally for either of us – rather hoping for a decent rap bit here. The track needed one: it’s occupying a dodgy middle-ground between genres and seems to get lost about half way through. I can’t really work out what it’s meant to be.

Tim: I think it’s trying for the standard inspirational “we’re all great” vibe, but has unfortunately come at just the wrong time. It might normally work, but what with the Olympics having just gone, we’ve all had our fill of inspirational tracks, and know they can be better than this.

Tom: Something about the track seems off, Tim, but I don’t know what. Can you work it out what it is?

Tim: It might be his voice – even with the vaguely decent backing this has, it still sounds more suited to a Radio 2 playlist than to anything current. Yes, the rap brings it back a notch, but that needs to be there for more than just a standard breakdown for this to work properly and be relevant. It’s old and it’s bland – that’s what’s off.

Saturday Flashback: St. Lucia – All Eyes On You

This is about a year old, and flipping brilliant.

Tim: This is about a year old, and flipping brilliant. And that’s all the intro you’ll need.

Tom: Well, that was a bit good. Is there a sudden trend for retro, 80s-style pop? Because I’m liking it.

Tim: Good. And while you’re still reeling from it, let me introduce St. Lucia. He started out in South Africa, moved to London for a bit before heading off to New York, where he now spends his time coming out with fantastic pieces of music like this. The thing about it is that it’s very very simple: there are a couple of tiny verses, but it’s mostly about the chorus, lengthy and fairly repetitive (especially once it’s been repeated twice without a break towards the end). But I love that repetition, because what a tune this is. I don’t know what it is – the rhythm, the notes, maybe both – but that chorus strikes me as almost perfect.

Tom: Perhaps it wasn’t quite that perfect for me, because I could have stood for a bit less repetition: but the middle eight saved it for me, and the last chorus paid off nicely.

Tim: The instrumentation beneath it is lovely as well – the closing part is wonderful, and while the sax break in the middle seems a bit out of place (at least if you’re not watching the video, where it seems oddly appropriate), when the piano hits (or when the camera pans back) you get a glorious thirty second build-up to the re-entry. However great the music is, though, it’s the chorus that gets me. It’s just brilliant.

Tom: You know, I don’t have much to add to that. It’s ace.

Ellie Goulding – Anything Could Happen

Gorgeous but incomprehensible.

Tom: It’s time for a gorgeous but incomprehensible video!

Tim: I think you’ll find, if you put some effort in, that it’s actually quite simple.

Basically, she was in a car crash with her boyfriend, who ended up dying, and then she sort of did as well because she’s bleeding but we’re not really sure, but probably didn’t because firstly she’s singing and all that and secondly and mostly you can see in the shots where the crash happens that there’s one person in their car (and not in the seat where’s her boyfriend’s then lying dead) and no-one at all in the van it crashes into, which must have made for some careful post-mortal repositioning but also incredibly careless driving – of all the vans on all the beaches in all the world, he crashes into the one that’s entirely deserted – except then it’s alright because he comes back, still with loads of blood on him.

So it’s entirely comprehensible, just like that sentence was.

Tom: Sorry, what? I zoned out for a second there. Anyway, “gorgeous but incomprehensible” pretty much sums up the song as well. I like it, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t even work out what the hell they’re sampling for that main melody line.

Tim: Are they sampling anything? Whether they are or not, that’s one of the loveliest post-choruses I’ve heard in a long time.

Tom: It’s weird: I find myself enjoying it almost on a detached, technical level: it’s well written and a really impressive bit of production, but there’s no actual emotional resonance in there for me at all.

Tim: I’ve told you before, Tom: you’re an emotionless void.

One Direction – Live While We’re Young

“Libidos the size of Canada.”

Tim: Most songs are about love and romance and stuff, aren’t they? And to be honest, after a while it gets tedious. Now, we have a song entitled Live While We’re Young, which is presumably all about enjoying life.

Tom: Well, it depends. The song seems to change its meaning entirely, depending on whether you watch it with or without the video. “Live While We’re Young” certainly implies that it’s about enjoying life…

Tim: Right, and the video implies that as well. But just listen to the lyrics, and while we have indeed left behind the love and romance, but we’re now onto just plain sex.

There are hints throughout, what with “get together”, “I know we only met but let’s pretend it’s love,” and “Don’t let the pictures leave you phone.” And then there’s the big one, clarifying the matter once and for all: “Tonight let’s get some.”

Tom: Well, it’s all plausibly deniable. There’s certainly a lot of innuendo in there if you read it that way, but even ‘get some’ can technically have an innocent meaning.

Tim: Seriously? Because, come on, some what, precisely? Nothing, really, just some. In the sense of “Mate, did you leave the club with the hot one last night?” “Oh yeah, and boy did I get some.”

Part of me wants to think it’s a series of double entendres and all that, and that while it is about sex they’re trying to dress it up as young innocent kids actually having fun, like the title implies. But they’re really not – it’s not remotely subtle. This is One Direction stating they’re not the innocent people all the teenage girls and caring mothers thought they were. No. They’re five blokes in their late teens with libidos the size of Canada.

Tom: Without the video, I entirely agree with you. With the video, I can’t help feeling that we’re got cataclysmic levels of homoerotic tension going on here. Waking up in a large tent (who has a sofa in a tent?) with four other attractive young men, piling onto each other, and having a splash-fight? That’s basically Top Gun.

Tim: True, I suppose, and it’s a good video, passing on the live while we’re young message. You’re right – it’s like there are two completely different songs, one as a soundtrack to the video and one whose lyrics would sound appropriate on a Flo Rida single.

Tom: It’s a fairly canny marketing move: there are no girls in the video for their female fans to be jealous about, and the gay men are just as catered for.

Tim: Anyway, let’s move on from the meaning, and talk about the music. It’s catchy as hell. Backing is as it should be, even if it does get off to a slightly dodgy start that gave me a ‘hang on, what’s happening here?” feeling. I particularly like the guitar riff in the middle eight, and the chanting in the background towards the end. It’s all just great.

Tom: Of course it is. With this much money behind them, they’ve got their choice of every pop songwriter. If there’s a dud single from them, something’s gone very wrong.