Tim: Inexplicably, some artists were still releasing songs last week, which strikes me a bit like a school five-a-side match being played the same day as the World Cup final, but never mind. This from Birgir is substantially different from his Icelandic compatriots’ entry on Saturday, and while ‘stick with it’ is normally a terrible thing to say about a song, the first 43 seconds have almost nothing in common with the rest of it.
Tom: You’re not wrong, that unexpectedly goes… well, to me it sounds like Mumford and Sons decided to cover Bastille. By which I mean I was literally singing parts of Pompeii over the top of it.
Tim: Lovely melody, lovely instruments, lovely vocals, lovely message, even a load of lovely colours in the video – what’s not to love?
Well, aside from that dull as heck introduction, but that’s over soon enough and we’ve the knowledge of what to come that’ll get us through that. Aside from that, it’s an all in lovely song, that I’ve listened to a good few times now and not got bored of.
Tom: I feel like I’ve heard it before, which is — of course — probably why I’ve taken to it. I can’t remember any of it after I listen, but I certainly enjoyed it while it was there.
“It looks like she’s the one already-drunk person who got up to dance at the start of the night.”
Tim: Croatia dropped out of Eurovision last night, failing to qualify, which was a bit of a shame as they had some very good looking backing dancers wearing angels wings and everything. It was a somewhat operatic number, with plenty of emotions on display, and a damn fine key change. This was their runner up, and shares absolutely none of those characteristics.
Tom: That first instrumental is one of the most awkward camera shots I’ve seen in a long time. It looks like she’s the one already-drunk person who got up to dance at the start of the night. All it needs is her repeatedly shouting at people to come up and join her. And what’s with the audience? This is Sweden gives them things to wave about and cheer with. There’s actually someone on their phone in one of the shots.
That’s all down to the production crew, though. We’re talking about the music.
Tim: Curiously, there isn’t much music like this, regionally distinctive, in the contest this year, which is kind of a shame. Sure, there are a high number of strong tracks, but not many you could say “yep, that’s definitely eastern European/Polish/Mediterranean”. A loss?
Tom: Well, it depends. Something like this can do well in the contest on rare occasions, but it’s a bold strategy that seems to produce more misses than hits. Certainly mixing it with modern pop sensibilities helps, as they’ve done here. It’s certainly nice to hear it in the Contest, but as to whether it’s a loss…
Tim: I think so, yes, and I think this year would have been improved by the inclusion of this song. It’s regional, and it’s much more of a dance beat banger than their eventual choice, which may have fared better. Or not, of course – it was a strong semi (yep), with only a few that definitely shouldn’t have qualified (even though one of those, Albania, did, irritatingly) – but it would have been nice to see anyway.
Tom: I’d just finished writing this, Tim, and I was starting to write a conclusion — when I found I was still humming the chorus, minutes after listening to it. Which is usually a good sign.
Except I wasn’t humming the chorus. I was humming the theme tune to Pirates of the Caribbean. Have a listen to that chorus and those orchestral hits, and tell me there’s not at least a passing resemblance.
Tim: Oh. Oh, yeah, you’re not wrong there. It’s the “ohhhh-oh-oh-oh” and then the beats, dammit you MONSTER.
“This is one of the best tracks we’ve covered in a while, I reckon.”
Tim: Here, a song about ‘the pressure young people are exposed to on a daily basis through everyday life as well as social media’.
Tom: Not about Dr Frankenstein, then.
Tim: Basically: sod your appearance, look how you want.
Tom: Someone threw Scars To Your Beautiful and Fight Song into a blender and this is the result. I don’t mean it sounds like either of those: it’s just very much in the same genre.
Tim: And oh, boy, did that chorus take me by surprise.
Tom: You’re not wrong. “Body parts” are really strange words to sing in such an uplifting tone but somehow it works.
Tim: Up until then, fairly standard track, albeit with the peculiar addition of a Greenwich Time Signal.
Tom: I think that might be intended as a heartbeat on a monitor? But yes, it’s an odd one. Fortunately it doesn’t stick around, and that’s down to the excellent production: the track steadily evolves over time, but it all works as a cohesive whole.
Tim: And sure, the pre-chorus comes along lifting things up a bit, but then ‘salvation’ arrives, and the first ‘body parts’, and suddenly there’s a lot of power there turning a good track into a great track, with a sing-along chorus to rival any of Rachel Platten’s and some of Demi Lovato’s.
Tom: Also good: the middle eight, the vocoder work, the final chorus, and the coda at the end. This is one of the best tracks we’ve covered in a while, I reckon.
Tim: High company and high praise, but well deserved.
Tim: JP’s British, Astrid is, as we’ve heard multiple times, Swedish. And oh, do I have an issue with this.
Tim: At least, I have a problem with the lyric video. Musically, its fine. In fact, it’s good! The melody is nice, the vocals work well together, it’s a pleasant song to listen to!
Tom: You’re not wrong there. This is really nicely put together. I don’t think it’s going to be a classic, but it’s certainly a cut above most of the tracks we cover here. Astrid S continues to have a lovely voice, and JP Cooper makes for a good lead vocalist.
Tim: I like it, quite a lot! BUT. BUT. Oh, why would you use Calibri in a lyric video. Just, why.
Tom: That’s… that’s your problem? It’s a really lovely animated video, and your problem is Calibri?
Tim: There’s clearly been some proper designer involved at some point – the doo-do bits show it slightly, and then that ‘but I can write a song’ proves that someone involved knows what they’re doing – but why the hell would you use Calibri, anywhere? Everyone who has used a computer in the past decade knows it as the Microsoft Word default typeface, and everybody who has used a computer is the past decade will think “have they got, like, no imagination at all?”. It’s distracting. It’s wrong. And, genuinely, with that in the foreground it spoils the song for me. Background tab, it’s fine. But if I’m in the YouTube app on my phone? NO, next track please.
“The word that comes to mind for this is ‘charming’.”
Tom: This played on the radio while I was driving. It’s catchy as hell, but I swear I’ve heard the chorus somewhere before. What on earth does it sound like?
Tom: Even without that: the word that comes to mind for this is “charming”. It’s not a theme I’ve heard before, but it’s properly relatable; the chorus is brilliant; and the music video is in no way self-aggrandising. Like I said: charming.
Tim: Yes. You’re right, it is a bit familiar, in a couple of places, but nothing that I can think of right now. It’s good, though, and very listenable, and yeah, charming works well.
Tom: And then there’s Macklemore, who somehow manages to do a rap bit that doesn’t sound terrible. Aside from the Uber and Red Bull brand shoutouts, but never mind.
Tim: See, the Uber thing I’m actually okay with – sure, it might sting a tad to hear but, for me at least, Uber’s become enough of a word in its own right, like ‘google’ meaning to search, that lyrically I’m okay with it. Red Bull I’ll let you have, though.
Tom: Now, I’ll grant you, the track’s probably a bit too long. It’s basically got three middle eights: Macklemore’s verse, the actual middle eight with a different melody, and the quiet broken-down piano-backed chorus. In a world where the middle eight is steadily going away and songs are getting shorter, that’s a bold move.
Tim: But I like that – the song’s almost four minutes long, but it’s varied enough that I never get bored of it.
Tom: I think it manages to be both interestingly different and immediately catchy, which is a rare thing in pop. Or I just really like whichever song it’s reminding me of.
“Remember that ‘Sweet But Psycho’ song, the one that was so catchy that everyone just ignored the really questionable lyrics?”
Tom: Remember that ‘Sweet But Psycho’ song, the one that was so catchy that everyone just ignored the really questionable lyrics?
Tim: YES, and I still listen to it frequently while feeling ever so slightly guilty every time.
Tom: Well, this is what happens when a record executive says “that was brilliant, let’s have another one that’s exactly the same please”.
Tim: And right now I am imaging that exact conversation, because that is what happens. In a good way, mind.
Tom: There’s a lot to unpack here, isn’t there? The Sid and Nancy reference, the “call me Harley” lyric that acknowledges that, yes, perhaps the stylist might have taken a bit of inspiration from a certain comic book character.
Tim: Yeah – and that’s not helped by the fact that releasing a song titled ‘So Am I’ immediately after one with a main line of “she’s sweet but a psycho” could be read in a way different from how these lyrics portray it.
Tom: And the slightly uncomfortable music-video trope of taking a conventionally attractive artist and putting her in an oversexualised school uniform with some dancers, while she’s singing about how it’s okay to be different.
It’s very much been the Difficult Second Single in terms of chart performance, although it seems to be getting enough airplay.
Tim: Well, its been in the charts five weeks now and is lurking around the lower end of the Top 20, so I’d say it could go either way.
“The vocals, the composition, the production: everything works.”
Tom: They’re still a thing!
Tim: Yep, they’re still a thing, and this has an interesting lyric in the pre-chorus.
Tom: And an interesting theme, given that it’s about the fallout from a toxic relationship. There’s a complicated tone there, and I really like it.
Tim: Good, isn’t it? Though, speaking of the lyrics, part of me wants to overanalyse them and say ACTUALLY given that that pre-chorus occurs several times over the course of several minutes, that 42 seconds should dramatically increase by the end of it, but I though no, can’t be bothered, because (a) the ‘give you head’ lyric outdoes any harm done by that and (b) it’s a great track and I don’t want to waste time being petty when I can instead properly just enjoy it and be positive about it.
Tom: There’s so much to like here. I was surprised the first time I heard the chorus — I wan’t expecting that much electropop — but once that settled in, damn, this is good. The vocals, the composition, the production: everything works. Except possibly that middle eight, but I can forgive it: like you say, it’s a song I want to be positive about.
Tim: Because damn, I know they were fairly decent back in the day, but this is better than any Veronicas track has a right to be these days. I’d go so far as to say, in fact, that it’s flipping marvellous!
“It’s not often I want to skip back twenty seconds just to check that I actually did hear what I think I heard.”
Tim: Most of the time here, we like to feature tracks we enjoy. Often, though, they might not be all that great (in some cases they’re downright awful), but nonetheless fun to talk about. Now, I not saying I don’t enjoy this track, as it’s alright, but boy is there one particular thing worth mentioning.
Tom: The line “I felt things when we were naked”? The acting at the start, where it’s clearly not a proper recording session? Although that’s really quite nicely resolved with the outtake at the end.
Tim: Possibly worth a mention, yes, but not the main thing. Because it’s not often I want to skip back twenty seconds just to check that I actually did hear what I think I heard, but here, I genuinely did. That key change is just obscene.
Tom: I’m just annoyed that the childhood nostalgia flashbacks are the right years for my own childhood now.
Tim: Speak for yourself, I’ve got a good few years left, and I’m already enjoying it.
Tim: Second release off a new UK act, presumably taking advantage of the fact that CHVRCHES are off a bit making new music, and taking that opportunity to carve out a place for herself.
Tom: That’s the least grammatical title I’ve seen in a while.
Tim: Oh, hush.
Tom: Yesterday, we talked about the start of the upcoming 90s revival; this sounds like some of the last parts of the 80s revival. Arpeggiators set to maximum, captain.
Tim: Up until the chorus came along I was very “yep, okay, standard, this’ll do”, but THEN. The chorus arrives, the song jumps up a notch or twenty, and suddenly there’s something very definitely worth listening to that I like a lot.
Tom: Really? I just don’t like that vocoder: she’s got a great voice, but mangled through that effect it grates for me. Which is a shame, because the rest of it’s really quite nice.
Tim: Hmm, see, I first heard that vocoder as a featured male vocal, which made it work fine for me. The production’s lovely, her vocals throughout are great (particularly in, of all places, that very last line, which has a lovely melody), ad then yep, there’s that great chorus. And a disco house on fire in the video, what’s not to like?
“You’re about to go into an overly-serious explanation of some pretty terrible lyrics, aren’t you?”
Tim: Ideally, we’d wait until a video had been put out for this track before featuring it, but sadly it’s been long enough since the album release that it seems there may not be one. And that’s upsetting, because it is (a) by far and away the best song on their new album and (b) an actual, genuinely billed as, sequel to the classic Air Hostess.
Tim: Now, you’re not sure if I’m being serious with the whole sequel thing. Is it really, or is it just any old song that can be vaguely related?
Tom: You’re about to go into an overly-serious explanation of some pretty terrible lyrics, aren’t you?
Tim: Absolutely not! These lyrics are excellent. if we’re honest then for at least the first minute or so, they could be just some sort of metaphor – weird perhaps, but not the worst we’ve heard. Relationship’s over, so shipwrecked, but still slightly okay, so landing in Atlantis, so maybe…except, yeah, that works with the “half dead, half alive” and “miracle we both survived”. And sure, we can kind of keep it going with “keeps getting better” and “almost like we planned it” because, you know, relationships and stuff, but then we’re talking about dining with salt bae every night, and complaining about the food prices, and actually no it’s not any sort of metaphor, it’s just a plane crash, with someone who is, let’s face it, quite probably the aforementioned Air Hostess and an extension of that story.
Tom: Sure. So anyway, the musi–
Tim: In fact, following it through with the whole Atlantis thing, it’s basically a prequel to the events described in Year 3000 – living underwater, and the amount of inbreeding that would surely come from this scenario would lead easily into triple-breasted women. Wouldn’t it?
Tom: I appreciate your efforts to create a Busted Cinematic Universe.
Tim: This is, really, the song that brings all of Busted together. We never knew we needed it, but lyrically it’s here. And it’s also damn good musically as well, because I’ve heard this a couple of dozen times now and I still love it.
Tom: Pity about those lyrics. Although I have to admit, I was humming that chorus after one listen: it’s catchy, and I don’t really mind.
