Saturday Flashback – Page 26

Saturday Flashback: Velvet – Déjà Vu

“Somewhat distracted by her outfit.”

Tim: On Tuesday, you said of Velvet: “She’s quite good, isn’t she?” Well, yes. I present a Melodifestivalen 2008 entry.

Tom: Full disclosure: during this review, I was somewhat distracted by her outfit.

Tim: I would expect nothing less. Formula-watchers will be somewhat horrified by the fact that the chorus proper doesn’t start until almost a minute in, leaving – SHOCK HORROR – no room for a proper middle eight once we’ve got the second verse/chorus out of the way as well.

Tom: That build to the first chorus makes up for it, though!

Tim: It does, but I can’t help wondering: was the lack of middle eight, and its associated crazy and original dance moves, the reason for the somewhat disappointing fifth place in the semi-final? Well, who knows.

Tom: Fifth in the semis, even with that key change? Blimey, that must have been a good Melodifestivalen.

Tim: All I’ll say right now is that the final winner was Hero, by Charlotte Perrelli. Enough said. Back to this song, what I do know is that, middle eight or not, it’s a cracking piece of work.

Saturday Flashback: Electric Lady Lab – You & Me

“Just anaemic.”

Tim: When we featured them only a few days ago, it seems I was shamed by not knowing there was heavy sampling involved. I wish to redeem myself by saying that I am entirely aware that this, another Electric Lady Lab track from last June, also has sampling involved. Two things:

No video, just several thousand still pictures.
They are the only band (I’m informed by the internet) to have been given permission to sample the track that they are sampling.

Tom: Okay, I think I get Electric Lady Lab’s shtick now. They sample old 80s tracks, add new vocals to them, and chuck them out as new songs.

Tim: Actually, most of it’s original – just a couple, really. (Oh, and PEDANT: this is from 1990).

Tom: Which, let me remind you, is 21 years ago. Feel old yet?

Tim: Not as old as you, Mr Two-years-older-than-me.

Tom: Anyway, as I said before, I like mashups – but the tracks they’re putting out are just anaemic. The old ones are better: mashups and samples should improve on the original and make something better, not just add a weak new vocal.

Tim: Here, I actualy agree with you – it takes away a lot of the focus from fact that it’s a new the new song, because every single moment that they’re not singing it sounds like Rhythm Is A Dancer, just because it’s so implanted into people’s head. The singing is excellent, when it’s there, and worthy of being in a great song – just not this well-known a song, because it just sounds like a mash-up.

Tom: Granted, it’s better than the travesty we had last week, but it’s still not good.

Tim: Bonus related fact: “I’m serious as cancer when I say rhythm is a dancer” was once voted the worst lyric of all time.

Saturday Flashback: Example – Watch The Sun Come Up

Adds up to a good track.

Tim: His released-tomorrow Stay Awake is sort of alright and earlier-this-year’s Changed The Way You Kissed Me was pretty good, but as far as I’m concerned nothing of his beats this, from 2009.

Tim: The rolling piano, the rapping that’s more like speaking and more than bearable, the singing in the chorus, nice bit of fun with all the unexplained drawing in the video – all adds up to a good track.

Tom: I’m going to assume it’s in the same universe as A-Ha’s Take On Me.

Tim: Don’t really like the message of the song, though. It’s all ‘I wish I could have stayed with you, and I wish this wasn’t a one night stand’, but he never really gives a reason for his leaving aside from a flight, which he says he wanted to miss anyway, so we’re sort of left ‘Actually, I only ever do one night stands, and even though I don’t want to now it’s just who I am so tough.’

The length it took me to explain that means that in terms of word count this is an overwhelmingly negative review. It really shouldn’t be, because the song’s great.

Saturday Flashback: Micky Modelle v Jessy – Dancing In The Dark

A certified Clubland Classic.

Tom: A certified Clubland Classic here, Tim. Mind you, with all the dancing, the music video is practically a restrained art piece by Clubland’s standards.

Tim: Huh. Not what I expected from Micky Modelle, who almost rivals Almighty when it comes to amazing/terrible/amazingly terrible dance mixes. (For those without Spotify, a version of Love Is All Around on an album entitled “Scottish Club Anthems”. Definitely on the terrible side.)

Tom: Now, I think this is absolutely fantastic: it’s taking a slow, Belgian piano-and-vocals track and adding well-produced new stuff to it. And yes, there are dozens of harder remixes of it out there – but this first remix has the rare ability to get the hell out of the way when it needs to.

Tim: Fantastic, not so sure about. It is at the very least respectable, which, compared to other stuff from him (which admittedly isn’t always bad), does I suppose make it at least very good.

Tom: It must have been quite a change for Jessy: starting out as a Proper Singer and ending up working with Micky Modelle and Sash. Still, she seems to have kept most of her dignity.

Saturday Flashback: Sweet – Poppa Joe

“Ooh, I’m properly smurfing that smurf.” (Plus, four key changes!)

Tom: Cher Lloyd has basically got a novelty song to number one. Well, I’ll tell you this, Tim: novelty songs used to be a lot better than her.

Tim: Certainly did. Top 10, that was, and I listened to that album in its entirety last weekend when I went to see Mummy and Daddy, along with The Smurfs Go Pop! Again and The Smurfs Hits 97. (Drew the line at their Christmas album, though.) Why? Well, why not. Annoyed the hell out of my parents, it really did.

Tom: Oh, bloody hell. I’d forgotten about that. Mind you, the original wasn’t much better.

Tim: Sorry, got a bit distracted there. What are we listening to?

Tim: Ooh, I’m properly smurfing that smurf.

Tom: February 1972, number 13 in the charts. It’s pre-Agadoo, pre-all those other summer hits; it’s a glam-rock band having a bit of fun with steel drums and limbo.

Tim: Yep, and there was me thinking we hadn’t had any key changes here for a while.

Tom: Four key changes. Four! If you’re not grinning at the last one, there’s something wrong with you.

Tim: The cynical part of me would say that that’s because they had absolutely no idea what else they could do with the song after ninety seconds; the other, and much larger, part of me will just enjoy them.

Saturday Flashback: Kikki Danielsson & Dr. Alban – Papaya Coconut

Comfort food.

Tim: What is this, you ask? Well I have absolutely no idea at all. Occasionally when I’m looking for tracks I’ll check Swedish music charts, and for no reason that I can discern, this 13 year old version of a 25 year old song is near the top of the iTunes chart. So: what do you think?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ8yj1aOIiU

Tom: Oh my word, it’s like I’m 13 again. How is something so objectively terrible so damned enjoyable?

Tim: Weird, isn’t it? But, is it objectively terrible (by our standards)? It certainly has great redeeming points – the dance backing behind the rapping verse bits is lots of fun, the steel drums add a nice summery feel, the ‘we can fly’ prevalent in the chorus is uplifting, if that’s what you’re looking for in this song (though there are undoubtedly far better ones) – and all in all they outweigh the admittedly numbers dodgy bits. Well, I reckon so.

Tom: I knew exactly what it was going to do before it did it – even down to the textbook mid-90s reggae-rap bit. It’s like comfort food, in a way: it’s not fancy, it’s not particularly good for you, but now and again… well, yes. I like this song.

Tim: Good. Good good good.

Saturday Flashback: Helena Paparizou – My Number One

“No other song has made me laugh as hard.”

Tom: “No other song,” says our reader ‘Bunnyunplugged’, “has made me laugh as hard as the lyrics to this little gem.”

Tim: I actually remember really liking this one when it was on, so be careful what you’re about to say, please.

Tom: Really? Well, it takes all sorts. They are pretty terrible lyrics – “You will be the sun into my raining season” particularly – but I reckon this song is better noted for its choreography. Bit of traditional Greek dance? Sure. Boy-band manoeuvres? Okay, throw ’em in. Making all the backup dancers lie down in the shape of a number 1? Why not.

Tim: Hahah, yeah, okay, that is pretty ridiculous.

Tom: If you want a Eurovision song to laugh with, you can do no better than Lithuania, 2006; Ukraine, 2007 or even Germany, 1998. But if you want a Eurovision song to laugh at… well, any better suggestions?

Tim: Eurovision I’m not sure about, but for unintentional humour you’d have to go a long way to beat R Kelly’s 22-act ‘hip-hopera’ Trapped in the Closet. Believe me, it’s worth the time.

Tom: Oh dear. That was once screened in its entirety at a cinema in London. I’m told it was… an experience.

Saturday Flashback: Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette – Hello

I defy you not to start at least tapping your foot.

Tom: This track entirely passed me by until I was in America last month. Now, the official video‘s good – high-budget and incredibly well produced, if a bit clichéd – but it’s interrupting the track regularly to spoil the YouTube jukeboxers. Here’s the track, uninterrupted. Don’t forget that this is meant to be mixed into a DJ set, hence the long intro and outro:

Tom: I defy you not to start at least tapping your foot when that beat kicks in.

Tim: It is a good track – although one I often misattribute to MGMT, for no particular reason that I can discern.

Tom: Now, normally I’d complain that there’s very little change throughout – after it kicks in, it’s basically the same song until the end. For some reason, that doesn’t bother me – even the vocal effects that make it less repetitious don’t bother me. Maybe it’s because I’ve listened to a bit of glitch lately.

Tim: I’m happy with it – repetitive it may be, but it’s not bad stuff that’s being repeated. And it is, after all, there to make people dance. And jump. Up, and down, and up, and down, and up, and ooh look we’re repeating ourselves.

Tom: This would get me straight on to a dancefloor, bouncing up and down.

Tim: In a repeated manner, no doubt.

Saturday Flashback: Loona – Vamos A La Playa

“Let’s go to the beach and have a party.”

Tim: The third and final Flashback for the time being coming from French radio, this cover of a 1999 track by pretty-much-one hit wonder Miranda came out last September.

Tom: I’d completely forgotten this song! This was on the radio when I was about 15, I think. I liked it back then.

Tim: In case you didn’t get it from the video, the general message here is: let’s go to the beach and have a party.

Tom: “La Playa”. Got it.

Tim: It has an infectious hook, a pleasant summer feel to it and gentle product placement in the video.

Tom: As well as the typical “let’s see how close can we get to showing nudity before the TV channels won’t show us any more”.

Tim: Well, naturally. It is, basically, entirely generic. In a good way, though, because this sort of tune is nice: it’s happy, upbeat, and if you complain about it you can sod off and be miserable elsewhere, thank you very much.

Tom: The bits that aren’t the chorus are really terrible, and that rising-siren sample in the background really annoys me. Right, I’ll sod off elsewhere.

Tim: Good, because you’re wrong. Though, if you want to hear the original again, it’s here, with a fairly heated multilingual argument about whose version is better in the comments and with some vastly less attractive models in the video, so you probably wouldn’t like it.

Tom: Can’t hear you. I’ve sodded off elsewhere.

Saturday Flashback: Jasper Forks – Alone

I can’t believe that’s the same guy that remixed Das Boot.

Tim: Much like our previous Saturday Flashback, this was heard whilst in France and released back in January. You’ll know of the artist’s work, although probably not by this name – born Alex Christensen, he released the dance version of Das Boot we reviewed a cover of ages ago as U96, and more recently he entered Eurovision for Germany in 2009 as Alex Swings Oscar Sings! Anyway, this sounds like nothing of either of those.

Tom: That really does sound utterly different, doesn’t it? I can’t believe that’s the same guy that remixed Das Boot.

Tim: I’ll go out on a limb: I’m not sure it’s really possible to dislike this.

Tom: Clearly you try not to read YouTube comments.

Tim: No – that way madness lies. Some people may wish it to be a bit heavier than it starts off with, and I’ll admit I was getting that way after two minutes, but when it starts to build up and then more or less becomes an entirely different song for a time it all seems great.

Tom: It does keep genre-switching, doesn’t it? It’s not like the quiet bit in Guru Josh Project’s Infinity: you can’t raise your arms up high to it in a club – it’s too long for that.

Tim: I don’t really know why it works – shifting genres, you certainly couldn’t stick a verse from a Lady Gaga tune into the middle of a Céline Dion song, say – and yet I think it really does. Love it.

Tom: I’m not sure it works. I’ll tolerate it.