Tim: Brought to Europlop’s attention by a French radio station as I was visiting my sister, this came out in January of this year.
Tom: Today’s “applying logic to a music video” moment – how is he touching those incandescent light bulbs without hurting his hand?
Tim: Oh, stop being finicky. And is he touching them? Looked more like cupping to me, and just long enough for it to almost but not quite hurt. The lyrics, meanwhile, go on about how despite how we all have different flags and countries and parents and tastes and all that, we all live under the same sun so we should all be nice to each other. Sounds like a load of hippy crap to me, but the French people apparently liked it so I guess that sort of proves his point.
Tom: At least it’s not a generic love song. I was about to complain about it being musically generic, but it seems happy and friendly enough that I don’t really mind.
Tim: Yeah – I quite enjoy the music, or at least I’m fairly sure I do – it’s inoffensive, chirpy and largely relaxing.
Tom: It’s absolutely designed to hit all the typical emotional happy-pop notes.
Tim: In the past twelve months Romania has already provided us with Stereo Love and Inna, and now at Europlop’s doors from Radikal Records* arrives this Romanian bloke, whose track Morena was released last September.
* They’re not just radical, they’re Radikal!
Tom: I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I agree with a YouTube commenter. Thank you to ‘vgasparis’, who simply says “This porn has nice background music.”
Tim: It is a bit raunchy, isn’t it? And the music is nice – repetitive but decent hook, good tune throughout the rest of it, consistent strong beat and added piano here and there. I like this.
Tom: Repetitive: yes. Decent: no. The verses don’t have a bad tune, I’ll give you that, but the rest really could use… well, anything.
Tim: Hence the lesbian storyline in the video, presumably, which is a surefire way to get most blokes on board, as the dribbling masses displayed in the club demonstrate. It’s all decent enough.
Tim: Browsing through my iTunes library the other day, I discovered I have Ms Ernman’s La Voix du Nord album; contained within it is this, released as the follow-up to her 2009 Eurovision hit.
Tom: Ah, that explains why I haven’t heard it.
Tim: I like it a lot. It’s obviously not our traditional pop stuff, but it’s nice to have a change. It has a graceful intro, livened up by the drumbeat after a while. The first key change comes as an ‘ooh, that was pleasant’ surprise, and while the second is more predicatable it’s no less satisfying.
Tom: I’ll support pretty much any song with two key changes.
Tim: The title translates to ‘My Place on Earth’, and the lyrics seem to be all about finding peace and happiness and all that malarkey.
Tom: I found myself tuning out at first, and then starting to sit up straighter in my chair, and breathe a little deeper: it sounds almost like a patriotic song or a national anthem. I felt like saluting at that second key change.
Tim: Overall, this seems to have been a good second mainstream release – bridging the gap somewhat between her Eurovision act and her more usual style for anyone who wants to get to know her better.
Tim: We missed this when it came out in January, and then they released a video for it and we sort of missed that too. Now, though, the dance season’s about to get going, so let’s have a listen. And a watch. But first, remember a month or so back when I asked you to imagine a Swedish Eurovision entry? Well, now imagine a dance music video.
Tim: Ooh, attractive girls! And looking bored, just waiting to party! So where do we go? I know! Let’s head for the beach, and play around in the sea. Now let’s go home and put on provocative clothing! And now let’s go to the club! Yes! We can dance and grind away all night, because that’s what we girls do.
Tom: Huh? Sorry, I was distracted by the video there. What was that?
Tim: And, the video does its job. Musically, the verses are nothing special, and the voice, really not.
But the chorus? Flipping great. What I want here is some sort of mashup. Chuck out these vocals, and put something decent on top. Then, I will give this a proper thumbs up.
Tom: I approve of the whole thing – including the voice – but you’re right, adding something more exciting over the top of those verses would go down well. I’ll keep an eye out on for DJ mixes that include it: that should perk it up a bit.
Tom: An anonymous reader wrote in to suggest this track, which hit Number One in Finland back in February 2010. The title, translated, means “I Don’t Wanna Die Tonight”, and the singer is a former winner of the Finnish version of Popstars.
Tom: It’s certainly a belter, which makes it all the more odd that I don’t like it. Despite all the energy, the promise of the build in those first few seconds, the full-on vocals, all the instrumentation and production… somehow the word that drops into my head is “plodding”.
Tim: Hmm…not sure about plodding. I think there’s a solid amount of life there, and I don’t dislike this at all.
Tom: It doesn’t necessarily need a key change, it just needs… damn it, I don’t know. Perhaps it needs to break out of the one octave she’s singing in? A chord progression that seems to come from a completely different song, like the Killers do so often*?
*”Will your system be all right / if you dream of home tonight” in ‘Human’, and “–if you don’t shine” in ‘Read My Mind’.
Tim: Afraid I can’t really help you there, as I don’t actually think it needs anything. Certainly not a key change, although if I did have to change anything I’d trim the bridge a bit, and perhaps the intro as well – compared with the strong beat of the rest, the quieter parts don’t seem to fit so well.
Tom: To use a dodgy metaphor: it feels like a soaring eagle that’s been clamped down by ten-kilo weights. It needs to soar, and all it can do is limp along.
Tim: Really? I seriously think this is good – the return after the bridge, for example, may not be hugely triumphant like a great song can be, but it’s still full of energy, and gets me at least nodding my head along to it, and perhaps even swaying my shoulders as well.
The greatest Eurovision performance of recent times.
Tim: So, tonight’s the night – the biggest night of the year as far as we’re concerned, in fact, and so it’s only right that now we should take a look back at what is, in my view, the greatest Eurovision performance of recent times, five years ago.
Tim: Even if we were ignoring the song, this is good. The dress, oh, the dress. The wind – the ENDLESS WIND. The constant look of joy on her face.
Tom: Let’s not forget just how hard it is to keep your eyes open in the face of a wind machine, let alone to keep singing and to keep a look of joy on your face.
Tim: But of course we can’t ignore the song, because it’s just so fantastic. The energy throughout, the key change and the effort therein, it’s just brilliant.
Tom: This is, frankly, the perfect example of a schlager track. It’s absolutely textbook. And so’s the singer – she’s been competing in Melodifestivalens for, ooh, how long now?
Tim: Well, trivia: she’s performed solo three times – 1983, 1991 and 2006 – and has won every time (although she duetted with Andreas Johnson in 2008 less successfully), and during Melodifestivalen this year, this song was actually performed as the original Swedish version; I do not know why they changed it.
Tom: I can’t really believe it was five years ago, but it was: 2006 was a bonanza year for Eurovision. Not only did we have Carola, but Lordi won it for Finland with monster masks and their own pyrotechnicians (thanks to one of the first major Facebook campaigns). And let’s not forget Lithuania getting booed for their frankly genius entry that simply declared themselves the winners.
Tom: Almost all ‘goodbye’ songs are somehow maudlin or melancholy. This is neither.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUw1TMB2j3s
Tom: This isn’t an “oh, I’m so sad, I have to leave you” song – this is an “I’ve accomplished all I can do here, and now it’s time to move on”. It’s a little bit triumphant without being over the top; a little bit sad without being depressing. I played it quite a lot just before I left York – and while that won’t mean a lot to most of our readers, there’s a few out there that’ll understand it.
Tim: Oh, that’s fantastic. A proper sway your head from side to side chorus, and for a sad-ish song, albeit with a ‘you’ll be okay’ subtext, it sounds ridiculously cheerful. Though for leaving university, I have to admit I went with something a bit classier.
Tom: I’m not sure quite what the bridge does, musically speaking, but I can say that personally it makes me break out into a grin every time – as does the textbook key change at the end of it.
Tim: Exactly – it does what all good bridges do by providing a moment of calm in an otherwise energetic song, and a sense of anticipation for a good exit and final part. And it absolutely does not disappoint – a proper big smile on my face, there.
Tom: As for Sasha himself: well, he’s got quite a long and varied musical history – perhaps the strangest pat being when he performed as his alter ego “Dick Brave” for a couple of years. But right now I couldn’t care about that; I’m too busy wearing a contented smile and looking forward to whatever’s happening next.
I don’t think I could fault this, even if I wanted to.
Tim: A few weeks ago, we mentionedthat various countries were starting to look for their Eurovision entries. Well tonight, it’s the big one, as Melodifestivalen, the second most important music competition of the year, gets going in Sweden; as such, it’s only appropriate that we look back at a previous entry. Darin entered with this last year, and I reckon we’ve gone too long without mentioning him.
Tom: I reckon I’d put Lovekiller as one of the best songs of last year. It’s so overblown and yet brilliant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QxTCVPSlrI
Tim: I’ll be honest – I don’t think I could fault this, even if I wanted to.
Tom: This is how you make a slow, emotional schlager song without it seeming slow and plodding. Basic chord changes, emotional vocals, soaring choruses.
Tim: Admittedly it’s not as good as Lovekiller or his other recent and brilliant single Microphone, but it’s still great. Music: top notch. Lyrics/emotion relation: perfect.
Tim: Do you remember Castles in the Sky? Of course you do – it was the early 2000s, as far as I’m concerned a Golden Age of music in Britain, with Eurodance colonising the charts every summer, and that song epitomised it.
Tom: Oh, that takes me back. Specifically, it takes me back to the upper floor of the Nottingham laser tag centre, defending the red base from anyone who tried to make it up the stairs.
Tim: Fast forward a few years, though, and utter tripe has largely taken over.
Tom: I quite like Disturbia, thank you very much.
Tim: Seriously? Huh. Anyway, regardless of the popularity shift, Ian van Dahl are still going, albeit with a different name, and they bring out this, get no airplay because it’s not cool any more, and fail to chart anywhere except their native Belgium.
Tom: Ah, Hard2Beat Records. They know their target market, and they aren’t afraid to pitch to them.
Tim: That failure to chart is a great shame, really, because this is good.
Tom: Now that’s where you’re wrong. It’s competent. It’s not good.
Tim: Well, I’ll accept that it is fairly generic, and does very little to challenge the ‘all dance music sounds the same’ bull that my parents like to put out there every now and again, although it does at least stay away from the snare drum buildup cliche* (by replacing it with a synth buildup instead).
* Related fact: Ayla’s album Nirwana is quite possibly my favourite dance album of ever, vying for the top spot along with Dario G’s Sunmachine, Rank 1’s Symsonic and Darude’s Before the Storm. Three years ago I spent almost six months on eBay, Amazon and the like trying to track down a (reasonably priced) copy before becoming very, very grateful to kevayreski72 for wanting to get rid of his.
Tom: That synth buildup may be the only original thing in the song.
Tim: You know what? I don’t care about originality – I like it, and it reminds me of a better time. Although it isn’t as good as Castles in the Sky.
Tom: Well, of course it isn’t. For a start, it doesn’t make me want to play laser tag.
Tom: So, we have a group of attractive female singers in revealing outfits; a Eurobeat-style backing; simple key changes and occasional English lyrics. Textbook J-pop, right?
Tim: That starts off in a similar fashion to Almighty’s version of Never Ending Story and keeps going very well. I like it, verses aside. Well done Tom.
Tom: Well, you see, I showed you that song so I could show you this. Advance warning: this is definitely not suitable for kids, or for anyone who’s likely to have nightmares about being attacked by monsters made of erogenous zones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8kYIZR7ke8
Tim: Umm… Well, it still has a good start to it, I suppose. And the bits that detracted from the last track have gone. Um. That’s probably not what you were wanting me to comment on, is it? To be honest, though, I really can’t think of words to describe what I think of the video.
Tom: So what the hell happened? Well, first things first: E-Rotic aren’t really a group, they’re a “project”. That’s fairly common for Eurodance acts – the vocalists are disposable; what really counts is the producer.
In this case, the producer is a man called David Brandes, who’d came up with the idea of a group whose songs were all based around sex. (I’d say ‘innuendo’, but there’s no innuendo here at all.)
Tim: No. No there isn’t. And I’m guessing you’ve got a whole load more lined up to show me, haven’t you?
Tom: E-Rotic’s other tracks include the prequel to this one, “Max Don’t Have Sex With Your Ex”, as well as “Help Me Dr. Dick”, “In The Heat Of The Night”, and “Test My Best”. The latter includes some… interesting noises from the vocalist.
Tim: There me be something wrong with me, but I actually really like these. Musically, at least, although not so much lyrically.
Tom: Musically, they’re very good. E-Rotic – with a variety of singers – lasted from 1995 until 2003, releasing a half-dozen studio albums and a compilation called “Greatest Tits”. With them finished, David Brandes gets their existing songs rewritten in Japanese, with no sex in them at all, puts together a girl group and presto – a romantic song about fighting for love follows, which promptly gets into the German top 20.
Shanadoo are still going, as well. As for E-Rotic? …well, not so much.
