Janikke – Seven Emotions

“A message that I’m not sure I can ever remember hearing before.”

Tim: Jannike, a Finn who brings us this, a fairly upbeat ballad. For those that aren’t aware, as I wasn’t until I looked them up: the ‘seven emotions’ are nothing to do with Brad Pitt but are anger, fear, disgust, contempt, joy, sadness and surprise; with that knowledge, enjoy.

Tim: Now, wanting to see that makes for a song with a message that, to be honest, I’m not sure I can ever remember hearing before: not liking that a relationship’s all good, and wanting to bring out the negativities just to test it. “I know it’s crazy but it’s true” – perhaps, yes, but I suppose there’s a decent case to be made, which she’s going for.

Tom: I’m all for unconventional messages in songs, as long as they vaguely make sense. And I guess this does.

Tim: I think so. It’s got to be said, as well, that she’s doing a decent job of making that case – vocals are all on point, and there’s some wonderful instrumentation going on in the background: piano, drums, cello, guitar, it’s all there, and sounding absolutely lovely.

Tom: The composition here’s pretty damn good, too. It almost seems to be taking some cues from the country-music Standard Songbook, wonderfully backed up by some unexpected strings and a proper band rather than just synths.

Tim: So, the emotions this brings out in me? A bit of surprise, small amount of sadness, maybe, but mostly a whole lot of joy. WINNING.

Alex Newell – This Ain’t Over

“Inspired by Kygo a couple of months too late”

Tom: Our reader, Lily, sends this in, with just enough enthusiasm that I suspect they’re actually from Alex Newell’s record label. Still, expect a “90s vibe” here.

Tom: 90s, certainly, but with enough of tropical-house sound to place it firmly in the “inspired by Kygo a couple of months too late” group of early 2016 releases.

Tim: Oh yes – there’s instrumentation in the back that’s very much a “ooh, yes, let’s have some of that please”.

Tom: Can’t fault the vocal performance: that’s a heck of a voice right there. Is that autotune I hear in the middle eight, at about 2:33? I’m not sure, but there’s still a lot of power behind it even so.

Tim: Not sure – I’ve never been great at picking it up, though, but you’re right, it does sound good.

Tom: But I’m not sure the rest of the track backs it up: those synths in the background are all over the place, and the melody’s just, well, okay. It’s a good album track, it’s a good middle-of-the-set track to keep folks on the dance floor, but I don’t see it being a floorfiller.

Tim: See, much as I dislike (for the most part) being just plain negative about a song, I can’t agree with you on even that second item – for me, this is a golden opportunity to head to the bar to get a drink.

Saturday Flashback: Westlife – What About Now

“It sounds EXACTLY THE SAME.”

Tim: Last week Nicky off Westlife was announced as being the one to compete for Ireland in Eurovision, and since you like to steer clear of Eurovision tracks, this’ll do because to be honest I’m surprised we’ve not covered it before.

Tim: It’s a cover of a song by American band Daughtry; the original is here but before you click that be aware that (a) it’s a charity video and really rather depressing and (b) it sounds EXACTLY THE SAME. There is literally not a semiquaver’s difference in them – instruments, even the vocals are fairly similar. Fairly sure you could set them playing at the same time, with one in the left ear and one in the right, and you wouldn’t think anything of it at all – I won’t test that, mind, because it’s a right faff for a predetermined conclusion, but if anyone’s bored, that’s a Sunday afternoon project for you.

Tom: I can see why they chose it, though: it’s an astonishingly good chorus. I mean, it’s not as good a track as this other What About Now, but it’ll do.

Tim: So, it’s an unnecessary cover, especially since it was released only a couple of months after the original got to number 11 over here, but on the other hand: it’s a really, really good track anyway, worthy of a cover; it has a lovely video, thanks to the wonders of Iceland; and it was Westlife who performed it at the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize concert in honour of Barack Obama, so there you go.

Tom: And to be fair: it’s a belter, albeit with slow verses. Inspired choice to come back from the middle eight in a minor key and then slam it back into top gear with the final chorus, though.

Tim: Well done them, then.

Tim: UPDATE: One of our readers, Wouter, has been in touch, having put the two tracks together, and yes – they really are the same, save for a “uhhhh” from Westlife after the first chorus and a bit of extra guitar twiddling in the final chorus from Daughtry. You can hear excerpts here: Daughtry’s in the left channel, Westlife’s in the right.

Sandra Lyng – Night After Night

“Just as you thought farmhouse music had backed away”

Tim: Nice country number? Track came out last year, but now we have a video, hooray!

Tim: Well, country that fairly swiftly veers into full on pumping dance territory, just as you thought farmhouse music had backed away a little bit. And it’s GOOD, isn’t it?

Tom: It is! Backed up with a video that took an obvious but nevertheless welcome twist. It is, however, the “good” of about two years ago — and that pre-chorus with its “blah blah blah” just doesn’t work for me.

Tim: See I like that – it’s the first indication you get that things are about to ramp up, and gets me nice and excited. It’s always nice when I can get fully on board with both aspects of a mixed-genre track (though admittedly it’s not as if the country bits are ever particularly gentle and mild), and here I am very much Zane Lowe-style ON BOARD. Great dance track, MORE LIKE IT PLEASE.

Miike Snow – Genghis Khan

“By that measure, this succeeds perfectly.”

Tom: Yesterday, a video that looked convincingly like the 1980s. Today, we’re off — just as convincingly — to the 1960s.

Tim: So, the bit around 1:33 when he hit the wall suddenly made me think of Kylo Ren, and now I really really want to see an alternate ending of The Force Awakens.

Tom: A good song, to me, is one that I find myself singing the chorus after I’ve listened to it — and not being annoyed by it, but going back and playing it again. By that measure, this succeeds perfectly.

Tim: I played it again, but mostly so I could concentrate on the song without being engrossed in the video.

Tom: I think it’s a bit too repetitive — is there even a verse in there? If there is, I can’t remember it — but it’s a good song, paired with a really lovely video. Once again, it’s a video that convinces me the song’s better than it is, but I’m still reasonably happy with this.

Tim: Yeah, and weirdly, the video bears no relation to the song at all, really – sure, there’s an element of being unsure in there, but that’s as far as it goes. I really like the video; sadly, I’m somewhat ambivalent about the song.

Bonnie McKee – Wasted Youth

“I’m a sucker for that sort of washed-out retro Americana.”

Tom: Well-known songwriter, less-known singer. We’ve talked about her once before and been impressed: this is her new one. And advance warning: while nothing there is technically NSFW, this is certainly a video that would make your boss (or your mother) ask some questions.

Tom: And I really like that song. But here’s the catch: I think that video made me like the song a lot more than I would have done otherwise. I’m a sucker for that sort of washed-out retro Americana…

Tim: With a weirdly atemporal stack of Red Bull cans, which stuck out a bit, but yeah.

Tom: …and yes, I’m often a sucker for almost-nudity in music videos, particularly when it’s filmed like that. So I listened again with the music in a background tab, and I’ll admit I wasn’t as convinced. Because this is basically a slower, female version of Live While We’re Young, isn’t it?

Tim: Message wise yes – the closing line of the chorus “get it while we’re young” makes that fairly clear.

Tom: And sadly, it’s not quite as good: that’s a decent chorus, but it’s a bit too repetitive and there’s not quite enough there to make it work.

Tim: That’s pretty much exactly my thought – decent enough chorus, but after hearing it that’s what I can remember, and I seem to remember hearing it a lot of times.

Tom: But there is almost-nudity, and apparently that’s almost as good.

Tim: Well, I’ll let you have that.

Otto Knows feat. Lindsey Stirling & Alex Aris – Dying For You

“It’s rare for me to immediately sit up and pay attention in the first verse.”

Tim: Otto, the guy who had that “eh-eh-eh-eh-eh oh-oh-oh-oh-oh” hit Million Voices a few years back; Lindsey, a violinist who had that dubstep thing going on for a while; Alex, a guy who according to Google is a Burmese civil rights campaigner so that’s probably a different one.

Tom: Well, that was a heck of a paragraph. Still sort of hoping he’s the civil rights campaigner.

Tim: You, though, a self-confessed “sucker for a string section,” so have a listen.

Tim: And that there would be a fairly enjoyable pop track if it wasn’t for the excellent idea of having all that violining on there; as it is, though, it has all that violining on there, so it’s a really enjoyable pop track.

Tom: That’s a good-sounding introduction — it’s rare for me to immediately sit up and pay attention in the first verse. I think that the pre-chorus — or, maybe the vocal chorus? I don’t know what you call it with a structure like this — is actually the weakest point.

Tim: Hmm, perhaps – I’d say it doesn’t help that the song is clearly keen to get to that post-chorus that it’s not so bothered about what happens first; hell, the verses are better, vocal-wise. And speaking of vocals, Alex, it turns out, is a very competent vocalist; Otto has also shown previously that he knows what he’s doing on the production side of things – basically, we’ve got a load of people who are good at what they do, all working together to make an almost entirely very good song. Nice work.

Adrian Marcel – Take Your Time

“I’ll be honest: only the chorus really works here.”

Tom: Sometimes we talk about songs where everything works; this is not one of those. So in advance, I’ll warn you.

Tim: Okay…

Tom: The verses are a little awkward. The lyrics are all entitled-dude-hitting-on-woman. I’m not sure that the speaking-into-singing shtick works. The middle eight is uninspired. The ending is unfulfilling.

Tim: You’re really not selling this to me well, you know.

Tom: I’ll be honest: only the chorus really works here.

Tim: Ohhh…

Tom: But bloody hell, what a chorus.

Tim: Yes indeed – a lovely surprise, an enormous amount of lipstick on that particular pig.

Saturday Flashback: Tiësto – Elements of Life

“Producers?”

Tim: The other day, I found a Swedish House Mafia playlist and Axwell’s Heart Is King came on, and it got me thinking: do we do DJs a disservice by calling them ‘producers’?

Tim: Because, let’s face it, with tracks like that, and the 12 minute wonder that is Forever Today, surely ‘composer’ is a better description? A music producer is just someone who sits at a desk and pushes a few buttons; tracks of this calibre, though, are so much, much more that – they give a proper ‘wow’ sensation that’s almost better described as a work of art.

Tom: And that’d also avoid the complaint that “DJ” nowadays is often just someone who pushes buttons to fire off pre-recorded tracks before a crowd, however much skill there is in the pre-production.

Tim: Tiësto’s not alone, obviously: I’ve already mentioned Heart Is King; you’ve also got tracks off Daft Punk’s TRON soundtrack that would fit. All in all, lumping the people responsible for these in the same category as, say, the people at Almighty Records (talented as they are) just seems wrong, really. Am I right?

Tom: Words change over time, switching and altering their meanings. Maybe this is just one of those times that we have to accept it.

Felix Hagan & The Family – Some Kind of Hero

“A knight invading a castle to rescue a princess who has a magical baby that can conjure up some weird energy beam to defeat a dragon”

Tim: This seven-piece band describe themselves as “theatrical punk”, or to be more specific, they “fuse punk, rock, pop and musical theatre into a seamless, high-energy blend of genres”, all with “an outrageous desire to entertain”. Interested?

Tom: I have friends who are deep, deep fans of this band, but I’ve never heard the music myself. Time to dive in.

Tim: And I do LOVE a creative video. Why would anybody want a dull shot of a band playing when you can have a knight invading a castle to rescue a princess who has a magical baby that can conjure up some weird energy beam to defeat a dragon? There is basically no part of that description that isn’t brilliant, and while it’s not quite as epic as some of my favourite videos it’s not far off – certainly reminiscent of Little Talk, in story if nothing else.

Tom: Also, well done for doing actual proper stop-motion there, and doing it well; that’s probably more time-consuming than just filming an actual video, and it looks properly charming.

Tim: Basically: wonderful video, and the music’s pretty good as well, now I come to mention it.

Tom: Great voice, great guitar riffs — and some old-school drum fills and slightly off-beat stuff here. It’s like taking the 80s aesthetic of guitars and synthesisers, and updating it to today without tying it down with all the kitsch and retro associations. Every part of this is spot on.

Tim: And I can’t disagree with any of that.

Tom: Between this, and my friends’ love of this band, I suspect I might be listening to the rest of this album very soon.