Kelly Clarkson – Wrapped in Red

“If Christmas isn’t a good time to declare your feelings, when is?”

Tim: It’s DECEMBER! So it’s CHRISTMAS!

Tom: Oh heavens. It’s time for the annual run-down of dodgy Christmas songs, is it?

Tim: Dodgy!? How RUDE. But yes, let’s have a week of the tracks we’ve missed so far, and you may recall last year Kelly brought out a Christmas album; this here’s the title track from it, now with a video.

Tom: Same album, new packaging. It’s like regifting.

Tim: In times of festivities and partyness it’s bit more restrained than Underneath the Tree, last year’s lead track from it, but that’s about it in terms of criticism: other than that, it’s a big emotional ballad about how, if Christmas isn’t a good time to declare your feelings, when is?

Tom: And it’s a really bloody good ballad as well. Kelly Clarkson is a big enough star that she can get her choice of big songs like this: it’s a brilliant track, and matched perfectly with her voice.

Tim: Exactly. So let’s all go out there, talk to our desired ones and damn the potential negative outcomes. Oh, and let’s be ridiculously over the top while we’re at it, shall we? That’s what it’s all about, after all.

Saturday Flashback: Safri Duo – Samb Adagio

“Everything that’s good about that sound.”

Tim: Ah, you bring the Other Safri Duo track.

Tom: Bit of a rough version of the radio edit on YouTube here, but let’s head back to the early 2000s, and remember two percussionists who were originally intending to do classical music.

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

Tom: They were the biggest Danish musicians since Aqua, and still one of the biggest trance acts to break through to the mainstream. This is everything that’s good about that early 2000s euphoric trance sound.

Tim: It is, it really is.

Tom: I still want to spend hours in a club dancing like a loon to songs just like this. I just wish they hadn’t mixed ridiculous crowd noise in, though.

Tim: Yeah, but if you’re spending hours in a club, you won’t notice it, will you? Unless it’s a very poor club, I suppose.

Boy With Strings – Moments That Were Not

“I can see it’s good, but I just can’t get all that excited about it.”

Tom: Saara, the lyricist for Boy With Strings, sends this in. We covered ‘Play Pretend’ earlier this year, and… well, we decided we weren’t really the right audience for ethereal indie-pop.

Tom: And I find myself having much the same reaction here: yes, it’s good, I can see it’s good, but I just can’t get all that excited about it.

Tim: Yeah – pleasant to listen to, but nothing much goes on during it, and after a while I find myself hurrying it along, especially at four minutes.

Tom: The trouble is, that it sounds a bit like a four-minute introduction: I keep expecting Something Bigger to happen, and it just doesn’t. This is the tone of the song, and I just can’t get used to it.

Tim: No – I want something else, or at the very least some form of beat to it.

Tom: Like I said, though: it’s good. It’s just not my cup of tea.

Josef Johansson – Tysta Leken

“Modern sounding verses and chorus synths from thirty years ago”

Tim: Yesterday we heard from Vinsten; today we hear a cover of their previous song, Luckiest Girl, albeit one that’s substantially restyled and slightly rewritten.

Tim: I say slightly rewritten – it’s been entirely translated into Swedish.

Tom: I think I understood “nattbuss”.

Tim: Probably, but it’s also had a few extra lines added, including the titular part, ‘Tysta Leken börjar nu, den som pratar åker ut’, which translates to ‘The game of silence starts now, the one who talks loses’.

Tom: I’m fairly sure my childhood equivalent of that is “silence in the courtyard, silence in the street, the biggest gob in England is just about to speak”.

Tim: Ha, I never heard that. That whole premise, though is slightly odd when the chorus means ‘tell me something I don’t know, tell me something I care about’, but who cares? Basically, it’s a great pop song with modern sounding verses and chorus synths from thirty years ago, all coming together to somehow give a cohesive tune, and that’s impressive even if the lyrics don’t make much sense.

Tom: Hmm. I’m not sold.

Tim: Well, as with yesterday’s, however much it changes throughout, it hangs together well and is a tune I’m happy listening to on repeat – that’s all I really ask for in this genre.

Tom: And as with yesterday’s: it just doesn’t do that for me. Still, each to their own.

Vinsten – Keep That Dream Alive

“Feels like a cross between a BANGING CHOON and a slow indie track”

Tim: Vinsten last graced this site with their presence last June, with a remixed 2012 song, Luckiest Girl. Apparently not ones to rush things, the pair have returned with this, which doesn’t need a remix to be, as you put it “MODERATELY THUMPING”.

Tim: And that is because in its default state it is already THUMPING throughout, gently during the verses, but at least moderately so during the pre-chorus, and once the proper chorus kicks in, everything is there.

Tom: Hmm. You know, I’m not sure about that: again, I’d count it as “moderately thumping”. It takes a while to get there; that opening verse is slow and a bit dull, and not in the Hurts “this is going to turn into something wonderful” sense.

Tim: To be honest, though, it’s just as good when it’s quiet as when it’s loud, because some of those gentle synth lines and vocals are nice to hear.

Tom: I’m not sure about “nice”: it’s okay, I guess, but it feels like a cross between a BANGING CHOON and a shoe-gazing, slow indie track, and I’m just not sure that works. How about you?

Tim: Well, summed up, I guess, the result is that this song is enjoyable to listen to at pretty much every point, and, well, there’s not a huge amount more you could ask for than that.

Rebecka Karlsson – We Got The Night

“Kind of like an ‘I Love It’ with a whole lot of added melody”

Tim: We started the week off with a strong dance pop track; let’s continue it with an even stronger one, shall we? This one, to be precise, the sophomore single from Rebecka Karlsson, formerly of this year’s Sweden’s Got Talent (well, Talang Sverige). Press play below; you’ll thank yourself almost immediately.

Tom: Crikey, you’re right: that’s a bit good.

Tim: Indeed. It’s a funny thing, that hard to write slow-down noise they’ve put in every now and again there, isn’t it? Not quite sure what purpose it serves, aside from being somewhat distracting when it happens.

Tom: I quite like the effect. And I’m fairly sure I’d write it as “bwooooorp”.

Tim: Yeah, sounds about right. And as for the rest of it? Wow. Written by two of Le Kid, so it was always going to work at least fairly well, and it’s kind of like an ‘I Love It’ with a whole lot of added melody, and with a not dissimilar message – let’s get out there and party, basically.

Tom: It is: I’m not really sure about those lyrics; they name-drop a load of older songs, and that just seems to stand out like a sore thumb. I can’t disagree with your assessment.

Tim: And what a great song to party out to – you can get excited to it, you can shout to it, you can jump to it, you can get off with a stranger to it, anything you want basically.

Tom: Well, that went to an unexpected place.

Tim: It is ENERGETIC, and PUMPING, and EVERY SYNONYM. It’s one that’s going straight on the party playlist, and I’m fairly sure it’ll be a long time before it comes off.

Ola – This Could Be Paradise

Tim: Remember Ola, seemingly annually of these pages? I’ll forgive you if you don’t, but here’s a new single from the Swede that’s initially released in, erm, Russia. I don’t know either, but here you go.

Tim: So what do we think of that then?

Tom: Well, that’s a blindingly good intro. Unusual synth, great melody.

Tim: It’s certainly got a cracker of a chorus, there’s no doubt about that, and to make things even better there are some pretty good verses in there as well – we’re only halfway through the first one before things pick up and get going properly. It’s all nicely based on a strong dance beat melody that, despite being only fifteen seconds long, loops throughout the song without getting annoying, though it does become hard not to hear once you notice it (you’re welcome).

Tom: Oh, damn it, Tim. You’re right: it’s just that good intro, looping through the whole song. Still, at least there’s enough over the top that it clearly works.

Tim: I particularly like the sort-of-backing-vocals that come in at the start and after each chorus, as they get the song off to a great PAY ATTENTION start, maintain interest after the first chorus and bring everything together nicely at the end. I’ve not even begun to mention the hefty instrumentation beneath each chorus, and indeed everything except the introductory first half-verse; basically, this is a great dance pop track, and I’d have trouble trying to criticise it, even if I wanted to.

Tom: I can only agree: this is brilliant.

Saturday Flashback: Friends – Lyssna Till Ditt Hjärta

“Good grief, that sounds a lot like ABBA.”

Tim: In a couple of days time, we’ll know the performers who’ve made it to next year’s Melodifestivalen; shall we celebrate with another trip to the Best Of?

Tom: Good grief, that sounds a lot like ABBA.

Tim: It really does, yes. The year is 2001, and this stormed to victory, favourite of both jury and viewers, despite a slightly sloppy hand-against-the-waist clapping at the start. And it’s not a bad track, is it?

Tom: It’s not at all, but that’s because it sounds like an ABBA track, even down to the piano. That’s a compliment, by the way: it sounds like a decent ABBA track.

Tim: Immediate hefty introduction, big singalongable chorus (if you fancy an English version, have Listen To Your Heartbeat, the translation that placed 5th at Eurovision) and while a key change might have been welcome, it works well enough for me without one.

Tom: I’m still of the opinion that any song like this works better with a key change, but yes: it’s a good enough melody that it works without one.

Tim: I say jury and viewers, it was also Belgium’s favourite back in 1996, or at least the writers of Belgium’s Eurovision entry for that year certainly thought so, and if you listen to the chorus of that you may think they have a point.

Tom: It’s certainly close, but surely you’d have to be particularly thick to plagiarise a Eurovision song from Eurovision?

Tim: Yes, and given the prolificness of the songwriter involved I’m inclined to doubt it; whether it was or not we’ll actually never know, though, as when the Belgians threatened a court case in 2003, a financial agreement was swiftly agreed.

Tom: I wonder if ABBA thought about doing the same thing.

Kati Wolf – Nyár van!

“Happy and joyous”

Tim: Kati Wolf’s performing in London tonight which’ll be BRILLIANT, so here’s her current track, titled entirely atemporally for us as “It’s Summer!”

Tom: Well, hopefully it’ll do well in Australia.

Tom: That’s a baffling lyric video. You’ve taken a camera and pointed it at her, she’s just not singing. It’s like some kind of bizarre stock footage adventure.

Tim: She’s Hungarian, you may or may not recall, and this is a wonderfully happy track, isn’t it?

Tom: Much more positive than I expected, certainly.

Tim: Lyrically it doesn’t go much beyond the title in terms of themes, though there’s also a “you and me” element with the repeated “te meg én” about how we’ve just been together for a few hours but it feels GREAT. Because this is great, and happy and joyous.

Tom: And, finally, someone who’s followed the old maxim: “don’t bore us, get to the chorus”.

Tim: Starting out with the chorus is always risky because there’s a chance the listener will get bored partway through and wonder if the music will pick up any more at some point; here the answer is absolutely not – even after the middle eight, the final chorus is identical to the opening one.

Tom: Which is a great shame, because it’d be perfect for a key change.

Tim: It would, yes, but I don’t really feel it needs one, because it has a message to get across, about the seasons and how everything’s brilliant, and it does that very well. Very pleasant.

Krisia, Hasan and Ibrahim – Planet of the Children

“Like someone set out to make a song to deliberately annoy me.”

Tom: Well, that’s a horrific title.

Tim: The Junior Eurovision Song Contest doesn’t get broadcast at all in Britain, and if you listen to the random vowel howling of the Italian victor you’ll understand why. If we ignore votes, though, and look at YouTube views, Bulgaria would be the champions, and one of my regrets about the way we write these reviews is that I won’t get to see your face when you watch this.

Tom: I’m already biased against it.

Tim: Now, let’s (try to) put aside any innate irritation we may have about the age of the singer and clear precociousness of the two pianists and focus on the song, because it’s a brilliant power ballad.

Tom: Give me a moment: urgggggh. Nope, not quite enough.

Tim: The vocals are on point (if somewhat nasal), she can handle the big notes impressively well, and the backing behind the chorus is fantastic, and the instrumental middle eight gives us time to reflect on what she’s been warbling about.

Tom: What has she been warbling about, by the way?

Tim: Well, I’m afraid that’s the bad news. I’m guessing your Bulgarian’s not up to much, and that’s probably for the best because you won’t like the lyrics: she starts out by going on about how “I want one day to be a fairy or a superhero” and that she dreams of “a planet of children without hunger and fear, and war…a planet of children, hope, peace, light…the most beautiful dream”.

Tom: Oh for crying out loud. It’s like someone set out to make a song to deliberately annoy me.

Tim: Fortunately, it’s all in Bulgarian so we don’t have to hear any of that.