Tiësto feat. Icona Pop – Let’s Go

“One big loud shouty dance tune.”

Tim: Tiësto, manufacturer of big dance tunes. Icona Pop, manufacturer of loud shouty pop songs. Together?

Tom: I think I can guess.

Tim: Together, as you likely guessed, they make one big loud shouty dance tune. It is, basically, exactly what you’d expect to get if you combined the two, and as far as this track goes, that’s a good thing.

Tom: Damn right. It’s not a regular playlist track for me, but I’ll be damned if this wouldn’t get me up on the dancefloor in a club. It suffers the usual problem of having a slightly dull verse, but that’s made up for by a lovely middle eight.

Tim: For a while, there’s a moment of doubt as it brings in some guitars and threatens to go all country, but it very much pulls up and, well, lets go, and brings absolutely everything out in force.

Tom: Whoa there. Farm-house music is still pretty good for me; I reckon the middle eight might be the best bit of this track.

Tim: Oh, you’re not far off there – it’s when we break out of the dance and get just with the acoustic guitars break it for me. This here is absolutely great.

It is, in fact, a cracking dance tune, albeit in a very different way from yesterday’s – one’s a get ready to go out and party, this here is very much a LET’S GET ON THAT DANCEFLOOR track. And I love it.

Tom: I see what you did there.

Michael Jackson and Justin Timberlake – Love Never Felt So Good

“Blatant cash-in, right?”

Tom: New Michael Jackson album. Blatant cash-in, right? Rip out some old unreleased material, the fans’ll lap it up. Well, not quite. See, the thing about Michael Jackson is that even his unreleased tracks are pretty damn good.

Tom: Particularly when they’re given a modern production boost that still, somehow, sounds like it came out of Motown — and backing vocals from the only still-credible member of ‘N Sync.

Tim: Hmm. I’m always nervous when this sort of thing comes out because I almost feel pressured to like it, a bit like Get Lucky. It’s alright, and perfectly serviceable, but I can’t say it does much for me. Though I can’t see it ever being as annoying as I now find Get Lucky.

Tom: Sure, it’s not a Thriller, it’s not a Black or White. But it’s still better than a heck of a lot of the tracks that come our way; even when the King of Pop went by-the-numbers, they were pretty damn good numbers.

Tim: Yes, I definitely can’t deny that.

Tom: And if it’s not modern enough for you, I reckon this remix will do you nicely. It certainly worked for me.

Tim: Oh well actually yes that’ll do very nicely indeed. Cheers.

Elin Lanto – Skylight

“Utterly lovely and pretty much entirely forgettable.”

Tim: If you’ve not heard of Elin Lanto, she’s been off for three years so that may be why. Anyway, she’s back now with this lovely sort of dancey pop type ballady thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjKcFx0eSv0

Tim: This here has the unfortunate combination of being both utterly lovely and pretty much entirely forgettable.

Tom: Oh, thank heavens, it’s not just me. It’s like waking up after a dream. There was… there was that bit that sounded a bit like the start of “I Want It That Way”? I think? And then an “aah-aah-aah-aah” bit.

Tim: Having heard it now four times, all I can really remember, aside from the “Sky-y-y-y-y-y-ylight” hook which is quite nice, is that she has a great gentle voice and that there was some really very enjoyable production underneath it. The main reason that annoys me? Within a couple of months, I’ll probably have Shazammed this a good ten times, and then I’ll feel stupid. If it wasn’t for that, I’d very happy listening to this over and over again.

Tom: I still think Shazam should just insult you if you tag the same song twice.

Eric Saade – Du Är Aldrig Ansam

“One of the loveliest chorus lyrics I’ve heard in quite a while.”

Tim: Eric is in severe danger of being overtaken by Pitbull as the most written about artist on this site, and since nobody at all wants that, let’s write about this charity single. The title? ‘You Are Never Alone’.

Tim: And by charity, I mean Unicef, who are doing lots of work for all the kids Eric is playing football with and standing awkwardly next to in that video.

Tom: We’ve always said, in the past, that we’ll treat charity singles like regular ones — based mainly on the music.

Tim: It’s a cover of an old song (I say old, 1999) by Swede Mauro Scocco, and the chorus is there to reassure: “I can go all night, take a train or plane, it doesn’t matter where you are, I’ll be there anyway” which to be honest is one of the loveliest chorus lyrics I’ve heard in quite a while.

Tom: I’ll grant you that. And this is definitely a Big Ballad, so I’ll try not to be too disappointed that it isn’t more exciting.

Tim: Well that’s the question – as a ballad, is it a bit boring? Possibly, as it falls into the trap of the interminable second verse – we can cope with a dull first verse in the knowledge that there’s a chorus coming, but the chorus, while enough to sustain itself, doesn’t really bring any momentum to carry us through the next thirty seconds, which it really does need.

Tom: Agreed: it’s just a bit too slow and a bit too plodding to justify waiting on it. That said, full marks for an interesting build to the chorus: that abrupt stuttering sound works very well, far better than I’d have expected if it’d been just described to me.

Tim: On the other hand, it is a lovely chorus, lyrically and musically, and if we could just have a key change at 3:30, I’d not complain at all.

Conchita Wurst – Rise Like A Phoenix

“Eurovision isn’t just about the song.”

Tim: Well, here we are, with Saturday night’s victor, a drag queen from Gmunden in Austria, performing for the second time.

Tom: And we were there. We have the photos to prove it. But enough bragging: let’s see the show.

Tim: Big question, though: what won it? Because, let’s be honest, while it’s a good song, it’s not amazing. It’d certainly make the shortlist for a new Bond theme, and she’s definitely got a great voice, but outside that, the music’s not that special.

Tom: That’s true, but we know that Eurovision isn’t just about the song. It was a fairly weak field this year, there was full-on politics involved — particularly given the boos for Russia — and yes, perhaps the best song didn’t win, but the best performance did.

Tim: Absolutely: her as a singer and the message it provides (complete with that phoenix wing camera shot), combined with all the issues going on in eastern Europe at the moment, bring together one hell of a performance. You and I were there in the stadium, Tom, and the massive, massive amounts of cheering were arguably far more for that than for the sound.

Tom: Agreed. That said: it’s not a bad song. If it were a bad song, no amount of politics could have saved her.

Tim: True. And let’s be honest: that’s a great thing, for Eurovision fans. Because it’s finally become political. When the most Catholic country in Europe gave twelve points to a drag queen, and even Russia (Russia!) gave it five points, this is a time that we fans can point at and say: this is the liberalisation of Europe. What a great moment.

Saturday Reject: Helena Paparizou – Survivor

“A song you can properly get your strut on to.”

Tim: The day is HERE, so let’s have a quick look at what was quite possibly the very very best of however many hundred contestants there have been this year, which is this. You’ll most likely remember Helena from her 2005 victory for Greece, the rather good My Number One. This year she went for the other half of her ancestry and entered Sweden’s contest with this, which got through to the final via Andra Chansen and is even better.

Tim: When I said ‘even better’, what I really mean, of course, is UTTERLY MARVELLOUS.

Tom: Crikey, when that kicks in, it means it. I’m not sure about that sudden quiet bit as it goes back in the verse, though.

Tim: Like I said, it was my favourite of all the songs in all the contests, musically at least, because it’s a song you can properly get your strut on to.

Tom: I’m sorry, you… what?

Tim: You can STRUT, man, STRUT. I know this because that’s exactly what I do regularly on my walk to work, shouting the chorus to myself because I know that I AM A SURVIVOR. So everyone should JUST CALL ME A SURVIVOR. SUCH A STRONG DESIRE. GONNA LET YOU GO, LET YOU GO. JUST CALL ME A SURVIVOR ETC ETC ETC.

Tom: I’m not going to argue with that. It’s a strong mental image.

Tim: Anyone who doubts the true validity of her sentiments only needs to look at her face as she rips the microphone off its stand, because SHE IS A SURVIVOR. I AM A SURVIVOR. SO JUST CALL ME A SURVIVOR and now fade out.

Saturday Reject: MadCraft – Shining Bright

“Hey, that nearly lives up to the hype!”

Tim: MadCraft describe themselves as “the superpowered pop punk band from Helsinki”, and, well, how often do you get superpowered pop punk these days? We can’t not feature it, really.

Tom: Hey, that nearly lives up to the hype! That said, for a pop-punk band, the mix feels a bit… muted.

Tim: That’s the proper music video there, as on both UMK live performances the levels were catastrophically miscalculated resulting in the vocals being almost inaudible; to what extent that affected their poor placing throughout we’ll not know.

Tom: You say that, but the main single mix sounds a bit like it’s being played through slightly broken speakers. Maybe that’s YouTube compression, maybe not, but either way it needs kicking up a notch or two.

Tim: Perhaps, but I reckon overall it’s a good track, as far as pop punk goes, and I suppose superpowered isn’t a terrible description – it’d certainly be a decent Blink 182 album track.

Tom: Ooh, that’s a backhanded compliment there.

Tim: Digging around this band, I find a lot to like, such as their excitable website that, once you’ve read to the bottom, invites you to read it all over again. There’s also their previous music video referencing various video games, such as Madtal Kombat, Madtar Hero and, well, I’ll let you guess what they renamed Super Mario Land to. What I see is a band that likes having fun, and entered the competition to have a bit more fun. Well done everyone, it’s nice when this happens. Even if it didn’t lead to victory.

Tom: Agreed.

Saturday Reject: The Bandits – One

“There’s some good bits in there.”

Tim: This Belgian boyband, despite looking barely old enough to understand the concept of musical history, have chosen to model themselves on the Beatles.

Tom: There are certainly worse role models for musicians, but those are big shoes to step into. The Beatles changed the world: how about the Bandits?

Tim: Well, they’ve certainly got the screaming teenagers, but do they have the music?

Tim: Ehh, sort of. It’s not a bad track, when it jumps back out of the middle eight and finally picks up the steam it should have had throughout the entirety of the song.

Tom: There’s some good bits in there – that descending scale on “brand ne-e-e-w” is lovely, but yes: it takes a while to get there. Early Beatles songs didn’t really build: they just started at full throttle and never stopped. That was the only way they could be heard over the screams.

Tim: Ha, true. Really, if a band like this is going to enter Eurovision, it needs to be big – at the very least State of Drama levels, and unfortunately this isn’t. It could be – there’s potential here – but annoyingly it’s just not enough. (Admittedly, given the awful, awful eventual winner of Belgium’s contest, even the actual Beatles wouldn’t have won.) Come back in a few years when you’ve, you know, done drugs and all the other stuff you need to do and maybe you’ll have a shot, but right now it’s just a pipe dream, kids.

Saturday Reject: Knut Kippersund Nesdal – Taste of You

“A damn good staging get-up.”

Tim: “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.”

Tom: Oh blimey, I remember you tweeting about this one.

Tim: God, in this case, is a rather smooth-looking Norwegian with wonderful blonde hair and legs that seem to magnetically repel each other, which I’m happy to accept. I’m also happy to accept the lyrics (and indeed the title), “the taste of love, the taste of you”, as, well, anything. Some will be somewhat grossed out by it, some will happily take it as a sort of metaphor, and some (hello!) will happily take it literally.

Tom: I’m just going to let you have your moment there. Personally, I think he just looks a bit like Andy Crane visited Jedward’s hairdresser.

Tim: No. Whatever your thoughts on the lyrics are, though, this is (a) a damn good staging get-up and (b) a very good key change, being as it is one that sort of gradually happens over a few notes rather than being a sudden BOOM, which is quite refreshing.

Tom: Agreed: well done that set designer, but more importantly well done the songwriter. I don’t reckon it’d have won Eurovision, but it’s pretty catchy.

Tim: It is – I like it a lot, so well done Knut, and if you’re ever in London let me know and I’ll be happy to compliment you in person.

Saturday Reject: Danni Elmo – She’s The One

“Combine it with a bigger voice, and this would be a wonderful entry.”

Tim: Here’s a bit of advice for future Danish music show producers: if you’re going to have massive smoke cannons, try not to get your microphones right on top of them.

Tom: Oh crikey, it’s like Morrissey had a breakdown and started liking pop.

Tim: Erm, yes, well, regardless of that, what a chorus. And, in fact, what a song.

Tom: Yes. That build and lead-up into the chorus promises so much — although I’m not quite sure that Discount Morrissey can live up to that promise.

Tim: No. Combine it with a bigger voice, though, and damn, this would be a wonderful entry. It has the melody, the title (which in a song that most people hear just once is probably more important than the lyrics) and the staging with the lights and, yes, that dodgily-executed smoke. But I suppose that extra volume does make it seem like the audience is going utterly nuts for it, so it possibly wasn’t entirely accidental. Oh, what a cynic I am.

Tom: Cock-up before conspiracy, every time.

Tim: Fair point. Anyway, give us a stronger singer and this could have been a fantastic entry. As it was? Not quite enough, unfortunately, but oh, the potential.