Robin – Erilaiset

“That’s a decent enough charity track, isn’t it.”

Tim: You do, I presume, remember ‘BOOM KAH! BOOM BOOM KAH!” Here’s the follow-up, which is actually the Red Nose Day single in Finland, but they’ve chosen to make no mention whatsoever of that on the YouTube page.

Tom: Finnish Red Nose Day, of course, is whenever the temperature dips below -20°C in Oulu.

Tim: Nicely played, sir. Here’s the track.

Tim: That’s a decent enough charity track, isn’t it.

Tom: It is: it’s certainly better than some of the dreck we’ve had before. It’s certainly better than One Direction covering Teenage Kicks.

Tim: Well, duh. What I particularly like, and what may well not work if I spoke Finnish, is the way it almost goes into the chorus thirty seconds in, but then drops back out for the rest of the verse before the main chorus comes in bigger and better than what you originally thought it would be.

Tom: Yep, I was going to point that out too. It’s a good shtick, and I can see that becoming a Thing.

Tim: Aside from that, actually, it’s somewhat average as far as pop songs go, but it does have a slightly ‘urban’ edge to it in the intro and outro which is probably a good thing as far as his future intentions go so well done there. Also, half an hour on from writing everything previous to this, I’ve clicked replay on it every time it’s finished, so it’s clearly listenable. GOOD WORK CHARITY.

Saturday Flashback: Meja – All ‘Bout The Money

Tom: We talked about her new single yesterday, so it seems like we should evaluate her one big international hit. Because I could remember the chorus clearly… but none of the rest of it.
And off the top of my head, I still don’t remember any of it. So let’s listen.

Tim: RIGHT. Yeah, really don’t remember hearing it at all, so I’ll review it as a new track.

Tom: What? No. There’s no way you missed this. It was massive. It’s a cultural reference. How on earth did you miss this?

Tim: No idea. But I did.

Tom: Anyway: having listened to it again a couple of times now, I realise that I still can’t remember the verses.

Tim: Fair dos – they’re not hugely memorable, but it’s nonetheless a good track, chorus and forgettable verses alike.

Tom: This song really is just a setup for an incredibly good chorus — a few repetitive lines that made it everywhere fifteen years ago. Sometimes that’s all a song needs.

Tim: Yes, indeed – that chorus is a good one, and the verses have a decent enough melody to them that with or without the lyrics if I had heard them way back when I may well still now have had an idea of what the song was. I didn’t, so I’ll never know for certain, but it’s good fun to listen to. That much is true.

Meja – Blame It On The Shadows

“Nice, calm, folky pop.”

Tom: Remember Meja?

Tim: Erm…

Tom: No, I didn’t think you would. I’ll bet you remember “All ‘Bout The Money”, though.

Tim: YES. “I don’t need your money, money money, not about the money, money—” wait, that’s Jessie J. Erm, still no. But let’s pretend I do.

Tom: Well, fifteen years — and a lot of albums and singles that haven’t troubled the British charts — later, this the new single.

Tom: And I think we can safely say that she’ll, sadly, be remaining a one-hit wonder over in these parts for a while. There’s nothing wrong with the track: it’s nice, calm, folky pop, but it’s going to stay in the background.

Tim: Yes – if I were to compare to someone ‘big’, I’d say Emmelie de Forest, except that Meja doesn’t have a Eurovision victory to bounce off. Nothing wrong, but it’s not the most fashionable stuff anywhere right now, so probably not destined for hugeness.

Tom: But my word, she can definitely sing live: that rise into the last chorus is wonderful. Her fans will no doubt love it, and if acoustics-and-vocals is your kind of thing then this will go down very well indeed.

Tim: Oh, absolutely. Lovely final chorus, but nothing that’ll get airplay. Of course, one could argue (or rather hope) that we’re now in a time where radio stations don’t dictate what’s successful, but, well, for the time being hope is all we can go for.

Midnight Boy – When You’re Strange

“Warning: full-frontal nudity ahead.”

Tim: Warning: full-frontal nudity on the streets of Stockholm ahead, of a very distracting nature. So have a listen, but if you’re in a public place, or of a slightly nervous disposition, you’ll want to be switching to another tab by 2:55.

Tom: It’s not a cover of the Doors, is it? I’m going to be properly disappointed if it’s not.

Tom: Oh. Well, I guess I was going to be disappointed either way.

Tim: So, yeah, that’s that. And despite the ridiculous video, which I’m buggered if I can understand the point of, aside from showing that Swedes are really very good at ignoring things they don’t want to see, it’s a very good number.

Tom: It is, but what a — forgive my phrasing — half-arsed video. Apparently shot on the wobbliest, dodigest camera available and fixed badly in post; and he’s not even bothering to sing the song. As for the music…

Tim: Sort of electro-rock, really, and performed to exactly the standard we like to hear. Melodic, vibrant, an appropriate vocal sound and a fair ‘throw everything in and see what doesn’t bounce out again’ production method. I like this a lot. As long as I don’t have to watch the video, anyway.

Eric Saade – Boomerang

“Two-step is meant to be a bit unpredictable.”

Tim: As noted the last time we checked in on him, genre-wise he’s still up in the air a bit, and back then he gave us a tedious Justin Timberlake sound-a-like. This time, though? Two-step pop. Yep, that’s right.

Tim: And actually that’s pretty good.

Tom: It is, but two-step is meant to be a bit unpredictable, and this just isn’t. Even that repetitive drum fill seems to have been lifted straight from Tinie Tempah’s “Pass Out”.

Tim: Indeed. It’s not fantastic – there’s little variation throughout, he seems to have missed the memo that that auto-tune-style ‘eh-eh’ went out of fashion three years ago, and I really don’t want to overthink the lyric “Bite in your lips, just right in your Victoria’s Secrets”.

Tom: “You’re like a drug, with a smile on your face.” Hmm. Perhaps more time has been spent on the production than any of the lyrics.

Tim: There’s that – at least it’s not tedious like previously. It was written with the same J-Son who featured in the sonically similar Hearts in the Air a couple of years back, and all in, it’s fairly good pop.

James Blunt – Bonfire Heart

“What a fantastic track it is.”

Tom: This has been out for ages — and on the Radio 2 playlist for just as long — but we haven’t covered it. Because, well, it’s James Blunt.

Tom: The trouble is this: despite him being easy to mock for making overly-simple, lowest-common-denominator, irritating music, he’s certainly got a talent for writing. And while the last couple of albums have just sort of bubbled under, this track has brought him back to mainstream awareness. And what a fantastic track it is.

Tim: Yes – see, I’ve been meaning to suggest this for a while. Every time I hear it I think “ooh, this is great, we should do this” and then realise it’s James Blunt, and for some reason I don’t want to. I don’t know why, because like you said, it’s fantastic. Well, pretty good, anyway.

Tom: Will it go the same way as “You’re Beautiful”, or even Daniel Powter’s “Bad Day”? Adored, played everywhere, and then so ubiquitous as to become annoying? It’s certainly possible, because it’s catchy, it’s a builder, and it’s just a plain good song.

Tim: It is, especially for a track that mostly has just a drum beat, a guitar and a voice that’s constantly on the verge of annoying.

Tom: Apart from those first two lines. I could do without those first two lines.

And what was he thinking with that video? While I’m sure it’s lovely, bringing America together like that, James Blunt does not look like a natural fit for an enormous motorcycle.

Tim: No, but then to be honest very few people are natural fits for those bikes except overweight fifty year olds who’ve grown out of decent motorbikes.

Le Kid – Physical

Tim: About eighteen months ago Le Kid brought out a track called Human Behaviour – I’ve no idea why we didn’t cover it, but anyway. Since then, they’ve been pushing themselves onto the German market, and this is a played around with and jumped up version of that song. Have a listen, why don’t you.

Tim: So, it’s The Offspring’s message wrapped up in lovely pop for the rest of us.

Tom: “It all just happens again, way down the line”?

Tim: You see this is why we tend to stick to Europop – I did of course mean the Bloodhound Gang, as also mentioned on Saturday. ANYWAY, what an interesting video – I can certainly understand why they went for humans dressed as animals rather than actual horses and reindeer and pigs and stuff, but it doesn’t half make for a slightly unsettling watch.

As ever, though, the music from these guys is really rather great.

Tom: Yep, although I do still expect something a bit more bubblegum from them — not that this isn’t sugary as it is.

Tim: For some reason, the song it puts me most in mind of is Little Mix’s DNA, and while it’s not quite as good as that, that song was bloody brilliant so I think that’s praise enough for this song.

Tom: Huh, really? I hear DNA as being a lot darker than this.

Tim: Oh, it absolutely is – this just seems to be what you’d get if you turned the happiness and sweetness up a little bit on that. It’s very enjoyable indeed, and right now I’m hoping that once they’re done with Germany they’ll have a go here. Because I would BUY EVERYTHING.

Tom: You know that we have the internet these days, right?

Tim: The…the what now?

Saturday Flashback: Baby Alice – Piña Colada Boy

“It’s a bloody earworm.”

Tim: I asked you what we should feature today, you said this had been on your mind recently; care to explain yourself?

Tom: Because it’s a bloody earworm. Even worse than that Kelly Clarkson Christmas track. It just gets in there and doesn’t leave.

Tim: This is three and a half years old now, so I’m sure the point has been mentioned before, but blimey there’s a lot of Bad Touch in there.

Tom: There is — probably not close enough to get sued over, but it’s certainly very familiar.

Tim: Aside from that (or perhaps given that), what a fun tune. I can understand why it’s in your head.

Tom: It’s worth noting some of those particularly ridiculous lyrics: “my patience shorter than my skirt”, for instance. Bonus points for having a video that somehow manages to objectify pretty much everyone.

Tim: Yes – possibly the best kind of video. And since you mention “that Kelly Clarkson Christmas track”, by which I’m sure you you mean “that glorious new tune Underneath the Tree”, I noticed this week that we didn’t have a new Christmas track, upsettingly; according to Wikipedia, though, these guys have done a version of Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree, and if anybody has a copy of that anywhere I’d love to hear it.

The Fooo – Freestyler

“How on earth does a boyband cover a track like this?”

Tim: The Fooo, who you may remember recently wanted to build themselves a girlfriend, have sensibly backed away from that idea and now have this, a cover of, yes, that Freestyler.

Tom: I had to listen to the original to remind myself. And I’m at a loss: how on earth does a boyband cover a track like this?

Tom: Oh. By making it almost exactly the same.

Tim: I was all ready to pass this up and say, yep, that’s a cover and it’s pretty much identical, fine, but then there’s a bit of extra melody on the chorus line which is pretty good, and there’s also a little of bit extra stuff they’ve thrown in after the chorus that makes it sound a little bit more up to date than the 1999 original.

Tom: It’s basically an ill-advised X Factor covers week attempt, isn’t it?

Tim: Oh, come on – every X Factor week is ill-advised covers week.

I don’t know if this was a song that really needed a cover version, but they’ve done a very good job of it nonetheless – I wasn’t really ready for it to end when it did, and to be honest I wouldn’t have minded another chorus there, which must mean I like it.

Tom: Speak for yourself: I’ll stick with the original.

Pandora – I Feel Alive

“This is a lovely track.”

Tim: Pandora, a Swedish songstress who did all her big stuff in the nineties, but has been going strong and is now celebrating twenty years in the business. She’s also made a video to go with it of some highlights, so that’s nice. (Though try not to look at the lyrics.)

Tom: I can actually believe she’s done that video herself, which is either lovely or a terrible damning of someone else’s editing skills.

Tim: Well, yes, the lyrics bit of that video is awful, with a nice copy-and-pasted-three-times typo, but that’s not so bad because there’s a proper video on the way, apparently, and hopefully that also won’t have the audience at the end.

Tom: “Those of you who do not want to participate in this video, please contact us,” says the video description. I don’t even know how that’d work.

Tim: No. No, I’m not quite sure. But anyway, those minor things aside, this is a lovely track.

Tom: Agreed: it’s a pretty damn good bit of pop music.

Tim: It’s very happy, it’s celebratory like it should be, a euphoric dance track that we can all get excited to, and, as this video actually shows quite nicely, one that we can all have a wonderful time singing along to. There have been twenty years that we can all be very grateful for, and this is great way of celebrating them.