Amy Diamond – Your Love

“Would be better if the chorus was a bit more varied”

Tom: Our reader, Roger, sends in this new single. Now, we’ve covered Amy Diamond, her of the Greatest Hits album at 18 years old, a few times before — and each time we’ve found ourselves generally unimpressed.

Advance warning: this is an unofficial YouTube copy, so the compression on it’s a bit dodgy.

Tom: Well, I’m more impressed than I have been than some of her previous tracks, which I’ve outright dismissed, in one case as “sugar piled on top of sugar”. This still doesn’t seem to work properly for me, though.

Tim: Hmm. It’s still quite sugary, but I think it does work for me. Would be better if the chorus was a bit more varied, though.

Tom: Roger does say it’s a bit repetitive — but then, that can still make a catchy track, as Daft Punk found out this year. But this ain’t Daft Punk; it’s just a track with an unmemorable melody that keeps repeating “your love, your love, your love”.

Tim: Yes. My problem with Daft Punk wasn’t the repetitiveness of it so much as the reasoning – I got the feeling that it had been put there not because they was nothing else but just in order to deliberately be repetitive and get stuck in peoples’, almost cynically so. This feels the other way – that they couldn’t think (or couldn’t be bothered to think) of anything more. Not sure if that’s better or worse, really.

Tom: It’s worth pointing out that Amy wrote most of this herself, for the first time; the backing vocalists are her sisters, and she’s even got a credit for the cover design. And while that’s admirable… it still feels a bit like stock music in the background of a TV show: there to be talked on top of. And that’s a shame, because there’s a gem of genius in here somewhere — it’s just spread very thin.

Nanne – Ingen Dansar Dåligt (Lika Bra Som Jag)

“Like an advertising jingle for Butlins.”

Tim: Nanne, who in case you haven’t heard of is a Swede who’s been in music for the past two and a half decades and was last heard of in 2011 with her, erm, interesting, ‘My Rock Favourites’ album. But she’s back!

The track isn’t embeddable, but you can listen to it here.

Tom: Crikey, that starts off sounding like an advertising jingle for Butlins. Actually, most of it sounds like that.

Tim: Google’s not happy on the translation of the SoundCloud description, which reminds me that I really must get onto the Duolingo people about Sweden, but it’s something to do with dancing badly (or not) and mostly just hearing it and dancing. And let’s be honest, that’s very easy to do. Because it’s pop. It’s danceable. It’s very pop, and it’s very danceable.

Tom: I found myself adding double-handclaps myself at one point, like it’s the 1970s or something. It’s pap, but it’s very well produced pap.

Tim: A lot of the lyrics are just ‘do-coo’, which suits me fine because now I don’t have to spend time learning foreign when I could just be dancing. And that’s what I really want to do. So I will. DANSA!

Tom: Dancing?

Tim: You know, I knew exactly where that link was going. And I clicked on it anyway.

Avicii – Hey Brother

“It’s been quite the successful change.”

Tim: This is pretty much the least Avicii-sounding song he’s ever put out since he adopted that mantle. And it’s brilliant for it.

Tom: You say that, but this now sounds rather like what an Aviici track should be to me — or at least, what I’ve now come to associate with him. It’s been quite the successful change.

Tim: Right – Wake Me Up went someway to ditching the piano dance that he’d become almost synonymous with, and here it’s completely out of the window with not a keyboard in sight. It’s not entirely unrecognisable – the brass has filled in the gap, but otherwise a similar formula – but this will certainly go a long way to quietening the crowd that unimaginatively describe him as a one-trick pony. And that’s a very good thing.

Tom: Agreed. This is just a brilliant track, and while it’ll probably need a remix before it hits the Clubland ‘best of’, that’s not a complaint: I like this new Avicii.

Saturday Flashback: Phixx – Love Revolution

Tim: Popstars: The Rivals – remember it?

Tom: No. Genuinely, no: I didn’t watch it when it was on.

Tim: Never mind. Basic concept: in the finals, ten males and ten females, top five of each form a band which are the titular rivals. You may well have forgotten about One True Voice, the boyband; you’ve probably not forgotten about their rivals, Girls Aloud.

Tom: I was about to ask how the sixth-placed woman felt, and whether she’d faded into obscurity: but she was Javine, who had a reasonable solo career.

Tim: And who, as of yesterday, has her voice on a not-half-bad new dance track. But you have almost certainly forgotten about Phixx, the group formed the next year from the guys that finished in the bottom five. This is them, with the second (and best) of their four top 20 singles.

Tim: So there we go. Why bring it up now? Well, why not. I suddenly remembered about them, apropos of nothing I can recall, and so here they are. It’s a fun track, and an even more fun video; despite all the oiling, writhing and vampirism that’s going on I think my favourite item is the bloke who’s casually leaning on a lightsaber. SEE ME RESIST THE WEAPON OF THE FORCE.

Tom: I enjoyed the guy at the end who appeared to just be smelling his own armpit.

Tim: Also a highlight. Incidentally, the fact that they had four top 20 singles and one album puts them well ahead of One True Voice, who only managed a paltry two songs before falling apart. Actually, now I think about it Liberty X outperformed Hear’Say fairly comprehensively as well. There’s probably some reason behind that. Buggered if I care, though.

Leona Lewis – One More Sleep

Get pissed on the mulled wine, and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

Tim: That’s right – another Friday, and another stupidly early Christmas track from an artist who should know better.

Tom: Oh, crikey. It’s not even November yet.

Tim: The first second is filled with sleigh bells, the first word sung is ‘snow’ – yep, this is a festive song, and it’s taking the road of loneliness.

Tom: Or at least, anticipation.

Tim: I’m not quite sure I get this, though – she knows her sweetheart’s coming home on Christmas day, and in the meantime is apparently choosing just to mope around getting bored. Why is this? You’ve already said he’s home on the 25th, so quit with all the ‘staring at the window’ and bloody have some fun. Surprise him! Bake him a cake, or decorate the front of the house with ludicrous amounts of coloured lighting. Buy him a massive present, and go to a Christmas Eve party and get pissed on the mulled wine. Just stop feeling sorry for yourself. He’ll be having fun, so why can’t you?

Tom: Musically, though?

Tim: Musically, though – good lord, it’s utterly wonderful.

Tom: Yep. It’s another one taking its cue from the retro, hyper-saturated, reverberating performances of years ago. The Wall of Sound is back in fashion, folks: the revival of Disco Christmas has passed by.

Tim: YES.

Tom: I can only assume that by 2040 it’ll be Dubstep Christmas.

Tim: Oh.

Robin Stjernberg – Pieces

“Yes, it’s a builder”

Tim: This is the title track, about to be released, from his fairly good album, released some time ago. There’s an actual video, but it has one of those annoying ‘don’t you dare rip this’ bits and it’s so annoying it actually dented my enjoyment of the song. So I won’t link to it. Have this.

Tim: This is a weird one. Because yes, it’s a builder, and that’s a common refrain, and possibly used too much. But this almost takes it to the limits and redefines what it should be. Because let’s be honest, the first verse is basically nothing.

Tom: Now, there’s something about that piano melody that grabbed me right at the start — but you’re right, after that, it sort of faded into the background.

Tim: Even the first chorus is basically nothing. It finishes, you might realise we’re getting another verse, and you think ‘oh, was that it?’ Then the second verse, well, there’s still pretty much nothing there. The second chorus, mind, might catch your attention when it arrives, and that’ll be alright a bit, and there are drums underneath every now and again, but you still might get bored, and let’s be honest in the middle eight you may well fall asleep.

Tom: It kept startling me occasionally — the introduction of the drums, the clanging chimes in that middle eight, but yes; after that it sort of became just “nice” again.

Tim: BUT THEN. The final chorus, out of nowhere, he’s screaming enough to wake the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and he’s got the instruments in to help him. And really, that kind of makes it all worth it. Because the next time you hear it, it’s there.

Tom: Well, more or less. I think you might be going a bit over the top.

Tim: Obviously it isn’t, really, because it’s still pretty much nothing, and I still only rated it three and a half stars in iTunes, but at least you know where it’s going.

Tom: I had to look up the Ephesus reference, by the way.

Tim: Well, I’m glad I can help to further your education.

James Arthur – You’re Nobody ‘Til Somebody Loves You

“I hate the lyrics.”

Tim: Oh, must we?

Tom: He may look like a discount Professor Green, but he has the second-best-selling X Factor single. (The first is Alexandra Burke’s Hallelujah, so that doesn’t really mean much.)

Tim: Fair point. Go on, then.

Tom: Let’s get this out of the way early: I hate the lyrics of this song, in both big ways (the ‘bollocks to single people’ message) and small ways (“fill up my cup / don’t ever stop”).

Tim: And which way does “get up on top, I’ll make you pop” send you?

Tom: Into mild fury. Which is a shame, because the music’s pretty damn good: a “big sound” — I don’t think I’ve ever used that phrase before, but hopefully you know what I mean — and some pretty powerful vocal work.

Tim: When I first heard this. I think I tweeted something along the lines of “this is very ‘relevant’, isn’t it.” Which is still true. Let’s be honest: it’s a bit weird. This’ll probably sound like a compliment but: he’s kind of made his own sound. Or to elaborate, it sounds like he’s gone in saying “I want to do big brass stuff,” Syco have said “no, you’re doing heavy beats,” and this is the compromise they’ve ended up with.

It’s not a bad compromise, mind – it’s just that… oh, fine, I’ll say it: I don’t like him. He’s annoying, he’s got all the charisma of a dead slug, and on top of that there’s the whole #saynotouglypopstars thing. But, hate myself as I do, any disdain and cynicism I put out for the record is tainted by that, but also slightly manufactured by it. I don’t want to like it. I really, really don’t want to like it. But…aargh, dammit, I kind of do. Ugh.

Tom: It’s not all that catchy, though — but it probably stands more of a chance of making the charts than other X Factor winners. Not that anyone can remember them.

Tim: You say that, but we both gave an unequivocal thumbs up to Matt Cardle a few months back. Cynicism and snark is what we do, but dammit you brought this song up and now I’m open to introspection. DAMN YOU TOM SCOTT.

The Wanted – Show Me Love (America)

It’s time for BIG STRINGS.

Tom: It’s time for BIG STRINGS, Tim.

Tim: YES.

Tim: Bearded Jay looks utterly ridiculous with slicked down hair.

Tom: Leaving aside that look-to-camera to emphasise the clunking, Ernie Wise-esque “what I done” —

Tim: and the fact that bearded Jay looks utterly ridiculous with slicked down hair

Tom: — that’s a pretty damn good pop track. It’s by-the-numbers, sure, but they’re exceptionally good numbers.

Tim: Hmm. It may well be the best track (and video, despite our misgivings) that they’ve put out in quite some time. It’s not happy dancey pop like Walks Like Rihanna, but as far as showing off talent, emotion and abilities goes, this is really very good indeed.

Tom: For a band I expected to be a one-hit wonder, the Wanted have been doing well. And hey, at least the music video had a happy ending.

Tim: God, you really are a heartless bastard, aren’t you? I’m still sore from the Barlow/Fältskog debacle, damn you.

Tom: Come on, that relationship was never going to work out. Physical violence and screaming matches? They’ll be happier apart.

Tim: I’M CRYING HERE.

Agnetha Fältskog & Gary Barlow – I Should Have Followed You Home

“Romantics will want to switch off.”

Tom: Crikey, that is a strong line-up.

Tim: Two former members of huge bands, one duet. Before you push play though: this is an incredibly depressing song and any romantics will want to switch off until tomorrow.

Tim: At least, lyrically it’s very depressing, and that annoys me. Because musically it’s lovely, really – the two of them are at the top of their game and it could so easily be a happy love song.

Tom: It’s lovely, yes, but also a bit dull — and I don’t know what I’ve got to pin that opinion on, only that the “ooh-oohs” in the chorus just left me a bit cold. But yes, it could be a happy love song.

Tim: Instead, we hear about two people who both regret parting after one night. But here’s what really gets me: the middle eight. Or, more precisely, what immediately follows it. (Brace yourself for what’s coming.)

Tom: Have you read more into these lyrics than was intended, by any chance?

Tim: Well, look. Basically, this song could tell a story. It could be a romantic film. We’ve had the basic introduction about the first magical night, we’ve had the regrets the two have felt since. So, enter the middle eight. The closing scenes. The lyrics “Snow falls, street lights paint your face,” and you think they’ve seen each other in the street, after years of anguish. You get her singing “maybe if you want to I’ll see you soon again,” and we know he wants to. So basically, the ending’s obvious: they change the lines for the chorus. The two of them run to each other. They grow old together. They have a family. It’s lovely. Except, no.

Tom: You really do get involved in these tracks.

Tim: Don’t interrupt, I’m getting emotional. You promised it in the lyrics, you even put nice twinkly noises coming into the final chorus to give us all hope, excitement and goosebumps, and then you STOLE IT FROM US. It would haver been WONDERFUL, but no. The two are DOOMED for a LIFETIME APART. WHY HAVE YOU DONE THIS, BARLOW? WHY WOULD YOU TAKE MY HAPPY ENDING?

Tom: Heh. “Happy ending”.

Tim: I’m going to ignore that pathetic innuendo, because I’M CRYING TOO MUCH.

Saturday Flashback: Antti Tuisku – Jää tai mee

“It’s a builder.”

Tom: Suggested by an anonymous reader, this track’s in from Finland. It’s a couple of months old now, but I’m running with it anyway because first: it’s a builder, and second: I bet you’re surprised by the direction it builds in.

Tim: Hmm – mildly unexpected, I’ll grudgingly admit.

Tom: I was expecting a four-on-the-floor club banger, and what I got was something a bit more interesting: it’s up-and-down like a roller coaster, with more euphoric builds than should rightly fit into four minutes. I was surprised, actually: I thought it’d outstay its welcome, but I enjoyed it to the end.

Tim: As did I – there’s no real opportunity to get bored, what with the regular up and downing. I particularly enjoyed the video – I see quite a bit of myself in his often ridiculous dancing, and I appreciate it when that happens.

Tom: Finnish is a difficult language to translate, but one lyric stood out: “Have mercy on me now, do not play with my emotions”. He’s asking his partner to either stay or go — but just make their mind up either way. Not typical fodder for a dance track, that.

Tim: No, I guess not. Good work all round, then.