Saturday Reject: Anton Ewald – Begging

“Arguably, just as standard as all the others.”

Tim: We mentioned last week the prevalence of dance music in this year’s Melodifestivalen and how tracks had to be very good to succeed; this is one that succeeded, or at least got through to the final via Andra Chansen.

Tim: This track is, arguably, just as standard as all the others. It’s a good tune, sure, but there’s nothing really special about the track that elevates it musically above the rest, although the genre-shifted breakdown’s provides a bit of relief.

Tom: The synths in that chorus seem to be rather close to Taio Cruz’ “Dynamite“, too – although from a vote-winning perspective, that could be seen as a good thing.

Tim: What’s less of a good thing, votes-wise, is the somewhat shoddy vocal performance, and the backing that wouldn’t be there to help him in May.

Tom: Yep, the note as he came out of the middle eight was… well, let’s charitably say that it wasn’t really up to the Eurovision final’s exacting standards.

Tim: It does have two big things for it, though: a singer that a lot of girls and no small amount of guys would love to take home with them, and (most importantly) some proper atmosphere. There are big lights, and there is a lot of smoke, so anybody watching can immediately translate that to a heaving, sweaty nightclub full of smoke and lights and picture themselves dancing to it whilst drunk off their tits. Eddie Razaz, discussed last week, didn’t really have that same quality to it – it was a dance track being performed on stage, but only that – and I’m guessing that’s why this one got as far as it did.

Gabrielle – Regn fra blå himmel

I got distracted during that first verse and then woke up during that chorus.

Tim: First single off her second album, this is.

Tom: And just to repeat, again: “not that Gabrielle”.

Tim: What we have here is a song you start playing, think ‘yeah, it’s alright’, get distracted reading something or other, and end up missing the blinder of a chorus that the verses really don’t do justice to. So if you missed it, go back and have another listen. It’s worth it.

Tom: That’s actually exactly what happened with me. I got distracted during that first verse and then, well, “woke up” during that chorus.

Tim: The verses are nice enough, sure, but they’re not really much out of the ordinary. That chorus, though, short as it may be, does come with some fantastic instrumentation to it which is brilliant. I just wish it was longer, and the verses were a bit shorter. Or perhaps just better. That’d be preferable, I think.

Tom: Agreed. It is a damn good chorus, though.

Blue – Hurt Lovers

“Crikey, that’s actually a really good track.”

Tim: I don’t quite know how I missed this, to be honest, but at the beginning of the year Blue released a new album (admittedly, only in Germany), and this was the lead single.

Tom: Blimey. That’s surprising – after Eurovision, I thought they’d gone back to doing student gigs. How’d it do?

Tim: It went top 10 in aforementioned Germany, so next month it’s being released over here. Hurrah!

Tom: Crikey, that’s actually a really good track. Anthony Costa is increasingly slipping into looking like a stereotypical mob gangster, though. (Side note: Duncan James has a surprisingly entertaining sideline in reading out questions on rollercoasters these days.)

Tim: Quick video note: that was was made for the single as a soundtrack to the German film Schlussmacher; last Friday’s video for the British release is, erm, not available to view in Britain.

Tom: They copyright-blocked their own video. Well done there.

Tim: Still, the song, and as ballads go it’s pretty good one. Fairly hefty instrumentation, and while the verses are of the type don’t really serve as much more than lead-ins to the chorus, it’s a damn good chorus, once everything’s got going. A calm start, followed by a very repeatable hook, sort of Bleeding Love-style, and I think it works very well. I like it a lot.

Tom: Agreed. This isn’t just a “keep it going, lads” track – this could have been released by Blue at their height, and it’d have gone to number one.

Tim: Yes. Ten years on, though, and I suppose if it gets enough airplay, I can still see this fairly doing well. As far as airplay goes, though, my prediction is this: Radio 1 will decree it’s not relevant, Radio 2 might stick it on their B-list, and commercial stations will probably give it the same amount of priority, maybe a tad higher. On release you’re probably looking at the lower end of the top 20. Not bad, I guess.

Tom: It’s better than the student gigs.

Zlata Ognevich – Gravity

“Seriously, WHAT.”

Tim: I know, Tom, I know, you don’t like Eurovision spoilers, and for that reason I won’t say a word to describe this song, which is Ukraine’s entry. Push the mute button, and watch the video. (It’s safe to say this is not the performance you’ll be watching on the night.)

Tim: And what about that.

Tom: Crikey.

Tim: Dragonflies made of GOLD LIGHT. Butterflies made of BLUE LIGHT. MYSTIC SPARKS. Islands FLOATING IN THE SKY. STUPIDLY-COLOURED hummingbirds. UNICORNS. Bloody UNICORNS. Seriously, WHAT.

Tom: You know what it reminds me of? David Hasselhoff’s legendary video for Hooked on a Feeling, only with a much higher CGI budget. We’ve got a greenscreen, let’s do everything with it.

Tim: You may be wondering why Ukraine, a small country, chose to spend probably a majority of its entire GDP on one three-minute video, and, by any sensible judgment, you’d be right to ask. According to the YouTube wizards, it had a lot to do with the people. Once the song had been chosen, last December (yes, December), the broadcaster said, roughly: give us your ideas. And boy, did they get ideas. 608, to be precise – some, apparently, were “constructive”, and others were “fantastic/impossible”. You know, I would love to know what the impossible ones were. Dinosaurs? Swarming armies of Triffids?

Tom: Having any sense of reserve?

Tim: BUT. It wasn’t just the video – there’s a reason the song was chosen in December. I said I wouldn’t describe the song, and I won’t, but once it had been chosen by the public, elements of it were put up for review on Ukraine’s premier social networking site – the tempo, how many choruses, prominence of backing vocals, ‘power’ of the opening – and votes were taken. Results were gathered, the composers went back to their room, and two months later we have a song, considerably different, and improved, from the original. That, my friend, is how a voting public decides a song.

Tom: Blimey. Somehow I can’t see the BBC managing that.

Suede – It Starts And Ends With You

A really good bit of old-school pop-rock.

Tom: Someone came up to me the other day and said “You should be the third most popular Britpop band.” I said no. They insisted. I said no again. But they kept pestering me, and eventually I was Suede.

Tim: Okay, I’m done here. Don’t worry, I’ll shut the door on my way out.

Tim: Oh. Oh actually, I might hang around.

Tom: Lead single off the new reunion album. And my leaving bad puns aside, this is actually a really good bit of old-school pop-rock – complete with repeat until fade at the end.

Tim: That, I cannot disagree with. It’s an agreeable track, and one I can certainly see myself listening to if I’m in a Britpop mood, when that occasion comes around once a month or so.

Tom: The fans will like it, Radio 2 will probably like it, and while I doubt they’re going to get back to the chart heights of the 90s – pop has moved on – I reckon that there might just not be an exodus for the bar when they announce at their gigs that they’re playing “the new single”.

Tim: And given that that’s probably the best that any comeback/reunion track could aim for, I think they’ve done well.

Agnetha Fältskog – When You Really Loved Someone

“AGNETHA’S ONLY BLOODY BRINGING OUT A NEW ALBUM.”

Tim: You remember a while ago, there was a fairly successful Swedish group? Can’t remember what it was called, but the members were called Agnetha, Björn, Benny and Anni-Frid.

They had some sort of success sometime or another – I think they were like the second or third best-selling band of all time. I don’t know, they were before my time. But now, and actually I can’t fake this any more, AGNETHA’S ONLY BLOODY BRINGING OUT A NEW ALBUM.

Tom: Strange: Bonnie Tyler does a Eurovision song, and you’re cynical. Agnetha releases an album, and you’re all excited. What causes that, I wonder?

Tim: Well, firstly I’d quite like the Bonnie Tyler track if it wasn’t the song that’s due to represent the country’s musical output at the world’s largest music competition, and secondly, Bonnie Tyler has (as far as I’m concerned) a two-track Greatest Hits collection, whilst ABBA has a two-disc collection.

Tim: And what about that?

Tom: It’s… well, it’s pleasant, I guess?

Tim: Apparently the credit for the whole new album thing should go to writer Jörgen Elofsson, who has more than a couple of above average tracks to his name, who apparently turned up on her doorstep with a few tracks he’d written for her, and it all went from there. And how wonderful it is that it did. Because…oh wow. It’s just beautiful.

Tom: See, I’m not quite on board with that.

Tim: Seriously?

Tom: It’s a nice track, well performed and competently produced, but I can’t say there’s anything in there that makes me go “this is wonderful, this is a comeback, this is a hit”.

Tim: Not a massive hit, no, but it’s a lovely tune to lead a new album with. Gentle, charming, and all round ‘aaahhhh’-ing.

Admittedly I could take or leave the synthy middle eight, but my favourite part of it, by quite some way, is the entry into the first chorus. I don’t know what it is, but it gives me the same sort of feeling as a well-executed key change. And I really can’t ask for more than that.

Saturday Reject: Eddie Razaz – Alibi

“It’s the one I miss the most in the final.”

Tom: Our regular reader Roger sends in this track from Melodifestivalen. He was there for the live show in Skellefteå, and says the song “did not hit me immediately, but now it’s the one I miss the most in the final.”

Tim: Yes, I remember this one, and also not being particularly enthused; I’ve not listened to it since, though, so let’s have a listen.

Tim: Hmm. Still can’t say it really catches me as a song that needed to qualify.

Tom: The odd effect you can hear on the vocals is him singing not-quite-in-time with a backing-vocal copy of himself – it doesn’t seem to be harmonised, which is strange. It’s a lovely chorus – and a long one, with several different parts to it. I’m not sure the verses would be quite good enough to cover it, but since there doesn’t seem to be much verse to speak of anyway that’s a minor quibble.

Tim: You’re right on all of that, but I mentioned when we were discussing Janet Leon (from the same heat, incidentally) a few weeks back that there was a lot of generic EDM in this year’s competition – anything of the genre would need to really stand out in order to qualify. This, well, didn’t. A decent song, but in a crowded pool.

The Saturdays feat. Sean Paul – What About Us

“Sean Paul has apparently arrived straight from a Peter Andre song.”

Tom: Unusually, this song and video are available in two versions: and I suspect you’ll prefer the version that completely excludes Sean Paul. We’re not talking about that version because, frankly, it’s a bit boring.

Tim: Hmm – I’d normally say yes to any absence of rappers, but the middle eight there could do with some livening up.

Tim: Oh, it’s not just the middle eight he limits himself to. Crikey.

Tom: Because what we have here is a generic synth-backed Saturdays pop song. Generic video with dancing and arty filters. Generic melody that I can’t remember at all. Generic lyrics about sex that parents of their younger fans won’t notice. And then… then there’s Sean Paul.

Tim: Hmm. He does at least avoid the school register vibe that Flo Rida provided.

Tom: I’d forgotten how good that track was. It’s everything that this should be – even Flo Rida. Sean Paul, meanwhile, has apparently arrived straight from a Peter Andre track.

Tim: Hahahaha, he has and all.

Tom: Now, if you’ve got a bassy Jamiacan accent, someone applies a bit of reverb to it, and you’re interjecting into a dance track, you’re going to sound like that guy from ‘Mysterious Girl’. Was that the effect they were going for, I wonder? Because once you stop thinking of it as an irritating interjection, and instead a throwback to 1995 and the only thing that makes the song vaguely interesting, it’s not all that bad.

Tim: It does make it somewhat entertaining.

Tom: It’s no Mysterious Girl though.

Robbie Williams – Be A Boy

“This feels more like it should be an album track.”

Tom: Sound the ROBBIE KLAXON. And the “FEELS A BIT LIKE COLDPLAY” KLAXON. And, oddly, the SAXOPHONE KLAXON. Look, basically just sound all the klaxons, OK?

Tim: Does that include the JEDWARD AT MELODIFESTIVALEN KLAXON? Because that’s a good one to sound.

Tom: I say that the Saxophone Klaxon is odd because Robbie Williams is quoted as saying “If you ever put a saxophone solo on one of my tracks, I will kill you”.

Tim: That was a while back, though, and since then he’s put out an album of swing covers – I think we’re safe to assume his tastes are somewhat fluid.

Tom: It’s out as a single, but to be honest this feels more like it should be an album track. I think I’ve worked out what feels odd about it: Robbie’s vocals – and they are good vocals – are buried in the mix behind a wall of sound that doesn’t really add anything.

Tim: Yes, you could be right. It’s decent enough, although I should confess to think “Christ, is it still going?” when then were still ninety seconds to play. Not really a single, though since I’ve not heard the album I can’t compare to the rest of them.

Tom: There’s nothing obviously wrong with it… it just sounds like an album track that the fans would appreciate rather than a Big Robbie Single. But perhaps our expectations are just too high.

Le Kid – We Are Young

“It’s a more mature sound”

Tim: It’s getting on for eighteen months since we’ve had any new material from Le Kid, so this really should be quite good, shouldn’t it? And with a title like “We Are Young”, we’ll have at least a vague idea of what we’re likely to hear. So, the big question: it is as good as it should be?

Tim: Yes. Yes it is.

Tom: Damn right. The opening sounded a bit Aqua-ish – good, if derivative – but the rest of the track went in a different direction, and a good one at that.

Tim: It’s a more mature sound than we had on their previous album, you could say, and it’s bloody good. It’s another one that reminds me of Icona Pop’s I Love It, but is a bit less full on, and, well, in this case I almost could say that about it – it’s a fantastic ‘get up and go’ song.

The only problem is the occasional reminder of Pitbull with the “cause all…”, but I can easily cope with that when the rest of it is so great.

Tom: Wait, that’s a reminder of Pitbull? Man, he must be pretty much taking over your brain. You should get that seen to.

Tim: You’re right, actually. Sorry.

Tom: Mind you, my problem with the track is that it does start to repeat itself a lot, even in just three and a half minutes. It’s not a bad thing to repeat, but it could use some more switching up.

Tim: There aren’t a lot of songs where I could describe their repetitiveness as a good thing, but here I think it is, because that hook is really catchy and enjoyable. This is a great track, and pretty much exactly what Le Kid’s new track needed to be.

And hey – from the start of it, it could even qualify as “guitar music”. OKAY I’M DONE WITH THAT.

Tom: Good.