Gabrielle Aplin – The Power of Love

What I’m about to say may make me seem like a monster.

Tim: Yes, it’s a song from an advert, and that is precisely why we are discussing it. Because sod the song, I want to talk about the advert.

Tom: Right, well, you can keep me out of that. I’ve been in Australia, remember? Haven’t seen it.

Tim: Well, here it is so you can catch up.

Tim: Now, I said ‘talk’ above, though that should really be replaced with ‘rant’. I’ll get the nice bit out of the way: that song is absolutely lovely, it really is. This is the full version, and it’ll do wonders to calm you down and relax you if you’re like me, and you’ve just watched that advert. BECAUSE IT’S WRONG.

Tom: Oh blimey. Brace yourself, readers, I can see what’s coming here. Tim’s going off on a rant. For the record, I think the song’s a perfectly reasonable cover, and beautifully sung, although I think it’s far too downbeat compared to the original material.

Tim: Okay. What I’m about to say may make me seem like a monster. I’ve heard that the advert makes many people (including my aunt) cry buckets, to whom I say: you’re IDIOTS. Why? Because you’ve SKIPPED OVER THE BLINDINGLY OBVIOUS.

He’s a snowman. He’s got a girlfriend. He wants to buy her a present, and goes on a long and arduous journey to do it. Lovely idea. No problem with it at all. The first 78 seconds are sweet, charming, and happy. But THEN WE SEE WHAT HE’S BOUGHT HER. After miles of trekking, he has chosen TO BUY HER A HAT. And A SCARF. And GLOVES. So basically, CLOTHES TO KEEP HER WARM. Except that she, too, like him, IS A SNOWMAN. So basically, SHE’LL MELT. AND DIE. He is KILLING HIS GIRLFRIEND. ACTUALLY MURDERING HER. And we’re supposed to LIKE THAT? Is that how things are now? The spirit of Christmas is all about HOMICIDAL SNOW PEOPLE? FINE. But DON’T GET EMOTIONAL. Unless the emotion is PURE RAGING HATRED, which is entirely appropriate when presented with an EVIL MURDERER.

Tom: Tim there, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll just note that this Power of Love is a hell of a lot better.

Tim: AN EVIL MURDERING BASTARD OF A SNOWMAN.

Olly Murs feat. Flo Rida – Troublemaker

The music is astonishingly good.

Tom: Two irritating musicians team up and make an absolutely brilliant track.

Tim: I will judge this by the cover and say that right from the off I don’t have good feelings about this.

Tom: Do yourself a favour, though, and just listen – don’t watch the video yet.

Tom: The music is astonishingly good: pitch-perfect pop. Flo Rida doesn’t say anyone’s name. The rap bridge isn’t annoying. The chorus is amazing.

Tim: You’re wrong, on at least one and two-halves out of four counts. Specifically, 3, because it really is, and I’d say amazing and astonishingly good would be pushing it slightly.

Tom: Perhaps my tolerance for rap bridges is getting higher, then. Or perhaps I’m prepared to tolerate them on summer tracks – because this is a summer track, albeit one released in the depths of winter.

Tim: Well, that may be true, but for anybody who’s in a similar boat to me, I recommend this rapper-free version, which really raises the question: what the hell is the point of Flo Rida? Nothing is improved by his presence, and at least two tracks (this and, if you’ll cast your mind back two years, The Saturdays’ Higher) are improved by his withdrawal.

Tom: But oh, my word, the video. Irritating, leprechaun-smug boy meets obnoxious, socially-oblivious girl, interrupted by a swaggering, show-off git. Could they have made anyone, anyone at all in the video sympathetic?

Tim: I don’t know – the bloke trying to get her attention in the record shop isn’t too annoying. Does that count?

Tom: Not nearly enough.

Saturday Flashback: Reece Mastin – Good Night

“This is a CHOON.”

Tom: It’s TIME.

Tim: What.

Tom: To FACE.

Tim: Surely not?

Tom: The MUSIC.

Tim: BRILLIANT.

Tom: In AUSTRALIA.

Tim: Ooh.

Tom: The 2012 season for the Australian X Factor has just drawn to a close, and let me tell you – it’s almost exactly the same as the UK version. There’s a few more adverts. There’s a bit more product placement. Most importantly, they have a different cast: no Dermot, no Voiceover Man, and Gary Barlow has been replaced by Ronan Keating.

So let me round out my Australian tour with the winner of last year’s, the Scunthorpe-born and irritatingly-young (he’s 18 today) Reece Mastin.

He’s already on album number two, and while his most recent single didn’t get into the top 10, the first one most definitely did. And unlike the UK version, this isn’t a cover: the single was written for whoever won the show.

Tom: Yes, he’s got a bit of the Olly Murs about him with the prancing about, but that clearly ties into the stage presence – and I can’t let that take away from the fact that this is a CHOON.

Tim: It really is. And that’s not so much prancing around as just jumping around entertaining your audience. Which is a good thing, surely?

Tom: That final chorus is just stunning – and the message is ‘shut up and dance’. If this came on in a British club? I would shut up and dance.

Tim: I wouldn’t. I’d dance AND SHOUT.

Tom: Of course, that may just be because I like Pink, and this is startlingly close to ‘Raise Your Glass’ – only without all the slowdown and spoken bits that I didn’t like.

Tim: Part of me thinks we should have original songs. Then the rest of me remembers that That’s My Goal was an original song. And then all of me listens to that and realise that I actually quite like it. Hmm. What a quandary.

fun. – Carry On

My word, he’s got a good voice.

Tom: Okay, it’s time to find out. Are Fun–

Tim: Actually, it’s–

Tom: Nope. I’m deliberately ignoring their ridiculous name stylisation there – really a one-hit hipster wonder, or can they back it up? “Some Nights”, the second single, managed number 7 – so here’s the third.

Tom: First of all: where the hell have I heard that piano intro before?

Tim: Not sure, because I haven’t. Does go on a bit, though.

Tom: And second: my word, he’s got a good voice. Distinctive, but not distracting: to do the first voice almost a capella is brave, but he can do it.

Tim: Yes, he can. And speaking of that first verse, I was worried for a while that this was going to be their “look at us, we can do a meaningful ballad” track which are so often a pile of cack (YES I’M LOOKING AT YOU, ONE DIRECTION, WITH YOUR ED SHEERAN-PENNED PILE OF BOLLOCKS).

Tom: I believe the technical term is “sack of bollocks”, but yes, you’re right. Is this that ‘meaningful’ ballad though?

Tim: Fortunately, no, and thus doesn’t get me worked up in quite the same way.

Tom: No-one would have predicted “We Are Young” going to number 1, let alone still being in the charts now, and yet – there it is. And now, they’ve got a Celtic-influenced track with a big electric guitar solo and a positive message? I can only hope this does well, because it deserves to.

Danny Saucedo – Delirious

That’s a lighters-in-the-air moment and no mistake.

Tim: We didn’t feature his last one, All In My Head, barely a couple of months old, because I didn’t like it much and didn’t have much to say about it, and those are basically my two criteria. This one, on the other hand, fits into both of those nicely.

Tim: This is odd – it’s a strange deviation from the musical journey he seems to have been on, from his pop beginnings in E.M.D. through to drum and bass, via dance tracks, a half and half tune and then full-on D&B like All In My Head.

Tom: If he can keep shifting genres this well, though, that can only be a good thing: after all, Robbie Williams managed to put out an entire album of swing covers, and that seemed to do well. There are some artists where you know exactly what you want the new single will sound like – and some where it’s a good thing when they mix it up.

Tim: That’s true, and I prefer this so I don’t have a problem with it.

Tom: Yep, it helps that this is a really good track.

Tim: I do have a problem with the first line of the chorus, which gets me suddenly wanting to sing the chorus of Jar of Hearts, and I slightly wish it wouldn’t take quite so long to get get going, but once the first chorus hits it’s all plain sailing. I’m happy with it.

Tom: What a final chorus, too: that’s a lighters-in-the-air moment and no mistake.

Tim: It really is…although, and I know I’m dragging this out a bit from yesterday, this could easily be a JLS track and if it was I probably wouldn’t like it.

Tom: Are you having a crisis of confidence or something, Tim? What with this and your recent ‘not sure about schlager’ thing, I’m wondering if you’re going through some kind of mid-blog crisis.

Tim: Oh, I don’t know.

Robin Bengtsson – Cross The Universe

“I promise you it gets better, so just work through it. “

Tim: This starts out like a very dull Ed Sheeran-style track. I promise you it gets better, so just work through it.

Tim: And actually, I’m probably being a tad unfair on that opening bit, but if we’re honest it doesn’t bode well.

Tom: I just started singing “Wonderwall” over the top, and that got me through it.

Tim: Not a bad song to sound like, though. And never mind what it bodes, because that chorus is brilliant. It’s upbeat, it’s quite catchy, it’s the sort that makes you stop typing so you can play the drums on your desk, really.

Tom: As long as you’re not playing them on your keyboard.

Tim: I don’t know – probably wouldn’t make much less sense that most of what we write. drtdkhjefw4hilg rjkn∂©®ß`tlk ngrsjknrj nkkjngrs`njgr`lknrgjnrs l’r3jnbfljknfxthxfbj negw`njklzrgd ndfb. You see?

Anyway, and then there’s the background vocals in the closing section, which are lovely because they’re quite understated but they make so much difference. Lovely.

Tom: Surprisingly good middle-eight as well: it feels like the instrumentation’s been nicked from something else during it, but I can’t think what – and it does work, anyway.

Tim: This track actually made me realise something – I am vastly inconsistent with what I say I want in a track. Just now, I said I don’t actually mind that quiet opening, but if it was in a different track or by a different artist (to pick one totally at random, Ed Sheeran) I may well be getting incredibly angry with.

Tom: Ultimately, there is no objective way to analyse music – and both our opinions will be shaped by so many transient factors that… hm. Well, I was going to say ‘we’re wasting our time here’, but I think we both knew that anyway.

Tim: I don’t quite know why – it seems that if I like a song I’ll appreciate all elements of it, but if I don’t like it I’ll use every part of it to criticise it. Basically, I have no idea what I want in a song – I just want a song that I like.

Tom: And on that, I can agree.

Kelly Clarkson – Catch My Breath

“Like a Tesco Value ‘Stronger’.”

Tom: It’s time for Kelly Clarkson to release a greatest hits album! And, as is traditional, it’ll have one new single on it to get the sales up a bit.

Tom: Hmm. Now, I do like Kelly Clarkson, but even I have to admit that this is rather by-the-numbers. That can be a good thing, sometimes – Stronger was still by-the-numbers, but matched with such a powerful tune and lyrics that it didn’t matter one bit.

This, on the other hand… it’s like Tesco Value “Stronger”. The margarine of “Stronger”. Not quite “Stronger” enough.

Tim: Very much a “this’ll do” release, which is a shame if it’s going to sit on an album of greatest hits. It’ll be the dull one everyone skips over. I don’t mind a by the numbers track – some of best tracks are as formulaic as they come – but you’re right that there does seem to be something missing here. It just about builds up to something satisfying, but only just.

Tom: Even the video seems like there’s not much effort: the arm movements, the clenched fists, the special effects… they’re all there, but it seems more like that’s just because they’re supposed to be. This is what a Kelly Clarkson song should be like, therefore this is what it will be.

Tim: The closing shot of her on the video seems to sum it up – there’s a “yes, this is what we’ve done, I know it’s a bit dull so I’ll look away in shame”.

Tom: Boxes ticked.

M83 – Steve McQueen

Wall-of-sound stuff.

Tom: We’ve talked about M83 before, and described them as going “Full Total Eclipse of the Heart”. Technically, their genre is synthpop, but it’s more than that: it’s wall-of-sound stuff.

Tom: I fully expect this track to get used in innumerable adverts and movie trailers. It’s astonishing.

Tim: Couldn’t possibly disagree there, because it is.

Tom: The thing is, it’s even got the traditional structure, sort of. 3 minutes 49 seconds, middle eight, one final return to the chorus, slow ending. But there’s just so much going on, so many layers, that it’s difficult to keep track of.

Tim: You’re right there – I’d not really noticed that, because it’s hard to keep track of a verse/chorus when it’s primarily instrumental. The vocals that are there seem to come across as purely decorative.

Tom: Is it danceable? Probably not. Is it poppy? Well, more than others, but not enough to storm the charts. Is it good? Oh, hell yes.

Tim: Hell yes.

Saturday Flashback: The Veronicas – When It All Falls Apart

Genuinely Australian.

Tom: I’ve still yet to hear any actual Australian pop music on commercial radio while I’ve been down under: admittedly, I haven’t been listening to much of it, but it all seems to be tracks that I recognise from the US or UK.

Tim: Fair enough; what’s this, then?

Tom: So here’s a track from one of the more popular Australian bands of the 2000s, two-piece girl alt-rock band the Veronicas. Their third single, oddly enough, but it’s the one that had just been released last time I was on this continent. It actually managed to get some airplay – although in the northern hemisphere it’s pretty much unheard of.

Tom: It’s mostly by-the-numbers, without a particularly inspiring verse, but somehow that chorus (and that brief middle-eight) got stuck in my head and wouldn’t leave.

Tim: That’s all fair enough – it’s a decent chorus. It’s not quite as catchy as Untouchable, their only track that really made it over here, but it’s still very enjoyable.

Tom: There’s not much more I can say about it, really, other than it really is Genuinely Australian.

Tim: In which case, next week: Dannii Minogue.

Carina Dahl – NLTO (Not Like The Others)

A largely inoffensive piece of pop

Tim: No idea what the point of the acronym is, since the title also includes the expansion of it, but never mind. Prepare for an utterly gratuitous profanity in the pre-chorus.

Tim: And that is a bit weird, actually, because the rest of NLTO (Not Like The Others) is so family-friendly, entirely standard pop that you’d expect from any current female act. Slightly reminiscent of the ‘shhh’ in the first Little Mix single – not there to do anything except be a bit “ooh, how rude!”

Tom: Considering that the association I had in my head was Sesame Street’s “One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others”, that was a bit surprising.

Tim: That aside, though, NLTO (Not Like The Others) is a largely inoffensive piece of pop, and I think one of very few singles that manages to sit perfectly on the fence between banger and ballad.

Tom: Yep. It’s difficult to sit on that fence: cracking piano intro, decent melody, and just the right amount of – to use a vague word – ‘oomph’.

Tim: Indeed, but this manages it – the vocals could all be underpinned by a gentle piano piece if so intended, but without much effort the energy in the backing could be cranked up to floorfiller status easily enough. Not many songs can do that, so top marks to NLTO (Not Like The Others).

Tom: I. (Indeed.)