Smith & Thell – Here Comes The Sun

Beatles covers always give me a bit of trepidation.

Tim: Here Comes The Sun isn’t the most well-known or enduring of The Beatles’ songs, but it is the one Smith & Thell have chosen to cover to celebrate fifty years of said band.

Tom: Beatles covers always give me a bit of trepidation. Sure, there are tremendous ones, but for each of those there’s a dozen incompetent ones. They’re a difficult band to cover. And Here Comes The Sun isn’t too obscure, which puts it in a tricky position: it’s not become a “standard”, but enough people will be attached to the original.

And a house music Beatles cover? Colour me skeptical.

Tom: That would be so much better if it wasn’t a Beatles cover. I like it. It’s happy. It’s danceable. But my word, when you know the original, or even the wonderful version on the Love remix album … man, I’m all for cover versions, but they should try to better the original, not make it generic.

Tim: The problem for me is that this is a tune that is precisely six months too late/early. Because it’s so not an October tune, is it? Much like yesterday’s, it’s a summer dance anthemy type track. It’s very summery, and that’s the main thing I don’t like about it, because right now it’s cold and wet and grey and I have to go outside to go to work in a bit and I don’t want to leave my nice warm house.

Tom: I’m not so sure: “it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter” is a good line for that.

Tim: No, it’s a terrible line: it implies it’s finished, it’s gone, summer’s here to stay. But NO. NO IT ISN’T. It’s going to RAIN and RAIN and HAIL and DRIZZLE and be COLD and DAMP and MISERABLE. MOAN MOAN MOAN.

Tom: Get yourself a sun lamp, Tim. Blimey.

Tim: Okay, I took it too far, so HAPPY: aside from that, it’s great. Not entirely keen on the ending – it’s not just the suddenness, it’s that there’s no actual finish at all, almost like the power went out in the recording studio halfway through. Can we not have a slightly different final line, perhaps, or just some indication that it’s meant to finish here?

But still, my main complaint about this is the release date. And if that’s the worst thing about a track, then it’s a pretty good track.

Tom: The measure of a cover version, for me, is whether I turn it off and listen to the original. And here, I did. And that’s a shame.

Da Buzz feat. Jax – Tomorrow

A decent, feet off the floor, hands in the air dance tune.

Tim: Last week we had what could have been a great dance track; today, we have what is actually a great dance track.

Tom: It also sets a new record for how many syllables ‘tom-o-o-o-ah-ah-ro-o-o-ow’ can be pronounced as.

Tim: It has energy the Cielle track didn’t, it has no pacing issues, it sounds properly upbeat – this is a decent, feet off the floor, hands in the air dance tune. And I like it a lot.

Tom: It’s a bit quiet in the verses for a proper CHOON, but not enough to actually stop dancing. And you’re right: unlike Cielle, even the quiet bits still sound… well, fun, for want of a better word.

Tim: A bit of a shame that the main hook melody sounds like an Avicii rip-off, though since that was itself a sampling no-one can really complain, which is good, because I don’t want to.

Tom: It does say something about Avicii that just “a piano melody in the back of a dance tune” is enough to remind people of him. That’s a hell of a thing to have taken as your trademark.

Tim: It really is, and yet somehow he does. And that makes me want to DANCE, and with a beat like this and a voice like this I will have no problems doing so.

Pink feat. Nate Ruess – Just Give Me A Reason

I recommend hitting ‘play’ and then just closing your eyes.

Tim: Like this, do you?

Tom: Yes, I know, I’m a Pink fan, I’m biased.

Tim: But not enough of a fan to write her name properly, I notice. HMMM?

Tom: If ridiculous name-styling gets in the way of writing things clearly, then I’ll happily get rid of it. Anyway, yes, the new album’s bloody amazing. And the best track off it, by a long way, is the Big Emotional Ballad. Oh, and it’s got a lyric video, but it’s much better without: I recommend hitting ‘play’ and then just closing your eyes.

Tim: Okay, I didn’t close my eyes. And I noticed the weirdest thing ever. Well, not ever, obviously, but it’s bloody odd: the apostrophes in the “you’re” and “we’re” at 2:33 and 3:40 are far too high, unlike any of the others. Anyway, music.

Tom: “We’re not broken, just bent, and we can learn to love again.” Isn’t that gorgeous?

Tim: Yes, it is. Can’t disagree with you there.

Tom: The male voice is Nate Ruess – and if he sounds familiar, it’s because he’s better known as the lead singer of Fun.

Tim: AGAIN with the names, blimey – it’s written as fun., please.

Tom: That’s still bloody ridiculous. It’s a little odd that he’s singing in mostly the same vocal range as Pink, but once that oddity slides by, this is just a beautiful track. Piano and drumkit, simple melodies, simple chorus.

Tim: You know, I think we had pretty much exactly the same thoughts going on whilst listening to that song. It’s a lovely song.

Tom: I’m a sucker for Big Emotional Ballads, if they’re done well – and for me, at least, this track made me pause the album for a while to (metaphorically at least) get my breath back.

Tim: And it almost made me not want to be annoying with my name-pedantry up there. Almost.

Robbie Williams – Candy

A song built around a chorus.

Tom: It’s a new Robbie single, from a new album, backed up by some surprise gigs booked for the O2 next month. Yep, he’s still big enough that he can sell out the O2 on short notice – and, apparently, big enough that I can refer to him just by his first name there.

Tim: On Saturday, a song with a list of ways to be killed. Today, a video with a collection of ways to commit suicide. What an uplifting site this is turning into.

Tom: Now, the last big single – excepting the one with Gary Barlow – was “Bodies”, which was a grower. I hated it the first time I heard it, and now it gets stuck in my head. Out of deference to that, I listened to this a couple more times before writing this. And my opinion is this: it’s a song built around a chorus.

Tim: Okay…

Tom: The verses are awful. He rhymes “roses” with “roses” at one point. The middle eight is uninspired. The video is incomprehensible, high-budget nonsense. But that chorus is absolutely brilliant, and perfect for him: it’s catchy, it’s danceable, and it’ll be a big hit live.

Tim: Hmm. I can agree with most of that, though I wouldn’t say awful for the verses – yes, the roses bit is a low point but the rest is okay, and they’ve a decent tune which resonates nicely with the chorus. Your main point, thought: yes, absolutely.

Tom: It also suffers the curse of Robbie, which can be summed up in three words: “It’s no ‘Angels’.”

Tim: What is? (Aside from Year 3000, obviously.)

Tom: Let it go, Tim.

Saturday Flashback: Train – 50 Ways To Say Goodbye

How do you make a mariachi band sound good in a pop song?

Tom: A David Hasselhoff cameo in the video may sound promising—

Tim: Nope.

Tom: Yep, fair point. But don’t worry, because the mariachi band is so much better.

Tim: That was BRILLIANT.

Tom: Wasn’t it just? I mean, how do you make a mariachi band and Spanish guitar sound good in a pop song? And how can it be so damn catchy? Well, I’ve got an explanation: it’s been assembled from parts of many, many other songs.

Tim: Well…

Tom: The verse is a Latin version of “Phantom of the Opera”. The pre-chorus line is from the same musical – the patter bit of “Masquerade” (“The toast of all city, what a pity…”) The chorus is a bit of the Vandals’ “My Girlfriend’s Dead” crossed with another song that I can’t quite place now. The horn section is straight out of “I Will Survive”. They’ve all been changed, of course – there’s still some composing in there – but it does sound bolted-together.

Tim: Right, I’m in two minds, here. I agree with you about the Phantom link, which is almost as blatant as Alphabeat was with The Who, and quite how it could be there without being deliberate is beyond me. The “I Will Survive” link is pretty much there, and the song you can’t place is Girl All The Bad Guys Want.

Tom: Ha! I even saw Bowling for Soup once live – they’re a band that clearly enjoys themselves on stage – and I still didn’t place that.

Tim: However, I want to disagree about the Vandals link. Yes, it is exactly the same idea, but the logic makes me think of everything that annoys me about that Everything Is A Remix thing, where he reckons that just about every scene in every film has been stolen.

The thing is, for any given scene, there are only a limited number of ways to frame it; with seventy years of film-making previously, of course someone’s going to have done it before. That doesn’t make it copying, it makes it an inevitable coincidence, and it’s quite possibly the same here.

Sure, maybe they did think “That’s a cool theme for a song – we should do that and hope no-one notices,” and I won’t deny it’s a possibility, but maybe it’s just two songs out of almost a century of pop music that share a somewhat unusual theme. To be honest, I’d be astounded if there were only two.

Tom: Fair point – and it would have been my default theory if it wasn’t for all the other, er, homages throughout the track.

I still like it, though. I like it a lot.

Tim: Good, because I reckon it’s great. What’s particularly good is that he’s done that thing comedy songwriters have to do (which The Vandals didn’t do), which is rewrite the chorus each time so it’s still fun.

Tom: Which, considering it’s the same Train that did the definitely-not-comedy “Drops of Jupiter” ten years ago, is quite a good thing.

Tim: Yeah, and sure, he could have just stuck with the quicksand, the shark and the sunbed, which would have been perfectly acceptable, but instead he put a bit more in and added a lion, a mudslide and a hot tub. Would have been even better if he’d done it at the end as well, but it’s still a handsome list. It’s a good tune (original or otherwise), it’s got a whole lot of energy to it and it’s exactly what I want to hear (although I’d prefer it if the lyrics reflected the video with the car one – ‘got decapitated by a purple Scion’ would be so much better).

Tom: Incidentally, who fills a cement mixer full of quicksand?

Adele – Skyfall

Tom: New Bond theme! And boy, is it ever a return to old-school Bond themes.

Tim: It’s like the Bond themes of the olden days. Soulful female vocalist, big orchestra behind it, title of the film in there in a way that people will always remember, long enough for everyone in the cinema to get thoroughly bored of it while it plays out in its entirety (WHY DO THEY DO THAT? NOBODY LIKES IT.)

Tom: Well, I like it. Tradition, and all that. But after the pop-rock of “You Know My Name” and Jack White being Jack White on “Another Way To Die“, this is welcome. And if you’re going to return to form and get a diva to belt out a traditional Bond theme, who else is there these days but Adele? What a voice.

Tim: It’s basically what everybody ‘knows’ a James Bond song is. You can’t blame them for going back to basics, as Another Way To Die didn’t exactly receive rave reviews, and as far as I’m concerned the less said about Die Another Day the better, really. But does it make it a bit dull, as some have claimed? No. It’s powerful – that chanting in the background works wonders for me, for a start.

Tom: Really? That’s the only thing I’m not sure about: I heard it more as a call-and-response that didn’t work. Other than that: my word, this could be belted out by Shirley Bassey, and could have been written for her years ago as well.

Tim: It’s one you want to sing along to. I love it.

Tom: A side note: the best Bond theme ever? Aimee Mann’s cover of “Nobody Does It Better”. It sends shivers up my spine.

Cielle – Angel

This could be a great dance track.

Tim: This could be a great dance track.

Tim: But somehow, it just misses the mark, and I don’t really know why.

Tom: I think it’s her voice. Which sounds harsh, but… I think it’s her voice.

Tim: You reckon? Because pulling it apart, it’s got everything it needs – a lively (but not overly so) beat beneath the verses, a better melody for the choruses, decent singing going pleasingly over the top in the chorus, and a nice bit to go after the chorus. But somehow it seems lacking.

Tom: It doesn’t help that the song is (I think) in a minor key – which automatically sounds sad. Apologies to any musical readers – I’m simplifying it massively. Add to the fact that she’s, well, a bit off-key… and even the most powerful voice and tuneful melody won’t help.

Tim: True. I also think it’s a bit too stretched out – they’re taking four minutes to do what could be done in a three minute song. It’s let down by the padding they’ve got between the choruses – it’s nice, but I don’t think it’s enough to hold the song together.

Tom: It’s not, which is a shame: like you say, it could be a great dance track.

Timoteij – Faller

CATCHY.

Tim: CATCHY.

Tom: NAMED AFTER A SHAMPOO.

Tim: FALLER. LA LA LA LA LAA LA. LA LA LA LA LAA LA. OM MU OH MI EN.

Tom: The language research skills are up to their usual standard, then?

Tim: Now, that’s probably (alright, definitely) not the actual spelling, but I’m too busy waving my hands around and shouting it out tunelessly but joyously to use my vague knowledge of Swedish to write that it’s actually “om och om igen”, or “again”.

Tom: To be fair, no-one Swedish appears to have transcribed the lyrics yet, let alone translated them. But “faller” translates literally as “falling”, so I think we can work out roughly what the song’s about.

Tim: The rest of it’s pretty good as well, but for some reason that chorus line’s all I can really remember. And quite possibly all I’ll ever be able to remember ever again. Oh well. FALLER. LA LA LA LA LAA LA. LA LA LA la laa la…(fade to black)

Tom: That, and its enthusiasm, are about the only things the song’s got going for it. But they are good.

Gravitonas – Incredible

“Reminds me a lot of BWO, and that’s a very good thing.”

Tim: A song that takes the same theme as Amazing, Amazing and Amazing: choose a word and use it to describe the target. (We should note that Amazing doesn’t do that.)

Tom: Next up: “Slightly Dull”, “Irritating”, and “Broken Up With”.

Tim: This, much like many others that I’ve heard from Gravitonas, reminds me a lot of BWO (the bearded bloke’s previous band, if you need reminding), and that’s a very good thing – their album Big Science is still one of my favourites, and this could come straight off it.

Tom: That’s exactly what I thought when it kicked into full-on DANCE CHOON territory. There’s even some melodies in there that seem to be cribbed rather closely from tracks on Big Science – although that’s not a bad thing.

Tim: The vast majority is great: the intro, the first verse with a calm backing, the first chorus with a bit more underneath it, a cracking dancey post-chorus, a fantastic middle eight and a great closing part. The singing throughout is great, and like I said, the dance part is cracking. But you’ll notice I did miss one bit of the song out: the second verse/chorus. It’s just a minor thing, but basically, I want more.

Tom: Are you Oliver Twist?

Tim: No, but I am musically-demanding. The backing just falls from so high down to pretty much where we were at the beginning, and it doesn’t sit right with me. I know that’s not much of a complaint, because it still works brilliantly, but DAMMIT I WANT MORE.

Josh Osho feat. Childish Gambino – Giants

Occupying a dodgy middle-ground between genre.

Tom: You may remember Childish Gambino as providing the dark and (as I called it) “plot-relevent” rap bit in Leona Lewis’ latest single. Well, he’s doing the “feat.” rounds, and I was rather hoping that he’d be bringing the same style to this.

Tom: Nope.

Tim: No…

Tom: Which is a shame, because I was – unusally for either of us – rather hoping for a decent rap bit here. The track needed one: it’s occupying a dodgy middle-ground between genres and seems to get lost about half way through. I can’t really work out what it’s meant to be.

Tim: I think it’s trying for the standard inspirational “we’re all great” vibe, but has unfortunately come at just the wrong time. It might normally work, but what with the Olympics having just gone, we’ve all had our fill of inspirational tracks, and know they can be better than this.

Tom: Something about the track seems off, Tim, but I don’t know what. Can you work it out what it is?

Tim: It might be his voice – even with the vaguely decent backing this has, it still sounds more suited to a Radio 2 playlist than to anything current. Yes, the rap brings it back a notch, but that needs to be there for more than just a standard breakdown for this to work properly and be relevant. It’s old and it’s bland – that’s what’s off.