Saturday Flashback: St. Lucia – All Eyes On You

This is about a year old, and flipping brilliant.

Tim: This is about a year old, and flipping brilliant. And that’s all the intro you’ll need.

Tom: Well, that was a bit good. Is there a sudden trend for retro, 80s-style pop? Because I’m liking it.

Tim: Good. And while you’re still reeling from it, let me introduce St. Lucia. He started out in South Africa, moved to London for a bit before heading off to New York, where he now spends his time coming out with fantastic pieces of music like this. The thing about it is that it’s very very simple: there are a couple of tiny verses, but it’s mostly about the chorus, lengthy and fairly repetitive (especially once it’s been repeated twice without a break towards the end). But I love that repetition, because what a tune this is. I don’t know what it is – the rhythm, the notes, maybe both – but that chorus strikes me as almost perfect.

Tom: Perhaps it wasn’t quite that perfect for me, because I could have stood for a bit less repetition: but the middle eight saved it for me, and the last chorus paid off nicely.

Tim: The instrumentation beneath it is lovely as well – the closing part is wonderful, and while the sax break in the middle seems a bit out of place (at least if you’re not watching the video, where it seems oddly appropriate), when the piano hits (or when the camera pans back) you get a glorious thirty second build-up to the re-entry. However great the music is, though, it’s the chorus that gets me. It’s just brilliant.

Tom: You know, I don’t have much to add to that. It’s ace.

Ellie Goulding – Anything Could Happen

Gorgeous but incomprehensible.

Tom: It’s time for a gorgeous but incomprehensible video!

Tim: I think you’ll find, if you put some effort in, that it’s actually quite simple.

Basically, she was in a car crash with her boyfriend, who ended up dying, and then she sort of did as well because she’s bleeding but we’re not really sure, but probably didn’t because firstly she’s singing and all that and secondly and mostly you can see in the shots where the crash happens that there’s one person in their car (and not in the seat where’s her boyfriend’s then lying dead) and no-one at all in the van it crashes into, which must have made for some careful post-mortal repositioning but also incredibly careless driving – of all the vans on all the beaches in all the world, he crashes into the one that’s entirely deserted – except then it’s alright because he comes back, still with loads of blood on him.

So it’s entirely comprehensible, just like that sentence was.

Tom: Sorry, what? I zoned out for a second there. Anyway, “gorgeous but incomprehensible” pretty much sums up the song as well. I like it, don’t get me wrong, but I can’t even work out what the hell they’re sampling for that main melody line.

Tim: Are they sampling anything? Whether they are or not, that’s one of the loveliest post-choruses I’ve heard in a long time.

Tom: It’s weird: I find myself enjoying it almost on a detached, technical level: it’s well written and a really impressive bit of production, but there’s no actual emotional resonance in there for me at all.

Tim: I’ve told you before, Tom: you’re an emotionless void.

Whigfield – 4Ever

Oh, now that’s a foot-tapper.

Tim: Last year’s C’est Cool got into the top 10 in Denmark and Sweden; previous to that, there have been no top twenty hits anywhere (Saturday Night remakes aside) since 1996. Is this the second step back to greatness, or was that merely a blip on an otherwise uninteresting radar?

Tom: Oh, now that’s a foot-tapper. I mean that literally, in that my foot started tapping to it.

Tim: As did mine. I also started bouncing on my chair gently.

Tom: That’s a really pleasant song. I suspect it’s one that’ll get annoying with repeat viewings rather than better, but hell: I’d dance to it.

Tim: Absolutely – it’s certainly a jaunty number. There’s excellent use of harpsichord throughout – perhaps too much, actually, because, at almost a full half-minute, the repetitive bit in the middle is (for me) at least fifteen seconds too long.

Tom: You are so wrong about that. It’s exactly the right length. It’s a brilliant bit of arpeggiation.

Tim: I beg your pardon?

Tom: Yeah, I said arpeggiation. Get me.

Tim: Well, good or bad as that may be, I’m hard-pressed to find much else to dislike about this – it’s bouncy, it’s friendly and it’s got a lovely ‘nice day out, fun for all the family’ vibe to it.

Tom: The lyrics are pap, and the middle eight’s not much to write home about – those hissing hi-hat taps are grating – but those are minor gripes, and seems wrong to mention them when the song’s so lovely.

Tim: It does, realy, although I would add my two: first, the line two minutes in, which until I found a lyric site confirming that it’s actually “you’re the one by faaaaar. Keep…”, I was convinced was the less than family friendly “you’re the one I [erm, thing]”, which really wouldn’t have sat right.

Tom: And now I can’t hear anything else. Thanks for that.

Tim: Then there’s the fact that this doesn’t have an incredibly famous dance to it that fifteen years from now I can ruthlessly mock you for never knowing about.

Eric Amarillo – Sambofet

“Leave the airhorn out of it.”

Tim: Mr Scott, I have two versions of this song for you. There is the radio edit, which comes comes with some lovely strings and a triumphant fanfare, or the club edit, which has an airhorn and wonderful chiming bells. Which would you like?

Tom: Well, I’ll put the radio edit in – it’s got the chiming bells too – but the club edit is here, if our reader prefers.

Tim: Music: lovely, because it’s all about that chorus, with the one word repeated heavily so that we all know what the song’s about (sort of – see below), but it’s the music behind it that really plays a blinder here, and it works well in both versions. Whether it’s the bells, or the strings and the fanfare, it always sounds wonderful (though I could happily leave the airhorn out of it).

Tom: Why does this sound like a discount version of the Killers to me?

Tim: I don’t know, because it doesn’t at all to me.

Tom: I’m not sure why – I think it’s the choice of instrumentation and the vaguely anthemic sound. I don’t mean that to seem like an insult: it’s just that the Killers do this thing so well that it’s hard not to sound a bit like an own-brand knockoff. It’s still a pretty damn good track.

Tim: As for the words and meaning, since you were a bit snarky last week about my not doing lyric research, I checked these out with Google Translate and everything, although there’s a slight issue (just slight) in that Google doesn’t know what ‘sambofet’ itself means.

Tom: Ah, now that I can translate myself. “Sambo” is a term that means simply ‘living together but not married’ – there’s no simpler direct translation in English that doesn’t have some subtext attached to it. And “fet” is, well, “fat”. Translated literally, it’s the weight you put on when you’re in a relationship.

Tim: Well, that sounds about right, because the rest of it is along those lines – “sure, he’s fit and exercising and doing Thai boxing at the moment, but that’s because he’s young and single – just you wait until he’s older when he’ll be drinking beer, playing on his PlayStation and piling on the relationship fat”.

Tom: It’s basically a pledge from Eric to continue keeping fit until he has a heart attack, which is lovely. Not sure whether you could insert it into a pre-nup, though.

Tim: I’m sure someone in California has tried.

Tom: In short: music that’s wonderful and lyrics that are fun but not legally binding.

One Direction – Live While We’re Young

“Libidos the size of Canada.”

Tim: Most songs are about love and romance and stuff, aren’t they? And to be honest, after a while it gets tedious. Now, we have a song entitled Live While We’re Young, which is presumably all about enjoying life.

Tom: Well, it depends. The song seems to change its meaning entirely, depending on whether you watch it with or without the video. “Live While We’re Young” certainly implies that it’s about enjoying life…

Tim: Right, and the video implies that as well. But just listen to the lyrics, and while we have indeed left behind the love and romance, but we’re now onto just plain sex.

There are hints throughout, what with “get together”, “I know we only met but let’s pretend it’s love,” and “Don’t let the pictures leave you phone.” And then there’s the big one, clarifying the matter once and for all: “Tonight let’s get some.”

Tom: Well, it’s all plausibly deniable. There’s certainly a lot of innuendo in there if you read it that way, but even ‘get some’ can technically have an innocent meaning.

Tim: Seriously? Because, come on, some what, precisely? Nothing, really, just some. In the sense of “Mate, did you leave the club with the hot one last night?” “Oh yeah, and boy did I get some.”

Part of me wants to think it’s a series of double entendres and all that, and that while it is about sex they’re trying to dress it up as young innocent kids actually having fun, like the title implies. But they’re really not – it’s not remotely subtle. This is One Direction stating they’re not the innocent people all the teenage girls and caring mothers thought they were. No. They’re five blokes in their late teens with libidos the size of Canada.

Tom: Without the video, I entirely agree with you. With the video, I can’t help feeling that we’re got cataclysmic levels of homoerotic tension going on here. Waking up in a large tent (who has a sofa in a tent?) with four other attractive young men, piling onto each other, and having a splash-fight? That’s basically Top Gun.

Tim: True, I suppose, and it’s a good video, passing on the live while we’re young message. You’re right – it’s like there are two completely different songs, one as a soundtrack to the video and one whose lyrics would sound appropriate on a Flo Rida single.

Tom: It’s a fairly canny marketing move: there are no girls in the video for their female fans to be jealous about, and the gay men are just as catered for.

Tim: Anyway, let’s move on from the meaning, and talk about the music. It’s catchy as hell. Backing is as it should be, even if it does get off to a slightly dodgy start that gave me a ‘hang on, what’s happening here?” feeling. I particularly like the guitar riff in the middle eight, and the chanting in the background towards the end. It’s all just great.

Tom: Of course it is. With this much money behind them, they’ve got their choice of every pop songwriter. If there’s a dud single from them, something’s gone very wrong.

Grimes – Genesis

“Very artsy.”

Tom: “This is what we in Sweden would call ‘Fulsnygg’, ‘ugly-pretty’,” writes our reader Stefan. “This song has been coming out from my speakers ever since I first heard it in August.”

He also describes the video as “very artsy”, which is quite the understatement. Advance warning: the first minute of this isn’t actually the track, so feel free to skip forward if there’s just too much artsy. Which there is.

Tim: I’m…not entirely sure what I just watched. It was…unusual? Yes, that describes it.

Tom: I started out expecting to really dislike this. But once it actually deigns to kick in, it’s really, really good. I’m not sure that modern synthpop – the trippy, ambient kind – gets much better than this.

Tim: It’s very…it’s sort of…quite— to be honest, I’ve been trying to write for about five minutes now and I still don’t know how to put into words what I think. I like it, I know that much, because it’s not really something you can dislike. I can imagine someone choosing to ignore it, or thinking “what the hell’s this?” (neither of which applies to me, by the way), but I think it would be hard to form strong opinions against this.

Tom: Even with the video?

Tim: Well, yes, there is that video, which I think (for me at least) takes away from it, because I’m listening to it again without the video, and it strikes me as a lot less out there than it did before. I still think it’s unusual, but I do like it more because I’m not now thinking “this is just plain odd”. It’s calming, it’s relaxing, it’s…no, I’ve gone again.

Tom: Grimes, incidentally, is the pseudonym of one Claire Boucher, who’s been making more experimental music for a while. This is the first time she’s made something mainstream enough to get on our radar, I reckon – and I’m rather hoping she keeps doing it.

Tim: Yeah. Yeah, I could hear more of it.

It’s not the most ringing endorsement I’ve ever heard from you, but it still counts.

Saturday Flashback: Busted – What I Go To School For

Musically genius, lyrically terrible.

Tim: Now, I know we did a ten-year anniversary post just a few months back so some might see this as slightly lazy, to which I say: screw you, I’ve had this planned since Christmas. Because it’s Busted, the greatest pop rock band of all time.

Tom: That claim’s wrong on many levels, but let’s move on.

Tim: Oh, it so isn’t. But okay.

Tim: And ten years ago today, this debut single shot into the charts at number 3 and then hung around the top 20 for the next month or so. And why wouldn’t it?

Tom: It’s a brilliant pop song, but it epitomises everything I always thought about Busted. The music is perfectly-produced pop genius, but the lyrics are bloody awful, all half-arsed single entendres and lines that don’t really scan (“even though it is a real bore”?!). Year 3000, their most successful song by a long way, was the same: musical genius, lyrically terrible.

Tim: I’ll be honest: I can’t really disagree, or at least not with the facts you’re stating about the lyrics – I can’t, however, agree with the awful or terrible. Because without these lyrics, how would you convey this teacher fantasy? And it’s an important message – most schoolkids have a teacher they secretly fancy, and these guys are telling the world there’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s perfectly acceptable to sit in a tree staring through her windows, or to peer through her letterboxes. It’s even better when she invites kids half her age inside and proceeds to give them snooker lessons, a gentle caning and a quick run around the long waving grass.

Tom: They were trying to be rebellious and edgy while being actually just a bit creepy. Another reason they never sat well with me.

Tim: Creepy? Well, possibly. But let’s not forget that this wasn’t the band’s only foray in fantasies with authority figues – eighteen months later they brought out Air Hostess, with a video involving the captain and first officer leaving the flight deck during landing to investigate their illegal embarkation and a chorus that includes the standout line “I messed my pants when we flew over France.” Again, top notch lyrics.

But in all seriousness, would a ten-year reunion be too much to ask for?

Tom: What Busted started, McFly came along and perfected: the two bands are intertwined in terms of members and songwriting, but it’s pretty clear who came out as the victor in the end. Never mind the reunion: see McFly instead.

Tim: Oh, fine. If I must.

Porter Robinson – Language

Stick with it: it kicks in beautifully.

Tom: I missed this when it came out in March. You might be tempted to dismiss it as another Aviici-alike when the melody line arrives, but stick with it: it kicks in beautifully.

Tim: I stuck with it, and it kicked in beautifully.

Tom: This is one of those tracks where I don’t have much to add: I’m talking about it not because I want to make a salient point, but because I just want to say this sounds amazing, listen to it. How about you?

Tim: Likewise, actually. I heard of him a while back but never actually bothered to invesigate his music, mostly because (and I’m slightly ashamed to admit this) of his name. I don’t why, but I assumed he be another Ed yawn Sheeran type person who wasn’t interesting, but as it turns out I couldn’t be more wrong.

Tom: As for the video: visually impressive, no idea what was going on.

Tim: My thoughts also. Naturally, my immediate thought was to check the YouTube comments for potential explanations, and apparently there are Illuminati signs all over this thing. (Really. There’s a lengthy conversation about it between INATRANC3 and tastycheese34.)

First Aid Kit – Wolf

I can see why it’s a live favourite.

Tim: The newest single off their album, The Lion’s Roar, likely chosen because people are appreciating it on their tour and it’s the best-selling song off the album on iTunes.

Tom: Which is interesting, given it wasn’t even on the original printing of the album. Not that such things count for much nowadays.

Tim: Isn’t that lovely? I can see why it’s a live favourite – the enthusiastic instrumentation, the excited pre-chorus and then the hey, hey chorus that the entire crowd can sing along with. The vocals are like those in the last single of theirs we reviewed, Emmylou (although we’ve since missed a couple out), and are just as lovely and soulful as they were back then.

Tom: The singer’s really rather good at the “cry break”: that vocal trick where, in songs about longing or sorrow, the note seems to crack, only to switch to a different note instead. It’s not heard much outside country and western – which this almost sounds like – but it fits very well.

Tim: I’m not really sure what the lyrics are all about, but whatever they are I’m sure everything matches together well enough.

Tom: I was about to call you out on not doing the research, but then I looked up the lyrics and realised I couldn’t work them out either.

Tim: The voices and the instruments certainly work well together, and so I’m happy with this. So happy with it that I decided to get the album, and was delighted to find out it’s only a fiver. Lovely.

Michael Jackson feat. Pitbull – Bad

PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME HEAR THIS AGAIN.

Tim: NO.

Tom: Sometimes, Tim, a track comes along that is so damn terrible that we have to have a two minutes’ hate towards it. Or in this case, a four minutes and twenty seven seconds’ hate.

Tim: PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME HEAR THIS AGAIN.

Tom: Wait, you’ve already heard it? How? I wasn’t aware that any radio station anywhere had bothered to play it.

Tim: Oh, it got linked to with an accompanying warning along the lines of “If you listen to this you will die”, and then I thought “oh, it can’t be that bad” and three minutes later thought “well that was an understatement and a half”.

Tom: This is a pretty terrible way to mark a 25th anniversary.

Tim: Oh, really? You think? Because I can’t think of many worse things, unless someone happened to set fire to a synagogue on 8th May 1970.

Tom: Wow. I mean… wow. I… that may be the worst thing you’ve ever written.

Tim: Tasteless? Utterly. Undeserved? Not at all.

Tom: Mind you, the odd thing is that the remix part is pretty good. Unnecessary, sure, but modernising a track like this isn’t uncommon, and sometimes it produces a work of genius (for example, the Groovefinder remix of Satellite of Love from a few years back). This isn’t quite that good, but there’s nothing wrong with it.

Tim: True. There’s also nothing wrong with the Darth Maul fight in The Phantom Menace. But then there’s Jar Jar Binks, midichlorians and just about EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE FILM. AND THIS SONG.

Tom: Actually, there are issues with that fight, but that’s an issue for another time. Anyway, then there’s Pitbull. He’s unnecessary – not just in this track, just in terms of existence. He’s even product-placing in the middle of this. Is there such a thing as a music license? If so, can we revoke his?

Tim: Unfortunately not, largely because you’d have to stretch the definition of music a very, very long way to get it even close to Pitbull.

Tom: Michael Jackson must be spinning in his grave. Or moonwalking, anyway.