The Storm – Raver

“I’m expecting Scooter levels of intensity here, albeit with a bit less SHOUTING.”

Tim: With an act called The Storm and a song entitled Raver, you’ve probably got a few expectations about this track, and while I won’t spoil anything before hand, I will say that anyone with photo-sensitive epilepsy may wish to turn away before pushing the play button.

Tom: Let’s put it this way: I’m expecting Scooter levels of intensity here, albeit with a bit less SHOUTING.

Tim: And be honest: that met them, didn’t it?

Tom: I’m not sure my headphones could cope with that. I’m not sure YouTube compression can cope with that. I’m not sure speakers can cope with that. They’ve thrown everything at that chorus – it’s a shame they couldn’t have dipped the verses by a couple of decibels so it wasn’t all so distorted, but that’s not how music works these days. That’s a minor technical complaint though: it’s not like I’d notice that in a club. I’d be too busy danc– WHOA! dubstep out of nowhere!

Tim: It has everything (everything) a modern dance rave number needs, up to and including the dubstep breakdown. Wonder if we’ll ever stop mentioning those?

Tom: Not when they’re as startling as this one. Dubstep breaks your dance up like very little else – you can’t just put your hands up in the air to it, it’s too rhythmic for that, but it’s too slow for club dancing. I’m sure people manage it, but I can’t think how.

Tim: MOVEMENTS. As in, hands up and sway with occasional sudden sweeps, almost interpretative dance style. At least, that’s how I do it.

And even the video sets the scene nicely, going with the lengthy post-chorus thrash-your-head-around-until-your-neck-hurts. And of course there’s the chorus, which starts off on a triumphant note and then brings in a great melody and lyrics that just sound great.

Tom: And the last chorus in particular is gorgeous – how the piano synth is still audible under that wall of sound, I’ve no idea.

Tim: PURE VOLUME. But actually, those lyrics only really sound great provided you don’t listen too closely, because if you do you’ll find out that this beat-heavy jump-all-over-the-place number is in fact a fairly soppy “I’m leaving you” track in very heavy make-up, and to be honest I don’t know if that spoils it a bit or makes it even more awesome. I think it’s the latter, so super.

September – Hands Up

Still not up there with the tracks from her first album.

Tim: So this is the new one from September, last seen with the distinctly disappointing Me & My Microphone. Is this track, also from the Love CPR album, any better?

Tim: Well, sort of. Still not up there with the tracks from her first album, unfortunately, because there’s still not a lot going on in the chorus. Compare the chorus here with this one, and there’s just no contest at all. I wouldn’t mind the gentle chorus if it was actually building to something, but here there’s nothing, really, before we go back to the verses, which are weirdly the most interesting part of the song. The towards the end it picks up, admittedly, but then it finishes on that annoying repetitive bit that really doesn’t do anything for me. I don’t know – I want to like it, but I just don’t feel enthused by it.

Tom: Like a lot of the tracks coming from the ‘old guard’ – there’s an odd name for acts that are less than ten years from their first album – it’s just not all that special. And we’re expecting something special.

Tim: We are, and this just isn’t it. One particular reason I want to enjoy it is that this may be the last we heard from her, at least in this form.

Tom: Interesting. Unlike some Eurodance “projects”, September refers to the singer herself, rather than a collective of musicians co-ordinated by a record company – so it really will be the end for it.

Tim: Well, not entirely – according to PR stuff that’s been sent out, back in Sweden she’s now recording under her actual name, with a new sound that’s apparently a mixture of Coldplay, Florence & The Machine and Depeche Mode. Though I suppose that does sound more interesting than either this or her last one.

Tom: Agreed: at first, I thought “ah, it’s a shame it’s over” – but I’m remembering the cracking early tracks. Perhaps something new is a better idea.

Urban Cone – Kings and Queens

Good grief. Has it been two years?

Tim: Right, party poppers down, people, because it’s serious analysis time. We started this blog (two years ago yesterday, as it happens) primarily because we love Swedish/Scandinavian/proper pop music, and all the clichés that go with it like key changes and other things that make sure they never get played on the radio in Britain.

Tom: Good grief, has it been two years? That’s a lot of key changes, Tim. And a lot of other changes: you’re living in London, dubstep’s a mainstream thing now, Engelbert Humperdinck’s briefly returned to our vocabulary.

Tim: A good few changes. But musically, our message has always roughly been: Sweden does great cheesy pop. Yet somehow we’ve never realised that Sweden also seems to do great synthpop and electropop. We’ve had Queen of Hearts, Johan Agebjörn, Wild At Heart and, most notably, The Sound of Arrows. And then there’s this latest export, Urban Cone.

Tom: Urban Cone sounds like a terrible extreme sport. Or a terrible ice cream shop. Or some kind of terrible ice cream-based extreme sport.

Tim: Are you kidding? I cannot think of an ice cream-based extreme sport that wouldn’t be totally brilliant. Returning again to my favourite film and your favourite Nightmare Fuel: amazing.

Tim: The verses: admittedly, not fantastic, and that single note in the background could get tedious on repeated listens. But that’s all made up for in the chorus, which is, let’s face it, just plain great.

Tom: No arguments there. The lull before that final chorus is just wonderful.

Tim: You might complain that the “we’ll be kings and queens” message is similar to the issue with Pet Shop Boys’s use of “winner”, and to an extent you’d be right, but that doesn’t stop it having a great message, lovely uplifting vibe to it and a great melody to the chorus.

Tom: I think it was just the specific word “winner” that I had issues with there – which probably says more about the associations in my head than it does about the song in general. Kings and queens? No such problems. It’s a cracking chorus.

Tim: It is. All in all, it’s another great synthpop track from a country that excels at the genre.

Basic Element feat. Max C – Shades

“I like this. Quite a lot. Sort of.”

Tim: I don’t really have anything to say to introduce this, so let’s just have a listen.

Tim: I like this. Quite a lot. Sort of.

Tom: “Check out my swag / yo, peep my style”. I should despise this, but the instrumentation is so good I can’t bring myself to it.

Tim: It is so good, isn’t it? The judgement does, as it does so often, come down to the rap bit, which for me is bordering on the edge of being too long. I was really enjoying it at the start and through the first heavy dance bit, but then had to calm down, and towards the end of it, I was on the verge of getting bored and giving up on it, to be honest.

Tom: It almost borders into “generic floor-filler attempt” at the end, but it’s saved at the end.

Tim: Well quite – just before I did turn it off, it stopped, the dance came back and I was all, “Oh, yes, this is why I’m listening to it.” The second interlude seems to pass a bit more quickly, and so overall: a great dance track, but one that’s almost ruined by the rapping.

Tom: For once, the rapping doesn’t bother me too much – there’s plenty of things going on in the background to distract.

Saturday Flashback: Flip & Fill – Shooting Star

Oh man. This brings back memories.

Tim: Back on Wednesday, we had a vague callback to the good days of Eurotrance. Good timing, really, because 10 years ago today, this fantastic example of the genre entered the UK charts at number 3.

Tom: Oh man. This brings back memories. Specifically, a memory of being in Barry Island in Wales.

Tim: Now you know I’m not going to let you leave it there. Keep talking, boy.

Tom: UK Dance Dance Revolution championships. I was still a teenager. This was one of the songs on whichever DDR machine it was – and one of the songs that, to our brief confusion, was blasting out from a car parked at some nearby traffic lights. I guess you had to be there.

Tim: Oh, isn’t it lovely? The build under the first verse up to something great, the drop for the pre-chorus bit as the dancers start to sway their arms in the air from side to side and then that brilliant chorus.

Tom: Sing it! Go on, sing it. That’s what I’d be doing if I wasn’t currently working in a fairly quiet, library-type place.

Tim: Oh, I will SING IT. I will SHOUT IT VERY LOUD along with whoever the hired vocalist is, fists pumping with everyone else in the club*, before we calm down a bit for the second verse but then do it all over again twenty seconds later. Keep going for the middle eight, and then the final chorus where there’s really no point dragging out the ‘shooooting’ bit because let’s face it, it’s going too hard** to really be slowed down by that, so you write a few more words, fill in the gaps, and just keep going. Tell me I’m wrong, Tom. Tell me this isn’t a fantastic club tune. I don’t reckon you can.

* Can’t think of a way not to make that sound dirty, sorry.
** Again, yes.

Tom: I wouldn’t try to. It is a fantastic club tune. Are there retro-90s clubs yet? Because they should play this.

Tim: They really should. Finally, it’s also worth noting that this same week had Scooter at number 2 with The Logical Song*. I MISS THIS MUSIC BEING MAINSTREAM. Why can’t we bring it back, Tom? WHY CAN’T WE?

* It may or may not have been held off the top spot by Gareth Gates’s Anyone Of Us, but that’s not important.

Amy Diamond – Sommaren Är Här

“Doesn’t the concept make you want to vomit?”

Tim: Charity single! Ask me what charity it’s for.

Tom: What charity’s it for, Tim?

Tim: Not a clue. Something to do with children, though, and you’ll be delighted when you find out how I’ve deduced that.

Tom: Oh, I don’t like the way this is going.

Tim: That’s right, it’s CHILDREN’S CHORUS TIME! It’s also, joyously and sickeningly, a song with lyrics written by said children, whose title means “Summer Is Here”. Doesn’t the concept make you want to vomit?

Tom: Yes. Yes it does.

Tim: AND YET: doesn’t the song make that impossible, because it’s so lovely? Said kiddy-written lyrics are as harmless, happy and, let’s face it, banal as you’d expect, talking about fishing with grandpa, eating ice cream, walking the dog and dancing to Moves Like Jagger.

Tom: I did have to go back and check that I’d actually heard those words and that it wasn’t my brain making Swedish words sound almost-English. Nope. “Moves Like Jagger” is in there. I’m assuming that “um te um te um ti um” doesn’t need translating.

Tim: I don’t think so, no. Now, you (Tom and/or reader) may be feeling grouchy–

Tom: I am. Believe me, I am. I wasn’t before I heard this song.

Tim: –but do this for me: force a smile on your face, listen to the chorus, sway your body from side to side and SING ALONG. If that doesn’t keep the smile on your face then you’re just an EVIL PERSON who HATES CHILDREN.

Tom: Hey, you don’t have to be evil to hate children!

Tim: No, but you’d have to be evil not to smile and hate children not to like this song; ergo, an EVIL PERSON who HATES CHILDREN.

Do you want that to be you? DO YOU? No. So BLOODY WELL SMILE.

Tom: You can’t see me, but I’m flicking the Vs at you so much right now.

Tim: Fine. I will console myself with the fact that your earlier protest made it seem like you were fine with people thinking that you hate children, as long as they don’t think you’re evil as well.

Tom: I actually am fine with that.

Tim: And I think that proves my point.

Madeon – Finale

The first music in ages that has made me actively sit up and take notice.

Tom: Ah! Madeon. Best known amongst internet types, incidentally, for his astonishingly good live-mashup “Pop Culture“.

Tim: Ooh, that is good, but I first heard this when I woke up to it recently and grouchily thought “why the hell is Radio 1 playing this is the daytime, when they should be playing Ed Sheeran or someone equally dull?” Then, when I was more awake, I heard it properly, and enjoyed it. (Oh, and if you’re wondering, it’s pronounced mad-ee-on. French, you see.)

Tim: It occasionally verges near territory where I’m thinking “Oh God, what a racket,” but it stays fairly melodic throughout so I actually find it more of a fairly good, fairly aggressive, dance tune. The vocal bits strike me as a bit odd, though, or at least the second batch does.

Tom: Oh, they worked so well for me. That first vocal section reminds me – and this is perhaps the highest compliment I’ve ever paid on this blog – of the legendary Rob Dougan‘s Furious Angels. It’s the first music in ages that has made me actively sit up and take notice. When the beat kicks back in, not so much: but that threatening, moody, building vocal section is just incredible.

Tim: The singer’s from an American indie band, for no particular reason that I can discern, and while the first bit, like you say, is pretty good, the sudden near-muting of the massive triumphant instrumental stuff for a dull-sounding voice to jump in and close the track sounds like a bit of an anti-climax, really.

Tom: It really is. I was expecting one last repeat there. I was, quite literally, bracing myself. That’s a shame.

Tim: That aside, though, it’s lovely to thrash around drunkenly to.

Tom: It’s the kind of track you throw your hands up for even though no-one’s telling you to.

Johanna – Alive

Listen to this, and be taken back ten years to the glory days of Eurotrance.

Tim: Listen to this, and be taken back ten years to the glory days of Eurotrance.

Tom: I am SOLD.

Tim: This is a remix by Moreno & Shane Deether, whoever they may be, but it’s out there as the official version which is good because it’s flipping marvellous. Hands in the air, fists pumping, jump up and down like a maniac, who cares what you look like because you’re HAVING FUN. Unfortunately, it’s a decade too late, but that doesn’t mean we can’t review it as though it were 2002. Let’s begin.

Tom: Hmm. Well, it may be the glory days of Eurodance in 2002, but it certainly isn’t one of the glorious tunes.

Tim: At the moment, no – it’s a middle-of-the-compilation-album track rather than a lead-in tune, but it’s safe to say that the “glad I’m feeling alive” would be the line chosen to finish the TV advert off.

Tom: Over a shot of generic Ayia Napa beach shots and pictures of attractive women dancing, no doubt.

Tim: Well, obviously. If it gets picked up by Dave Pearce, though, I can easily see this being another Castles in the Sky or Heaven, so let’s hope. And if you find the ringtone composer notes for it, let me know.

Tom: Wow. I think I just got slapped in the face by nostalgia.

Conor Maynard – Vegas Girl

“I can’t bloody stand it.”

Tom: We’re now at the point where we can call someone the “British Justin Bieber” – even if he tries to stay away from that description – and have his video revolve around creepily stalking someone on Twitter.

I’m not yet old enough to bemoan “what has society become”, but give me a few more years and I’ll probably start mumbling that this was the point where civilisation started to collapse.

Tom: While the Bieber comparison doesn’t hold up to deep scrutiny – he’s 19, for starters – his music falls into the same category for me. I’m not in the demographic that it’s being cynically marketed to, and therefore I can’t bloody stand it. How about you, Tim?

Tim: Well, before I’d heard the music I’d laughed at even the vague notion that someone who bumps into a girl on the street accidentally would say anything other than a mumbled “sorr–” before moving on, let alone strike up a conversation and end up with a picture of the girl. However, writing this I still haven’t heard the music so I’ll reserve judgement for a bit. Hang on.

Yeah, I’m kind of with you, which I suppose means we’re not really the sort of people who should be reviewing his music. And you know that…which means you have something to say.

Tom: Now, his southern accent may make his American fans love him, but the trouble is that an accent like that works best when being self-effacing or charming. Think ‘Hugh Grant’ or, at a push, ‘Boris Johnson’. Unfortunately, the music business requires arrogance and enthusiasm, and I’m not sure it’s a good fit. There’s an advert lurking around for an MTV show featuring him, and my word, he appears to be a colossal jerk. I’m sure he’s not – but he sounds like one.

Tim: Ah, you mean the video where he asks people to vote for him, and then does nothing for almost a minute so people can use that time to vote for him. Well, he isn’t one – or at least he wasn’t when he was being interviewed on the radio last week – but you’re right, this video and that do make him seem like a bit of bell-end.

Misha B – Home Run

Bloody hell, it goes all wrong.

Tom: The only thing I can remember about this particular X Factor artist is Peter Dickson shouting her name. Apart from that, she’s pretty much a blank in my head.

Tim: Well, she’s the one that bullied people but then she wasn’t a bully so it’s all okay, and consistently dressed up like a Quality Street with a unicorn horn and pointless rap breakdown.

Tom: This starts wonderfully. A piano intro, a fantastic soulful vocal, a promising build…

Tim: Oh dear.

Tom: …and then, bloody hell, it goes all wrong. Whose stupid idea was that giggle?

Tim: The giggle’s the only thing you’re complaining about? I doubt that very much.

Tom: It’s like they’ve lumped everything in: occasional dubstep wubs, background vocals that sound like a Justin Timberlake song, an air horn as if Tim Westwood was mixing it, and a particularly dumb innuendo-gasp.

Tim: That’s more like it, because let’s be honest this is just noise, isn’t it. For a start, I’ve listened to it twice and I’m still not really sure what or when the chorus is. It pretty much sounds like someone’s reached into a bag of all the things that have been popular over the past two years and grabbed a few things at random, which is really not a good way to make music.

Tom: In the middle eight, she actually sings, and it’s good – but the rest of it is just a confused, disappointing mess.