Scooter – It’s A Biz (Ain’t Nobody)

OH DEAR.

Tim: It’s not been long sine we last covered them, but here’s their first track of 2012.

Tom: YES.

Tom: OH DEAR.

Tim: Indeed. It’s really not the best song they’ve done – in fact, I’d say it’s a considerable dip below the average, with a few things I’m not so keen on.

Tom: All the component parts of Scooter are there, but somehow they just don’t work together this time. It’s not happy enough. It’s not mad enough. It’s not high-pitched enough.

Tim: In a nut-shell, yes. There’s the auto-tune, say. I can sort of understand them auto-tuning the chorus (although I’d have preferred it if they’d record original vocals), but why stick auto-tune on the main man himself? It doesn’t seem right.

Tom: It sounds like a track “featuring Scooter”. The emphasis isn’t on them – it’s on that lead vocal.

Tim: Yes, that’s just it, actually. Also, it’s just struck me that the best Scooter tracks have started out higher-pitched – that is, started with singing, or with some of the upbeat tuney bits. This, though, starts out heavy with HP giving it all he’s got, and it doesn’t really give you much time to duck out or get a bit warmed up. Is that a valid criticism? It seems a bit silly, but I think I’d prefer this if we went straight to the chorus at the start.

Tom: It’s not bad, it’s just… not all that good.

Cazzi Opeia – My Heart In 2

If you’re a fan of bad puns and unusual haircuts, you’re halfway to liking this lady.

Tim: If you’re a fan of bad puns and unusual haircuts, you’re halfway to liking this lady.

Tom: I like both of those things.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lC61ugCwqj4

Tim: And by now, you should be all the way there. I’d not heard of her before I saw a link to this video, but I wish I had because she’s actually done quite a few good tracks, including this one. The ooo-oo-oo-ooo bits in the chorus strike me as particularly good.

Tom: I’m not sure I have anything to add to that. It’s a decent track, although after playing it through once I’m not sure I can remember it all that well. It’s a good chorus, but it’s not a catchy one. I’d dance to it – I probably wouldn’t sing along.

Tim: On the other hand, I have trouble paying attention to this – good as it is, I keep getting bored halfway through, and moving on to other stuff. Perhaps it’s not lively and varied enough to keep my attention, and yet it clearly is. Maybe it’s too lively, and I keep wanting to get up and do things. Your thoughts?

Tom: Much the same.

Fanny – Come To Me

Hold on, hold on. “Fanny”?

Tim: This lady is previously of Play…

Tom: Hold on, hold on. “Fanny”?

Tim: Fanny, yes.

Tom: I know it’s a proper name and all that, but it means different quaintly amusing things in the US and the UK. If you’re going to try and make your stage name one word, surely you’d pick a different one?

Tim: You know, I was going to try to find out what her real name was, but then I figured that typing ‘fanny play’ into Google probably wouldn’t give me the results I was looking for.

Tom: In the interests of science, I checked. It pointed me at a 1932 play called “Fanny” by Marcel Pagnol. Disappointingly accurate results, there.

Tim: Oh. Oh well. Anyway, Play did the delightful Destiny that we featured a while back. Disappointingly, this is entirely different.

Tim: Is this a bit dull? From the start, yes, and indeed for at least the first two thirds.

Tom: It’s got an excellent intro. Sadly, that intro lasts about two minutes.

Tim: Sure, it builds up a little bit forty seconds from the end, but not nearly enough to qualify as exciting. If I’m being honest I wouldn’t have bothered bringing this up at all if I wasn’t immature enough to find her name a bit funny. Especially at the seventeen second mark.

Tom: Heh. “Fanny.”

Tim: So now that’s done, next please.

Aura Dione feat. Rockmafia – Friends

Feeling mateless? Just been dumped? Then this is the video for you.

Tim: Feeling mateless? Just been dumped? Then this is the video for you.

Tom: Also if you want an introduction that reminds you of both Dido and Whigfield.

Tim: So we have here a lady who’s just been broken up with, but tells us she’s alright because she’s got her friends. Well, either that break-up hit her very hard indeed emotionally or I’m entirely sympathetic to the bloke who chucked her. Because, and I’m sorry to break this to you if you’re reading this, Aura, that’s not a friend – it’s a weird shoe-robot that’s the weirdest type of companion I’ve seen since Lauri’s weird puppet thing, Amanda, about a year ago.

Tom: She’d get on well with Olly Murs, then. Although her companion is rather well animated, I must say.

Tim: Well-animated, yes. But MADE OF SHOES.

Basically, Aura, you shouldn’t be playing backgammon with it, you shouldn’t be baking a cake with it, you should be making actual friends and moving on – maybe even ask that nice policeman out on a date, rather than lying to him about your weird-is-putting-it-lightly house guest. Because what sort of a message are you sending out? That everyone will be happy after a breakup if they can only build a robot out of their obscene collection of footwear? Come on now.

Tom: Well, quite. Er, the music, though?

Tim: Oh yes, we probably should talk about it. Well, there’s a dec—OH BLOODY HELL SHE WEARS LAMPSHADES ON HER HEAD, so can’t we just move on?

Tom: I thought it was quite a good track, actually.

Yolanda Be Cool feat. Crystal Waters – Le Bump

“No.”

Tom: Is it anywhere near as good as “We No Speak Americano”?

Tim: Prediction: no.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP9UJdZlYww

Tom: No.

Tim: Good good – I love being right.

Tom: It starts badly. Then you get the rising synth in the background, and you think it might turn brilliant, and… it doesn’t. Then you’ve got the retro gramophone-type music coming out the back, another euphoric build… an extra bit on the end…

…and still nothing.

Tim: It’s sort of, let’s do roughly what we did when we had that successful track and hope it turns out good. And then let’s release it without bothering to check if it is good. Lets ignore the fact the four-bar-repeating-thing here is nowhere near as a catchy or vibrant as the four-bar-repeating-thing was last time – let’s just assume that people will buy this on the back of our other success.

Tom: This isn’t good dance. It isn’t good electroswing. It’s existing somewhere in the middle, trying to be both but managing neither.

Saturday Reject: Conchita Wurst – That’s What I Am

My word that’s quite a voice.

Tim: This came an incredibly close second in the Austrian race, and we’ll discuss this for a few reasons, not least of which is that it gives me the chance to point out that the winning entry is by the group Trackshittaz.

Tom: Well, that’s going to be an interesting name for Graham Norton to handle. Anyway, on with the show!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDuHTfFVCig

Tim: I’m not too sure of what Conchita’s all about – the internet seems evenly split between drag act, entire fictional personality or genuine transsexual.

German Wikipedia and the official website indicate the second one, but as far as the song goes, this is very definitely passing along a Born This Way style message that accompanies the third.

Tom: The papers won’t have to deal with another Dana International, then. If it wasn’t for the beard, they wouldn’t care or notice – but this is prob… whoa. Okay, half way through writing this, the first chorus kicked in, and my word that’s quite a voice.

Tim: Isn’t it just? Whatever the act’s about, it’s a bloody powerful song, the chorus especially.

Tom: I feel the verses let it down a bit too far – there’s more than just contrast with the choruses, there’s actually a bit of buzzkill there.

Tim: I’m hard-pressed not to agree with you there, but even so, once those lights are going off over the place, it’s hard to shake the feeling that THIS IS DRAMA. Just a slight shame the cameraman tripped up at the end, really.

Tom: I wonder if that was enough of a blip to affect the voting, if it really was That Close?

Marcus Collins – Seven Nation Army

You can’t cover something that iconic. Can you?

Tom: Oh no. No, no, no. That’ll be pretty much the instinctive reaction from most people here. Who covers something like Seven Nation Army? It… it just is. You can’t cover something that iconic. Can you?

Tim: No. I’ve heard this, and no.

Tom: Really? Because I reckon this is good. Apparently it can be done.

Tim: You really can’t. Or at least, Marcus Collins can’t.

Tom: You really think so? I mean, you’re going to have to work hard to convince me there isn’t some rather strict autotuning on some of it (the end of that first line sounds a bit Cher-like to me), but stylistically I think I actually like it.

Tim: No, you don’t. You think, ‘Ooh, this is interesting. Hmm, yeah, it’s not as bad as I thought it would be, and it’s completely different, so that makes it good.’ But it doesn’t.

Tom: Ooh. Maybe you’re right, there. I still don’t think it’s actively bad, though.

Tim: The problem with this is that it was rushed out – it is by a long way the fastest a non-X Factor winner has a made a single (it was on the radio back in January) – and they thought ‘Hey, Rock Week was one of Marcus’s best results, so let’s get him to cover a rock song.’

Tom: Would I prefer him taking on a different song? Sure. Does that harpsichord-like synth in the background remind me of Disney’s Grim Grinning Ghosts and a hundred other Hallowe’en-type tracks? Yep. Does covering this song in this style make no sense at all? Absolutely.

Tim: No, it makes perfect sense – relative to the others, Rock Week was Marcus’s second best week on X Factor, so this was always going to sell well. It was just a question of choosing the right rock song, and this is well-known, popular and fairly recent, so it’s perfect.

Tom: It’s still a decent cover of an exceptionally good song, though.

Tim: Nope.

Tom: Wait a minute, Tim! I’ve just found this – a cover of Seven Nation Army by a French artist called “Ben, l’oncle Soul”. Does it seem… familiar?

Tim: Bloody hell – that’s…that’s practically identical. Just…wow. Surely someone should be kicking up a fuss somewhere, no?

Tom: They are. Mainly on YouTube. I assume that, behind the scenes, the correct payments have been made – they’re just keeping the original as quiet as they can. Anyway, I stand by my original assertion that this is a brilliant cover. It is. It’s just not Marcus Collins’ cover.

East 17 – I Can’t Get You Off My Mind (Crazy)

No, you haven’t slipped back in time.

Tom: No, you haven’t slipped back in time. It’s actually a new East 17 track. You might be thinking “they kept that reunion quiet”. The trouble is, it’s not a reunion. They haven’t done a Take That and disappeared properly for several years before coming back to a storm of acclaim: various members of the band have been milking the name for a while, and now the three of them that remain involved have decided to try a proper single again.

And I’ll say this: it’s not bad.

Tim: Perhaps not, but they have chosen the Laziest Method Ever™ for a music video, which always annoys me.

Tom: “East 17 Singles” would be a pretty good category for ‘Pointless’. Everyone remembers ‘Stay Another Day’, of course, but that was their only number one. Maybe a few people will remember ‘Let It Rain’. But they don’t have the big genre-spanning catalogue of Barlow’s lot – so most people will be expecting something like their Christmassy ballad.

Tim: Hmm. There was a thing about boybands on TV a couple of weeks back, with interviews with singers, managers, writers, all sorts (incidentally Terry from these guys is still bitter about being known as the Quiet One, because no-one was ever interested in him). One of the general points made (and universally agreed on) was that the worst thing that can happen to a boyband is that they decide they want to be credible, and write their own music, when instead they should realise that much as the lyricists woldn’t be good as singers, they shouldn’t do the writing. This song…somewhat justifies that.

Tom: Judged by those old boy-band standards, it’s terrible, but judged by modern pop… well, apart from the repeat ’til fade, this could be pretty much any indie-pop band. If we’re honest, it’s probably cribbing a bit from ‘Sex on Fire’, and they’ve definitely lost their best vocalist. But it’s not bad.

Tim: It’s not bad – it’s not the East 17 their fans would likely want, though, so it is good?

Tom: Depends if you’re one of their fans. I’d hazard a guess that it’s not going to absolutely light up the charts – but it’s a solid tune, and deserves a bit of attention.

The Colour Movement – Future Man

Tom went and made a song-writing machine.

Tom: It is cross-promotion time, Tim. You know I try and keep this blog fairly personal – but you know how I’ve got this whole other life going on where I’m making ridiculous things for a TV show?

Tim: Yes…

Tom: Well, we went and made a song-writing machine.

Tim: I see.

Tom: It mashed up lyrics from online chatter and melodies from the last fifty years of pop music, and came out with things that generally made no sense. Occasionally, though, there’d be a spark of genius in there – and one particular spark was taken on by indie band The Colour Movement. They turned an unlistenable mess into… well, into this. And it’s getting a proper single release.

Tim: Well, I guess I’d better give it a shot. And be careful what I say about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fwcVdBxQIQ

Tom: And the thing is, I’m not just doing this for the cross-promotion gag. I reckon this is actually quite a good track. It’s a slow builder, sure, but that last chorus is glorious. Am I too biased, though?

Tim: Hmm…video makes no sense, and I’m a bit disappointed my initial belief that it was an octogenarian roller-skater turned out be wrong. As far as the lyrics go – they’re sung in that type of voice that makes it impossible to really hear what they are for a sustained period of time without really trying, which is perhaps a shame.

Tom: My system wrote some of those lyrics. Maybe it’s not too much of a shame.

Tim: Fair enough. As for the music – yeah it’s okay. Glorious might be going a bit far, at least on an initial listen, but quite good I will agree with.

Tom: I’ll settle for that.

Dappy feat. Brian May – Rockstar

Actually a very good track.

Tom: No, you read that right. Featuring Brian May. What’s even more surprising? This is actually a very good track.

Tim: Well bugger me.

Tom: Blatant use of drugs in the video as well, which would mark it as a very British track even if it wasn’t for the I’m A Celebrity reference in there. There’s no way that’d fly in a mainstream US video.

I have an enormous amount of respect for Brian May. I don’t need to run through his achievements in either music or astrophysics. My question isn’t “why is he slumming it with Dappy” because he’s blatantly not slumming it: this is an absolutely amazing bit of pop music. And no, I didn’t think I’d be saying that.

Tim: It is. Weirdly (actually, probably not weirdly) I’d never thought of Dappy as someone who actually sang – just a hip-hiop rapper who called himself a singer. But here he is, doing just that, and it sounds good.

Tom: Here’s my question: why is Brian May so criminally underused on this track? It’s a full three minutes before you even start to hear that trademark guitar sound. Sure, he might be noodling about in the earlier bits, but unless you’ve got that precise combination of effects that say “THIS IS A ROCK GOD, SHUT UP AND PAY ATTENTION” – the ones you heard when he smashed the grand finale at Reading Festival last year – who’s going to know it?

Tim: Best guess? If he was on there more he’d outshine Dappy just by being him and Dappy being Dappy (bloody hell that’s a a stupid name – how have I not noticed it before?), and Brian May fans would be all over it saying who’s this stupid bloke singing?