Star Pilots – Heaven Can Wait

Kicks in hard and never really stops.

Tim: I trust you’ll remember In The Heat Of The Night, their big hit from a couple of years back; here’s their latest.

Tom: Bloody hell, Tim, that kicks in hard and never really stops. My brain immediately thought ‘Top Gun’, but that might have been connected to the fact they’re called ‘Star Pilots’.

Tim: When the chorus hits it’s almost like a different song – it suddenly goes from ‘mmm, so so’ to ‘ooh, yes’ in a single beat. The first chorus just about provides enough energy to ride out the second verse, so as long as you don’t mind a mediocre first part, I think you’ll be happy here.

Tom: Now, you see, I disagree entirely: I think the verses and bridge are great – it’s like an 80s song with modern production values. But the chorus lets it down a bit for me: it’s just that the verses are so full-on that it’s hard for the chorus to compare. Until that key change. That glorious key change.

Tim: Oh, isn’t it just fantastic? The best thing for me: it was entirely unexpected – it came out of nowhere and just was excellent. I do have one tiny niggle though: as the main version of the song, this goes on a bit too long. I can understand as a dance mix it would need to stuff on the end for the DJ to mix out, but as this is it should end at around the 3:15 mark, I feel.

Aside from that, since it’s easy enough to trim a song manually: excellent work.

Blue and all that Eurovision business.

People have thrown a strop. They’re wrong.

Tim: As I’m sure we’ve all heard, British boyband Blue have been chosen by the BBC to represent Britain at this year’s Eurovision Song Contest in Düsseldorf, and unsurprisingly lots of people have got all mardy and thrown a strop about it. They’re wrong.

Tom: Yes they are.

Tim: They’re wrong, at least for the time being, and we shall now demonstrate why, through means of a systematic deconstruction of their arguments:

1. We didn’t get to decide. True, but are you honestly telling me that you would happily have chosen one of the six that were in Your Country Needs You last year? They weren’t your first choice, and never would have been. Until the BBC gets the money to splash out on a massive competition that about four thousand people will enter, with internet voting and tickets that sell out in half an hour, it’s never going to be a proper public choice.

Tom: A British Melodifestivalen will only happen when British folks take Eurovision seriously, which is approximately never. And if we actually had a Melodifestivalen, a comedy act would win, and we all know how that worked out for Dustin the Turkey.

Tim: 2. Blue are a crap boyband. Why can’t we have something good? You, person who says this, would make this argument whatever happened and whoever eventually got chosen unless it was Eliza Doolittle or Tinie Tempah. Shut up. They’ve actually been successful, and not just in this country but across a large part of Europe. Your personal music taste doesn’t count.

Tom: They’re perfect for Eurovision, too – inoffensive, well-tested, and popular. Don’t forget that Lena

Tim: Erm, Tom? Nope, he’s wandered off. But yes, Lena, who won it last year, was popular across Europe.

3. They haven’t done anything for over five years. Well, at least they’ve done something in the past, and aren’t a complete non-entity. I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have an act that was successful a while back than an act that’s never been successful. We know they can sing properly, and to large crowds as well, so there shouldn’t be any worries there. Also, Katrina and the Waves hadn’t had a new single for over seven years before they won it back in 1997.

4. It will ruin their careers. And that’s our problem how, exactly? It may well be true, especially if they don’t do very well – their former manager certainly believes it to be the case – but so what? It’s not really like they have much of a future career to ruin, to be frank.

5. It makes us look desperate to win. Really, though? Even if that were the case – and personally if anything I think it makes us look keen, a good thing – it’s better than making us look like we can’t be arsed, which is certainly what anybody who saw last year’s car crash of a selection program would have thought. I can’t really remember the highlight, although I think it might have been Graham Norton forgetting how to read an autocue, or perhaps Pete Waterman & Mike Stock being furious that the act they’d clearly written the song for got voted off because she forgot the words.

So, to everybody who’s already started whining: hush. If you’re going to complain, at least wait a couple of months (really, BBC? that long?) until you’ve heard the song. Then we’ll let you bitch about it, and in fact may well join you.

Enrique Iglesias feat. Ludacris – Tonight (I’m Fuckin’ You)

This is an incredibly creepy song.

Tom: There are some songs that hide their meanings in cryptic metaphor; there are some that take a direct approach. This is one of the latter.

Tim: It is a bit, isn’t it?

Tom: I admire quite how direct he is, but let’s be honest: if he wasn’t Enrique Iglesias, this would be an incredibly creepy song.

Tim: That sentence should be reworded: ‘let’s be honest: this is an incredibly creepy song.’

Tom: The trouble is that, while it’s fairly listenable to start with, even a rap bridge from Ludacris can’t really justify its four-minute length. Once the shock value wears off, that synth backing really starts to grate – and there’s no build either. The first chorus is just as energetic as the last, and it ends on a whimper rather than (hurr) a bang.

Tim: It’s not that listenable, though – it’s the autotune, and it really turns me off, I mean, why? We all know he can sing the right notes, he doesn’t need autotuning – is there a point to it other than to make him sound like a robot?

Tom: That’s the style these days. Doesn’t matter if you can sing or not: you’ve got to sound a bit like Cher. The radio edit is of course a bit toned town – to “Lovin’ You” – and without that bit of swearing the whole song seems to fade into nothing. Pity.

Tim: Hmm. I remember when Enrique was a nice person, singing nicely about being a hero, and kissing away the pain. Now’s he’s been sucked in by hip-hop and turned into a dick.

Kerli – Speed Limit

A whole song about an actual traffic jam. (Plus a bonus Estonia anecdote.)

Tim: I don’t think we’ve been to Estonia yet. Let’s rectify that.

Tom: I went to Estonia once – to Tallinn, the capital. According to my diary, “there’s not much to do if you’re not big on museums”, and as soon as you leave the World Heritage Site that is the old city, you run into a fairly seedy district of strip clubs and stag-night bars.

Also, I happened to go there when the gay pride parade was going through town – and, next to it, an “anti gay pride” parade. The latter was six people with one banner, on which featured two stickmen having sex with a big Ghostbusters-style “NO” symbol over the top of it.

Anyway, sorry. Estonia. Right. Who’s this then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0pHw-AXodk

Tim: Now on first listen, this would appear to be…

Tom: …it’d appear to be a Jimmy Hart version of SMiLE.dk’s 1998 song “Butterfly”. That chorus melody is remarkably similar, but probably just far enough away that they won’t get sued for it.

Tim: Hmm – it is a bit similar, isn’t it? Mind you, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, because even if this Estonian act has ripped off a fairly obscure Danish track, they’ve done good stuff with it.

Anyway, before you interrupted I was going to say that it sounds like a whole song about an actual traffic jam, which would be quite impressive. Unfortunately, it’s just a slightly dodgy metaphor for a relationship, involving enough driving instructions for TomTom to make a new voice with and a complaint that she isn’t being played on the radio; however, we should give her points for dragging it along for almost a full three minutes.

Tom: No, we shouldn’t. It gets old so, so quickly.

Tim: Yes, but it’s the effort and the dedication that counts. Of course it’s ridiculous, and of course it gets old, but when she’s so desperate to keep it going that she talks about ‘three-ways like a parking lot’ that just can’t not be appreciated.

As music, I think this is good, it keeps you moving – the verses are a little monotonous, but they have a decent enough rhythm to them to keep you bouncing along until the next chorus, and the choruses have a properly nice sing-along feel to them.

Tom: Since all I can hear through the chorus is the words ‘ripped off’ repeating in my head, I’m afraid I disagree – it’s just monotonous to me. It’s got a decent closing chorus, I suppose, but that can’t redeem it for me.

Tim: Seriously? You can’t let that go? I think this is just great, and not least because there’s also a proper pronunciation of the word ‘hazy’, which is always nice, and to be perfectly honest, I’m slightly gutted this is being released now, because it wouldn’t be at all bad as a Eurovision entry.

I do, however, feel that Buffalo Roll would have been a better title. (I am aware that the actual lyric is ‘bump in the road’, but that’s beside the point.)

Tom: And now I can’t unhear it. Well done, Tim.

Saturday Flashback: AnnaGrace – You Make Me Feel

It doesn’t make me want to play laser tag.

Tim: Do you remember Castles in the Sky? Of course you do – it was the early 2000s, as far as I’m concerned a Golden Age of music in Britain, with Eurodance colonising the charts every summer, and that song epitomised it.

Tom: Oh, that takes me back. Specifically, it takes me back to the upper floor of the Nottingham laser tag centre, defending the red base from anyone who tried to make it up the stairs.

Tim: Fast forward a few years, though, and utter tripe has largely taken over.

Tom: I quite like Disturbia, thank you very much.

Tim: Seriously? Huh. Anyway, regardless of the popularity shift, Ian van Dahl are still going, albeit with a different name, and they bring out this, get no airplay because it’s not cool any more, and fail to chart anywhere except their native Belgium.

Tom: Ah, Hard2Beat Records. They know their target market, and they aren’t afraid to pitch to them.

Tim: That failure to chart is a great shame, really, because this is good.

Tom: Now that’s where you’re wrong. It’s competent. It’s not good.

Tim: Well, I’ll accept that it is fairly generic, and does very little to challenge the ‘all dance music sounds the same’ bull that my parents like to put out there every now and again, although it does at least stay away from the snare drum buildup cliche* (by replacing it with a synth buildup instead).

* Related fact: Ayla’s album Nirwana is quite possibly my favourite dance album of ever, vying for the top spot along with Dario G’s Sunmachine, Rank 1’s Symsonic and Darude’s Before the Storm. Three years ago I spent almost six months on eBay, Amazon and the like trying to track down a (reasonably priced) copy before becoming very, very grateful to kevayreski72 for wanting to get rid of his.

Tom: That synth buildup may be the only original thing in the song.

Tim: You know what? I don’t care about originality – I like it, and it reminds me of a better time. Although it isn’t as good as Castles in the Sky.

Tom: Well, of course it isn’t. For a start, it doesn’t make me want to play laser tag.

Eric Saade – Still Loving It

A surprisingly decent mix of several genres.

Tim: Last seen getting soaking wet and with a notable absence of raccoons, he’s fixed one of those problems…

Tom: …please say it’s the raccoons.

Tim: …by drying himself off – sorry Tom – and putting the first single off his next album up on YouTube.

Tim: Unfortunately, but not too surprisingly, it isn’t as good as Manboy.

Tom: He’s gone all plodding and emotional, hasn’t he? So much for having enough enthusiasm that you have to shower on stage.

Tim: If we’re honest, it could probably do with losing about thirty seconds somewhere along the line, and the first few seconds sound a bit like Day & Night. On a more positive note, if you don’t do some sort of involuntary dance-type movement after the bridge there may be something wrong with you, which makes it a winner in my view.

Tom: I was all ready to disagree with you there, and then I went and subconsciously nodded my head along after the beat. That technically counts.

Tim: Musically it’s a surprisingly decent mix of several genres; lyrically it seems slightly weird and almost pointless – you’re annoying me but keep doing it – but never mind that, because I still like the chorus and the closing bit very much indeed.

Tom: It’s a proper lighters-in-the-air moment at the end, isn’t it? It’s no Manboy, but it’ll do.

The Vaccines – Post Break-Up Sex

Like Pulp, but a bit crap.

Tom: I think “like Pulp, but a bit crap” basically sums this up. Or alternatively “the London Pulp”, which basically says the same thing.

Tim: I don’t know, I don’t mind it – the music I can take or leave, but part of me likes the the lyrics, which are basically ‘yeah, we had sex, now sod off,’ even though I’d often just hate them. Somehow the barefacedness of it seems to work – maybe with the music – and doesn’t just make the singer seem like a misogynistic twat.

Tom: The Vaccines won third place in the BBC’s Sound of 2011 competition, which really doesn’t make me hold out music hope for the British music scene this year. And the single’s competent, I suppose, but it’s just whiny 90s Britpop – and without Jarvis Cocker at the helm, is it really worth bringing that back?

Tim: Depends if it’s better than what else is around. And looking at a couple of the songs we’ve reviewed previously, I would say yes. Although it would be nice if there were other options around that they could choose instead. Oh, wait. There are.

Tom: And all of them from Scandinavia.

Tim: Problem?

Elin Lanto – Funeral

This lady has issues. Like, planet-sized issues.

Tim: Now, this lady has issues. Like, planet-sized issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPtGoKk0BHA

Tim: Dancing at a funeral would be bad enough. But ON a funeral – that implies she’s there by the graveside while the vicar’s reciting the whole ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ stuff, not caring remotely what the heartbroken mourners think, but just incredibly happy that you’ve finally popped it. What with that and the scratchy, stabby name on the CD cover, part of the thinks she might be a serial killer hiding behind her music.

But we don’t care about such frivolities as murder here – we care about the music. And right now, it’s not remotely bad.

Tom: Starts with a lovely intro that wouldn’t be out of place on a Clubland CD somewhere; steadily builds like a good dance track should; and then it kicks in. And oh yes.

Tim: A chorus you can really get into (however unpleasant it might be) and a good beat to the music that keeps it interesting throughout.

Tom: There’s something about the chorus melody that I really enjoy, and I lack the musical theory to put it into words. Each time I start to drift away into distraction during the verse, that chorus comes back and makes me pay attention again.

Tim: And also the lyrics: however psychopathic they may be, there’s still some weird depth – the two verses end with ‘makes me love to hate you so’ and then ‘man I hate to love you so’. Issues, seriously.

Tom: She’s dealing with them better than the Saturdays did, that’s for sure. There’s even an apt organ outro. Well done, Elin.

Aggro Santos feat. Kimberley Walsh – Like U Like

It’s hard for me to describe how much I dislike this song.

Tom: Now, Tim, you were over in Canada while this year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here was on, so you’ll not know who Aggro Santos is. That’s okay – you’re in the same position everyone else was when that show started. He’s now “that bloke who was a bit crap on I’m A Celebrity”.

Tom: The show has actually done his career a bit of good, because now he’s releasing a track that features Kimberley Walsh, better known as “her out of Girls Aloud. No, the other one. No, the other other one.”

Now, it’s hard for me to describe how much I dislike this song.

Tim: Must say, my feelings aren’t far off that. How about we list things we hate instead?

Tom: The way that the start of each chorus makes me think of “Your Song” by Elton John.

Tim: The way the levels at the beginning are set just right so you can’t make out what either of them are saying.

Tom: The half-singing half-rapping.

Tim: The worry they seem to have that we’ll forget the name of the song half way through.

Tom: The bit in the video where he appears to be pointing with interest at her armpit.

Tim: The replacement of the Spanish 7 with sex, but then him actually being speed date numbers 5, 2 and 1.

Tom: And the fact that it’s ripping off Pretty Fly for a White Guy. Come to think of it, the bloody awful lyrics. “Just like you like” technically makes sense, but repeated it starts to grate like an industrial-strength cheese grater.

Tim: Spending quite some time setting up the use of a three course meal as a metaphor for a date and then almost immediately dropping it.

Tom: But here’s the worst part: it’s catchy. The stupid, dancey part of my brain likes it. And it’s stuck in my head.

Tim: Really? I just think it’s crap.

NEO – Underground

I watched it all the way through almost without blinking.

Tim: No, don’t worry – it’s not Ne-Yo, it’s NEO, an all-round better musician, although sadly not very lucky when it comes to exiting nightclubs.

Tom: I really hope this video explains that joke.

Tom: I have no idea what that video was about, but I watched it all the way through almost without blinking. That was brilliant.

Tim: Wasn’t it just? The music as well is very good, and in my view better than the sort of stuff that was on his first album – darker (much), but somehow better, even though I’d normally prefer the Mika-esque style. There’s a level of emotion and feeling to it that just didn’t seem to exist before, and the music’s very much better for it. The high-pitched voice isn’t used as a novelty this time round, but more as something that just belongs and doesn’t seem out of place.

Tom: Through the first minute, I was waiting for the chorus. I was thinking “this is a hell of a build, this had better be a blinder of a chorus.” And it was. By the final repeat, it’s almost an Andreas Johnson blinder of a chorus. And you’re right, the falsetto doesn’t seem out of place.

Tim: All round, it just seems a lot more mature than his last album – as though he’s now decided what he wants to do with his music, as opposed to thinking along the lines of ‘this is what Swedish musicians do, I’d better do that.’ I think he’s made the right decision – he certainly looks the part, as part of me was expecting him to grow fangs at 2:57. Very glad he didn’t, though.

Tom: That’s a director’s error, sadly – it’s shot like a transformation sequence, where it’s actually some kind of timeline switch. The background needs to be in focus and twitching, not him. Never mind – as I said before, it’s still blindingly good.

Tim: And lastly, what with him being NEO and all if you didn’t think ‘He is The One’ at 2:43, there’s something wrong with you.