Be The Bear – I Don’t Want To

“So I’m a bit ill at the minute, Tim, and…”

Tim: New pop song off a weirdly titled Swedish artist: apparently Christina used to dream a lot about bears as a kid, and realised this was because she wasn’t challenging her fears, and so now she is Being The Bear. Or rather, being Be The Bear, which is probably close enough.

Tom: I mean, this is not what I was expecting from you sending an artist with “Bear” in the name, but sure, okay, I’ll go with it.

Tim: What did you exp— you know what, never mind. The intro will remind you of Avicii’s Levels, the rest of the song entirely won’t.

Tim: WHAT A LOT OF FUN. Isn’t it fun? It’s fun.

Tom: It’s another song where the middle eight is the best bit! Which admittedly isn’t a great sign.

Tim: “Bring me the sun or my life will be over” is maybe a tad melodramatic, but given that it’s positively standard compared to my original mishearing of soap instead of sun, I’ve no issue. We’ve a lot of bright and sparkly music here, with similarly bright and sparkly lyrics; the ‘oh, oh-oh oh oh oh, oh-oh oh oh oh’ maaaay possibly become slightly repetitive, but with it being sung in a happy manner there’s not a huge amount to dislike about it.

Tom: So I’m a bit ill at the minute, Tim, and…

Tim: Ah. See, if you’re not feeling in a happy mood, and just feel irritable, then that may not apply. In fact I can see that if that were the case I may well find it just plain annoying.

Tom: Yes. To be fair, though, it actually didn’t irritate me until that weird childlike “don’t you block me”, or whatever she says, just before the final chorus. I heard that, and it was like a switch flipped in my head. Suddenly, yes, I was irritable.

Tim: Hmm. Still, right now I’m happy, so hooray for me!

Smith & Thell feat. Swedish Jam Factory – Forgive Me Friend

Tim: Smith & Thell are the singers as ever; as far as I can make out it’s Jam in the sense of music, not fruit, and they’re the ones dancing and playing the instruments (though not simultaneously, sadly).

Tim: Ain’t that lovely? Fast paced, knows where it’s going and what it’s doing, and is very efficient at it.

Tom: I mean, I was thinking it’s more like “Mumford and Sister”, but sure, yes, it gets the job done. I find it difficult to say anything specific about it, though: I feel like I’ve heard it before, even though I haven’t.

Tim: Lots of lovely moments in there – just to take one example (and I know it’s been done hundreds of times before), the ‘dum-dum-DUM-[beat]’ that happens just before each “cause you fill in…” sounds great. The heavy strumming’s great, the dancing’s impressive, the vocal’s strong, and overall it’s just got a massive amount of energy and life to it. And I love that.

RABBII – Slow Dance

“OH MY GOD YOU’VE RUINED TAYLOR SWIFT’S BLANK SPACE FOR ME”

Tom: I am choosing to read this band name as a misspelling of ‘Rabbi’. Anyway, carry on.

Tim: Say the Swedish band of their new song, “Slow Dance is about the need to feel needed and loved. The hope that you wouldn’t need the cool parties, the right people, that you would loose your FOMO and we would have at least one moment together that was real and true. I lived that dream a thousand times in my head, but in reality, you’d leave me.” Bit upsetting, but a listen anyway.

Tim: And throughout the first verse I wasn’t remotely interested in it, as I found the vocal annoying and nothing else really around to distract from it.

Tom: For once, that first verse actually grabbed me! And I like the vocal quality. That first verse reminds me of… something, or someone, I’m not sure, but either way it had the correct combination of novelty and familiarity to perk my ears up.

Tim: That first heavy note at the pre-chorus piqued my interest, though, temporarily, and then when the chorus proper came around I was somewhat delighted.

Tom: Apart from that failing-to-lighting-a-gas-hob percussion, sure.

Tim: See, I played it again to hear that, and then I was going to point out that you’re being unfair, and that handclap sounds are hardly rare, and suddenly your comment stuck, and OH MY GOD YOU’VE RUINED TAYLOR SWIFT’S BLANK SPACE FOR ME and God you’re awful sometimes.

Tom: Blame our mutual friend Gary for that one, he said it to me a few years ago and it’s stuck ever since.

Tim: Well, thank you ever so mich for sharing it. Anyway, it is a sad song, with downbeat lyrics and hardly an uplifting melody.

Tom: It’s let down in the chorus, I think. I can’t remember it afterwards, and I don’t want to hear it again — that said, I’m not sure how you could fix it without changing the genre entirely. Or fixing the gas hob.

Tim: STOP IT. It’s a lovely melody, and serves as a perfect distraction from the still-a-tad-annoying vocal. So overall I like this quite a lot. Well, I did.

JRL – No Way

“Started calm, and then got…very, very good, almost without me realising it.”

Tim: New trio of Swedish producers, and you might think from the name they’ve chosen that it’d be their initials, to which I say: mostly. We have Jonathan, Lemar and, erm, Carl. Go figure.

Tim: Started calm, and then got…very, very good, almost without me realising it.

Tom: You’re right: that is a really, really good chorus.

Tim: It started as would any generic slightly tropical dance track, the first chorus was pretty good, and then I got interested in the video so slightly tuned out but then it came towards the end and I realised ‘hang on, this is great’. I don’t even really mind that it’s got the whole ‘two verses, two choruses, that’s all we need’ thing going on, because there’s enough different sections in this two halves that actually it’s not boring.

Tom: I mean, you say that, the verse isn’t up to much. I’d expect this to sit in the middle of a generic Spotify playlist. That, as ever, sounds harsher than I intended it: this does a lot right, but it’s not the BANGER that it seems to be aiming for.

Tim: Well, there’s variety, and so I’m happy and dancing throughout. Nice one.

Vincent Gross – Nordlichter

“We’re going all in on the schlager at the minute, aren’t we?”

Tim: A few months ago Vincent (Swiss) brought out Dieser Beat, which was a decent track but in the end we had plenty of other tracks to write about. His new one, though, is absolutely worth it, bringing with it a multitude of surprise elements, so don’t read ahead until you’re through to at least 3:04.

Tom: We’re going all in on the schlager at the minute, aren’t we? Not that I’m complaining.

Tim: Yeah, it’s a bit of fun isn’t it? Key change was slightly predictable, mind, but not entirely a given so that was nice to hear, but where on earth did that guitar come from? Admittedly if you’re making a track four minutes long with a key change only two and a half minutes in you’ve got to have something to keep people listening, and if it’s this or another key change then…well, actually I’m not sure which I’d prefer.

Tom: We got to the key change and I thought ‘blimey, there’s still a minute to go’. This could definitely use the fat trimming off it, although I think I’d remove one of the early verses rather than that guitar solo. I’m all for guitar solos coming back.

Tim: In any case, sure, the song could finish after three minutes and I’m not sure it’d sound the worse for it, but let’s have an extra minute with an electric guitar, why not. The rest of it up to there is all good – he’s reminiscing about the Northern Lights as apparently he used to see them every time he visited his grandparents and now they’re the most beautiful thing in the world. Sweet, right? I don’t know what the actual lyrics say, as they don’t seem to be online anywhere, but they’re probably all ‘you’re absolutely beautiful and you make me think of them’ type, so that’s nice too. What a lovely song.

Saturday Flashback: Norman Langen – Baila mi amor

“All that’s really missing is Pitbull yelling nonsensical syllables over the top.”

Tim: After the not particularly inspiring Latin schlager track we featured on Wednesday, our reader Laith got in touch with us about this, a more interesting example you might enjoy – particularly if the highlight on Wednesday was the corset.

Tom: He’s not wearing a cor– oh, never mind, we’re good. But yes, that’s an interesting mix of German and Spanish, isn’t it?

Tim: And all that’s really missing is Pitbull yelling nonsensical syllables over the top – bring in Mr Worldwide and I think I’d really like it.

Tom: Wait, you’re saying Pitbull would improve something? Times have changed.

Tim: Oh, he can always be relied upon to spice up a track a bit. It has a good chorus, and while I obviously wouldn’t turn down a key change at the 3:06 mark, it works well enough without one. You’ve also got all the standard tropes from 2012 in there, the vocoded intro (albeit with a disappointing lack him of singing his own name), and in terms of Latin schlager I think this is probably as good as we’re going to get. Whether or not it’s worth pursuing is of course up to you; for me it’s an interesting novelty. Let’s not get too involved.