SYML x Sam Feldt – Where’s My Love (Sam Feldt Edit)

“What’s the point of chilled house?”

Tim: Last year American singer SYML released Where’s My Love – decent enough with some nice piano and aaaahhhh-ing in the background, but nothing particularly worthy of comment (unless you count the horribly depressing video). Now, though, Dutch DJ Sam Feldt has had a go at it, and…well, it has a happier video, for starters.

Tom: About a minute into this, I actually said the word “BORED” out loud. I did perk up at that “Did you run away / did you run away” lyric — it actually did something interesting with the chord progression! — but blimey, that didn’t last long. Why do you reckon this is better than the original, then?

Tim: Because it’s BANGING, or at least it certainly is compared to the original. I found it when I was setting up my amazing new wall lights, and it was a bit late so I wanted music with a decent beat but not too loud so I looked up a Chilled House playlist, and this came right on. I know there are a lot of people (in fact, Tom, I think you’ve mentioned here before) that don’t get the point of relaxing dance music – after all, the point of dance music is hat you’re able to, well, dance to it, with big, heavy, thumping beats.

Tom: Right! What’s the point of chilled house? It just ends up sounding like someone’s trying to have a party next to a funeral.

Tim: I’d argue, though, that this very much has its place – lying on a sofa reading a book, or relaxing out in the sun, and you want music to listen to and you like the genre but don’t want Pendulum rammed through your brain. For those scenarios, it’s great. And so’s this track.

Saturday Flashback: Interactive – Forever Young

“I’m fairly sure even I dance better than that.”

Tim: Remember a few days ago, when I said that it was sad that John De Sohn didn’t give us a dance version of this song? Well, guess what I’ve found! I said when we covered the One Direction version that it sounded exactly like you’d expect a One Direction cover of it to sound like; Interactive were a German dance group active in the mid-nineties.

Tom: And, you’ll probably not be surprised to learn, I know this track well.

Tom: …or, apparently, I don’t, because apparently I’ve always heard a remix of this that added a Proper Thumping Techno Bass. That was confusing.

Tim: Confusing perhaps, but also FABULOUS. It has everything you need in there, and nothing you don’t need. Sure, it’s a bit disappointing that at the start you get just a few syllables before cutting off to a seemingly unrelated dance tune, but aside from that I love this.

Tom: Full marks for the music video just being whatever dancers they could get in front of a green-screen, though. Are any of them actually the vocalist? No idea, don’t care.

Tim: Doesn’t matter in the slightest. And since you mention them, I am ALL HERE for the Greg James look-a-like in the red shirt, because I’m fairly sure even I dance better than that. As I write this, I have a bajillion and one things I need to do, and I was feeling a bit lazy, but this has got me RIGHT GOING. Put me in a club, get this on the speakers, and I’ll be ON THAT FLOOR, because with this track in mind, we can be whatever we want to be. We can, basically, absolutely be forever young.

Magnus Carlsson – Slow Motion

“It just doesn’t seem right, you know?”

Tim: It’s a new one off Magnus Carlsson!

Tom: Brilliant!

Tim: And it’s in English.

Tom: That’s a pleasant surprise!

Tim: And really really doesn’t sound like his usual stuff…

Tom: Oh.

Tim: He’s got all modern, although it’s possibly a 2015 version of modern, but not to worry, because it is still sounding great. Fast (somewhat ironically, given the title), synthy, upbeat, energetic and…and dammit it upsets me there isn’t a key change there.

Tom: The song is a bit… well, Generic Modern Pop, isn’t it? There’s nothing actually wrong there, but that was a nice little niche he had carved out for himself. There’s a bit too much novelty here, and a bit more familiarity would come in handy.

Tim: Right? Take a key change, for example. It would sound lovely, and much as I do enjoy the track, and appreciate what Magnus is doing, I still feel that, in these turbulent times, we should have one constant in our lives to look to, and that one constant should be Magnus Carlsson putting out incredible schlager tracks. Sure, we’ve got old German men doing it, but Magnus…Magnus is the king of it.

Tom: Instead, we have a track that could have pretty much any vocalist and sound much the same.

Tim: Don’t get me wrong – if this was any other artist here, I may well love this. But from Magnus, it just doesn’t seem right, you know?

Bernhard Brink – Mit dem Herz durch die Wand

“Only in Germany.”

Tim: It’s a tale as old as time.

Tom: Beauty and the Beast?

Tim: Slightly different one – the relationship is forbidden, but the love is just too strong. Will it end in accidental mutual suicide this time? SPOILER: no, no it won’t.

Tom: Not Beauty and the Beast, then.

Tim: You know, if that last bit is the clue that makes you realise that, you really ought to rewatch the film…

Tom: GOOD NEWS: I could sort-of sing the chorus after one listen! BAD NEWS: I was singing it in a Vic Reeves Club Singer style.

Tim: What I so love about the German pop industry is that, unlike any other in the world that I’m aware of, it positively encourages throaty old men to abandon their roots and jump into dance music.

Tom: And schlager dance music as well! Where on earth is that still being seriously published?

Tim: Only in Germany. Take Bernhard – he’s been going over forty years, his debut release was a jaunty folk number, but now here he is at the age of 66 pumping out dance bangers like there’s no tomorrow and getting to number 14 in the charts with them. Accompanying him he’s got Matthias Reim, Alf, Nik P. (Austrian, but still), all of whom we’ve covered before, and so many others, and I absolutely adore that.

Tom: It is a bit of a shame about the video, because I honestly can’t tell whether that’s meant to be a father-daughter relationship or a May-September relationship and frankly that’s just a bit creepy. But yes, keeping careers alive with schlager is just lovely.

Tim: I also adore this track, because it’s everything I want it to be: a dance background that’s verging on euphoric, that vocal style that, whatever anyone outside Germany thinks, works so well, and then that key change at the end to emphasise just how strong the love is and how inseparable they are, sod the forbiddenness of it all.

Tom: Agree about the key change, still a bit creeped out by the vocals.

Tim: It’s just great: the track, and the fact that it’s encouraged to exist.

John De Sohn feat. LIAMOO – Forever Young

“I have a feeling it’d be one of those songs where the best bit is the middle eight.”

Tim: Sadly, this isn’t a dance version of the One Direction classic; nonetheless I think you’ll like it.

Tom: You made my eyelid twitch slightly there, Tim. Well done.

Tim: You think I’m joking, but I do listen to that version way more than is probably healthy.

Tim: I’m sure I’ll get bored of moaning about it eventually, but I’m still not enjoying the habit of cutting off the song before a middle eight comes along.

Tom: There’s probably some thoughts to be had there about reducing attention spans, about the requirement of always-on streaming where your audience can’t get bored, about the slow death of the album… or it might just be fashion these days. I can’t say I like it either, though.

Tim: Sure, we shouldn’t necessarily keep doing things just because they’re traditional, but they’ve always provided opportunity for messing around a bit, getting a little bit more creative, or revealing that the target of the song is also a teenage dirtbag. Abandoning that makes the songs that much less interesting, and it is a shame, particularly when the rest of the song is as good as it is.

Tom: Is it really, though? That chorus is basically just going up and down scales. It’s not bad, but I have a feeling it’d be one of those songs where the best bit is the middle eight.

Tim: And yet we’ll never know. I want to hear more, I want to see what else is possible, because the track’s great – it’s just too short.

Birgir – Glorious

“Tubular bells! I think they actually used tubular bells there!”

Tim: Bit of pressure laid on the song from the title here; see what you think.

Tim: Let’s be honest, it’s never going to beat Andreas Johnson.

Tim: It’ll probably beat Cascada, though.

Tim: And the main word I would use there is ‘pleasant’.

Tom: Tubular bells! I think they actually used tubular bells there! That’s basically going all-in, these days.

Tim: Aren’t they lovely? It’s nice to hear, the unambiguity of the message is quite sweet, and the chord progression on the titular ‘glorious’ is pleasing to my ears at least – however many times it’s repeated I’m fine with it.

Tom: I’m… not, really. Sure, it gets into your head, and at least a repeated word is less irritating than a repeated line, but I’m not sold.

Tim: Really? Because as I see it, the post-chorus melody is good, the middle eight works well (again, whoever came up with those tubular bells in is a genius), and the big shouting towards the end just reinforces everything. The only extra thing I’d ask this for is a big climactic final note, rather than the sudden drop-off we get. Other than that: lovely.

HAMMENFORS – Thinking About

“Twee? Smug? Self-satisfied? Probably yes to all of those, but I don’t care.”

Tim: Appeared on Sweden’s single series of The X Factor in 2012; didn’t get anywhere with that so went into producing and writing. Now, dropping his first name of Johan, he’s out with a solo track. And boy, I hope you’re feeling chirpy.

Tom: A whistling introduction is a move that’s either extremely confident or extremely foolhardy. But it somehow seems to have paid off here? This is really quite charming.

Tim: And that reminds me a LOT of some good Mika tracks from a decade ago – the happy ones, that is, rather than the depressing but utterly fantastic Happy Endings. It’s most obvious in the “I can be, I can be, I can be” rising line, straight out of Grace Kelly.

Tom: Yes! Mika’s what this reminds me of: it’s got that almost aggressively chipper tone to it. A full album would be too much, but a song? Yes, this is lovely, and it’s right back to… [checks Google] … eleven years ago.

Eleven years, Tim.

Tim: Eleven indeed, blimey. There’s a reason Mika was so successful back then – it was a happier time, the country was good, everybody was cheerful, and look at me romanticising the past. This song fits right with that – thinking about all the good stuff: sunshine, friends, rooftops (really?), sex, moonlight, us, Paris, love. Mostly positive things, and a damn cheerful song to match.

Tom: A special shoutout to that rising sample in the background that could be synth or distorted vocal. I thought I’d get tired of it, but I didn’t, despite it being so…

Tim: Twee? Smug? Self-satisfied? Probably yes to all of those, but I don’t care. Because I’m thinking about sunshine, friends, love and I’m whistling and ALL HAPPY.

Saturday Flashback: Alan Walker feat. Gavin James – Tired

“The white guys are magicians or something, showing how mystical things can happen, and presumably improve lives by making everything look fancy, with the power of Alan’s logo?”

Tim: OKAY THEN so let’s have a look at this, following up from Wednesday’s post. I thought we’d covered all of Alan’s tracks, so it surprised me when I discovered this existed; it made me happy, partly because it’s a good song and partly because it goes some way towards explaining exactly what’s happening in the other videos.

Tim: At least, a tiny bit of the way. We’ve what is definitely a scientifically plausible extinction level event happening, and also a building’s exploded, and there are a lot of people working underground to survive, or at least preserve whatever’s in those boxes, and she seems to have changed sides at point or another because is there another group of people also trying to survive? To be honest I kind of wish the pair of them had just stayed in bed together while it all happened and accepted it, because then I could make a brilliant joke about at least one of them going out on top HERE ALL WEEK, TRY THE VEAL.

Next we’re up to All Falls Down, the official first part, and let’s watch the video because we didn’t actually mention it when we reviewed the track.

Tim: Society is on the way up again, and I think they’re digging up one of those boxes, and opening it up with a circular saw even though there doesn’t seem to be any electricity anywhere else on the planet, but never mind that, because we’ve got some nice merchandise and cult material in there, but then people get bored because there’s nothing to actually do with them, until is that now the other group coming along to educate them? Anyway, now at least we know why they were trying to save what was in those boxes, slightly, because they do look proper fancy.

Part two, now, and let’s put the video here again for simplicity’s sake.

Tim: And…and no. I give up, I really have no idea. The white guys are magicians or something, showing how mystical things can happen, and presumably improve lives by making everything look fancy, with the power of Alan’s logo? God, I hope part three explains stuff.

Tom: Reader, I’m going to be honest with you: I got about two minutes into the first video and just gave up, so I handed this post over to Tim.

Tim: No one blames you. Starting to wish I’d never got involved, to be frank.

Brother Leo – Strangers On An Island

“A fearless free spirit with superpowers.”

Tim: Remember Ola?

Tom: Only the name, none of the music.

Tim: Fair, as that’s about the same as me. Not much of a problem, though, as he’s taken the past four years as a time to reinvent himself – “my inspiration came from a dream I used to have as a kid. In the dream I had a twin, a fearless free spirit with superpowers. His name was Leo.” Makes as much sense as anything else we deal with here, I guess. Anyway here’s the debut as Brother Leo, and it’s produced by, erm, Fatboy Slim. Really, it is.

Tim: And we’ve a lot of Fatboy Slim indicators (Slimdicators?) here.

Tom: Nice. You’re not wrong, though.

Tim: Most clearly the stuttering that’s straight out of Praise You. There’s that vocal bit that comes out of nowhere around the three minute mark, with the record slips following it. Obviously I don’t know the ins and outs of who brought what here, but to be honest I’m quite surprised there’s not double billing here, or even just a “feat”.

Tom: He’s slipped into the background plenty of times before: if you search out Cornership’s Brimful of Asha, you’ll find it’s very different to the Norman Cook remix that the radio always plays.

Tim: Do you know, I knew that, but I’d forgotten how weirdly different the original sounded. Regardless of who did what, though, it’s an interesting track, and one I’m really rather keen on.

Tom: Agreed: it’s got a decent chorus to it, and there’s nothing wrong here. All the Norman Cook in the world couldn’t fix a track with poor composition, after all.

Tim: It’s a decent reinvention, and I’ll be happy to hear more in due course.

Robyn – Missing U

“Eight years, Tom, it has been EIGHT YEARS.”

Tim: Eight years, Tom, it has been EIGHT YEARS since we’ve had any solo music from Robyn.

Tom: Blimey, how time flies. I mean, that makes sense given what I remember doing around the time Call Your Girlfriend was out, but it doesn’t feel like it should be that long.

But now she’s back with THIS, and good lord I do hope it’s good because otherwise I might burst into tears.

Tom: That’s a pretty good chorus, isn’t it?

Tim: It’s no Call Your Girlfriend, but it is very good and serves as a nice reminder of why Robyn was, until she relinquished her throne to CHVRCHES, rightly seen as Queen of Synthpop. It has all your standard Robyn tropes – upbeat and heavy layered music, counterbalanced by somewhat morose lyrics – and it’s entirely listenable, multiple times with no sign of getting dull.

Tom: My main complaint is that the chorus feels like it’s building somewhere, but that’s never resolved. It’s like there’s a pre-chorus but no actual chorus. On a second listen, I figured out that’s the whole point.

Tim: There is, we’re promised, a full album coming out later in the year, and if the rest of it’s on a par with this, I’ll be very very happy indeed.