Kylie Minogue – Dancing

“Kylo”

Tom: Occasionally we’ll cover Kylie’s tracks here, whenever she’s got something new out. And usually we’re a bit disappointed, because the bar’s been set so high in the past.

Tim: Certainly has.

Tom: Oh, crikey, let’s move on from that. We’re looking for a BANGER, based on past form, and — despite your enthusiasm for that Christmas single — I don’t think it’s quite matched up. This time…

Tom: …MODERATE BANGER. Which I know is a contradiction in terms, but I still stand by it.

Tim: I’d say MODERATE TO STRONG, based on those fast-paced verses, heavy choruses and the whole “screw you, I’m here, plastered and DANCING” look on her face in the middle eight.

Tom: There’s a lot to like here. It sounds like old Kylie, filtered through a lens of Kygo. I’d portmanteau those together, but I’d get “Kylo”, and then it’d be all Star Wars.

Tim: Yes, and if you and I started discussing that we’d be here all day, so best not.

Tom: Full marks for actually including line dancing in the video like it’s the late nineties, though. This is catchy, and at under three minutes it doesn’t outstay its welcome either. This might be the best Kylie track since… 2 Hearts, perhaps?

Tim: Hmm…perhaps – though that Christmas album does take a lot to beat it.

Saturday Flashback: DJ BoBo – Vampires Are Alive

“Oh, no, really? We’re doing this?”

Tom: Oh, no, really? We’re doing this? Admittedly it’s a classic, but not for the right reasons.

Tim: Well, you see, I said last week that in “many of the best Eurovision performances, the music is almost secondary to the actual choreography”, and I stand by that. Take this, from 2007, and to be honest I’m astonished we’ve not featured it already.

Tim: So points are award even before the singing starts, for hiring dancers who can jump up on one beat and land on the next, which isn’t the easiest skill to master.

Tom: Huh. Actually, yes, that’s quite a talent, and — UGH just as I wrote that, the man managed to miss a couple of notes and I actually twitched a little.

Tim: Fine, the vocal’s not great. BUT! The candles, the gravestones; the navigation around the ‘six performers’ rules by using mannequins. And even sound effects! When was the last time you heard howling winds on a song? NEVER. In fact, the thing I’m most curious about here is why the main guy isn’t more gothed up – he actually looks quite boring compared to the rest of them.

Tom: Both in makeup, and in how much he seems to be dedicated to the song. The woman is, for want of a better word, acting like she believes in the song. He just doesn’t. I’d like to think there’s always room for comedy entries in Eurovision, however much the rules try to keep them out of the final, but this doesn’t have the commitment of Lordi, the catchiness of Lordi, or… well, yeah, it’s not Lordi.

Tim: Much as I’d like to say this performance was widely acclaimed for its brilliance, I’m afraid I can’t: coming 20th out of 28 in the semi-final, it sadly failed to qualify for the main event. Still, though, it lives on in our hearts. Well, in my heart anyway.

CHVRCHES – Get Out

“I am very much hopeful for this.”

Tim: Scotland’s finest purveyors of pop music are BACK, presumably with an upcoming third album, and here’s the track to lead the campaign.

Tom: It took me a while to get into them, but yes: I am very much hopeful for this.

Tim: OOF, what a track that is. It’s a fairly simple hook for the chorus, but boy is it infectious. Infectious, loud, and just great. I’ll admit I don’t really get the kaleidoscope metaphor, but the whole GET OUT GET OUT, GET GET GET OUT, GET GET GET OUT OF HERE doesn’t leave much room for ambiguity.

Tom: I’d normally dislike a chorus that repetitive — I’ve said before that if you’re going to build your entire chorus around one or two lines, then they’d better be absolutely perfect. These are.

Tim: And the song really, really sells it, right from the downbeat opening, all the way through to the slightly hopeful but still fairly definite middle eight.

Tom: I’ll admit to being a bit tired and emotional, in the literal sense, at the moment, so perhaps I’m more easily affected by songs like this, but: THIS IS VERY GOOD.

Tim: The music, as we have come to expect from the band, is right up there with the best, and I’ve listened to this four times in a row now and am perfectly happy to keep doing so.

Tom: And that video is a masterclass in telling multiple, ambiguous, possibly-connected stories: it’s just lovely.

Tim: Top stuff.

Henry Land feat. Vilde J – Wildfire

“Oh boy, are we going to disagree on this one.”

Tim: Unlike yesterday, here’s a track that got me right from the very first note, so please, help yourself to a play button.

Tom: Oh boy, are we going to disagree on this one. What do you like about it?

Tim: Well, right from the off there’s the lovely euphoric-style underline, a gentle but fast-flowing piano line, a good vocal – so far, so top notch early 00s.

Tom: As with yesterday: I just don’t hear it. Maybe I’m burned out on music like this, but — apart from the promise of that build into the chorus — it just left me cold.

Tim: But then, a minute in, come those vocal twiddles that put me in mind of Galantis being good, and that elevates it even further.

Tom: Whereas that just irritated me! Galantis somehow manage to make it sound joyful, whereas (to me at least) this just sounds like someone noodling about on a synth with no particular direction. And then there’s the weird brass bit for some reason.

Tim: Oh, that brass cameos? Well, that’s just a great bonus, for me. There’s a lot to like here, and nothing I can find to dislike. Wonderful.

Blissful – Find A Way

“Full marks for a mask made of drawing pins.”

Tim: I’ll be upfront with you: there a fair amount to dislike about this, from an Icelandic duo; I would, however, ask that you don’t give up before you hear the chorus, because I nearly did and that would have been a mistake.

Tom: Some of the location footage in that video really made me want to go back to Iceland. Yes, I have a strange taste in geography. Full marks for a mask made of drawing pins, too, that looks spectacular. Anyway, the music.

Tim: Okay so, yeah, first and third things first: those verses aren’t enjoyable, or at least not for me – there’s way too much autotune and nothing of particular interest, and really the first half of the middle eight falls into that category as well. However, all of that is so outweighed by the rest of it that I really don’t care, overall.

Tom: Alas, that’s how I feel about the whole track. I can appreciate the chorus as being well produced — there’s nothing actually wrong with it — but what do you see in it?

Tim: There’s a lovely melody, sound and just general…sensation around that chorus that I can’t get enough of, and when the instrumental of it turns up in the middle eight, it’s just wonderful. It does, really, almost serve to make the verses worse – not only are they objectively unpleasant, they’re also making me miss out on the good stuff. But there’s enough good stuff that I don’t really mind – I’ll take it, and cope with the bad bits.

Anna Bergendahl – Vice

“There’s some proper cowboy-country guitar in the background”

Tim: Anna, perhaps still (sadly) best known for being the only Swede not to qualify for the Eurovision final (though God knows Frans would probably have given her a run for that); she’s had remarkably little activity since then, but now she’s here, with a slight change of genre.

Tom: Blimey, there’s some proper cowboy-country guitar in the background of that, isn’t there?

Tim: And despite wanting to jump in with “I hear Jerusalem bells a-ringing” every time the chorus comes around, I like that quite a lot. It does sound a bit dated; I’m not sure how much of that is due to those tinkly synths under the chorus, or if it’s just a general something about it, but it does seem to have a slight Annie Lennox in the early 90s vibe about it.

Tom: I reckon that’s down to the instrumentation — there’s a lot of older styles of synth in there. It’s not a bad choice at all, but then I grew up with sounds like that. Were this a British record, I’d say it’s more aimed at Radio 2.

Tim: I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing, but I am struggling to understand it: if you’re going to switch genres, why go for one thirty years old? Not a bad listen, but just a bit mystifying.

Kygo feat. OneRepublic – Stranger Things

“(a) a good Kygo track and (b) a good OneRepublic track”

Tim: Another one off his EP of duets, which quite pleasantly is (a) a good Kygo track and (b) a good OneRepublic track; hopefully you’ll agree.

Tim: Yes?

Tom: Qualified yes. Odd choice of title: I know that ‘Stranger Things’ comes from an idiom, but given the success of the show it seems a bit weird to use the same title. Or maybe they’re just hoping people will click on the video title in confusion while trying to find clips of the show on YouTube. As for the track…

Tim: Obviously it’s very much more Kygo than OneRepublic, particularly the chorus, but the verses aren’t far off standard OneRepublic fare, and I think the two complement each other very nicely.

Tom: It’s not quite as catchy or as upbeat as I’d expect, but given the title and collaborators that makes sense. Not one for the playlist, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with it.

Tim: It’s nice to hear Kygo back doing music that sounds like him, and while this song might not quite be MASSIVE and BANGING and HUGE…I like it. It does what it sets out to, the talent’s all there and on display, and it works. Good stuff.

Saturday Flashback: Sakis Rouvas – This Is Our Night

“He thrusts, he jumps, he rips his shirt open just so we can all see his nipples.”

Tim: For no particular reason, the other day I ended up spending my afternoon losing myself in late ’00s Eurovision songs, and I remembered this absolute delight, from Greece in 2009.

Tim: I mean, where to start? Like many of the best Eurovision performances, the music is almost secondary to the actual choreography here, even if is a fantastic example of that period’s genre, thumping beats, key change and all.

Tom: It was never going to win. It was never even going to come close to winning. Greece, you tried, and you tried spectacularly.

Tim: But oh, that choreography. The thrusting, The Busted jumps (the many, many Busted jumps). What initially appears to be a standard plinth, but then is revealed to be so much more. It rotates! It’s a travelator! It opens up to reveal the Greek flag! And then Sakis himself – he thrusts, he jumps, he rips his shirt open just so we can all see his nipples.

Tom: Which was the inspiration for a certain outfit (and thrusting) several years later.

Tim: Ha, I’d forgotten the link there. So what more is there to want?

Coeur de Pirate – Prémonition

“Not every pop song has to be happy, and I’m okay with that.”

Tom: “Pirate Heart”? I’m sceptical.

Tim: Weird name, yes, but you don’t need to be. Tip of the hat to Rob who sent this in; she’s Canadian —

Tom: Who, Rob? Oh, wait, I see what you mean. Never mind.

Tim: — but does most of her singing in French, such as this, where (to give advance warning for the video) she sings about ‘the cycle of toxic relationships’, as she puts it in this interview.

Tim: Not the nicest video in the world, with two people in a horrible relationship but who can’t give each other up.

Tom: It reminded me a lot of Pink’s video for Try — this is a bit less abstract, but as a result it’s more emotionally raw. It’s rare for dance, as an art form, to reach my heart; this managed it.

Tim: Also fairly melancholy is the music and vocals, at least until the chorus comes along, which is curious: it’s there that the lyrics take a downturn, but where the mood of the music gives a hopeful vibe – maybe not wholly upbeat, but it does give a sense of things being better.

Tom: “We’re not going to change” is definitely a downturn, but it’s one that seems to match everything else. Not every pop song has to be happy, and I’m okay with that.

Tim: I don’t know if I’m reading too much into this – all in all, listening to this, I like it a lot. Sure, the lyrics are downbeat, but that chorus is one I can completely and totally get behind. Love it.

Tom: Agreed.

Mia Julia – Nummer 1

“Mate, it’s not ‘authentic’ music, it’s not going to be featured on Pitchfork, so just KNOW YOUR GENRE and EMBRACE IT.”

Tim: Spoiler so your expectations don’t get dampened and you don’t end up yelling ARE YOU KIDDING ME like I did: there is, tragically, no key change here.

Tim: Man, I was FUMING when she dropped into the final chorus at the exact same pitch that was used previously. COME ON, there’s a reason there are buttons in every major song production program to alter pitch nice and easily, know when to use them.

Tom: Thanks for the spoiler – although I will note that the middle eight has a few similar tricks up its sleeve, even what I’ve been calling the “Killers Manoeuvre” where it drops into a minor key for one chord.

Tim: It has all the textbook indicators of a middle eight that’s coming up to it: gently calming down, an almost a cappella quiet rendition of the chorus, sudden ramping up to do it all again a triumphant tone and a half higher, and then…nothing. What was the producer thinking? “Oh, key changes are so passé, we won’t be taken seriously.” Mate, I hate to break it to you, but THIS WON’T BE TAKEN ‘SERIOUSLY’. It’s not ‘authentic’ music, it’s not going to be featured on Pitchfork, so just KNOW YOUR GENRE and EMBRACE IT.

Tom: And here’s the thing: they’re clearly not embracing it. Maybe it’s just because I’m travelling through Germany right now and the song seems apt, but I broke into a big smile when that verse started. String hits, gently building instrumentation — and then, a chorus that just seems a bit anaemic in comparison.

It’s a shame, there’s a lot of potential. It’s so nearly there.

Tim: FUMING, I am.