Tom: Fight Song became an anthem. Stand By You was one of the best pop songs of last year (at least, I reckon so; the world disagrees). Lead track off the second album: is she going to keep up the Big Powerful Inspirational Singles?
Tim: Please – please – tell me this isn’t a Betteridge.
Tim: Oh.
Tom: Oh. No. No she’s not. That’s… that’s an album track. The half-spoken pre-chorus is poor, the chorus itself is anaemic, and while that bassline and percussion underneath often threatens to become interesting, it never actually does.
Tim: Right. That build comes up, and then…nope. Nothing. Nada.
Tom: There’s one bit of greatness in this song: the very last couple of seconds of the middle eight, that build and whoop. That greatness is then squandered immediately by the chorus. Let’s hope for something better soon.
Tim: For a strong video, though I won’t lie – it is fairly disturbing, and not just because of the rude words. Please, whatever you do, don’t use it as a driving instruction video.
Tim: Quite the video, isn’t it? Strikes me as more of an art project than anything else that a normal professional video producer might up with, but there you go.
Tom: It’s possible to pull off a weird art-video, sure, but this just seems dull. It’s a single joke stretched out to minutes long. Which… actually, that kind of sums up the song, too.
Tim: Right, that’s the thing: it does distract quite nicely from the fact that the song itself isn’t really up to much, what with it being mostly comprised of a fairly short and not particularly inspiring hook repeated a lot.
Tom: Yeah, beyond the attempt at shock value, there really isn’t anything here. WE GET IT, IT’S ABOUT SEX.
Tim: Having said that, though: it is strangely enjoyable regardless. Though that might be because of the video, which, however disturbing, I do quite like. Good old puppets getting some action at last.
Tom: Speak for yourself. I’m not watching that again.
Tom: One more from my recent Dutch trip, still off the station that translates to “100% Netherlands Party”, and this time going all the way back to 1994. Frankly, I could send you anything off their playlist, but this one stands out: one of the most popular Dutch-language singles of all time.
Tim: And yet by a singer next to no-one outside the Netherlands will have vaguely heard of. A cruel industry, this.
Tom: I think you’ll be on board from about the time the 90s-synth piano arrives in the intro.
Tom: Listen to that guitar. It’s like they wanted Santana, but couldn’t look outside the Netherlands.
Tim: Well, I think that’s a perfectly acceptable alternative – certainly gets the job done, because that’s really quite the noodling going on there.
Tom: I don’t know how this track simultaneously manages to sound brilliant, in that 90s sort of way, AND yet manage to outstay its welcome a bit at only four minutes long.
Tim: Yeah – I had the exact same reaction. It’s good, and I like it, but I’d have no problems whatsoever chopping out the first middle eight/chorus pairing.
Tom: I am genuinely wondering if there are club nights in the Netherlands that still play this rubbish, because I would totally go to one.
“That’s just letting a toddler play with the volume control!”
Tim: Tom, there’s a reason that yesterday we were reduced to featuring a bland track from an even blander movie: there doesn’t seem to be much music around worth writing about at the moment. Still, I’ve just found this from Kygo, and he’ll save us, surely.
Tim: Or, maybe not. That’s not what I want from a Kygo track. Is it, really, what anyone wants from a Kygo track?
Tom: That’s not chopping up vocals! That’s just letting a toddler play with the volume control! Blimey, the attacks and decays on that almost physically hurt. It’s like he’s trying to work out how much he can get away with before people go “no, mate, that’s just bollocks”.
Tim: I mean it maybe gets slightly going when the second chorus comes around, but COME ON this is not what got me going down to Sainsbury’s to buy a crateload of mangoes a while back.
Tom: I hope that was a metaphor.
Tim: It’s just SO SLOW: four minutes twenty, and all we’ve got is two verses and two choruses? Where’s the big final closing one? Where’s the inventive middle eight where you could have a bit of fun? Where, basically, is anything worth listening to?
Tom: Probably in the bits where the volume was down.
Tim: So, the Trolls movie gave us the perfection that is Can’t Stop The Feeling.
Tom: Which was a grower: I remember listening to Justin Timberlake at Eurovision and thinking “aw, man, why did he have to bring the new stuff”? And then.
Tim: And then indeed. Question for today, though: will we get anything as good from the My Little Pony movie?
Tom: The what now.
Tim: You heard.
Tom: Well, that went a bit Mr Tumble. That’s not just a lazy “kids show” joke, genuinely all I can hear in that chorus is the nursery rhyme.
Tim: Yeah, there’s not a lot to love, is there? I mean, it’s Sia, so it’s never going to be an entirely bad track, but I can’t help thinking that the ponies prancing around with their “YASS QUEEN” attitude is the most entertaining part of that video. It’s a decent chorus, sure – again, it’s Sia, so anything that makes prominent use of her vocal is going to sound fantastic. But as for what it does with that voice…ehh, not so much, sadly.
Tom: It’s a Generic Movie Song. Very few artists bring their A-game to that, unless it’s a Bond theme. This is not a Bond theme.
“We might not be getting an album with a baby on the front anytime soon…”
Tim: We last featured MY a year ago, and you remarked that you couldn’t hear the Nirvana influences that she claimed to have; try this.
Tom: Are we talking about the same Nirvana? Like, the band fronted by a man who shot himself, known for such tracks as “Lithium”?
Tim: Okay, fine, so we might not be getting an album with a baby on the front anytime soon, but this does at least go far enough that, to my ears at least, she’ll avoid the “raucous female = Avril Lavigne clone” line, which no-one ever really comes off well from.
Tom: I mean, sure, but that’s more because she sounds like a regular European pop singer. It’s more Icona Pop than Nirvana.
Tim: Possibly, what with the light dosing of synth lines throughout, and different sounding vocals in the quiet verses, and so basically it’s all different and fine.
Tom: I had to go back and listen again without the preconceptions about grunge, because you completely knocked me for six on that one. It’s… well, it’s an okay pop song I guess?
Tim: Works for me – I rather think it does, really quite well indeed. Nice one.
“Discount Phil Collins going into the first chorus”
Tim: With advance warning that the video has one of those irritating bits where the song cuts out for no reason: here’s the first one off Donkeyboy in aaaaaages!
Tom: The Discount Phil Collins going into the first chorus works surprisingly well—
Tim: I’m sorry, WHAT? I…I don’t even know how to respond that.
Tom: —although I’m really not sure about the choice of synth patch that follows. The composition’s good, I’m just not sure about the production. And as for that video cutout…
Tim: It’s a bit unfortunate, really, because with the exact placement of it at the end of the final chorus, all it really does is draw attention to the fact that there’s thirty seconds of largely instrumental stuff that isn’t strictly necessary. Those thirty seconds are good, though, as indeed is pretty much all of the rest of the song – in fact, listening to the song rather than watching the video, I absolutely love this.
Tom: There are moments of absolute genius in here — the start of the pre-chorus — but I’m not convinced about all of it.
Tim: See, I am. It’s Donkeyboy doing what they do at their very very best, and that’s good.
Tim: So, with Different Colors and Shut Up And Dance under their belt, it was always going to be tricky for Walk The Moon to come back for their second album. Here’s the first track from it, and, well, there’s more than one moment in here that makes me go OH YES.
Tim: The main one, you can probably guess, was the loss of the instrumental and the shouted “one foot in front of the other” before the first chorus. It’s a cheap trick, and not remotely original, but when it works: man, it really works.
Tom: You’re right about that — and they’ve arguably solved the problem of how to bring the modern two-chorus dance-pop structure into a slightly more credible track, too. What else did you like?
Tim: An opening verse that’s “yeah, this’ll do nicely”…
Tom: And which, arguably, owes at least a tip of the hat to Jason Derulo, but at least they didn’t sing their own name at any point.
Tim: …a pre-chorus that ramps things up well and includes the trademark ‘wooo-oooh’s, and then that single “IT’S HERE” line. As with Friday’s track, I don’t know how much is dependent on my mood before hearing the track – hopefully not too much – but after finishing the track I pressed play again, and when the chorus came round again I had my hands in the air clapping along.
Tom: Yep. There is a spectacular amount of energy in this song, which I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised by.
Tim: I’ll be honest: if you told me last week that it was two years since their album dropped, I’d say ‘YOU WHAT’, but yes it has, and now they’re back with this, and HOT DAMN I’m alright with it. Don’t think I’ve ever in my life said HOT DAMN before, but apparently this track requires it.
Tom: I was driving through the Netherlands last week, Tim, and stumbled upon a couple of radio stations that play only Dutch-language music. Sometimes oldies and covers; sometimes just party music.
Tim: Makes sense.
Tom: What I learned is this: there are still parts of Europe where actual FM radio stations will play actual schlager music. Or DJ Otzi. These stations are going to be my happy-work music now.
And of the several songs that I asked my phone to remember (seriously, this got actual airplay in 2017), this one stands out.
Tim: I…I can see why that would have stood out. I mean, the Wesley Klein one is good, but this, oh, this is something else.
Tom: There’s so much going on there. The underprepared hotel corridor fever-dream. The marching band and cheerleaders. His own gold disc. Then there’s the lyrics (which are far more philosophical than you might think).
Tim: Well any song that kicks off talking about evil cats gets a thumbs up from me.
Tom: All it’s missing is a key change (yes, I was surprised there wasn’t one, too.). Once again: this got airplay. On an actual radio station. In 2017.
Tim: Despite a lot of things, it’s good to know that there are parts of the world that are still beautiful.
Tom: The context made this seem much better than it actually is, of course: I had the radio turned up loud, with the windows down, driving my car along a levee in the Netherlands. Even this ridiculous cover, which in hindsight is mostly a disaster, made me grin. I would never have asked for a Dutch rap bit, but in the moment it was perfect.
Tim: Widow’s new, though has had quite the career up until now as a backing singer, and I reckon you’ll like this song, then at one particular point either switch it right off or love it.
Tom: Option one. Blimey that’s a dull chorus.
Tim: I’m in the second group right now – when it goes OFF, I go ALL IN.
Tom: …why? I mean, I see the potential, but there’s really not much going on there.
Tim: I’m not sure it totally matches up with the tone of the lyrics – they go for a sense of grim relief rather than the celebration that post-chorus signals – but it doesn’t put me off in a way that I can imagine it doing some people. And, possibly, me if I was in a slightly different mood. Oh, well, here and now I’ll take it.
