Fie Laursen – Justin

“Was that… was that a rhyme of ‘Snapchat’ and ‘hashtag’?“

Tim: So, you know how sometimes you get really cringeworthy lyrics, and you can’t do anything but hate a song because of them? And you might think that singing in Swedish would fix that for us. WELL, have I got a revelation for you.

Tim: First off (and people reading on mobile devices can skip this): WHY WOULD YOU FILM THIS AT 60FPS? It took me a good ten seconds to work out why it was giving me a headache, goddammit. You’re not Peter Jackson, stick with your standard frame rate please.

Tom: A lot of the problem there is that it’s shifting in and out of 60fps. We’ll get used to it, I think, just like we did with dubstep, but the pioneers will look strange for a while.

Tim: Hmm, maybe, but that certainly doesn’t excuse the second item on my list. Because OH GOD, the words. We start off with Snapchat, and it really only goes downhill from there, doesn’t it?

Tom: Was that… was that a rhyme of ‘Snapchat’ and ‘hashtag’?

Tim: Yep.

Tom: ‘Dickpic’ and ‘Netflix’?

Tim: Yep.

Tom: I simultaneously admire the effort and despise the results.

Tim: It seems she’s not a fan of the way he uses basically every single thing on the planet that is vaguely 2017, and so personally I’m just happy they didn’t find a rhyme for ‘fidget spinner’. She would, though, if Justin Bieber asked her, say “yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes”. Well, Fie, I’m sorry to say this to you, but: no no no no no no no no. REALLY, NO.

Chris Meid feat. Tabor & Phyne – Eye Of The Tiger

“It’s… surprisingly good?”

Tim: I blame Jonas Blue, personally – or, more precisely, the record streaming public who made his tropical cover of Fast Car such a smash hit. Without that there’d be no Never Gonna Give You Up, and no Africa, and no this.

Tim: Except I don’t know if ‘blame’ is the right word, because part of me thinks ‘credit’ should be used instead.

Tom: It’s… surprisingly good? I mean, I’m not sure if it’s actually good because all I can hear is “it’s a cover”, but I was surprised it wasn’t terrible.

Tim: Right – it’s not a bad track, because what we’ve got, underneath the lifted vocal, is a pretty decent instrumental dance tune – those strings, in particular, are very nicely done. I’d quite like just an instrumental version of this, to be honest, to see how similar it is to Europe’s track – I’m having trouble separating the vocal and instrumental, but I do think it’s different enough to be largely unrecognisable.

Tom: It also shows up the current trend for instrumental dance choruses: the entire old-chorus gets shifted to the building pre-chorus, and the chorus gets a Kygo-style (a very Kygo-style) set of chopped-up lyrics.

Tim: And so my question is this: why cheapen this by putting those lyrics on it? Yes, it gets more attention, but it’s surely not going to be good attention – Popjustice recently described it as “Wrong of the week”. Different lyrics on here, though, and you might have had a good track. Shame.

Avicii feat. Sandro Cavazza – Without You

“Who’d have thought it?”

Tim: Avicii’s back! Here’s the first one after his hiatus, the lead off a six track EP, with Sandro from Sweden on vocals. Fun fact: listed as one of the co-writers is one Dhani Lennevald, previously best known as a member of ABBA tribute group A*Teens. Who’d have thought it?

Tom: …I don’t think anyone would have thought it, Tim.

Tim: Is it just me, or is there quite a lot of All About Tonight in there? Weird thing is, comparing them it’s not actually the same, but it really struck me when I first pressed play, and now I really want to sing “and it’s all about tonight” when the pause comes after every chorus line. You get anything?

Tom: I got “The Nights” off the intro, although — again — it’s really not the same track. I think we may well have stumbled across one of the reasons that Avicii’s so popular: we all recognised something good in here, and in my case, even recognised something else of his own.

He makes good, memorable dance music.

Tim: In any case, it’s a decent track to come out with – a disappointing step further along the path towards ‘no middle eight in dance tunes’ becoming a Proper Thing, but otherwise perfectly good. Well, I say perfectly, I wouldn’t mind a remix to change the chorus from being quite so stop-start all the time. Other than those two issues, though: fine.

Dolly Style – Moonlight

“We suddenly have high standards for them, don’t we?”

Tim: For all their slightly trashy and cheap beginnings, Dolly Style are rapidly approaching the status of Favourite Girlband for me, and so I am delighted to present to you their new one.

Tom: Given how much I despised their first track, I’m surprised that a) they’re still around and b) I’m actually looking forward to this.

Tim: Video kicks off by reminding us how good their previous one was, before getting right down to business.

Tim: And I can’t help thinking that actually, that wasn’t the greatest idea, because Bye Bye Bby Boo was, for all the weird spelling, a phenomenally good track. This, other the other hand, is ‘just’ a very good track.

Tom: We suddenly have high standards for them, don’t we? That’s such a good chorus.

Tim: It is, yeah, with the music providing exactly the right level of excitement that the idea of a kiss under the moonlight warrants. My slight issue is that the verses don’t really keep that excitement up, dropping down to a slightly more melancholy tone. It’s right for the lyrics and story of the song – but it does mean the song as a whole isn’t as good as we’re reminded they can provide. And that’s a real shame.

Tom: Careful with that, Tim: it might be a “real shame” in context, but taken as a standalone song, this is still really good.

Saturday Flashback: New Politics – One Of Us

“Slightly shouty vocal on top of the simple piano line”

Tom: So I’ll be honest, Tim, I’m sending this to you despite not being sure what it is. I’m on the road right now with very little internet connection and time, but you asked for a Flashback — and this is a song that, apparently, I thought it was good enough to ask SoundHound to remember when it came on the radio in the car the other day.

Tim: Well, if we’re talking ‘sounds like’, I’m going with My Chemical Romance – specifically, the stellar Welcome To The Black Parade, with the slightly shouty vocal on top of the simple piano line, later replaced by an electric guitar. And for what it’s worth, back when it came out and I was in uni, I played that entire album many, many times over, so I think that’s no bad thing.

Chloe Adams – Never Been Kissed

“Blimey, that’s good”

Tim: The curse of every female pop-rock artist: positively or negatively, you’ll get compared to Avril Lavigne. And…

Tim: …here, I make that a positive thing, because that’s a good track, very good indeed.

Tom: Yep. When the chorus kicked in I actually said “blimey, that’s good” out loud. It’s like a pop-punk version of “Love Me Like You Do”.

Tim: To be honest there’s not a huge amount to say about it, other than: it’s a typical female pop-rock track, with all the tropes that brings with it, but they’re used very well, and I’ve absolutely no complaints about it. The verses work well, flow into and out of the strong chorus nicely, there’s a good build out of the middle eight – everything’s great.

Tom: There’s even the “drop down the backing and distort the vocals a bit” cliché. This could have come out at any point in the last twenty years, and I am A-OK with that.

Tim: Keep them coming, please.

Looking For Emma – Sunny Day

“My description here may sound like an insult, but it’s really not.”

Tim: Emma Still, previously of various bands that never lasted long, is now branching out solo, and this song ‘brings a ray of sunshine this summer’, or at least that’s what her PR would have us believe – apparently, ‘with French lyrics the charm of Emma’s voice certainly shines through’. Shall we find out?

Tom: Well, that’s lovely, isn’t it? Although a bit disparate — that intro promised many things, and then the verse and chorus just decided to go into a completely different direction.

Tim: Now, my description here may sound like an insult, but it’s really not: that chorus sounds like the outro of a Lighthouse Family song. Not any one in particular, but just the sort they’d do.

Tom: That… yes, you’re right, that might sound like an insult. But then, the Lighthouse Family sold a whole lot of records.

Tim: Yes, but the main reason it’s not an insult is that, for a song called Sunny Day, that’s exactly what should be achieved – largely calming music, a whole load of people joining in, and a general vibe of happiness. And much as I don’t typically like repeating PR guff uncritically, here it’s not wrong about the lyrics – they do show off a good voice, and on top of that it makes it sound a bit more summery.

Tom: It did seem to outstay its welcome a bit, at least for me: it suffers from the problem that, if you just tell the YouTube player to go at 1.25x speed, it’s suddenly a much, much better song. This would be a good, pacey, three-minute track if someone would just kick the BPM up a bit — or at least remove maybe one chorus repeat.

Tim: Agh, see now you’ve pointed that out, and I’ve played it like that, I see that. On the other hand, you do lose a bit of the relaxation with it, so I’ll take it as it is. Though I’m not even going to try to figure out the video.

Tom: It’s art. French art.

Tim: Ah, that makes sense then.

Dzeko feat. Brynn Elliott – California

“An old-school euphoric build and a decent instrumental hook too.”

Tim: When I first looked this up I got quite excited because I thought this would be our first ever track by someone from Kazakhstan. Sadly I got my positive/negative longitude mixed up, and he’s actually from Toronto (though sidenote: apparently Toronto and Kazakhstan have the same latitude, which really surprised me). Anyway, have a listen.

Tom: Let me get some big objections out of the way first: “California” is four syllables, not five. Every chorus of this grates for me, just like if someone was singing “Lon-do-on” with three syllables. Which is a shame, because the rest of it is… okay, I guess?

Tim: See, I don’t have that syllable pedantry – the second ‘i’ is there for a reason, songwriters should feel free to use it. I’ll be honest, though: I’m not entirely certain why I like this. I know it’s the massive post-chorus sounds that really gets me, but I don’t know if it’s nostalgia from a previous time, which it kind of feels like but at the same time I can’t place it, or if it’s just because it’s different from all the other tracks around at the moment.

Tom: All are good reasons: it’s got an old-school euphoric build to it and a decent instrumental hook too. I don’t think it’s the greatest track I’ve heard, but it’s not bad.

Tim: Having said that about the post-chorus, there’s also the chorus and verse which I really like, and they’re from all sorts of post-2000 periods. There’s one thing I don’t like, which is that it’s structured like many current dance tracks are beginning to be: no middle eight, no third chorus to close. And that’s a real shame, because I love a good inventive middle eight. Can we abandon this path before we get too far, please?

Tom: Agreed.

Emly Clausen – Touch Me (All Over)

“Part of me hoped Pitbull will rock up halfway through and start blathering vaguely offensive platitudes.”

Tom: That is a very… direct title.

Tim: Isn’t it just? Emly’s new and off Sweden, bringing us this dance track – you can ignore the first minute or so of this video, unless you fancy a narrative that’s completely and entirely unrelated to the song, or indeed the rest of the video, in which she pleasingly subscribes to the Tim Jeffries style of dancing.

Tim: That is some very impressive flailing around in that dress on the beach, I must pay compliments to it. Musically – oh, it’s very early 2010s, and it would appear that that’s now where level 1 of nostalgia is seated for me.

Tom: Oh blimey, you’re right. This is like Piña Colada Boy, only it’s taking itself way, way, way too seriously.

Tim: Hahaha, it is and all, and I won’t deny that through this part of me hoped Pitbull will rock up halfway through and start blathering vaguely offensive platitudes.

Tom: Here’s a weird thing: I think that would actually improve the track. Because right now, there’s just not enough going on.

Tim: Production-wise, it’s from the same pair of producers that brought us the entirely generics and forgettable Light It Up and…well, there are similarities. It’s generic, there’s nothing massively special about it, but I would happily lose my nut to it on the dance floor.

Tom: Phrasing.

Tim: Perhaps – but it’s what she’s doing, and I like that.

Pink – What About Us

“It’s still a bit odd”

Tom: First single from the new album. And it didn’t originally make any sense to me…

Tom: …but then I found out it’s co-written with half of Snow Patrol, and it all clicked together.

Tim: Hmm – it’s still a bit odd for me. The weird thing is, that’s a fantastic vocal line from her, and a fantastic Swedish House Mafia style dance tune as a backing. Together, though, they don’t mix so well, and for me this really doesn’t work.

Tom: This isn’t just a plain Pink track — it seemed like it was missing something a bit, well, a bit kick-ass for a first single. But if this were advertised as “Pink feat. Half Of Snow Patrol”, then I’d have got this on first listen.

Tim: Maybe you’re right, but it’s kind of like the co-writing process has gone horribly wrong – they’ve said “right, here’s the key, here’s the tempo”, then gone away and written their parts without much collaboration.

Tom: I mean, it’s no “Just Give Me A Reason”, or “Perfect”, or… well, it’s not a great first single is what I’m saying. But even a Pink album track is still a pretty good track.

Tim: Pretty good…yeah, okay, I’ll give you a pretty good track. But it’s also half two brilliant tracks.