Avicii feat. Aloe Blacc – SOS

“Wouldn’t you want the first one out to be absolutely brilliant?”

Tim: So, slightly odd situation here. Apparently when Avicii died last year, he had about an album’s worth of material on his computer ready to go, and now it seems his family reckons enough time has passed for it to be released without it seeming too ethically dubious.

Tom: Actually ready to go, or works-in-progress that have been picked up by other people? Because if they’re not spectacular, it’s going to seem like an ethically dubious cash-in no matter what. A whole album, then?

Tim: That’s out at the end of June, here’s the lead track.

Tim: And that is, I guess, a perfectly decent Avicii track.

Tom: Apart from the middle eight where it suddenly becomes a mashup of Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You” and TLC’s “No Scrubs”. And ‘perfectly’ decent? It’s… well, it’s okay.

Tim: Well, not perfectly decent – for starters, the D on the end of ‘pound of weed’ really should be pronounced more forcefully than it is.

Tom: Oh dear. Yes, it should.

Tim: And that’s kind of my issue. See, if you were part of his friends and family, and you were sitting on a load of good stuff that could have the potential to backfire, wouldn’t you want the first one out to be absolutely brilliant? A ten out of ten, everyone drop what you’re doing, can’t stop dancing type number? And this…well, it’s good. But it’s not that.

Avicii feat. Aloe Blacc – Wake Me Up

“Country music?”

Tim: Last time we reviewed an Avicii track you said his style was starting to sound a bit stale. I don’t think you’ll say that this time.

Tom: “Save tonight, and fight the break of dawn” … just me?

Tim: Couldn’t find a ridiculous cover version for that one, I presume?

Tom: No, but I did find a useless cover version.

Tim: Blimey, Danny Saucedo’s come a long way since then. But I think we’ve got a bit distracted. What was I going to say? Ah, yes. You’ll need a fairly substantial remix before this’ll get played out in any big clubs, I’d imagine, because for the most part this is, well, country music?

Tom: The presence of an acoustic guitar doesn’t make it country music.

Tim: True, but merge that with the vocal stylings and you’re not far off.

Tom: And admittedly I did expect a much bigger bass drop after that build* — this isn’t a club floorfiller, but it is something I very much want to add to my playlist. This is music for radio play, for listening to, for putting on the inevitable ‘chilled dance’ compilation at the end of the year — and there’ll be a big banging remix for the clubs.

* Have you ever seen how those are made? 5m36 into this video explains it all.

Tim: The chorus is fine, and the vocal could work well on top of a dance beat, but let be honest you’d have a difficult time dancing feet off the ground, hands in the air to that guitar business.

Tom: Speak for yourself: this gets filed under ‘euphoric’ for me, and it’ll work very nicely indeed with a remix.

Tim: Oh, a remix, absolutely. Guitar on its own, as it is – not so much.

Tom: I very, very much like this.

Tim: Oh, it’s certainly not a bad track – it just doesn’t really blend at all so I’m not sure what to make of it. Could be a huge hit, but then it could also flop disastrously. Hope it’s not the latter.