Tag: Charli XCX

Charli XCX – Forever

“An experimental track doesn’t necessarily make a pleasant listen, though.”

Tom: Starting a track with distorted feedback is a brave choice in a world where people skip very, very quickly.

Tim: My first thought, immediate when I pressed play, was “oof, blimey”; that changed briefly to “oh, hmm” before going right back to blimey when that autotune kicked in properly. You’re not wrong.

Tom: In fact, I’d classify nearly all the synth pads in here as brave, particularly in the verse: the percussion that’s just a noise sample, the bass that sounds like it came from a really cheap 80s synthesiser. And the glitch samples on final chorus is… I mean, all I can think of is ‘brutal’.

Tim: Yeah – much as I’ve been a fan of Charli XCX previously, I’m struggling to find anything I like about this. The melody in the middle eight, perhaps?

Tom: But — and this is really strange for me to say — I don’t find it unpleasant at all.

Tim: Huh, okay.

Tom: It’s not like the producers are just dipping their toe into the water and giving one thing that could grate. The whole track is experimental enough (by pop music standards, at least) that I… I think I see what they were going for?

Tim: I guess, yeah, and I can agree with that – an experimental track doesn’t necessarily make a pleasant listen, though.

Tom: And if all else fails, there’s still a conventional pop vocal in there to hold on to as a lifebuoy.

Tim: Autotuned to hell and back.

Tom: It’s not going on my playlist any time soon, but I think I can see what they were going for. And I think I like it.

Tim: Nope, sorry – I’m out.

Galantis feat. Charli XCX – We Are Born To Play

“Having Mario shout ‘here we go’ before the drop is ghastly.”

Tom: This is an advert, Tim, and you know how I feel about giving adverts additional promotion, or even listening to them deliberately. But I get the feeling that if I don’t send this to you, you’re going to send this to me, and I don’t think I can deal with the amount of enthusiasm you’d start this with.

Tim: CORRECT! 

Tom: So yes. Galantis got asked to build a track around the Mario soundtrack, for the upcoming Super Nintendo Worlds that’ll be built at the Universal theme parks over the next decade.

Tom: Let’s get the awful things out of the way first: “power up and go” is an awful lyric, and having Mario shout “here we go” before the drop is ghastly.

Tim: Ghastly? Or brilliant? I think brilliant. You see, I’m going to heavily subvert expectation here, and slightly seriously discuss this thing (I know, sorry), because the way that sounds kind of depends how you look at this: it’s clearly not just written as a promo track, because way too much effort has gone into it, but it’s clearly not a proper dance track, even a ‘stick on the album as a bonus track’ one. And so for the hybrid that this is, I think putting Mario in there works, however ghastly you may find it. 

Tom: Mind you, Galantis don’t appear to have just cashed the cheque on this and churned out a minimal-effort track: they’ve reinterpreted pretty much everything into their style. It’s not actually that bad.

Tim: True, and the first two minutes of this is straight up dance tune: you could take that and the last ten seconds, add some extra stuff in the middle and have a perfectly decent track, if a tad novelty-ish with all the power-up and coin sound effects. That thirty seconds of Mario theme sample, though, changes it, hugely. As a promo it’s now great. Dance track? Yeah, we’re done.

Tom: But obviously: Super Nintendo World will be nothing like this. It’s a Universal Studios park, so it will be a series of rides that bounce you around a bit in front of a 3D screen while you’re occasionally sprayed with water. If they manage anything greater than that, I will be shocked and amazed.

Tim: What, you mean there won’t be actual boxes suspended in the air that you can punch to get coins? DAMMIT, TOM.

Tom: The thing I’m most impressed by here? The video production team. That is movie-quality green-screen work.

Tim: Yep. That’s almost as good as the Mario sample.

Charli XCX & Troye Sivan – 1999

Tim: Charli XCX, creator of fine pop music. Troye Sivan, likewise. Should be a good song, then, as long was you’re up for some nostalgia?

Tim: And actually, despite a rocky start which was getting me all ready to be disappointed, I got on bored fairly soon. I think it was the first ‘ooooh’ that made it – although the backing didn’t get any less brash, it did provide a slightly gentle jumping on point, and from then on I could absolutely cope with it. Not going to come out and say I actively like it, mind – I’m all for a bit of nostalgia, but however much of a state we might be right now, things are definitely better overall – but musically at least, I can deal with it.

Dua Lipa – IDGAF

“Radio 1 managed to put together a really good girlband.”

Tim: Dua Lipa, from the same group of musicians as Ariana Grande as ‘people who sound like typefaces’. This has been doing the rounds for a few weeks now but is still great, and you can probably guess but there’s a rude word in the chorus.

Tom: And it’s the seventh single from the album! Seventh! Do singles even mean anything more?

Tim: That’s the proper version, at least. But here’s the thing: I think the radio edit sounds better.

Tom: Interesting. Why’s that?

Tim: Well, have a listen. It’s not online as standard, but you can see what happened when Radio 1 managed to put together a really good girlband, made up of Dua Lipa, Charli XCX, Zara Larsson, MØ and Alma (who I’d never heard of but is apparently off Finnish Idol and does actually have some pretty good tracks).

Tim: Now obviously there are some slight differences in the styling with the female backing vocals, but I do prefer that chorus. Not just because it sounds less gratuitously unpleasant, and more playable in a public space, but more because of the implications: she gives so little of a that she can’t even be bothered to finish the sentence.

Tom: I disagree there — it just seems unresolved to me. I accept there’s no other easy way to do a radio edit of the song, but there’s just too much of a gap there.

Tim: I don’t mind that it doesn’t resolve, because I don’t think it harms the song at all. And the rest of the song? Shouty, brash and enjoyable. I like it.

Charli XCX – Boys

“I’m just going to watch the video again.”

Tim: Last week you mentioned that Demi Lovato had a good few celebrity cameos in her Sorry Not Sorry video. WELL, care to count?

Tom: I am certain that some else will have counted already. I’ll let them handle it.

Tim: Apparently Charli got a mental image one day of Joe Jonas eating breakfast saucily and it kind of tumbled from there, leading to a collection of 60-odd pop stars and YouTubers, and one particular diver (can’t think why), all looking somewhat seductive. (If you want a guide to who’s who, BuzzFeed’s been helpful.)

Tom: See? Told you someone else had counted.

Tim: Nice thing, though, is that even though it does distract from the song the first seven, eight, nine, (I don’t know, it’s distracting me now and I’m in double figures) times you watch it…

Tom: Mate.

Tim: Not even remotely ashamed. But even though it is distracting, it’s still a pretty good song.

Tom: Really? The stripped-down (heh) instrumentation doesn’t really do anything for me — unlike Back To You, it never really turns into anything. Are you sure you haven’t just been fooled by the video?

Tim: Oh, I’m sure – for starters, the lyrics are unapologetic, and I love that because now I can use that as an excuse if I want and not feel entirely weird. Music’s also good – I’ve no problems with the level it stays at – and so I’ve no problems with the song at all. But if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to watch the video again.

Saturday Flashback: Charli XCX feat. Lil Yachty – After the Afterparty

“Everything about this should annoy me.”

Tom: We’ve covered lots of songs this year, Tim; this wasn’t one of them. In hindsight I think that was wrong, because inexplicably, more than two months after release, this is still on my regular playlist.

Tom: I say “inexplicably”, because on paper everything about this should annoy me. The repetitive chorus, for a start — and it doesn’t even have a counterpoint, the melody line underneath is repeating the exact same notes!

Tim: True.

Tom: The lyrics aren’t exactly clever; and the rap bit in the middle eight feels lazy, too. I shouldn’t be able to stand any of this.

Tim: That would be my prediction.

Tom: And yet, here I am. End of 2016. Still listening sometimes. Absolutely no idea why.

Tim: Simple: it works. As a call to arms to keep a party going, it’s got all it needs. It’s got stuff it doesn’t need – that appearance for Lil Yachty can certainly do one, in my view – but it’s hefty, powerful and beat-y. All as it should be.

Charli XCX – Famous

“It’s advocating a pretty awful way of living.”

Tim: This got released a couple of months back, and when I heard it on Radio 1 yesterday I realised it didn’t do anyway near as well as it deserves to have done – it barely made the top 200, dammit. So let’s use all our might to give it an extra push, shall we?

Tom: Yup. All our might.

Tim: True, it’s advocating a pretty awful way of living, but otherwise it’s good and shouty and has all the party, so there’s really no reason why it shouldn’t have done just as well as Boom Clap and Doing It, really.

Tom: Perhaps it’s just more of the same? There’s an element of luck — or at least, unknowable chance — in working out what the public will like. Maybe the promotion wasn’t quite there, or maybe it just isn’t quite as good. But it works.

Tim: I’d be thoroughly miserable right now about the whole situation, actually, if I didn’t have this song here to cheer me up. Let’s just put it down to being the fourth single from an album, shall we, and, oh, I don’t know, let’s be outrageous, why not. That’s the attitude she’s going for, right?

Charli XCX feat. Rita Ora – Doing It

“Given the two vocalists here, I’ve got high expectations.”

Tom: Given the two vocalists here, I’ve got high expectations for this.

Tim: Well, the vocals were certainly on point.

Tom: Although now I come to think of it, normally you get a “featured” artist that sounds different from the “main” one. I’m not sure I could tell you which of them is singing which line: mostly it’s just regular harmony.

Tim: Yeah, but that’s not a bad thing – just gives it mores of a girlband feel than a regular duet.

Tom: Huh, that’s fair. I hadn’t thought of it like that.

An odd thing here: there was one more chorus than I expected, and that was the best part of the song. All the lead-up to it was a bit… well, a bit mediocre if I’m honest, not upbeat enough, not melodic enough, a bit by-the-numbers.

Tim: Thing is, it felt a lot longer than four minutes – after two and a half, I was kind of ready for it to end, although that might just be because I had seen more than I needed of the old guy in the swimming trunks.

Tom: That last chorus, though? Suddenly I realised what the song was trying to do. I just wish it had tried a bit harder.

Tim: I wish it had done it a bit faster – speed up by twenty per cent, I reckon you’d have a decent track. As it is, I’ll pass thank you.

Saturday Flashback: Charli XCX – Boom Clap

“One of 2014’s best songs.”

Tim: So, first flashback of 2015, let’s have one of 2014’s best songs, shall we?

Tom: Okay, so this is where I own up: I’ve never actually heard this all the way through. I picked up bits of it from various radio stations and background noise, but I’ll be coming to this as if it was new.

Tim: Starts as it means to go on, dips down for the verses but then comes back with a quite literal BOOM and CLAP for a stonking —

Tom: “Stonking”?

Tim: — yes, STONKING chorus that perfectly captures what the song’s about: the start of a relationship with someone new, who gets you going, who you’re enthralled with, who you can’t stop getting excited about when you think about them.

Tom: It’s good. I’ll grant you it’s good. But I just can’t get as excited about it. Is it because I’ve only heard it a couple of times, and it hasn’t had a chance to get into my head as an earworm?

Tim: And it’s not just the chorus – the entire song is very fast: we’ve got the standard two verses, two choruses, fully fledged middle eight and four (four!) repetitions of the chorus to close, and we’re all done in 2:47. Is it too short? No – the length is perfect.

Tom: That’s true: it’d definitely overstay its welcome if it were any longer. And I can see the appeal, even if it doesn’t quite work for me.

Tim: Everything that should be there is there, and if there was more, with that speed it might be too much. As it is, though: let’s just push play again anyway.