Jason Derulo & David Guetta feat. Nicki Minaj & Willy William – Goodbye

“I genuinely want to punch you for sending me this, Tim.”

Tim: Reader: I’M SORRY. Tom: consider this revenge for that Ting Tings garbage last week.

Tom: I actually facepalmed when I saw the title of this.

Tom: That actually had promise, just a little bit of promise, right up until Derulo muttered his name to introduce the first verse.

Tim: Now, I’ve checked, and the original wasn’t written by Andrea, in any way, and so technically he can’t stop this. But surely – surely – there’s some sort of legal action that could have been brought against someone, by anybody, just to prevent this aural nightmare from ever seeing the light of day.

Tom: YOU STILL SENT IT TO ME, TIM. You could have stopped this, at least here.

Tim: Hmm, yeah, but then you might have heard it accidentally anyway and I wouldn’t have got to experience your reaction. Because, oh, jeez, what is going on. “One word in Espanõl and I come and you know.” “Girls in Spain do the mostest.” “Down for my fatty fatty.” “I pull up on him, let him put the pipe in.” “Then I’ve gotta dash like a hyphen.” That’s just the English – I’ve no idea what the Spanish/French lyrics are, and I have absolutely no intention of looking them up.

Tom: I just looked up the “culo” at the end, and it means “ass”. So, there’s that. Admittedly that’s not as bad as the middle eight. I genuinely want to punch you for sending me this, Tim.

Tim: TING. TINGS. This really is a disgrace, and everybody involved should (and I don’t think there’s any hyperbole here) be strung up and shot. Although, the worst thing about this – worse than all of those lyrics put together, even – is that actually, I quite like what they’ve done with the chorus. Heresy it may be, but there is room for a good reinterpretation of the song.

Tom: You’re not wrong; there’s possibilities in here, and it’s entirely possible to make a pop track out of something classical. It has been done, lots of times, and I’d want to see it if it happened.

Tim: This…this just really, really isn’t it.

David Guetta feat. Zara Larsson – This One’s For You

“Not Three Lions.”

Tim: FOOTBALL! Yes, I know, but we have Eurovision and they must have their revenge. This year is Euro 2016, and here’s the official song.

Tim: Oh. That’s a bit of a let down, really. Well, the post-chorus is.

Tom: I think I’ve said this before, Tim: but the trouble with all football songs is that, ultimately, they’re not Three Lions. They’re not something you’re going to get every fan, from more than one nation, singing. Arguably, the closest to that was 1998’s Carnaval de Paris, but that was riffing on an existing chant, so it doesn’t really count: and Vindaloo, of course, worked for England but nowhere else.

Tim: Right, but of course it’s not Three Lions. Because Three Lions wasn’t just a football song. It was Britpop at the very peak of its popularity, it had two of the biggest comedians of the time at its helm, and most importantly it was built less on football another more on a genuine swelling of national pride and belief that England could actually win the competition.

So don’t compare football songs to that, because that situation is unlikely to ever come round again – Frank Skinner even said he regretted re-releasing it in 1998 for that reason. Compare football songs instead to, say, the official Euro 96 song, Simply Red’s notably underwhelming We’re In This Together, or perhaps the official World Cup 98 song, Ricky’s Martin’s The Cup of Life, which actually was a worldwide hit.

Anyway, enough history, back to the present. The vast majority of this song is great, and certainly a whole lot better than Simply Red – good beat, good lyrics, good melody, all round no complaints. That combined total of 36 seconds, though, is entirely and utterly awful.

Tom: Not going to disagree with you. I mean, the rest is mediocre; no-one’d buy it and no-one’d be doing a Big Singalong to it even if that 36 seconds wasn’t there, but… what the hell is that?

Tim: I know unforgivable is a hefty word to chuck around, especially in the direction of basically the world’s biggest DJ, but I just can’t really get past it, however good the rest might be. It completely kicks me out of the song. Sure, by the end of it there’s been enough of the good stuff to more or less push it out of the mind, but I really don’t want to hear it again. Which sucks – like I said, the rest of it’s great, and I would love a cut down version of this.

Tom: Alas, I guess it’s not to be, so I’ll just hope Coke get involved like they did in the 2010 World Cup.

David Guetta feat. Sia & Fetty Wap – Bang My Head

“Fetty Wap is a ridiculous name”

Tim: Last time David Guetta & Sia teamed up, we got the immortal Titanium; how will this measure up?

Tim: Well for start it’d be nice if we could bin off that ludicrously named Fetty Wap, because what we have from the other two is the duly expected excellence – fantastic vocals from Sia, brilliant production from David.

Tom: It’s okay, but excellence? Let’s face it: the vocals and the melody, while good, just aren’t on the same level as Titanium.

Tim: No, it isn’t, that’s fair. I’ve no idea what’s going on in the video, or at least what relevance gambling and futuristic horse races have to the song, but the two main things are this: first, Fetty Wap is a ridiculous name (I know I’ve said that already but it needs repeating as many times as possible) and secondly that chorus is very good indeed, but not quite good enough to knock Titanium off the top spot.

Tom: Yep. That repeated “bang your head against the wall” grates for me, but then I think that just repeating lines for a chorus is generally a poor choice.

Tim: Hmm, you’re possibly right. Regardless, Fetty Wap is an idiotic name.

Tom: I tried to disprove you by trying to find that it had some deep and meaningful origin story for him, but, er, never mind.

Jessie J feat. David Guetta – Laserlight

It kicks in a lot later than you might think, but when it does… BOOM.

Tom: Like a lot of David Guetta tracks, it kicks in a lot later than you might think, but when it does… BOOM.

Tom: I’m having to resort to nitpicking to find things to criticisms about this track. Is that autotune I hear at 1:38, or just overcompression? I’m not sure. And that stylophone-like synth line in the builds sticks out like a sore thumb.

Tim: I quite that that bit. And as for the 1:38 bit, I think it’s just, well, singing.

Tom: Frankly, in a track this polished it’s difficult to complain about things like that. Even the twinkly piano outro works for me – it’ll be gone in the remixes, of course.

Tim: True. But if we’re nitpicking, I’m saying this: I find this hairstyle terrifying. With her usual fringe she looks friendly and nice, and the wavy thing she’s had for The Voice is also good. But all stretched back like this for some reason just scares me. I think it’s the eyebrows more than anything.

Tom: Oh, now you’ve pointed them out I can’t see anything else. Thanks for that. Anyway, if all this year’s summer anthems are of the quality we’ve seen in this last couple of weeks, Tim, it’s going to be a good year to be a clubber.