Tag: Elina

Elina – Here With Me

“Here’s a song that doesn’t live up to its potential.”

Tim: So you’re not disappointed when what could happen doesn’t: here’s a song that doesn’t live up to its potential.

Tim: I mean listen to it. The vocal’s great, the backing’s nice, throughout the first verse I’m sitting wondering what’s going to happen in the chorus. The pre-chorus comes along, we get a little extra in the backing, and then her voice ramps up a bit..and then 30 seconds later I’m thinking ‘so, wait, that was the chorus?’. I don’t want to be thinking that.

Tom: I had exactly the same reaction. I did not realise we’d even reached the chorus. And there’s nothing wrong with having a quiet ballad, it’s just that — based on prior expectations — this sounds like it’s going to grow into something bigger.

Once you manage those expectations, sure, it’s a decent quiet song with a bad sound mix. Those clicks from the piano keys and the overly-stereo effect aren’t helping its case.

Tim: I want to be thinking that this is our next Rachel Platten, that it comes with a chorus that is enormous, that leaves me stunned and desperate for more. I don’t want this. I’m upset, dammit.

Elina – Wild Enough

“A piano ballad, about which I have multiple thoughts.”

Tim: Debut single from someone who’s previously stayed behind the scenes doing the writing; it’s a piano ballad, about which I have multiple thoughts.

Tom: That… is indeed a piano ballad. We don’t normally talk about those, because my reaction is likely to be even more ambivalent than usual. Which it is.

Tim: So, as a piano ballad, it’s good. The melody’s good, the vocal’s flawless, and I really do like the “wild enough, wild enough, wild enough” refrain, because it gets the message across without sounding irritatingly repetitive. HOWEVER: this just isn’t, well, wild enough. I get the point of the lyrics – that she is decidedly not a wild person, which is why they can’t be together, and yes the song really really fits it. But you know what’d fit it more? A string section.

Tom: Oh. Yes, you’re absolutely right. Yes, that’s what this is missing.

Tim: A beautiful, rolling understated string section, coming in after the first chorus, adding a little bit more emotion and bringing a lot more to the song. It got me in mind of Mika’s Happy Ending, and how outstanding a song that is, and how it wouldn’t be anywhere near as much without the violins underneath. This track is good, but it could be so much more.