Tag: Flo Rida

Ktree feat. Robin Stjernberg & Flo Rida – Thunderbolt

The producer, the talent, and the other bit.

Tim: Typically, when I see a song, I’ll listen to it before deciding whether or not we should review it; it may be dull, awful, or entirely unremarkable. Here, though, with Melodifestivalen winner Robin Stjernberg on the same track as professional musical dick Flo Rida, I’m fairly sure that, whatever we think, it won’t be entirely unremarkable.

Tom: Much like Cher Lloyd and Demi Lovato, that’s an international pairing that I’d never have expected — but which makes sense. Does it sound as good?

Tim: And as it turns out it’s mostly pretty good – we have Ktree (from Germany), the producer. Robin, the talent.

Tom: And what talent — from both of them, too. Robin’s got the voice for a song like that, and Ktree’s production is just incredible: that build is just astonishing. And then…

Tim: Flo Rida, the other bit. And just what is that other bit? Really? Because to be honest, it’s hard to think right now of anything that sounds quite so, well, just wrong (aside from possibly the lack of a chorus in Dark Horse, which gets me every time I hear it).

Tom: Not only that, who puts a camera that expensive into sand?!

Tim: It’s thirteen seconds of almost entirely unintelligible nonsense – I don’t know who wrote it, or what the point of it is. There’s are mumblings about bitches, shawdy and supermodels, which is basically what you’d get if you stuck him in a bingo machine and plucked parts of him out at random. The vast majority of me suspects it was only there to attach a big name to this – in fact, call me cynical, but I’d put quite a bit of money on this being the case.

Tom: Agreed. Note that they couldn’t afford to get him in for the video either: at no point does he actually lipsync. Maybe they just took some of his outtakes and shoved them into a track?

Tim: Wouldn’t actually surprise me. All that aside, though, this is a pretty great track – great vocals, the howling of which is becoming of a trademark for Robin, and a decent production underneath. It’s all good, really, with the exception of those thirteen seconds.

Olly Murs feat. Flo Rida – Troublemaker

The music is astonishingly good.

Tom: Two irritating musicians team up and make an absolutely brilliant track.

Tim: I will judge this by the cover and say that right from the off I don’t have good feelings about this.

Tom: Do yourself a favour, though, and just listen – don’t watch the video yet.

Tom: The music is astonishingly good: pitch-perfect pop. Flo Rida doesn’t say anyone’s name. The rap bridge isn’t annoying. The chorus is amazing.

Tim: You’re wrong, on at least one and two-halves out of four counts. Specifically, 3, because it really is, and I’d say amazing and astonishingly good would be pushing it slightly.

Tom: Perhaps my tolerance for rap bridges is getting higher, then. Or perhaps I’m prepared to tolerate them on summer tracks – because this is a summer track, albeit one released in the depths of winter.

Tim: Well, that may be true, but for anybody who’s in a similar boat to me, I recommend this rapper-free version, which really raises the question: what the hell is the point of Flo Rida? Nothing is improved by his presence, and at least two tracks (this and, if you’ll cast your mind back two years, The Saturdays’ Higher) are improved by his withdrawal.

Tom: But oh, my word, the video. Irritating, leprechaun-smug boy meets obnoxious, socially-oblivious girl, interrupted by a swaggering, show-off git. Could they have made anyone, anyone at all in the video sympathetic?

Tim: I don’t know – the bloke trying to get her attention in the record shop isn’t too annoying. Does that count?

Tom: Not nearly enough.

Flo Rida – Whistle

“That is the worst introduction you’ve ever written. Well done.”

Tom: Wait, this is a few weeks old now. Why this track?

Tim: Well, on Friday, we had a song no-one would ever have thought I liked. On Saturday, we had a song about fellatio. Now, let’s COMBINE THE TWO!

Tom: That is the worst introduction you’ve ever written. Well done.

Tim: Yes, I quite liked it too.

Tim: First, I want to make one thing clear: I hate that I like this song. Tune. Whatever. I still have no time for Flo Rida as a musician. His way of jumping into other people’s songs and ruining them is abhorrent, and the pleasure he takes in yelling out his name I find ridiculous. This, though, finds both those things pleasingly absent, and it replaces them with a cracking tune.

Tom: You know, there’s an art in making whistling sound good on a record – because it’s a sound with very few harmonics, it tends to sound incredibly rough and ear-grating. They haven’t quite managed it here, but they’ve come close – and yes, I’ve got to admit it’s a decent tune.

Tim: Unfortunately, the rapping bits are as disappointing as ever. BUT: they’re less than thirty seconds each, which is manageable, and they have a nice guitar/drum bit underneath them rather than some D&B/dubstep/other awful thing, and there are only two of them, or three if you include the middle eight. The rest of it I like. His singing (such as it is) is listenable enough, and the tune’s light-hearted and catchy.

Tom: Catchy to the extent that I was sure that I’d heard it before on the first listen. I can’t find anyone mentioning him sampling a track, so I think it’s just a very generic “upbeat/happy” tune that sounds like many others. Not bad for a summer hit.

Tim: The final positive thing of note, of course, is that when you strip everything away and get down to the meaning: it’s four minutes of an overweight guy asking for a blowjob. And that’s got to give it some points, surely?