Tom: Our reader, James, sends in this, saying “it sounds exactly like you might expect… tad repetitive and not lyrically adventurous, but what makes up for it is how fun it is to listen to”.
Tom: I do like it when people who send in tracks do the review for us. He’s not wrong.
Tim: No, it’s a good track all round. Might not be any particular moments to get massively excited about, but enjoyable nonetheless.
Tom: To be fair, ‘repetitive but fun to listen to’ sums up a lot of popular EDM. This seems to be a cut above most, though: it’s well composed and well produced. Sure, it’s by the numbers, but as ever from these two, they’re really good numbers.
Tim: Yelle, a French band we’ve covered before; this track, from 2011 which in its original version is a bit shouty and unpleasant. Madeon, the producer who had a go at this before he got famous, so probably when he was about 12 or something.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyARHscb8mU
Tom: Oh hey, that sounds exactly like what I’d expect from Madeon. (Which, given it’s an early track from him, perhaps isn’t surprising.) Rapid-fire samples running into a solid dance remix.
Tim: I found it via a suggested playlist entitled “Run Far, Run Fast” on a streaming service; it’s good, isn’t it? Keeps the chorus from the original along with binning off the spoken and irritating verses, and sticks a quick genre-shift almost in a funk direction.
Lovely all round, and the video on top’s just a bonus, really. If I ever do start start running again: it’s right there with me.
Tom: Although I wouldn’t recommend doing that massive jump down a 45-degree hill. That’s just dangerous.
Tim: HAH! I LAUGH in the face of…actually, yeah, you’re probably right.
Tim: Madeon’s releasing his first album in a few weeks’ time; here’s the new track from it.
Tom: It’s been a long time coming, but the tracks he’s released in the past have generally been good. This one…
Tom: …is pretty much exactly what I expected.
Tim: It always feels like I’m doing an artist a disservice if I ever say “don’t get bored, wait for it”, which is why I didn’t earlier; typically it’d imply that the verse is dull but the chorus more or less makes up for it. Here, though, well, yes, the first verse can get a bit tedious once you’ve got over the pleasant-but-not-all-that-interesting bottom line, especially if you’re not a fan of his vocals, but the chorus made me sit up and really go “whoa” and remember who I was listening to.
Tom: Yep. Same reaction here.
Tim: After that, sure, there was the obligatory dip for the second verse, but that was kept nice and short and then it’s hefty and hard-hitting all the way from two minutes onwards, with a by and large very good track.
Tom: It’s… well, yes, it’s not bad at all. I’m going to do my standard complaint about overcompression here, though: this is full-on wall of noise, and you can actually hear every other instrument dip when there are big percussion hits. Normally that doesn’t bug me, but here the effect’s been dialled up so high that, for me at least, it’s a little bit tiring to listen to. But yes: the track itself does exactly what it’s supposed to do.
Tim: Every time I hear one of Madeon’s tracks I am astonished that he’s basically still a toddler. Well, eighteen, but still it’s bloody ridiculous.
Tom: I’ve said it before: we’re getting old, Tim.
Tim: Oh no, it’s not an age thing on my part – it’s just, 18. He’s incredibly (and annoyingly) talented.
Tim: It’s a bit lighter than Finale, which is good because it’s probably more radio-friendly and slightly more mainstream, but bad because I ended up quite liking the general in-your-facedness of that one in the end. But still, it’s still a fantastic dance tune, and very clearly shows off his claimed Daft Punk influences.*
*He’s also said he’s influenced by the Beatles; hopefully he won’t be vastly annoying 3 billion people fifty-odd years during the London 2064 opening ceremony.)
Tom: There is a lot of Daft Punk in this track, isn’t there? (I mean that in a good way.) But it’s all got that trademark Madeon synth sound – the particular combination of settings that no-one’s going to be able to use for years because they’ll just sound like him. That’s a high honour for any electronic music producer.
Tim: Not sure what to say about it, really, other than it makes me want to dance. A lot. And in a proper way, not in the way that Cartoon Heroes makes me want to dance. There are very few tracks I can say that about, so well done to him for that.
Tom: I could do some complaining about how much dynamic compression there is – how everything seems to dip in volume around each hit of the main drums – but that’d be churlish for such a wall-of-sound track.
Tim: On a final note, vocals come from Zak Waters, an American electropop singer who’s got a really rather quite good single of his own out right now, so you could check that out as well. Fun but disappointingly blurry video, there.
The first music in ages that has made me actively sit up and take notice.
Tom: Ah! Madeon. Best known amongst internet types, incidentally, for his astonishingly good live-mashup “Pop Culture“.
Tim: Ooh, that is good, but I first heard this when I woke up to it recently and grouchily thought “why the hell is Radio 1 playing this is the daytime, when they should be playing Ed Sheeran or someone equally dull?” Then, when I was more awake, I heard it properly, and enjoyed it. (Oh, and if you’re wondering, it’s pronounced mad-ee-on. French, you see.)
Tim: It occasionally verges near territory where I’m thinking “Oh God, what a racket,” but it stays fairly melodic throughout so I actually find it more of a fairly good, fairly aggressive, dance tune. The vocal bits strike me as a bit odd, though, or at least the second batch does.
Tom: Oh, they worked so well for me. That first vocal section reminds me – and this is perhaps the highest compliment I’ve ever paid on this blog – of the legendary Rob Dougan‘s Furious Angels. It’s the first music in ages that has made me actively sit up and take notice. When the beat kicks back in, not so much: but that threatening, moody, building vocal section is just incredible.
Tim: The singer’s from an American indie band, for no particular reason that I can discern, and while the first bit, like you say, is pretty good, the sudden near-muting of the massive triumphant instrumental stuff for a dull-sounding voice to jump in and close the track sounds like a bit of an anti-climax, really.
Tom: It really is. I was expecting one last repeat there. I was, quite literally, bracing myself. That’s a shame.
Tim: That aside, though, it’s lovely to thrash around drunkenly to.
Tom: It’s the kind of track you throw your hands up for even though no-one’s telling you to.
