Swedish House Mafia

Swedish House Mafia – Don’t You Worry Child

“There just doesn’t seem to be…enough, really.”

Tim: Earlier this year Swedish House Mafia announced they would be splitting up. It’s no great surprise, especially since Axwell and Avicii have both been coming out with some great stuff of their own recently, and the other one may have been as well, although I can’t think who it is right now.

Tom: The “DJ Yella” of the group, then.

Tim: But they’re officially going their own ways as of now, with this being their final farewell.

Tim: And I really, really wish I could get more excited about it. Because there just doesn’t seem to be…enough, really.

Tom: Hang on. Ignoring Pete Tong’s branding dumped all over this video like a child let loose in the National Gallery with some crayons… what’s wrong? There’s a great vocal there, a brilliant melody, even the standard euphoric build you find in everything that might get played in a dance club since the mid-90s – and it builds into a brilliant dance track. What’s it missing?

Tim: Oh, you’re right, the vocal work is excellent, and unusually emotive for a straight dance track, and the main melody itself is fantastic. But my main issue is that there isn’t enough going on under the vocal, when it’s there.

Tom: Too much slow arms-waving-in-the-air, not enough bouncing-up-and-down? Admittedly, acoustic guitar breaks aren’t common in mainstream dance tracks.

Tim: The gentle piano melody might just keep me on the dance floor, but I think the quiet bits and the gentle build are just too lengthy to get me dancing throughout. And that annoys me, because I really want to dance to that fantastic melody.

Tom: There are going to be enough remixes of this, and enough competent DJs matching it with other tracks. Believe me, you’ll be able to dance to it.

Tim: Oh, I should think so. Bloody hope so, anyway.

Swedish House Mafia – Greyhound

“You just buy into all this marketing stuff, don’t you?”

Tim: New track that also accompanies a vodka advert.

Tom: Bleh.

Tim: Not sure what came first, but the full seven-minute cut of the track is here, but let’s watch the advert because it’s quite fun. (If you get bored, you can skip to about 1:30 and you won’t miss much.)

Tom: Yeah, I’m going to skip the one you’ve embedded here and just listen to the actual track. Let’s not forget this has a decent pedigree – no pun intended – Swedish House Mafia have had plenty of hits, and Axwell’s made a name for himself on his own.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmlRK8Da6GE

Tim: No idea what brings greyhounds and vodka together, but it’s such a weird video that I don’t much care. Lengthy build-up, yes, but then dance tracks generally come with such a thing and get chopped up and remixed – in fact, that link at the end takes you to a thing on Facebook where you can do just that, and it’s quite fun to play around with.

Tom: You just buy into all this marketing stuff, don’t you?

Tim: To buy vodka, no; to waste half an hour on the internet, hell yeah.

Tom: I think I should call you a “sell-out” now.

Tim: Well, that’s just not fair. If I was, I’d have mentioned the vodka right at the start, and probably chosen to concentrate more on the adv—ooh, here’s an idea! Let’s talk about the song.

This video doesn’t display it to its best – the aforementioned intro and the main melody only appearing properly a minute or so before the end – but that main melody, when it does appear, is really good, and I think if I heard a radio edit of this I’d like it a lot. Bring it, please.

Tom: As ever, it’s when the synths come in and we get an actual melody line that it really starts to work for me. It’s difficult to remember, sometimes, that these tracks shouldn’t be taken in isolation – they’re meant to be mixed together on a dance floor. And this would be pretty much perfect for getting me dancing.

Tim: UPDATE: I’ve just heard the radio edit, on the radio (duh), and it is pretty good. So there you go.

Swedish House Mafia – Save The World

Sort-of heart-warming and totally bonkers.

Tim: We’re a little bit late to the party with this one, which was released a couple of weeks back now, but I don’t care because (a) the tune’s pretty good and (b) the video’s a nice mix of sort-of heart-warming and totally bonkers.

Tim: If you’re anything like me, you probably just watched the video the first time, without paying much attention to the lyrics aside from ‘Who’s gonna save the world?’ and thinking ‘Oooh, is it the dogs? I hope it’s the dogs. That’ll be AMAZING. Oh, yay, it’s the dogs! I was right. Wicked.’

Tom: See, I’m not really an animal person, so I’ll concentrate on the music. It’s not bad at all – for some reason it sounds like a remix of a Take That track, and I mean that as a compliment.

You still rambling about the video?

Tim: Certainly am. My two favourite parts are at about 2:30 when the bulldog’s going in for a munch on the bloke’s knackers in slow-mo, and then at 3:09 when the retriever looks down at the bloke at the bus stop with a look that quite clearly states Doggy Justice.

Not entirely sure what he’d done wrong – maybe he was just more of a cat person.

Tom: I think he’s the mugger from earlier in the video. I hope so, because frankly if “not being a dog person” justifies being pushed through glass by a rabid hound—

Tim: Correct.

Tom: —then I’m pretty much doomed.

Tim: Ah, shame. Anyway, nice beat, decent tune and uplifting-ish words, and all those positive things are multiplied by about a million because the track is MADE BY A PACK OF HEROIC STRAY DOGS. I LOVE IT.