Tag: Sigrid Bernson

Sigrid Bernson – Sommaren i City

“Tom, we have an announcement to make.”

Tim: Tom, we have an announcement to make.

Tom: We do. Europlop is approaching ten years old. And after more than 3,000 posts — and more than 3,800 emails back and forth, during which we’ve never changed the subject line — that ten-year anniversary is also the time to bring this to a close. Ten years is an achievement, and I reckon it’s better to go out on a high, while we’ve got something to celebrate.

Tim: Indeed – I think we can say it’s been a fairly good decade musically, even if we did have to struggle to get through dubstep.

Tom: As the old showbiz saying goes, always leave ’em wanting more. So, with that said: one last week of new music?

Tim: Let’s do it. We have, broadly, both been in favour of Sigrid’s previous tracks; here’s her latest, a cover of a track from thirty years ago, and you can probably guess what the title translates to.

Tom: Well, that’s another track I can describe myself as being “broadly in favour of”.

Tim: Good, that, isn’t it? It’s basically a ‘remember that? That was great, any chance of it happening again?’ message, and it pretty much checks all my requirements for an upbeat pop song. Great vocal, yep, Tinkly background with lovely synth patterns, yep. Smooth and catchy melody, yep. Nothing that I want to get rid of, also yep.

Tom: And there’s enough eighties influence left from the original — in that middle eight in particular — that it’s still a competent cover.

Tim: Honestly, got nothing to complain about with this. Hooray!

Sigrid Bernson – Skulle Dö För Dig

“Dö För Dig” sounds very much like someone pretending to be Swedish and pronouncing “DVD”.

Tim: Sigrid, according to the title of this, Would Die For You, and isn’t that just lovely?

Tim: And that there is a song I almost entirely enjoy. It’s peculiar – it’s not the whole twangy guitar bits I don’t like, because they’re not so bad once I’m hearing them. It’s the sudden cuts to them that annoy me, because they’re taking us out of what’s a really good song and into something that’s not quite as good.

Tom: I agree that they sound a bit out-of-place — but I do rather like them.

Tim: It’s kind of made up for each time, though, because when everything else is brought back in, everything’s happy and lovely again – the production’s fabulous, that ‘dö för dig’ repeating bit is lovely…

Tom: It is, until I realised that “Dö För Dig” sounds very much like someone pretending to be Swedish and pronouncing “DVD”. Sorry.

Tim: I’ll ignore that and conclude my final favourite bit: the background chanting, which is just wonderful. I just, still get that small sense of resentment, every time it goes.

Sigrid Bernson – Hot Like The Sun

“Full pineapple from the start.”

Tim: I’ve no idea who the male vocalist is, and there doesn’t seem to be any information anywhere about him, but never mind. Don’t let him put you off, though, because part of this song is amazing.

Tom: Well, that’s full pineapple from the start, isn’t it? I’m not sure they actually hired a male vocalist, I think they just got some stock samples of someone yelling “BABY GIRL”, “HEY” and “LET’S GO” loudly and stuck them in.

Tim: You know, that actually wouldn’t remotely surprise me.

Tom: What’s the amazing bit for you, then?

Tim: Well that would be the chorus.

Tom: Really?

Tim: The chorus is great, and the post-chorus. The verses I can take or leave, the pre-chorus is pretty good, but damn that’s a good chorus. “Done, done, baby we are done do-one, baby we are done done done” may not be the most creative lyric ever written, but the presentation of it is joyous, and really, really gets me going. I don’t know if I’m just in the mood for this sort of track today and I might not like it as much tomorrow.

Tom: I have a sneaking suspicion that’s true. It’s not a great lyric or composition, and that whistle sample is bloody awful.

Tim: Even if that’s the case, though, that particular bit strikes me as like the “who wakes you up to drive you home” pre-chorus in It Ain’t Me: a really, really good bit that immediately raises a track’s score by at least 20%. Right now, I like this a lot.

John De Sohn feat. Sigrid Bernson – Happy Hours

“That got unexpectedly confessional.”

Tim: Big new tune for you from dance producer John, with vocals supplied by, erm, one the dancers on Swedish Strictly.

Tim: “Why wait for the happy ending, when all you need is the happy hours?” An attitude, I suspect, that most people have but would be less than happy to admit to – sod the future, so what if it doesn’t work out for the best, let’s just enjoy right now. That was, in fact, pretty much the attitude that got me through university, and much as my dad keeps telling me not to, basically how I’m currently going with any sort of career.

Tom: Wow. That got unexpectedly confessional.

Tim: It did, didn’t it? Let’s move on, because on top of that: what a banging tune, no?

Tom: The pitch-twisted vocals certainly made me sit up and listen. Big drums, big production — that first build promised a lot, and it even managed to deliver. I’m not sure that chorus, despite the truths it apparently reveals, it quite as good or clever as it wants to be — and even at 3:36 it overstays its welcome a bit.

Tim: I particularly like the big bells that are all over the place, and the vocal layered on top of itself so that by the end we’re almost in Icona Pop territory – I LOVE IT.

Tom: Tighten it up a bit, go somewhere interesting with that middle eight, and you’d have a truly great track.