Tim: Youngblood: a newish Swedish boyband, who had a flop debut single last year, announced themselves vaguely successfully to the world at Melodifestivalen, and are following up with this.
Tim: Right. First off, let’s get the inevitable out of the way: this song is ridiculous.
Tom: “Fell in love, face first?” No. You can fall in water face first. Or, if you’re Biff from Back to the Future, you can fall in manure face first. You can’t fall in love face first.
Tim: That’s what you’re going for first? Because musically, it’s standard boyband fare, so not particularly interesting, but lyrics-wise, it’s a whole other ball game. We have a Swedish band singing about how they know London so well, but desperately want a girl from New York. It makes no sense, and to be honest it wouldn’t remotely surprise me if this is a song that got rejected by One Direction’s management.
Tom: That’d explain the London references: switch it to a British band and it all makes sense. In fact: that’s pretty much the only explanation, sure?
Tim: Probably, yes, but it’s it’s not like it’s just the lyrics. There’s also the video, which opens with them encouraging a group of girls who’ve doubtless never heard of them before to sing along to their last song, and then mostly appears to have been shot with Instagram filters for no good reason whatsoever.
Tom: Ever since I’ve moved to London, videos like this annoy me. It’s the kind of thing that, as a Londoner, I’m going to have to grumpily navigate around as I make my way through the city.
Tim: Huh, see I quite like things like that. Like when I’m watching Fringe and I see a part of Vancouver I recognise, I’m a bit “Ooh, I know that.” Though admittedly it’s getting a bit dull now it’s London.
Anyway, stupid and ridiculous as this song is: I love it.
Tom: What?
Tim: I think it’s great. I can’t write that without laughing at myself for thinking it, but as far as I’m concerned it’s fantastic. And you won’t convince me otherwise.
Tom: It’s a fine line between “formulaic but good” and “utter pap”, and this falls squarely on the wrong side of that line.
Tim: Probably, but I DON’T CARE.