Tim: Following up on her vastly deserved UK number one last month, here’s Rachel’s follow up, and to warn you in advance, this is absolutely not a cover of Girls Aloud’s gentle but lovely ballad.
Tom: I’m not going to rise to that bait, Tim.
Tim: Spoilsport.
Tim: It is, in fact, a stand out BANGER, that gets its foot in the door very early on with its “I’m confident you’ll think this is brilliant” chorus preview and then its standard but effective second/fourth beat “don’t you dare stop listening before that chorus” drumbeat throughout the traditionally quiet first verse.
Tom: Let’s give some credit to whoever wrote the melody for that verse: it’s got enough interesting things going on that it manages to keep me engaged. The “borrow mine so yours can open too” in the chorus is absolute genius.
Tim: The chorus lives very much up to promises and expectations with its stuck in your head melody and blindingly clear message. After all, if there’s one thing everybody knows more than that they need to stand up for themselves and FIGHT occasionally, it’s that they very often need someone else in their corner. Clichéd? Perhaps. But fantastic listening? Definitely.
Annoyingly, it’ll probably suffer in the UK from being released within three weeks on Fight Song, but I’d say that’s better than us having to wait a similar six months, so I’m sure I’ll manage.
Tom: There is a bit of similarity to Fight Song in there too, particularly in that piano, but it’s not enough to be a problem. Can we say something about that astonishingly good middle eight? About the properly-stompy percussion-and-vocals bit that leads into the final chorus? And about that final chorus, which is just great by itself?
Tim: We can speak about all of those things, because they are all wonderful – you’re very very right about that final chorus, right up until the very end.
You know, if you’d asked me two weeks ago if I though Rachel’s follow-up would live up to Fight Song’s standards, I’d have said NO WAY; I’m therefore very glad you didn’t, as I hate being wrong.
Tom: And you know what? I think this is actually better.
Tim: It’s funny – I first heard this 24 hours ago, I thought ‘this is really good – no Fight Song, though’. I listened again to write about it this morning, I thought ‘blimey, this is really bloody great – it’s a proper follow-up’. And tonight, ‘OH HELL YES’. The main thing I will take from this is my utter delight that two of the best (if not the two best) songs of the year have come from from one more or less unknown artist. It’s WONDERFUL.