Author: tom

The Wanted – Glad You Came

“We are The Wanted, and we make videos in which WE ARE MEN.”

Tom: I’m fairly sure this will be one of anthems of the summer.

Tim: We are The Wanted, and we make videos in which WE ARE MEN.

Tom: Not because it’s particularly good – it’s not – but it’s not bad, and it’s got all the by-the-numbers ingredients.

Tim: Look at our RIPPED TORSOS on the beach, where we play football and dive into the sea because WE ARE MEN.

Tom: Synth pads, clap-along percussion, lyrics about drinks and love, and a massively heterosexual video just to make sure that all the stereotypical Club 18-30 types feel comfortable dancing to it.

Tim: Then we go to clubs and HAVE SEX in the toilets with PRETTY LADIES. GRRR. MEN IS WHAT WE ARE.

Tom: Notice how I’ve avoided all innuendo so far?

Tim: Have you? Sorry, I was too busy watching the MEN of The Wanted doing tricks on a BMX, as all grown men do at pool parties.

Saturday Flashback: Martin Solveig feat. Dragonette – Hello

I defy you not to start at least tapping your foot.

Tom: This track entirely passed me by until I was in America last month. Now, the official video‘s good – high-budget and incredibly well produced, if a bit clichéd – but it’s interrupting the track regularly to spoil the YouTube jukeboxers. Here’s the track, uninterrupted. Don’t forget that this is meant to be mixed into a DJ set, hence the long intro and outro:

Tom: I defy you not to start at least tapping your foot when that beat kicks in.

Tim: It is a good track – although one I often misattribute to MGMT, for no particular reason that I can discern.

Tom: Now, normally I’d complain that there’s very little change throughout – after it kicks in, it’s basically the same song until the end. For some reason, that doesn’t bother me – even the vocal effects that make it less repetitious don’t bother me. Maybe it’s because I’ve listened to a bit of glitch lately.

Tim: I’m happy with it – repetitive it may be, but it’s not bad stuff that’s being repeated. And it is, after all, there to make people dance. And jump. Up, and down, and up, and down, and up, and ooh look we’re repeating ourselves.

Tom: This would get me straight on to a dancefloor, bouncing up and down.

Tim: In a repeated manner, no doubt.

Avril Lavigne – Smile

Avril Lavigne has made some good songs. This is not one of them.

Tom: Avril Lavigne has made some good songs. This is not one of them.

Tom: “Last night I blacked out I think / what did you, what did you put in my drink”. A classy date-rape reference there.

Tim: Ah, rohypnol. Every man’s choice when they want their reluctant girlfriend to, um, get a tattoo. Riiight.

Tom: I think the very last frames of the video sum it up for me. She’s smiling at the camera, showing the heart – don’t ask me how that metaphor works – bouncing along after doing all the rolling-on-the-floor shenanigans. She backs away – and the video director doesn’t quite cut away soon enough, as the smile disappears from her face in an instant and the spell’s broken.

I know that’s how all music videos work. I know it’s acting. I know you can’t possibly be that genuinely happy all the time, particularly when you’ve heard your own song for the fortieth time that day and don’t have the energy left. But that’s what this feels like to me – by the numbers pop-punk. Dare I say it – it’s got a bit of the Nickelback about it.

Tim: Re: the metaphor, I sort of get it, but IT’S THE WRONG SONG. What we have in the video – and the whole heart-collecting thing would actually be quite a good video – is a girl who’s had her heart broken and is gradually getting better. By the end of the song, she’s fine, she’s over him, let’s have a one night stand with a randomer thank you very much. This song? Not remotely like that, and it’s STUPID. It could even just work if they changed the word ‘stole’ to ‘broke’. But no. STUPID AAARGH.

Rebecca & Fiona – Hard

“My word, that takes a long time to get going.”

Tim: This is one side of the new double A-side from these two, the other being the somewhat uninspiring If She Was Away; this one’s a bit better.

Tom: My word, that takes a long time to get going.

Tim: Perhaps – it sort of strikes me as like the six-minute full version you get of most dance tracks which have filler at each end for the DJ to play with, though that normally gets cut down for the radio edit, or whatever this is.

Not much in the way of lyrics, so the main focus is clearly meant to be on the music. This is not an issue for me, since the music’s good. A tad reminiscent of other tracks occasionally, but again I have no problems.

To be honest, it’s probably what would be the B-side it it wasn’t a double A-side, what with the other one having the video and lots of words and stuff, but I prefer it.

Tom: It’s begging to get mixed in to another few tracks – to be used as a backdrop by the DJ. On its own, it does drag – even at three minutes long – but any competent DJ could make it a lot more exciting.

Tim: It’s middle of the set club night tuneage, and it would fit in well at any decent club, I believe.

Tom: Damn right.

Johan Agebjörn – Watch The World Go By

“Pretty damn good.”

Tim: A similar style of music to last Thursday’s rather wonderful Magic, and indeed a not all that different video, although instead to having two kids having fun all on their own, it’s two grown-ups.

Tim: It’s not quite as fantastic, obviously, but it sure as heck is pretty damn good.

Tom: Is there a name for this genre of music? Still has a beat to it, but nots of pink-noise sand-falling transitions, overexposed hippie-esque videos, and so on? It’s all rather lovely, and I feel like I can’t easily categorise it.*

*As we all know, categorising things is serious business.

Tim: I don’t know – this sort of thing generally gets described as a mix of synth-pop and indie electronica, though that’s a bit of a mouthful.

Regardless of what we define it as, though, it’s enchanting, the video’s full of pretty colours, and it’s got the same honey quality you used to describe the first Sound of Arrows track we reviewed – it captures you and then you just drift along nicely, and you think ‘ahh, this is nice. What was I doing? Oh yeah, I’ve just broken my arm. Man, this hurts. Ooh, but this music’s good. Ahh, this is nice.’

Tom: I did start singing the ‘na na na’s from Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out Of My Head over the top of the quiet bits, though.

Tim: And here’s something we’ve not done before: have a Spotify link to the released-a-couple-of-months-ago album: WHOOSH.

Whigfield – C’est Cool

With bonus Whigfield single-buying reminiscences!

Tim: ‘Saturday Night’ was the first single I ever bought.

Tom: It was very nearly the first single I bought, before I decided that actually I’d rather spend the money on something else instead. (The actual first single? The Children in Need version of ‘Perfect Day’. No regrets.)

Tim: I needed it for a school dance competition, you see (which I totally won), and the single came with six remixes attached to it, of which the Extended Nite Mix was by far and away the best. It prompted my granddad to express amazement at how much you get on CDs these [those] days.

Tom: The “cassingle” had the same remixes. I remember it well. I also remember being somewhat confused by the concept of including the same song six times on one cassette. I was new to this whole ‘pop music’ thing.

Tim: I have no idea why I remember that, from seventeen years ago, in such detail.

Tom: And the strange thing is, I remember my nearly-buying-it in detail too. Formative years, and all that.

Tim: Um, where were we? Oh, right, her new song.

Tim: Well, first things first* – ‘ba ba-ba ba’ is no ‘dee-dee da-na na’.

* Why do people say that? What else would be first?

Tom: Well, no.

Tim: But anyway, it’s repetitive, lyrically brain-numbing, not particularly exciting – basically, everything that makes up a shit track.

Tom: After this many years, you think she’d come out with something better.

Tim: But, it’s not shit, though.

Tom: What? I don’t trust your judgement. You’re still on the codeine.

Tim: Nah, finished that a while back. But anyway, when did you ever trust my judgement?

Ricky Martin – Más

Ooh, like it a LOT.

Tom: My opening sentence was originally going to be: “I expect to see an English version of this out in a couple of months, probably with a harder beat behind it.”

Tim: Ooh, like it a LOT.

Tom: Turns out that Ricky Martin’s management are way ahead of me, and “Freak of Nature” will be out pretty damn soon.

Tim: Still good, but to be honest I wasn’t really listening to the words – just the general sound of it. Probably because I was still in a ‘this is foreign’ frame of mind.

Tom: I still prefer the original, though. It’s got a great shoutalong chorus (“más” means “more”), whereas the English chorus of ‘fun fun fun’ is a bit too Beach Boys-esque to really work in this track. It’s bloody good, quite frankly.

Tim: It is, it really is, although after about three and half minutes I was ready for an ending. And not in my usual ‘I’m bored’ way, but in a ‘this is dragging a bit’ way.

Tom: Somehow, it manages to still sound like Ricky Martin while still being a modern pop song: for someone who most of the world still associates with Livin’ La Vida Loca, that’s not a bad feat.

I have to ask, though – what’s going on with the lopsided half-shaven hairstyle?

Tim: Well, I saw that and immediately thought prison. It’s probably not that, though.

Gina G – Next 2 U

Yes, really. (With bonus DJ Otzi reminiscences!)

Tom: Really?!

Tim: Yes. Really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsD43dhMK74

Tim: Quiet for five years, and then a few weeks ago this came along. It’s only just here because I wanted to see how well it would do first, and, well, I’ll just say it hasn’t charted YET. Anywhere.

Tom: That’s… not all that shocking.

Tim: Yep. Disappointing, yes, but surprising, really not. It lacks a catchy chorus, and really anything hugely memorable. And while there’s a sort of energy there, it’s really nothing out of the ordinary – just seems to be going through the motions a bit. (Feel free to insert a ‘that’s what she said’ here, by the way.)

Tom: Everything just seems to run together. There’s no… well, for want of a better term, there’s no “ooh-aah” moment in there – either a Gina G one or a DJ Otzi one.

Tim: DJ Otzi workplace anecdote: someone put the original version of ‘Hey Baby’ on, and I commented that the DJ Otzi version is so much better (obviously). She didn’t believe me, so put it on my iPod and took it in the next day to play it. She still didn’t believe me. And I was sad.

Back to what we’re meant to be doing, though, and on a second listen I think the chorus is actually OK. Can’t remember the verses, but the chorus will do for me.

Tom: …I can’t remember it at all. DJ Otzi is now filling my head. It’s like I’m 16 again and back at the funfair that visited Nottingham – where every other stall and ride seemed to be blasting this out of their speakers. It’s a bit better than Gina G.

J-Mi & Midi-D feat. Hanna Stockzell – All Night Long

“Oh, that will do nicely.”

Tim: Yes, the same Hanna Stockzell we featured yesterday.

Tom: Wait a minute. Hanna Stockzell! Otherwise known as one half of Smile.dk, which I know from my DDR-playing childhood.

Tim: Yeah – did I not mention that? Oh well, you’ve figured it out on your own. Good work.

Tom: No wonder her tracks sound familiar to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMcgx7TIRT8

Tom: Oh, that will do nicely. I may have to try and find the album. When I was at university, I used music like this as a way to make me work: the low-attention-span part of my brain was busy going “ooh, shiny”, so the rest of my brain could get in flow and actually make things. To this day, listening to this gives me a vague feeling that I should be productive. A weird association, I’ll grant you, but it works.

Tim: I must say I somewhat dislike the massive autotune, though after a while I actually get used to it when it sounds like Still Alive.

Tom: I’m so used to it as an effect that I didn’t even notice – it just sounded normal to me.

Tim: Well, I do however love the rest. The energy, the sheer and unashamed pop-ness of it, the instrumental bits that follow the choruses. Hell, it really is like a modern-day Alice Deejay. BRILLIANT.

Tom: You keep using that analogy—

Tim: I do, don’t I? Hmm.

Tom: I’m not sure it holds; Alice Deejay was about dance music – upbeat, European dance, sure, but not bubblegum pop like this. It’s not really a major quibble, though; I still bloody love the song.

Tim: The key change is a bit good as well. But you don’t need to be told that. One final notes: J-Mi & Midi-D’s single from last August is worth checking out.

Tom: I’ll do just that.

Hanna Stockzell – Bubblegum Dancer

“WHY WASN’T THIS IN THIS YEAR’S EUROVISION?”

Tim: Well, once you’ve seen the song title you don’t really need to hear the song to know what it’s like. Nevertheless, you need to hear this. Your life will not be complete until you have done so.

Tom: It’s as if J-Pop made it over to Sweden. It sounds like the bubblegum Europop groups early in the 2000s – Joga and all that lot. This needs a cutesy dance routine, and some Dance Dance Revolution steps set to it.

Tim: Yes, it does. And a wind machine or twenty. Basically: WHY WASN’T THIS IN THIS YEAR’S EUROVISION SONG CONTEST? IT’S MILES BETTER THAN THAT (previously great but now) CRAPPY ‘POPULAR’ BOLLOCKS.

Tom: Yep, agreed. More like this, please.

Tim: She’s like this decade’s Alice Deejay, but EVEN BETTER. Right from the start it’s just fantastic, and amazing, and wonderful, and there really aren’t enough superlatives in the world to describe this.

Tom: Whoa, hang on. Better than Will I Ever? I mean, she’s good, and that key change is bloody excellent, but do you th—

Tim: ‘I love bubblegum. I love to dance.’ YES. YOU AND ME ARE SOULMATES, HANNA.

Tom: “I love emotions / I love to move / Do you want my love / I want it with you”?

Tim: Still on the codeine, by the way.

Tom: That explains it.