Author: tom

Lisa Ajax – Känn En Doft Av Kärleken

“It’s really, really jarring, and it upsets me.”

Tim: RIGHT THEN so you’ll recall back in June we got Dolly Style doing a cover of How Far I’ll Go as part of a new We Love Disney album, except then for months we had nothing at all, despite me hunting for stuff at least once a week.

HOWEVER, last week the whole album arrived, yippee! We’ve a variety of styles: some straight up covers, some simple translations (Aladdin’s En Helt Ny Värld), English covers that have really played with the genre (Circle of Life), and some that might as well be brand new songs, because I’m willing to bet you’d forgotten the existence of Brother Bear altogether.

And then…and then there’s this.

Tim: So, I have no problem at all with about 90% of that. The early part of it takes the same genre we’re used to, and a translation’s always fun (though, weirdly, they’ve used different lyrics from the translation they used in the film). The bit where the chorus has a big hefty backing underneath it, very very much so.

Tom: Agreed: there are, as far as I’m concerned, two canonical versions of this: the film version, and Elton John’s version. This doesn’t hold a candle to either of them, of course, but I’ve got to admit that the voice works, and the production for most of it is good too. It’s a solid Disney Cover. I think you’ve got the same problem with it that I have, though.

Tim: Most likely. Because that dance breakdown – where on earth did that come from? I don’t mind it particularly, and certainly if it was in a whole other song I’d have no problems with it at all. Except it isn’t in a whole other song, it’s in the middle of one of the most memorable film songs ever, and it completely and totally doesn’t belong. It’s really, really jarring, and it upsets me.

Tom: And it’s a real shame! Because the rest of it is good. Not spectacular, but good.

Tim: I’ll finish on a positive, though: we’ve got something similar with Kamferdrops’s version of Let It Go. And this time, it works for me.

Tim: I’ve no idea why it works, as logically I should have the same problem – still a great song, still a largely unrelated breakdown. But I don’t.

Tom: I think I know why: Let It Go is meant to be a big, showstopper, belt-it-out number — but here it’s being sung relatively quietly and calmly. That chorus sounds wrong, it’s underwhelming — but it means that your brain’s more prepared for the dance bit.

Tim: Hmm, yeah, could be.

Tom: What we’ve learned here is that nothing’s going to break Andrew WK covering the Mickey Mouse March.

Tim: Erm…well, okay, whatever works for you. I’ll stick with Dolly Style, if you don’t mind.

Galantis & Dolly Parton feat. Mr. Probz – Faith

“The first thing that stuck out to me here was the structure, or rather the weirdness of it.”

Tim: Galantis, we know very well. Mr Probz, never heard of him before in my life, but sure, he could be a featured artist. And then…and then there’s Dolly Parton. Unusually for me, I haven’t listened to the track before writing this introduction, and have no idea what I’m in for. Fingers crossed it’s good.

Tim: Right: here’s something annoying, about doing this whole music review thing: first time I hear a track, I pay full attention to it, beat by beat, line by line. And that means that the first thing that stuck out to me here was the structure, or rather the weirdness of it.

Sure, the standard verse, chorus, verse, chorus, middle eight, chorus – but the verse is just a few lines, and then the chorus is roughly one single line repeated over and over again for a full minute, each time with slightly different backing underneath it.

It’s like they’re saying “fine, we’ll play by the rules, but boy are we going to struggle against them”. And I have all those thoughts, and even go back to listen to it again to check that, without ever really paying attention to what the song sounds like as a whole. And that’s absolutely and entirely not what a song credited to bloody “Galantis & Dolly Parton” deserves.

Tom: If it’s any consolation, I generally just write a stream of consciousness while I’m listening, and then tidy it all up later. Anyway. The track.

Tim: SO. The main review: it’s weird! Keeping Dolly Parton away for a full fifty per cent of the song!

Tom: And using vocal effects that take her incredibly recognisable voice and it sound like it’s somehow being simulated by an offbrand Dolly-Parton sythesizer!

Tim: Giving the first verse solely to your feat. guy! The lack of any real underlying defining sound, careering between piano house, tropical, light drum & bass, euphoric! Hell, the fact that it’s happening at all! But it’s good! It’s a great listen, for some of these aforementioned reasons, and I like it.

Tom: It sounds like a mashup. It sounds like an old Madeon track. There are so many things going on here. I have issues with the structure: I think you could start this where Dolly Parton comes in, add an extra chorus on the end after that , and have a track that sounds more like Traditional Pop instead of a frankly disappointing ending. But then that’s not really what Galantis do, is it?

Tim: I was entirely unsure what to expect, but I’m glad of what it turned out to be.

Julia Bergwall – Open Your Eyes

“New synthy dance slightly country-ish pop off Sweden.”

Tim: New synthy dance slightly country-ish pop off Sweden.

Tom: That is a lot of adjectives there.

Tim: From an artist we’ve not featured before but has nonetheless been going a fair while. Have a listen, see what you think.

Tom: Huh. There’s a lot of different parts to this track, and they’re all quite different.

Tim: A part of me was almost relieved by that, because so often we get tracks, particularly with the synthy chorus genre, with a perfectly decent opening verse and first chorus, but which then drop down into utterly unsatisfying post-choruses. Fortunately, that is entirely not the case here.

Tom: I think they’re all solid as individual parts. I’ve no idea how they work together at all, but… they do.

Tim: It is a fair old hodgepodge, with no particular dedication to one single genre – almost surprisingly, though, that works well enough throughout the whole song. A less competent producer might have sought to just chuck everything – light guitar, heavy synth, big drum beats – all in together for the closing section, sod how it came out sounding as long as it was suitably big and banging.

Tom: I mean, sometimes, that does work. Not usually, but I can see the temptation.

Tim: Fortunately, that’s not the case here at all, and in fact it sounds good throughout, no mean feat given these building blocks.

KEiiNO – Dancing In The Smoke

“Still fair levels of joikiness in there”

Tim: KEiiNO splashed onto the world (alright, continent) stage in May with the glorious Spirit In The Sky which should completely have won.

Tom: The one with the joik! I remember that! It was… well, there was a lot of joik.

They followed it up with a nicher, folkier number a couple of months later, which wasn’t quite as great. You’ll be delighted to know they’ve learnt their lesson.

Tom: I wasn’t sold on that until the second chorus.

Tim: Still fair levels of joikiness in there, so we’ve still a track that’s recognisably them, but we’re back to having a straight up pop verse and chorus – and I have absolutely no problems with that whatsoever.

Tom: Agreed: they seem to have found a good balance between Unique Sound and Generally Acceptable Pop Song, which is always a good thing. I can’t imagine an entire dancefloor singing along to the joik bit, but stranger things have happened.

Tim: It’s a song that after just a couple of listens you can go along with the intro, with a catchy beat, melody, rhythm, everything. A worthy follow-up to the almost-victor, if we just ignore that middle one. We’ll do that.

Etta Zelmani – Shatter

“I think it’s good!”

Tom: Wow, I misread the first vowel in that title. No idea what my brain’s doing.

Tim: Here’s Etta off Sweden, being yet another songwriter turned singer, presumably hoping to be more like EEVA than Nea. Have a listen, see what you think.

Tim: As I see it, as the decider of a best of three competition, this entirely fails because it’s neither particularly great nor particularly awful.

Tom: Oh, hey, it’s what I think of nearly every song! Welcome to my world. That said, there are a couple of notable things in here: there’s a really interesting chord progression during both verse and chorus. I can’t think when I’ve heard someone use that particular trick before. Plus, that vocoder-only chorus is really, really good: somehow I don’t see it as a gimmick.

And that middle eight! And that voice! Wait, I think I’ve convinced myself that this is really good. I think it’s good!

Tim: Catchy, sure. Decent vocal and production, also yep. Chorus is nice enough, and in fact to be honest there’s not a lot to complain about. Except: it doesn’t get me, grab me, do much for me at all really. It’s…it’s basically fine. Just, fine.

Tom: THE TABLES HAVE TURNED, TIM. I THINK THIS IS GOOD. I ACTUALLY THINK THIS IS GOOD.

Tim: Huh. Blimey.

Ina Wroldsen – Haloes

“That’s a plural that really doesn’t look right.”

Tim: That’s a plural that really doesn’t look right, even though it technically is. The song more or less makes up for it, though.

Tim: True, Monday is not the typical day to bring along a strong ‘dance end of the dance-pop scale’ track, but you work for yourself and I do shift work, so who really cares? I’ve no idea what the video’s about, beyond ‘gosh, drugs are fun, aren’t they?’.

Tom: And the Nordic coast is beautiful.

Tim: But hey, it’s the music we’re here for, and it’s the music that I’m a big fan of. Yes, it is indeed strongly towards the dance end of the dance-pop scale, and that, as I think we all know, is a genre I’m entirely happy with, and this track here is a great example of why.

Tom: Dance-pop like this has a tendency to feel a bit “middle of a Spotify playlist” to me: it’s difficult to distinguish one from another. I’ll admit, though, that I could remember the chorus of this one afterwards, which is practically a ringing endorsement.

Tim: There’s a good energy, a lovely vocal, tight production, decent melody, heck, basically everything we need really. I’ve no problems with it – you?

Tom: I think “no problem with it” is about right.

Saturday Flashback: Skagarack – Open Your Eyes

“I was about to say ‘that’s completely outside what we usually cover’ but, no, after a moment’s thought, this is entirely what we usually cover.”

Tim: Here’s a fun one for you: ’80s Danish glam rock?

Tom: I was about to say “that’s completely outside what we usually cover” but, no, after a moment’s thought, this is entirely what we usually cover.

Tim: Bit of fun, isn’t it? I had completely and entirely never heard of this band until a Danish person at work played this track the other day (and by all accounts neither had most English-speaking people, given that their only Wikipedia entry is Danish), but, oh, it’s fun.

Tom: It sounds like… I’ll be honest, it sounds like any other generic 80s glam rock track to me. Except for the first half of the middle eight, that basically gives every instrument a tiny little solo before going into the big electric-guitar number.

Tim: Basically: entirely typical of the genre. Guitar, drums, vocal style, all exactly as they should be. Chorus, absolutely as we’re expecting. A lovely, lovely song, with, if you’re in agreement, a whole discography on your streaming platform of choice.

Tom: Really? I mean, heaven knows I’ve gone down some weird musical rabbit holes before, but I can’t see why this has had quite such an effect on you.

Tim: Me neither, kind of. Basically, for some reason it puts me in mind of Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now, even though it doesn’t actually sound like it, and that’s a track I really like (largely because it puts me in mind of a really really nice ad campaign from a few years back, sue me). So I like this. It’s great.

Tom: I am entirely ambivalent.

Pegboard Nerds feat. NERVO – Crying Shame

“Pegboard Nerds! I’ve heard of them!”

Tom: Pegboard Nerds! I’ve heard of them! Back in 2014, when one of their sorta-chiptune-sorta-dubstep tracks was featured on this video. 2014 was before drones became mainstream, and that video — and its soundtrack — absolutely blew me away.

Tim: Fabulous! I had not heard of them, but part of me wanted to feature this based purely on the artwork; some more of me wanted to because of their name (Danish/Norwegian, if you weren’t aware, and NERVO are Australian); then I heard the verse and then the chorus, and by the time we got to the post-chorus there was no option whatsoever.

Tom: See! Sorta-chiptune, sorta-dubstep. I mean, they’ve moved on, and I’m sure there’s a different and more formal genre title for it, but yes, this is definitely their style.

Tim: So, I’m not going to excitedly yell ‘HAPPY HARDCORE’ because it isn’t, but that build certainly promises something special and I’m fairly sure it delivers.

Tom: It’s probably the closest you can reasonably get to happy hardcore in this century.

This song starts out fairly sensible, admittedly, but turns to slight ridiculousness after not too short a time. As ever, back to normal, ish, for the second verse, then we build up throughout the second chorus, a middle eight which brings us a euphoric section out of absolutely nowhere, and from then on we’ve a triumphant mess of everything, and it sounds glorious. Am I wrong?

Tom: You’re not wrong.

Highasakite – Can I Be Forgiven

“Don’t be put off if you’re not keen on the first minute or so – you might end up having a change of heart.”

Tim: This song here goes on a bit of a journey, so don’t be put off if you’re not keen on the first minute or so – you might end up having a change of heart.

Tom: You’re not wrong about that journey. However, I did like what is basically the two-minute long introduction.

Tim: Part of the reason I stuck that warning at the top was that I wasn’t entirely keen on the first part of the track – skipped away from it to another tab and got distracted, and then became entirely surprised when it became a really good dance track. Too little too late? Maybe.

Tom: I can see why you’d think that: I was disappointed at 0:57, when I was expecting that big dramatic change and just got a few extra instruments. But honestly, I still enjoyed it all: I’m not sure what genre something like this fits into other than “builder”, but I’ll take it.

Tim: Though I would say that it is nice to have a little bit of the sound we were promised when Robyn came back last summer, gave us Missing U, but then went away without giving us an album. So for that I’ll take it, but I’d happily do without the first two minutes or so.

Nova Miller – Do It To Myself

“Big swear words and big letters ahoy.”

Tim: Few good things came out last Friday: Mika’s new album, with the highlight being a track with the hook ‘who gives a shit about tomorrow’, which we’ll get to in due course; Saara Aalto gave us the year’s first wintry song, which is nice but can probably wait a few weeks, don’t want to get ahead of ourselves; and then this.

Now, you known how sometimes when lyric videos are made for songs with rude words they put a pointless asterisk over the naughty bit? Yeah, Nova’s not done that. Big swear words and big letters ahoy.

Tim: And here we are again with a weird and unexpected sample and rewording, though I’ve a feeling it works significantly better here than it did with Blue (Da Ba Dee) or Informer.

Tom: Blimey, that’s certainly very close to California Dreamin’ — I wonder if it’s close enough that they’ve paid royalties? If not, that’s a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Tim: No, it’s a proper sample, with royalties and everything.

Tom: It is, at least, far enough away from the original that I don’t find immediately find myself singing the original over the top. After the song finishes, though? All I can remember is California Dreamin’, and that’s probably not a good thing.

Tim: Believe it or not, her favourite part is apparently that samply bit (who’d have thought it?) because it “takes you all the way to summer and back”, which is fair enough really. All in all this is quite a nice track, albeit one that should probably have landed three months ago. I’m enjoying it, anyway, despite looking out of my window at rain that just. won’t. stop.