Author: tom

Europlop’s Sunday Mashups: Jay-Z, Rihanna & E.S. Posthumus – Run This Town / Posthumus Zone

Big.

Tom: It’s Superbowl Sunday, Tim.

Tim: Ooh, and you like American Football. Educate me, whilst I take a seat.

Tom: Last year’s Superbowl was the most watched television event in American history, as somewhere in the region of a hundred million people saw the underdog New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts. Now how do you open a show like that?

The advertisers are going to want something spectacular – after all, they’re paying somewhere around five million dollars per minute of commercial time. And the viewers are going to want something that beats previous years. In 2006, for example, Billy Joel sang the American national anthem, interspersed with live footage of American troops watching in Baghdad and a camera feed from the cockpit of one of the military jets that fly over the stadium exactly at the song’s conclusion. That’s how you open a damn show. (Ignore the autotune – nobody told Billy Joel they were going to use it.)

So what does CBS, last year’s broadcaster, do?

Tim: Something quite big?

Tom: Well, they get Jay-Z and Rihanna, pretty much the biggest names in music. And then they get ES Posthumus, who write incredible, overblown electric-guitar-and-orchestra themes. And then they mash them together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w__W9f77PE

Tom: The final released version of this was “clean”, but for the sheer spectacle I’ve linked to the broadcast version. This is how you get a hundred million people hyped up for a game. If your jaw didn’t drop at that incredible slow-motion jump near the end, then I think there might be something wrong with you.

I just worry that ITV will try and do something like this for the FA Cup Final one year. They’d use Dizzee Rascal. It just wouldn’t be the same. It’s not British at all, and – just this once – that’s what’s so great about it.

And as for this year? It’s the Fox network’s turn to broadcast it, so I’m assuming it’ll be something suitably over-the-top. And hopefully, the Packers will take the trophy as well.

Tim: Well in that case… go Packers?

Anna Abreu – Hysteria

Now, this is proper pop.

Tim: Despite only coming third, this lady is the most successful artist to come out of Finnish Pop Idol. Here’s an example of why.

Tom: She sounds just a bit like Cascada. Just a bit.

Tim: Now, this is proper pop – it has loud music, loud singing, lots of ‘oh-oh-oh’s and just generally lots of fun. After the first verse it never really calms down, and I don’t have much of a problem with that.

Tom: It’s a long first verse, and I couldn’t actually tell when it transitioned into the chorus. I’m assuming it was at the bizarre Casio keyboard tom-tom fill.

Tim: Somewhere around that, but does it matter exactly? It’s plenty vibrant enough anywhere, and while it could perhaps do with something new happening towards the end, it’s got so much to it already there’s not a lot that could be added without breaking music.

Tom: I’d actually cut it a bit – it does go on.

Tim: You think? Normally with a song like this I’d be the first one to hurry it along to finish, but even at four minutes it doesn’t seem too long, partly because there isn’t any filler there – there isn’t even really an instrumental part of the bridge that could be cut.

Tom: I disagree, but it’s not like I’d leave a dancefloor in disgust if it came on.

Tim: Well, I think: top notch.

Star Pilots – Heaven Can Wait

Kicks in hard and never really stops.

Tim: I trust you’ll remember In The Heat Of The Night, their big hit from a couple of years back; here’s their latest.

Tom: Bloody hell, Tim, that kicks in hard and never really stops. My brain immediately thought ‘Top Gun’, but that might have been connected to the fact they’re called ‘Star Pilots’.

Tim: When the chorus hits it’s almost like a different song – it suddenly goes from ‘mmm, so so’ to ‘ooh, yes’ in a single beat. The first chorus just about provides enough energy to ride out the second verse, so as long as you don’t mind a mediocre first part, I think you’ll be happy here.

Tom: Now, you see, I disagree entirely: I think the verses and bridge are great – it’s like an 80s song with modern production values. But the chorus lets it down a bit for me: it’s just that the verses are so full-on that it’s hard for the chorus to compare. Until that key change. That glorious key change.

Tim: Oh, isn’t it just fantastic? The best thing for me: it was entirely unexpected – it came out of nowhere and just was excellent. I do have one tiny niggle though: as the main version of the song, this goes on a bit too long. I can understand as a dance mix it would need to stuff on the end for the DJ to mix out, but as this is it should end at around the 3:15 mark, I feel.

Aside from that, since it’s easy enough to trim a song manually: excellent work.

Kerli – Speed Limit

A whole song about an actual traffic jam. (Plus a bonus Estonia anecdote.)

Tim: I don’t think we’ve been to Estonia yet. Let’s rectify that.

Tom: I went to Estonia once – to Tallinn, the capital. According to my diary, “there’s not much to do if you’re not big on museums”, and as soon as you leave the World Heritage Site that is the old city, you run into a fairly seedy district of strip clubs and stag-night bars.

Also, I happened to go there when the gay pride parade was going through town – and, next to it, an “anti gay pride” parade. The latter was six people with one banner, on which featured two stickmen having sex with a big Ghostbusters-style “NO” symbol over the top of it.

Anyway, sorry. Estonia. Right. Who’s this then?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E0pHw-AXodk

Tim: Now on first listen, this would appear to be…

Tom: …it’d appear to be a Jimmy Hart version of SMiLE.dk’s 1998 song “Butterfly”. That chorus melody is remarkably similar, but probably just far enough away that they won’t get sued for it.

Tim: Hmm – it is a bit similar, isn’t it? Mind you, I’m willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, because even if this Estonian act has ripped off a fairly obscure Danish track, they’ve done good stuff with it.

Anyway, before you interrupted I was going to say that it sounds like a whole song about an actual traffic jam, which would be quite impressive. Unfortunately, it’s just a slightly dodgy metaphor for a relationship, involving enough driving instructions for TomTom to make a new voice with and a complaint that she isn’t being played on the radio; however, we should give her points for dragging it along for almost a full three minutes.

Tom: No, we shouldn’t. It gets old so, so quickly.

Tim: Yes, but it’s the effort and the dedication that counts. Of course it’s ridiculous, and of course it gets old, but when she’s so desperate to keep it going that she talks about ‘three-ways like a parking lot’ that just can’t not be appreciated.

As music, I think this is good, it keeps you moving – the verses are a little monotonous, but they have a decent enough rhythm to them to keep you bouncing along until the next chorus, and the choruses have a properly nice sing-along feel to them.

Tom: Since all I can hear through the chorus is the words ‘ripped off’ repeating in my head, I’m afraid I disagree – it’s just monotonous to me. It’s got a decent closing chorus, I suppose, but that can’t redeem it for me.

Tim: Seriously? You can’t let that go? I think this is just great, and not least because there’s also a proper pronunciation of the word ‘hazy’, which is always nice, and to be perfectly honest, I’m slightly gutted this is being released now, because it wouldn’t be at all bad as a Eurovision entry.

I do, however, feel that Buffalo Roll would have been a better title. (I am aware that the actual lyric is ‘bump in the road’, but that’s beside the point.)

Tom: And now I can’t unhear it. Well done, Tim.

Elin Lanto – Funeral

This lady has issues. Like, planet-sized issues.

Tim: Now, this lady has issues. Like, planet-sized issues.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPtGoKk0BHA

Tim: Dancing at a funeral would be bad enough. But ON a funeral – that implies she’s there by the graveside while the vicar’s reciting the whole ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ stuff, not caring remotely what the heartbroken mourners think, but just incredibly happy that you’ve finally popped it. What with that and the scratchy, stabby name on the CD cover, part of the thinks she might be a serial killer hiding behind her music.

But we don’t care about such frivolities as murder here – we care about the music. And right now, it’s not remotely bad.

Tom: Starts with a lovely intro that wouldn’t be out of place on a Clubland CD somewhere; steadily builds like a good dance track should; and then it kicks in. And oh yes.

Tim: A chorus you can really get into (however unpleasant it might be) and a good beat to the music that keeps it interesting throughout.

Tom: There’s something about the chorus melody that I really enjoy, and I lack the musical theory to put it into words. Each time I start to drift away into distraction during the verse, that chorus comes back and makes me pay attention again.

Tim: And also the lyrics: however psychopathic they may be, there’s still some weird depth – the two verses end with ‘makes me love to hate you so’ and then ‘man I hate to love you so’. Issues, seriously.

Tom: She’s dealing with them better than the Saturdays did, that’s for sure. There’s even an apt organ outro. Well done, Elin.

Aggro Santos feat. Kimberley Walsh – Like U Like

It’s hard for me to describe how much I dislike this song.

Tom: Now, Tim, you were over in Canada while this year’s I’m A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here was on, so you’ll not know who Aggro Santos is. That’s okay – you’re in the same position everyone else was when that show started. He’s now “that bloke who was a bit crap on I’m A Celebrity”.

Tom: The show has actually done his career a bit of good, because now he’s releasing a track that features Kimberley Walsh, better known as “her out of Girls Aloud. No, the other one. No, the other other one.”

Now, it’s hard for me to describe how much I dislike this song.

Tim: Must say, my feelings aren’t far off that. How about we list things we hate instead?

Tom: The way that the start of each chorus makes me think of “Your Song” by Elton John.

Tim: The way the levels at the beginning are set just right so you can’t make out what either of them are saying.

Tom: The half-singing half-rapping.

Tim: The worry they seem to have that we’ll forget the name of the song half way through.

Tom: The bit in the video where he appears to be pointing with interest at her armpit.

Tim: The replacement of the Spanish 7 with sex, but then him actually being speed date numbers 5, 2 and 1.

Tom: And the fact that it’s ripping off Pretty Fly for a White Guy. Come to think of it, the bloody awful lyrics. “Just like you like” technically makes sense, but repeated it starts to grate like an industrial-strength cheese grater.

Tim: Spending quite some time setting up the use of a three course meal as a metaphor for a date and then almost immediately dropping it.

Tom: But here’s the worst part: it’s catchy. The stupid, dancey part of my brain likes it. And it’s stuck in my head.

Tim: Really? I just think it’s crap.

RPA and the United Nations of Sound – This Thing Called Life

This is beautiful.

Tom: Tim, this is beautiful.

Tom: “RPA” is short for Richard Ashcroft, who – to refresh your memory – was the lead singer of the Verve, best known for Bittersweet Symphony. Despite just being released as a single, this isn’t a new track: it was on the band’s moderately-successful album back in 2010, but it’ll have bubbled under after that and won’t have been heard.

Which is a shame, because this record’s gorgeous. I hate to say this, but it’s an X Factor’s winner song here – provided they took the bit of swearing out. I started clicking my fingers along with the bridge, on the quiet ‘my brother / my mother’ bit. No reason. It just happened.

It’s five minutes of life-affirming major-key smile-inducing alternative pop. There’s even a little whistling dubbed in during the outro. It doesn’t sound like commercial bubblegum music – and that’s because it isn’t.

It’s gorgeous, and – for the first time in a long while – I’m so enamoured with a song that we’re reviewing that I’m going to go and listen to the album. I don’t think I’ve ever given higher praise.

Tim: Hmm. That’s quite a bit of enthusiasm you’ve got going there, and I couldn’t really bring myself to interrupt it. But I’m afraid I have to say: not really sharing it. The first time I listened, I properly listened to it, as is appropriate, and just as the bridge hit I though, ‘Wow, it’s finally ending.” It just seemed too long – it’s a full fifty percent longer than three and a half minutes, long defined as the proper length for a piece of music, whatever your genre. For me there was anything that kept me really wanting to hear more, and so I got a bit bored.

Having said that, I gave it another go and put it on while I was putting away my laundry, and I did enjoy it. Moral of the story: if you’re going to make good music, don’t make it too long if you want me to enjoy it.

Tom: Remind me never to show you any prog albums.

Jenny Berggren – Gotta Go

I’m entirely in favour of this song.

Tom: Europlop reader Roger writes in, noting that we haven’t commented on Jenny Berggren’s new album. She’s the lead singer of Ace of Base, and put out a solo album at the end of last year. And Roger’s right – we missed it entirely.

‘Gotta Go’, he says, “is not the song with the highest star rating, rather it is one of those I like the most”.

And you know what? I like it too. And that’s not just because her surname is nearly a palindrome.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyQOgvwXTM4

Tom: By the time the beat drops back in at 0:45, I’m entirely in favour of this song. It’s one of those tracks where the melody doesn’t seem to entirely connect with what the instrumentation is playing – almost like it’s a mashup! – but I don’t mind at all.

Tim: It is a bit odd, that – it’s almost disorienting, and I’m not sure I like it. It’s as though there are several tracks competing with each other for attention.

Tom: That said, the beat does drop back in a lot of times. At least four, if you count the bridge. There’s a lot of quiet bits coming back with a slightly-too-triumphant whoomph. Even the bridge seems to treat itself by dipping the drums out twice.

Tim: That, however, I do like, because even if it’s only an illusion, it does give the impression like it’s constantly building to be massive at the end, although the ending is then a bit disappointing.

Tom: It might be a bit full of itself, and the last chorus might not be triumphant enough – with this much palaver in the song, it needs a key change.

Tim: You’re right – what it needs, actually, is a Linda Bengtzing style key change – not just after the bridge, but later on, ideally on the ‘late’ at 3:36.

Tom: Despite that, I still like this song.

Tim: Good. Me too.

Roxette – She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)

Cleverest Track Title of the Year.

Tim: Last time we met Roxette, their new song kept getting pulled from YouTube so we had to make do with an old (albeit good) track. It’s finally found a permanent place, though, in the form of a proper video, so let’s have a look.

Tom: First of all, I think we’ve already found the award winner for Cleverest Track Title of the Year.

Tom: How are Roxette still good? This somehow manages to have rocky verses, electronic arpeggios in the chorus, and the usual slightly-androgynous vocals, and it’s still bloody good. Incidentally, how ace are those arpeggios? (I think that’s what they’re called, anyway.)

Tim: Agreed, the choruses are good, but the pauses annoy me – singing along (it is very singalongable), it seems as though the ‘but the radio’ should just follow so naturally from ‘she’s got nothing on’ that it feels a bit odd when it doesn’t.

Tom: It’s easy to think Roxette were a one-hit wonder with “It Must Have Been Love” and maybe a couple of others – but they’re not. They’ve been going for years, have a World Music Award, and – no kidding – achievement medals from the King of Sweden.

I’m docking a few points for the terrible call-and-response bit in the first verse (“Really?” “Oh.” “Yeah?” in the right channel) though.

Tim: That’s a thing that’s a bit odd – the intro and verses could come straight from a Pink song (Get This Party Started, perhaps), but the choruses and bridge sound like something entirely different, almost like something the new Pet Shop Boys track could (should?) have been.

Tom: Other than that it’s a pretty solid track. More like this, please.

Saturday Flashback: Yohanna – Is It True?

It wouldn’t be a shame if more Eurovision songs were like this.

Tim: This weekend marks the start of quite a few countries’ hunt for their Eurovision entries – Finland started last night, and Norway and Iceland get going tonight. Let’s mark the occasion by looking back at a previous entry, from Iceland in 2009. Context: this was placed second, after Norway’s Alexander Rybak won by the largest margin in the contest’s history. (Still can’t believe Malena Ernman came 21st, though.)

Tom: As long as they don’t get Pete Bloody Waterman back for the UK, I’ll be happy.

Tim: No fancy tricks here, no massive lighting effects – just a couple of nice gentle key changes, plenty of emotional singing from a lady who’s just screwed things up with her boyfriend, and a dolphin flying through the sky in the background. I like this a lot, and it wouldn’t be a shame if more Eurovision songs were like this.

Tom: I strongly disagree with you. This is too slow, too ballad-y, for a night of entertainment that should – in my opinion – be about celebration and enthusiasm. I’m not advocating camp, kitschy mock-pop – that should be left back where it belongs – and I’m not saying there shouldn’t be a few songs like this. But ballads got the first and second place last year. Let’s have a bit of schlager placing this time, please.

Tim: Oh, absolutely – I’m as much as campaigner for the Charlotte Perellis and DJ Bobos of the competition as the next guy – I just think it’s nice to have a break every now and again, with something slightly calming but still musically interesting.

Anyway, what is also brilliant is the steadicam shot that starts at 2:21 (although nothing quite beats the Segway in Belarus’s performance).

Tom: Now that I can agree with you on. Still can’t believe “Eyes That Never Lie” didn’t make it through to the final.