Author: tom

Yasmin – On My Own

FWEEP.

Tom: “If this isn’t big,” writes Matt, our resident Radio Insider, “I’ll buy a hat so I can eat it.”

Tom: So: let’s run through FWEEP the basics. A horn section; a FWEEP drum and bass backing; a gorgeous voice and FWEEP… is that you, Tim?

Tim: Erm – say what now?

Tom: You know what. Inserting that ‘FWEEP’. The horn squeal. The one that’s really FWEEP bloody noticeable, because it’s been used as FWEEP the main part of ‘Insane in the Membrane‘, and ‘Jump Around‘?

Tim: Oh, that.

Tom: It can’t actually be in Yasmin’s track, because no producer would FWEEP be insane enough to include a sample like that. It’s all anyone will hear. No matter FWEEP how good the rest of the track is – and this track is good – all anyone’s going to hear is FWEEP.

Tim: You think? Because – actual truth – I didn’t notice it until the last part. It’s quiet and infrequent enough for it not to stand out too much, at least until it appears on its own towards the end. The one annoying thing about it is that now I have heard it, I always expect it to hit on the first beat instead of the last. That is what annoys me about it, and the rest is good. But yes – odd placement.

Tom: FWEEP.

Tim: Shut up.

Tom: …fweep?

Eric Prydz – Niton (The Reason)

Ooh – this is quite fun, isn’t it?

Tim: The first couple of times I heard this, I thought it was nothing particularly special, and was all ready to pass over it without saying anything. The third time, though, I suddenly found myself really liking it, but I don’t quite know why.

Tom: Well, Tim, I listened three times and I’ve got to say: that didn’t happen for me.

Tim: It like something suddenly happened in my head and I realised ‘Ooh – this is quite fun, isn’t it?’ There’s a bit of energy there, especially when it finally gets going just after two minutes in.

Tom: Why didn’t that happen a minute earlier though? The last thirty seconds of it’s a full Eric Prydz track, and the rest… isn’t. And I’m willing to bet that without scantily-clad dance instructors this ain’t going anywhere.

Tim: Much like the Dilba track, it’s never going to get anyone begging the DJ to play it, but it would certainly go down very well with a happy crowd. Thumbs up from me.

Natasha Thomas – Alene

Now what we have here, children, is a lesson for life.

Tim: Now what we have here, children, is a lesson for life.

Tom: Ooh, right. I’m sitting comfortably. You should begin.

Tim: You see, it starts off with a fairly healthy bass line and plenty of potential. With the beat that it has, it could go anywhere – turn into a proper dance tune, give us a great big cheesy chorus and massive key change or maybe even become some sort of Danish hip hop.

Tom: It’s like an ugly duckling, all ready to turn into a swan!

Tim: Does it do any of this? No. Absolutely not.

Tom: Oh.

Tim: It started with a healthy beat, it finished with a healthy beat, but it did absolutely nothing in between, and was entirely disappointing. It’s the musical equivalent of someone who is born, goes to school, just about passes his exams, gets a job in a small accountancy firm, retires at the age of 65 and then has a heart attack without anyone really noticing.

Tom: Damn.

Tim: Don’t be this song, kids. Do something with your lives.

Tom: You are so not Aesop, Tim.

Ilia Darlin – Car Crash

The video begins with her chopping up pieces of her ex-boyfriends.

Tim: This lady is Greek. The video begins with her chopping up pieces of her ex-boyfriends, because they lied to her. There is no way we are not taking a deeper look at this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0UYlZ6fM_8

Tom: That first note? My brain went straight to Katy Perry’s ‘I Kissed A Girl’, and then got very very confused. It remained in that state for the whole video. Alternating between blatantly sexualised dance routines and shots of raw meat? That’s just wrong, Tim. It’s just wrong.

Tim: Now I’m not sure why, but I really really want to like this. But I don’t. A minute and a half in I was surprised to find out the song wasn’t even half done yet, and when it kept going I just found it absolutely and entirely not registering in my head. It’s just a bit boring, really (lyrics aside, that is). The verses plod along line by line without even that much of a tune (despite an annoying amount of autotune), and the chorus is nowhere near as energetic as it should be.

Tom: I think she wants to be the Greek Lady Gaga. Ridiculous costumes, opaque sunglasses, wigs, electronic production and somewhat-disturbing videos? It’s a straight rip – only the music’s just not good enough to match.

Tim: Hopefully she’ll do some more that are better, though, as there does seem to be something here – just not in this song.

Emma’s Imagination – This Day

It does go on a bit.

Tom: So this cheery singer won Sky’s “Must Be The Music” – no, I didn’t watch it either – with a lovely under-two-minute acoustic number.

Tim: It is quite nice, although it doesn’t help that my brain keeps interrupting with Hey There Delilah every time the guitar takes the focus.

Tom: The producers have added a few session musicians with strings and percussion and turned it into a proper single, and…

Tom: …well, it’s lovely but I wish it was still under two minutes. It does go on a bit.

Tim: Blimey, it does and all, doesn’t it? For me it’s the backing drum – once it starts it almost never stops or even varies from the same two second loop. There’s just too much instrumental in general – let’s have some lyrics, dearie.

Tom: It’s rare for me to outright call for this, Tim – but I want a remix. I want Almighty Records to take this and run with it and turn it into a key-change blasting pop spectacular. Because this is lovely, it’s wonderful, but there’s just not quite enough there. And no, dubstep doesn’t bloody count and it sounds awful. Like all dubstep.

Her Majesty and the Wolves – Stars In Your Eyes

Kimberly Wyatt. You know, Kimberly Wyatt?

Tom: Okay. Start with the backing from Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Dance Wiv Me’. Replace Dizzee Rascal with some American bloke, and Calvin Harris with an autotuned Kimberly Wyatt. You know, Kimberly Wyatt.

Tim: What, her off Kids in America?

Tom: Yeah, okay, I had to look her up as well. One of the Pussycat Dolls, apparently. Anyway, mash up all that and you get this:

Tom: I realised half way through that there is actually more to this song than that – once you get over the startling similarity to Dizzee’s track and she actually sings, this is actually quite danceable.

Tim: Yeah – it got me just after the first verse when the proper tune appeared, up until when I’d thought ‘why have you sent me this rubbish?’ And actually, all the way after that I really liked it – it was just the aforementioned American bloke that I didn’t get on with.

Tom: The chorus is a bit by-the-numbers, but despite that I rather like it. I wouldn’t say I’d head to the dancefloor if it got played, but I’d happily stay there.

They have blatantly ripped off Tron Legacy for the video though. He appears to be mixing on an electric hob.

Tim: Oh, please. Are you honestly telling me you’ve never made music with your kitchen implements?

Momofoko – Still Need To Dance

To be honest this is a bit annoying.

Tim: This video is, I think, the weirdest one we’ve seen since Underground.

Tom: A “Bed Intruder” reference? Blimey.

Tim: Yeah. And much like Underground, I was pretty much too engrossed in that than the song itself. Quite what still needing to dance has to do with going out hunting and investigating unusual weather phenomena is beyond me, but to be honest this is a bit annoying.

Tom: It’s a lovely bit of video, though, I’ll give it that much. But annoying?

Tim: The thing is, the music is good, but it seems to have been used just as a backing track for this video, rather than the other way round. You can’t really hear it much, and the fact that it keeps getting interrupted means you can’t even listen to it properly in the background.

Tom: Ah, now there’s a reason for that. Music videos are increasingly having interruptions or ‘extra bits’ added to them, to stop people ripping the audio from YouTube. They’re what they’ve always been – an advert for the track – but now they’re not the track itself.

Tim: I know that – it’s just, isn’t this a bit too far? One break I can cope with, but we have two stupidly long ones, the second of which finishes so close to the end that we can’t really be sure what the end of the track is actually like.

To sum up: good music, but can we actually hear it next time, please. And in a way that lets us know how the song finishes. Thank you.

Saturday Flashback: Dr. Bombay – Calcutta

It’s unnervingly racist Swedish Europop time!

Tom: Do you know what time it is, Tim? That’s right: it’s unnervingly racist Swedish Europop time!

Tom: This is textbook nineties bubblegum Europop. Bouncy sound-effect bassline, simple melodies, singalong chorus. It’s everything that we try to celebrate here: dancing like idiots to ridiculous, overproduced music. Or at least it would be, if it wasn’t performed by a Swedish guy in thick, questionably-racist makeup.

Tim: Wow, it’s like a musical Come Fly With Me.

Tom: Okay, so it was the nineties. This was apparently just-about-OK then, even for Top of the Pops. (Yes, Top of the Pops. Try getting that through the BBC now. And yes, there is stereotypical mock-Indian mumbling in there.) Jonny Jakobsen probably couldn’t get away with releasing a whole of album of this now, although his other character, the faux-Scottish but similarly-accented “Dr. Macdoo”, might just be able to survive. Because ironic bagpipe techno is, of course, so popular.

Tim: Towards the end of the intro, I started thinking this was a bit like the Special D track we reviewed – that I liked it, even though I didn’t really want to. The beat was just about happy and poppy enough to outweigh the dodginess. Then the verses started, which are appalling for multiple reasons, and then just no.

Tom: It gets stranger. Bizarrely, Jonny Jakobsen put out a ‘Greatest Hits’ album in 2007 – which was just the previous two characters’ albums combined and cut down. Even more bizarrely: Basshunter provided a remix of ‘Calcutta’. That’s right: in the twenty-first century, in Europe, some record producer thought it’d be a great idea to get Basshunter to remix this track.

Tim: Musically, this is a bit better, and to be honest I think I could get on with an instrumental version of it. As it is, with the verses, it’s… it’s not for me, and I’ll leave it at that.

Tom: I think we’ll both leave it at that.

Deejay Jay vs. Dilba – I’m Sorry

Ah, Ibiza. The sun, the sea, the sand, the sexually transmitted infections.

Tim: Bored of winter? In that case, close your eyes, lie back, listen to this and be whisked off to a beach on Ibiza.

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

Tom: Ah, Ibiza. The sun, the sea, the sand, the sexually transmitted infections.

Tim: A 1996 track, redone to sound like the summer of 2003 and released in the winter of 2010, it does go on a bit without really doing anything.

Tom: It’s pleasant enough, I suppose, but it’s very much “early night in a nearly-empty club”. Floor-filler it ain’t.

Tim: Well, for that we have the source material to blame – but I like it. It’s very peaceful, it’s very relaxing, and even if you don’t like that there’s a slightly (very slightly) heavier remix for you instead (which entirely fails to kick in at 1:33).

Tom: That 1:33 moment might be the worst stall I’ve ever heard. Mind you, it’s very difficult to count as ‘heavy’ at that plodding BPM.

Tim: But I think that’s all it’s meant for – it’s never going to get anyone raving, but it will fit nicely on a few chill out compilations.

Tom: I’ve never really liked or understood ‘chillout’ dance. That’s what other genres of music are for, surely?

Professor Green feat. Maverick Sabre – Jungle

Leave the key changes and schlager aside.

Tom: All right, Tim, hold on. Let’s leave the key changes and schlager aside for a moment – it’s time for us to attempt a track that, as two middle-class white guys, we are utterly unqualified to review.

Tom: Let’s be honest: this is Guns N’ Roses ‘Welcome to the Jungle’ reinterpreted for 21st century kids.

Tim: Don’t like it.

Tom: Thought that might be the reaction. Still, there’s clearly an audience for this if he’s on the fourth single, and it’s pretty listenable. He’s milking the album a bit, though; this is the fourth single from “Alive ‘Til I’m Dead”, at which point you can probably justifiably claim he’s just stalling before getting some new material out.

Tim: Which’ll probably be rubbish.

Tom: “Welcome to Hackney / A place where I think somebody’s been playing Jumanji”. I’ll be honest: a kitschy Robin Williams film is not a reference I expected to hear at the start of this.

Tim: It’s rubbish.

Tom: I don’t think you can claim the video glamorises anything.

Tim: Or that the video’s good. Or that the song’s good.

Tom: Right. Mental note. Don’t suggest any more grime tracks to Tim.