Author: tom

Sunday Girl – Stop Hey

Use your lungs, Sunday Girl!

Tim: Now, something British. To be more specific, ‘Stop Hey’ by Sunday Girl.

Tom: Ooh, that starts well.

Tim: Indeed – the intro for this is very very promising. Unfortunately, the rest isn’t quite as great, although I still like it. I prefer it to a lot of the other Eliza Doolittle/Diana Vickers/Lily Allen stuff that’s around at the moment, mainly because there’s still quite a bit of energy to it, for the most part.

Tom: A decent bit of synth work in the background, as well. Unlike Eliza Doolittle and her ilk, though, she’s doing the ‘high pitched breathy’ voice – and with very rare exceptions, that just seems frustrating to me. This is not one of those exceptions. Use your lungs, Sunday Girl!

Tim: Three things about the video:

  • it’s not for cat people
  • that umbrella looks ridiculously flimsy, and doesn’t she know it’s bad luck to open one indoors?
  • you can distract yourself from the boring bit before the bridge by imagining what it would sound like if she inhaled the helium from every single one of those balloons.

Tom: My word, that’s a sad looking dog. Must have listened to the record a few times.

Shakira feat. Dizzee Rascal – Loca

They’re going through the motions rather than actually having fun.

Tom: I saw the artists’ names and immediately thought “hell yes”. The woman who sang the best-selling song of the 21st century so far, and the best British rapper ever? (Don’t argue. I’ve seen him live, and I’ve never seen a crowd get quite so excited.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqmbvKuhig8

Tom: It’s a typical Latin-influenced track, with singing from Shakira and verses from Mr. Rascal (as he’s formally known).

Tim: He actually is.

Tom: That’s what you’d expect from a collaboration like this – and there’s even a point where they trade lines as well. But what’s missing seems to be the energy. It almost seems like they’re going through the motions rather than actually having fun recording it.

Tim: One of the problems is that for the most part, Shakira’s getting through so many words that she’s practically unintelligible, so I have no idea what the song’s about. That was particularly the case when Dizzee was talking about feeling ‘el presidente’, and I spent a good couple of minutes wondering what orange juice had to do with anything, before I realised I was thinking of Del Monte.

There’s one time you can definitely understand her though, and it leads to a question I have long wanted to know the answer to: what is it with rappers and wanting to be called ‘daddy’ (or, in this case, ‘papi’)? It’s just plain weird, but it’s all over the place – Usher’s particularly guilty of it. Since when did incest become attractive?

If I was a girl, and my boyfriend said that to me, I would say to him, ‘Okay, I’ll call you daddy, but only if you call me mummy,’ and then I’d watch him run screaming from the room.

Tom: That’s a mental image that’s going to stay with me for a while.

Anyway, the lack of enthusiasm’s the same in the video – him and her have blatantly been filmed separately, perhaps even on different continents with the help of some bluescreen.

Tim: Actually, that is one heck of a distracting video, for a blindingly obvious reason.

Tom: Well, yes, I think anyone who…

Tim: …and that is Shakira’s attitude towards basic safety practices.

Tom: Wait, what?

Tim: She wears kneepads when she’s rollerblading in her very small amount of clothing – looks a bit odd, but it’s okay because it’s demonstrating good procedure for any children watching. However, then she goes on a motorbike without any real torso protection and no sign of any helmet (which is almost certainly illegal, by the way). Totally mixed messages.

Tom: How well will the American market react to “that girl is a nutter” being in there? No idea, but I hope it helps Mr. Rascal crack America. He deserves it.

OMD – Sister Marie Says

I didn’t expect to see a Catholic schoolgirl being beaten in the street.

Tom: Advance warning: this is not a happy video. I’d recommend listening to the song on its own first before watching the full video, because for once the pictures really do put the song in a different light.

Tom: Now, as I said last time we talked about OMD: I’m a fan. The overblown synth melodies, the production, everything. I’m still slightly bitter that I missed the chance to see them headline at the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park a few months ago. When I first heard this, I thought “this sounds a bit like old OMD”, and it turns out that I’m right; this track was written in 1981, meant to be released in 1996 but scrapped, brought out as a free download in 2007 and now, finally, it’s the second single off the new album.

This one doesn’t have the triumphant overtones of ‘If You Want It’, and if I’m honest the loud whispering vocal line starts to grate by the end of it. The generic, religious lyrics I can take or leave too – but the operatic bridge and the exit from it are great, elevating it above regular ‘album track’ status.

Tim: My thoughts as I heard this:

0:03 – Ooh, I like this.
0:30 – Ooh, I really like this.
1:03 – Seriously? This is your verse?
1:28 – Hooray, the fun stuff’s back.
1:43 – Do we have to have another verse?
2:11 – Yes. Not long now.
3:05 – This build-up had better be worthwhile.
3:10 – Yes!…although it’s actually just the same as before.
3:22 – Okay, this is definitely Good.

Just a shame about the verses, really.

Tom: The video, though. Well, I was expecting some religious symbolism in there, but after last time I was expecting dancers, high-powered lights and meaningless abstract themes. I didn’t expect to see a Catholic schoolgirl being beaten in the street.

Tim: Yeah, although to be honest it just confuses me – we see her getting beaten up, but it seems as though she started it, which slightly ruins it. Is the idea that an alcoholic mother and boyfriend who leaves her when she says no is enough to start a fight? I don’t know, really, and if I’m honest I don’t like it at all.

Katy Perry – Firework

It goes somewhere mediocre.

Tom: All right, it’s new Katy Perry track time. She’s got a fine way with earworms, so let’s see if this one’s just as catchy. It’s called ‘Firework’, but irritatingly it’s not released until the 15th November, far too late for Bonfire Night. Sort it out, Perry.*

* Incidentally, I would watch a show called “Katy Perry Mason”. Probably just the once.

Tom: It starts well, builds and builds, and just as you’re thinking “this has to go somewhere amazing”… it goes somewhere mediocre. This isn’t a summer hit, or even a ‘Teenage Dream’, and no number of string instruments in the chorus will help that.

Tim: The main problem is that the build-up is actually part of the chorus, so it actually disappoints three or four times throughout.

Tom: Sounds like a girl I knew once.

She’s also doing that thing where she just sings syllables rather than words, which is now starting to irritate the hell out of me. And the bridge is appalling – “boom boom boom / moon moon moon”? That’s scarcely Vengaboys-quality.

Tim: It is something Olly Murs could do worse than to take as an example. Just saying.

Tom: If ever there was a song in desperate need of a final-chorus key change, this is it – because it runs out of ideas about a minute in.

Tim: True. However, the lack of ideas does lead to repetition, which means that by the end of the song, ‘fiiiiiiiirewooooooorks’ has worked its way in and is almost enjoyable.

Tom: I wouldn’t go that far.

Take That – The Flood

When it kicks in… it’s worth the wait.

Tom: And now, something I never thought I’d write: the five members of Take That have a new single.

Tom: It starts slowly. Very slowly. But when it kicks in – heralded in the video by an actual starting pistol going off – it’s worth the wait.

Tim: Yes. Although I did like the slowness – it was a pleasant calm rather than a boring calm.

Tom: The trouble is, Take That have been gone so long that people only remember the hits and, perhaps, the two decent songs that they’ve had since. All the album tracks have faded into memory – so if they ever come out with a dodgy one, people are going to start proclaiming “they’re past it”. And with high-emotion, choir-filled tracks like Never Forget behind them, this is going to have to be something very special.

And by the end of it, I think it just might be. This one’s a grower.

Tim: I’m not sure about a grower – I think I got pretty much everything from it the first time I heard it, and I think you’re right about it being as good as people remember. I have two criticisms, though. The first just grates enough to be slightly annoying, and it’s that I cannot, however hard I try, ignore the fact that they are pronouncing ‘flood’ wrong. I know, regional accents, blah, but dammit I don’t care. Anybody who speaks properly knows that flood rhymes with mud, not wood. The second is something that will get better over time, and it’s the instrumental chorus that appears near the end. I can best compare it to the ‘light to light the way’ from the backing singers in Love Shine A Light (or, if I feel like shaming myself massively, and apparently I do, the ‘love me, love me’ from Love Me For A Reason) – musically it’s great, but it makes it very difficult to sing along to.

Tom: The video’s a bit strange. They go for a rowing race. They lose, but rather than accept defeat gracefully they continue into a half-CGI London and Thames Estuary, rowing out into a stormy sea where they’ll almost certainly perish. I’m now assuming that when they sing that they were “holding back the flood”, they meant it literally, and as a result of their defeat they’re now planning to summon an enormous storm that will destroy London.

Jimi Constantine – Dirty Cinderella

Seriously, put a t-shirt on, mate.

Tim: Some Finnish pop punk for you, by a bloke who wants to be their entry to Eurovision (although not with this song).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSRXBW1ER7c

Tom: Amazing how much the definition of ‘punk’ has changed over the years, hasn’t it? Even pop-punk used to have a bit of attitude – Sum 41 may not have been anything near the Sex Pistols, but at least they at least pretended to have the spit-in-your-face attitude. This is more pop than punk.

Tim: The voice reminds me of a couple of Weird Al songs, I think, and the music underneath has a proper tune to it.

Tom: Good grief, now you mention it he does sound like Weird Al. Something about the slightly-nasal tone, I think.

Tim: The autotune’s laid on a bit heavy, but it doesn’t grate too much (except the ‘ella’ on the last proper line of each chorus).

Tom: True, but the chorus itself starts to grate a bit for me. It’s a nice tune, but the lyrics could use a bit of work. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I can’t help muttering “oh, get over yourself”. Also, he says “could care less” when he means “couldn’t care less” and damn it, that annoys me.

Tim: You bastard, I hadn’t noticed that. Still, overall, I think it’s quite enjoyable, even though, like you say, the lyrics won’t win him any awards, and it’ll be good to see what he comes out with in January.

Tom: Get him a decent lyricist, and I’m looking forward to it.

Tim: As for the video…

Tom: It’s very much a “how close can we get to porn before the music video channels won’t show us” effort, isn’t it?

Tim: Pretty much, yeah. Seriously, put a t-shirt on, mate.

Tom: Right there is a man who shaves his armpits. And, one would presume, everywhere else. Now I’m all for a bit of manscaping, but he does look a bit like a Ken doll.

Tim: It’s not the middle of summer, and right now it just looks a bit silly. In fact, my favourite part is when he gets a football kicked at his head for no reason whatsoever.

Tom: The impact’s right on the single drum hit in the middle of the silent bit, though. Top work, editor.

Olly Murs – Thinking of Me

The stuff that comes out of his mouth is just atrocious.

Tim: The X Factor’s a funny old thing, isn’t it? It’s ostensibly meant to find the country’s best act, but winning isn’t necessarily any better a thing than just getting to the final, as far as future careers go. For every Leona and Alexandra, you get a Leon (who?) and a Steve (according to Wikipedia, currently entertaining crowds in his local Pizza Hut).

For the other finalists, admittedly most just go back home. Some may put out a novelty record, or perhaps a truly dire album of covers, and some may become novelties themselves. But there are a few that do properly well, like JLS. And then there’s Olly Murs.

His first single was, well, not great. It wasn’t terrible – it got to number one, probably – but it wasn’t really anything to write home about. His second single, on the other hand, is quite incredible, being as it is practically a lesson in how not to write words.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRCi83P4-VY

Tom: Ooh, that starts very well and doesn’t really stop. It’s a very summery song, so it’s possibly a shame that he’s releasing it as we plunge into the depths of winter, but I don’t care. I automatically started bouncing a little in my chair.

Tim: I did as well, actually, because you’re correct: the music is enjoyable. But then he starts singing, and the stuff that comes out of his mouth is just atrocious.

You’d think it couldn’t get any worse than the very first two lines, ‘making plans/your old Raybans’. Then it dips further, ‘we used to be/Bob Marley’ and you think, ‘Seriously?’ By the time the second verse gets going, with ‘pebble beach/pinched our feet’, you’re pretty much looking for the nearest office block, just so you can throw your speakers out of a tenth floor window.

Tom: For once, this isn’t grating for me. I think it’s because I’m too busy being suckered in by the chord progression and chukka-chukka percussion. How can you not like this? It’s lovely!

Tim: Because of the words. There are ten ‘rhyming’ couplets in that song. I forced myself to check them. There are precisely two (2) that rhyme and three that are vaguely justifiable. The rest, just…dear God, what did humanity do to deserve this?

Tom: I started singing along with the backing singers on the first listen, Tim. That means it’s very predictable, sure, but it also means I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Tim: Part of me seriously thinks (perhaps even hopes) he was trying to make this bad, for some cool, ironic, silly-hat-wearing reason, and that the good ones slipped in accidentally, because if this is an honest attempt to write a decent song, it’s an honest attempt that a five year old would make.

Tom: I defy you to not smile at that piano outro. It’s even got a lovely PLONK at the end. It’s wonderful.

Tim: Maybe, but you know what the worst thing is? The absolute worst thing? He compares himself to Bob Marley.

Tom: Which may be true, but it just doesn’t change my opinion, which is that I smiled listening to this song. I think it’s just the style hitting a bypass switch on the cynical part of my brain.

Tim: But, Bob Marley was a musician who did reggae because it was where he came from and he was good at it. Olly Murs, on the other hand, is a middle class cock from Essex with a word-that-he’d-rhyme-with-deducting ridiculous hat who does it because he thinks it makes him cool. It doesn’t. IT MAKES HIM AN UTTER PRICK.

Tom: Word that he’d rhyme with deducting? — oh. Clever.

Wait. Hang on. I just watched the video, rather than just listening to it. And now I despise him. I’m thinking fall in, just fall in all through his swaggering leprechaun-like cockery. That’s all it took. I still like the song, I just wish someone else was singing it.

Tim: Oh, God, he’s SUCH A KNOB*. But at least he’s lost the hat, which his something.

* Is that meant to have a ‘k’ in it? Neither way looks particularly right.

JLS – Love You More

It’s just so generic.

Tom: Two years ago, McFly released Do Ya, which I now agree is pretty much their best single, for Children in Need. Last year, it was Peter Kay and his Animated All-Stars. This year, it’s… ah, well, it’s JLS. Never mind.

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

Tom: I want to comment on this, but it’s just so generic that it flies in one ear and out the other. I mean, they can sing in harmony (unlike certain bands we know) and it’s a competent enough track that pushes all the buttons. In fact, the most obvious feature is the end, because it feels like they’ve stopped right in the middle of a

Tim: It’s…dull. There’s really not a lot to like about it. Charity records ought to be fun, to get people excited about raising money and stuff – this is anything but. Where’s the excitement? Where’s the enthusiasm? Where’s…anything that’s interesting? I will, however, try to excuse it by assuming they were all too busy with condoms to concentrate on their music.

Tom: I want to mock that, I really do, but it’s actually a genuinely good way to get a safe-sex message out. Wow. For once, I actually have to applaud that cash-in.

And as for the video: They’re also doing The Pusher-style blurryvision; the director has discovered DSLR video and It Must Be Filmed With Shallow Depth of Field. I know I’m the only one who’s annoyed by this, but I’m going to keep blathering about it.

Elvis Presley – Suspicious Minds (Viva Elvis Remix)

Damaged in the time travel process.

Tom: Elvis’ estate never used to allow remixes or re-edits of his work – something that changed when Nike paid them a lot of money. That resulted in the staggeringly good “A Little Less Conversation”, and a couple of followups that were never as popular.

Well, someone else has come along and paid a lot of money: Cirque du Soleil, who are doing a “Viva Elvis” show – doing for Elvis what they did for The Beatles with the Love album. And this is the lead single: a thorough, orchestral reimagining of the classic ‘Suspicious Minds’.

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

Tom: I liked the Love album. I love mashups. I don’t think there’s such a thing as ‘sacrilege’ when it comes to old records. Now you can certainly make terrible new versions, but the old ones will still be there. So I went into this with an open mind, ready to say that, like A Little Less Conversation, it was brilliant. But, alas, it’s really not.

Tim: Admission: I’ve never really listened to any Elvis at all (aside from the aforementioned JXL remix, which probably doesn’t really count), and have no feelings for his music one way or another – I’m happy to judge this as a song in its own right, without comparisons.

Tom: It’s technically great, of course; the new orchestral pieces are lovely and the whole thing sounds wonderful – but Elvis just doesn’t seem to be there. The drums and the instrumentation are compressed to be as loud as the vocals, and the man himself – this amazing singer and performer – is reduced to a vocal sample. If they’d have kept just half of the energy, of the charisma, of the presence of this 1970 performance, I’d probably be praising it. But it’s not. Unlike the Love album – which had the original producers watching over it – it’s been damaged in the time travel process, and what’s emerged from our end of the machine is a soulless replicant.

Tim: Perhaps, but should we be comparing it to a big energetic live performance? Even if I was just comparing it to the original studio recording, I like this a lot – there’s so much more to it that, like you said, is technically great, and I think it’s brilliant.

The Pusher – Blinded By The Dark

Definitely Radio 1 playlist-worthy.

Tim: I present you with a band called The Pusher (recently renamed from Fashion, no idea why), who aren’t so far away from The Script, once you add in a little bit of Swedishness; this is highly appropriate, given that they are in fact Swedish. They have two tracks up on their Facebook page, one of which is also on YouTube:

Tim: I enjoyed this considerably when I first heard it, and I still do. It’s got all the good bits from bands like Scouting for Girls and The Wanted, and then it adds more good bits to make an all round very listenable track, even if the ending is a little abrupt. It’s definitely Radio 1 playlist-worthy, although the chances of that are sadly small to miniscule.

Tom: This is the first case I’ve seen of “nice song, shame about the video”. I agree with everything you’ve said about the track – I could happily see this sitting on radio playlists up and down the country. There’s nothing too novel or interesting here, but it’s not needed – it’s a proper, decent, modern pop song.

I hope that’s not the official video though.

Let me explain: in the last couple of years, digital SLR cameras have got to the point where they can record HD video. That means that everyone who was able to take professional-looking pictures – those depth-of-field-heavy shots where the background’s all blurry – can now record professional-looking video for a fraction of what it used to cost.

The trouble is, it doesn’t end up looking professional. Overcome with this ability to use depth of field, it’s suddenly used all the time – so for a good portion of that video, nothing at all is in focus – until the singer suddenly looms out of the fog. Combine that with the camera’s rolling shutter, which makes the picture wobble and skew, and it’s suddenly filmed in Drunk-O-Vision.

Robyn’s latest video suffers from this as a little well, but it’s on a much better camera, with a cameraman who very much knows how to use it and with lot more footage to cut between. She can get away with it – The Pusher can’t.

Tim: Understand the point, and why it’s generally very annoying, but here I’m not so sure it applies – the whole song is about a relationship falling apart and breaking down, and for me the wobbliness and entirely-out-of-focusness of the video contributes to that. It’s the same style of filming directors often use when the world, spaceship or building is in the middle of being destroyed, and I’m guessing that here they’re going for the same effect.

Tom: Like hell are they going for the same effect. They’ve got a fancy camera and they’re using it.

Tim: Personally I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt, even if this time it’s more like benefit of the massive massive doubt. We won’t discuss the second track here, partly because it’s not as good, but mostly because I can barely type the name without tears of joy springing forth. It certainly proves they’re definitely not English: Blow Me and Run. I kid you not.

Tom: For some reason that reminded me of ‘Stoppit and Tidyup‘. I think I should stop there.