“He’s been joiking since before KEiiNO made it cool, and now he’s taken the bold step of basically nicking some Disney promo.”
Tim: He’s been joiking since before KEiiNO made it cool, and now he’s taken the bold step of basically nicking some Disney promo.
Tom: That is… pretty blatant, really, isn’t it? Is he trying out for the soundtrack of Avatar 2 or something?
Tim: Hard to write about this, really, beyond ‘I like the sound of it, and that’s an exceptionally lovely closing segment’, what with it not really being any form of pop song.
Tom: Right! This really does sound like it’s some… well, I was going to say “stock music”, but that’s too harsh. Movie score, then.
Tim: Unlike any of his other ones we’ve featured, which have either had featured singers or been Melodifestivalen entries, there’s no readily identifiable verse or chorus structure (or at least not to my ears, with me not getting any of the lyrics), and it’s arguably better suited to being a nature documentary soundtrack. So I guess people could ask why we’re featuring it, and the answer to that is simple: I like the sound of it, and that’s an exceptionally lovely closing segment.
“Good heavens, that’s a power-ballad instrumental intro, isn’t it? Haven’t heard anything like that for a while.”
Tim: “The song I wrote a year ago when I was sitting at home and longing for you all,” says Moa. Not sure what the circumstances were there, but she continues: “I wanted to launch the songs and be immeasurably happy with everything. I build up so many dreams and expectations that I can get an uncontrolled zeal in my body. I want to be who I was born to be. As simple as that. No frills.” No pressure, then.
Tom: Good heavens, that’s a power-ballad instrumental intro, isn’t it? Haven’t heard anything like that for a while. This sounds like a good Roxette track.
Tim: And that there is a song I absolutely love. The genre’s not really one I’d normally go in for – it’s almost a bit folk-y at times, and a bit slow – but here, everything sounds just wonderful.
Tom: It’s doing that trick of playing about with chord progressions, aiming for ‘anthemic’. And… I think it might actually be doing it?
Tim: The melody in the chorus is just lovely, the general sound is incredibly pleasing, with its lazy synth, slow drumbeat and strumming guitar, and the vocal is soft and flowing that I can just lie back and get lost in it, actually paying attention to the lyrics.
Tom: And an instrumental middle eight with an electric guitar solo in there, too. I think the last chorus could possibly have been given a bit more… something — but it makes up for it with that final line.
Tim: The thing that really made me know I liked it was when I thought “is this still going”, checked and saw that we were only two and a half minutes in, and found myself actually happy that there was still over a minute to go. Not sure that’s ever happened before, but it’s lovely that it has happened now.
Tim: Morgan, Norwegian, featured once: Måns, Sweden, featured 15 times. Here’s a duet from them, about the Old Days and past romances, with a fun behind the scenes video for anyone who doesn’t know how a recording studio works.
Tom: What a weird video. All in slow motion, some far-too-long lingering shots of objects to fill the time. It’s like they just had a camera op in for the day and they randomly pointed the camera at things.
Tim: The annoying thing about behind the scenes videos (and, as I’ve found recently during lockdown, director’s Blu-ray commentaries) is that so often they’re quite interesting here and there, but typically leave one or two things that you really want to know by the wayside.
For example, here: why is this a duet?
Tom: I’m going to guess “marketing”. I mean, it’s entirely possible that the two of them get along well, decided to record a duet, and picked this odd choice for it. But I think it’s probably marketing.
Tim: It doesn’t hurt the song in any way, mind – if anything, the vocal variety improves it a little – but it’s not really the sort of song that would normally have two singers. Sure, a guy and a girl might be singing in each others’ faces about how the old days were good/bad/horrific, as we see that fairly often, but two guys? This is entering boyband territory – not necessarily a bad thing, again, but, well, I just want to know why (and annoyingly, I can’t find any lyrics online to see if there’s a “two guys having a chat comparing old flames” narrative in the lyrics).
Tom: Sure. There’s nothing objectionable here, but I can’t remember a damn thing about it afterwards.
Tim: I’d never seen the video for Shanks & Bigfoot’s Sweet Like Chocolate until now, and it really is quite something. Anyway, that’s not why we’re here, we’re here for Steve Aoki’s new one, where he’s teamed up with the frequently reliable Icona Pop.
Tom: Well, that’s an interesting teamup: they’re both known for being Loud and Interesting.
Tim: And, yep, that’s very much a Steve Aoki feat. Icona Pop track. Slightly yelly vocals, hefty beat, no real melody in the verse but a decent (if not entirely original) melody in the chorus and breakdown. To be honest, it’s pretty much expected to hear when I pressed play, and that is no bad thing at all, for anyone who likes that sort of thing.
Tom: I’ve said this before, but: if you’re going to base your entire chorus on one repetitive melody line, then you’d better make sure it’s brilliant, and couldn’t possibly grate on the audience. I don’t think they’ve pulled it off here. Or at least, they haven’t for me.
Tim: Incidentally, both this and his last one with Backstreet Boys have an enormous number of writers – credited here we’ve got him, both of Icona Pop, Sigala, her off SHY Martin, and four other less recognisable names – and yet no-one thought to say “hang on, I recognise that melody”.
Tom: I do hear Shanks & Bigfoot in there now you point it out, but I’m also not convinced that it’s an original enough melody to even justify copyright: it’s more like something a small child would pick out on a piano.
Which, now I think of it, is just a different indictment of the songwriting. Ah well.
“I think, frankly, this may have Raised Expectations Too High.”
Tom: The PR bumf for this one says that it “delivers a rich dose of inspiration just when listeners need it most”, which frankly sounds more like a marketing slogan for an energy drink, but sure.
Tim: We’ve seen worse.
Tom: “Don’t be surprised when you get goosebumps at the crescendo!”, continues the blurb. I think, frankly, this may have Raised Expectations Too High.
Tom: Because if they’d come in with “yep, it’s a by-the-numbers trying-to-be-anthemic dance track”, I’d have been all “you know what, this is actually a cut above”. Because that chorus is excellent: yes, it’s the same style we’ve heard for years, but I think it proves there’s still life in that genre.
Tim: Yes – I really really enjoyed that. I do question the marketing of it as relevant to lockdown when the main chorus line starts “come with me, let us live a little louder”, but marketing aside this is a great track. I particularly like that from a DJ I’ve never heard of before (even though he’s been going since 2009).
Tom: But goosebumps? Come on, mate. Tone it down a notch or two.
Tim: Not sure there’s any chance of that – his website describes him as “clubbing’s G-force of nature” and as “a household name in dance music” despite him not even having a Wikipedia page in his native Germany. Still, what’s wrong with a bit of self-confidence?
“I think I’m mostly impressed by the fact that Dario G has kept the same logo for almost a quarter of a century.”
Tim: It’s warm and sunny outside, but no-one can go out and party to enjoy it. It is, really, the perfect situation for relaxing summery tracks that Dario G is known for.
Tim: Ah. Hmm.
Tom: I think I’m mostly impressed by the fact that Dario G has kept the same logo for almost a quarter of a century.
Tim: Do you know, I entirely love it when acts do that. I can’t think of many off the top of my head – The Sound of Arrows have, and Busted have as well, though they dropped it for their first comeback album when they went all funky and less than ideal, which I think says it all.
And as for the music here, well, it’s good, don’t get me wrong – it’s just that right now, if I see Dario G come up, I’d like a song I can press play on and then relax to, in a garden, or on a balcony, or at just the right place where the sun shines through the window. What I really don’t want much of is a tropical beat-heavy banger that reminds me I could be having a massive night out. There’s still trademark parts in there, mind, and this is something that could absolutely be resolved with a remix: just take some of the drums off and I’m fairly sure I’d love it.
Tom: I’m not particularly against the style of this, it’s a good modern update to the old piano-dance.
Tim: Very very true, and I don’t want to come across too negative. This reaction is based entirely on my expectations, assumptions and personal wishes. If I’m out for a night in a club and this comes on, I’ll be putting down my piña colada and getting right on that dance floor. But I see Dario G, with the situation as it is…ahh, it’s just the timing.
Tim: He’s got a crush on her (or him); she (or he) is way out of his league; whenever they’re in the same room the time seems to go very quickly, or to be more precise “Hour like a minute”.
Tom: Well, that’s nice, isn’t it? There’s a lot of good, calm melodies in there: it builds really, really well.
Tim: Disappointingly there’s no happy resolution, Teenage Dirtbag-style, at the end of this, it’s just a “yeah, I like you…okay then”, and we as listeners are left to wonder if anything did ever come of it.
That’d be nice, sometimes, if romantic songs had sequels, so the first one could be like this, and the second could be that yeah, she decided to go for it, and ooh, then we could have a whole SERIES of songs, each one documenting a further stage in the relationship, going through multiple dates, marriage, tricky patch, kids to make it better, everything becoming wonderful, growing old together and seeing the grandchildren go off to school and write songs of their own. As it is, we’ve got nothing. Ah, well.
Tom: Lockdown’s going okay, then?
Tim: Music’s alright though.
Tom: It is, and I was going to write some more about it, but honestly I don’t think there’s anything I can add now.
“Okay, we’ve had completely different reactions to this.”
Tim: Cathrim Gram is from Norway, has a spelling unusual enough that she can go by just her first name, and last week presumably got a call along the lines of “right, song’s lined up for release on Friday, but obviously we can’t now get together to do the video. You able to sort something out, maybe with your family?”
Tim: So first up: yes, the song drags on a bit, though it does sound good, but that’s not why I wanted to feature it. It’s the video, partly because it’s fun regardless, but mainly because I’m not sure they’d have done one anywhere near as nice if there were people involved.
Tom: Okay, we’ve had completely different reactions to this. I understand the reasoning behind the video — and I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing — but I think it takes away from the song so, so much. When I put it into a background tab and just listened, the song became a lot better.
Tim: Hmm. You know, I was so taken by the video that I’d not listened to it without it, and now I’ve done that you’re absolutely right. Paying attention to it properly, it comes across like a good Bright Light Bright Light track (new one out today, incidentally, and we’ll probably get to that at some point), and that’s never a bad thing.
Back to the video, though, and for me it captures the mood of the song perfectly, mostly because it just takes large parts of the song and acts them out directly. My main thought, really, is that if it was actual people playing out the scenes it would just come across as irritating mawkish. As it is, acted out with smurfs (and lots of them, they must have a hefty collection), for me it comes across as less cloying and more ‘aw, cute’. Just me?
Tom: Just you, I think. Honestly, this is a really good track: there’s a lot of interesting counterpoint melodies going on in the background, it’s novel enough to be interesting without being off-putting. I’m not convinced about all the lyrics, and I think you’re right that it could use being a bit shorter, but — without that video — it’s a decent, interesting track in a genre that I can’t quite place.
Tim: Good thing most speakers and headphones don’t come with displays, then.
Tim: There’s probably some sort of logic in getting rid of two letters from each of the first two words so you need to add to to the third one, but let’s not focus on it. Look! Happy flowers!
Tim: So, here’s the thing: if this came from, I don’t know, Niall Horan, I’d be entirely “huh, yeah” and then move on swiftly.
Tom: Which is actually what I did a few days ago — I thought about sending you this, but I really couldn’t find much to talk about. It’s… no, see, that’s the problem, I literally don’t know how to continue that sentence.
Tim: It’s nice guitar stuff, sure, but there are also a number of things to dislike about it, not least the vocoding on the ‘you and I’ (sorry, ‘u n eye’) in the chorus being the main one. And yet because it’s Boy In Space, I like it.
Tom: Huh. I wonder if that’s because you’re used to his music, or because it’s just a genre that works for you? That vocoding irritates me, and the rest just leaves me cold. But that’s just personal taste: and we know well that ours differ.
Tim: I don’t know if I’m subliminally predisposed to liking his music somehow, or just that I mostly like his style and therefore always give him the benefit of the doubt, but either way: I like this. There are flaws, I’m aware of them, but I like it.
“Shall we have some good old reliable German schlager?”
Tim: Things are a bit grim right now, we’ve all been asked to stay inside, shall we have some good old reliable German schlager?
Tom: YES. Although I’m still not used to seeing “2020” as a year.
Tim: Quick history lesson for you: 1978, Italian group I Santo California recorded Tornerò; 2009 German artist Antonia aus Tirol turned it German and released it as 1000 Träume weit; a few months later, Anna-Maria here made it BANGING. And now, because the time has presumably come to make some more money, she’s rerecorded it with some modern stylings.
Tom: Well, that’s exactly what I didn’t know I needed to hear today. And full marks for whatever that shirt’s made out of, too, that’s a bold costume choice. As for the music…
Tim: I’ll be honest with you: there’s really not much of a difference. There are those twiddly vocals that are mandatory these days, the backing oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhhhs are quite a bit lower in the mix, and it’s a tad shorter, but otherwise it’s exactly as it was, key change and all.
And that, as far as I’m concerned, is no bad thing at all.
Tom: I was about to say the same. Sure, you could call it a blatant cash-in, but it’s genuinely difficult for me to be cynical with schlager like this.
Tim: This is jump up and down, hands in the air, lasers all over the place stuff, once you’ve had a few drinks. You’re yelling out with the backing every time it appears, and you’re going absolutely bloody nuts for that key change. And if we can’t go nuts for a key change, what can we do?
