Category: Dance

Donkeyboy – City Boy

It’s got a bit of Röyksopp about it.

Tim: See? I said we’d have more of them soon.

Tom: You promised, you delivered.

Tim: Have I ever let you down?

Tim: This has been around a few weeks now, but it’s only just here because, well, I’ve only just started liking it.

Tom: Well, I took to it straight away – it’s got a bit of Röyksopp about it, and that’s generally a good thing.

Tim: I’m not sure why it took a while for me to get on with it – the overly synthesised vocals, probably, and while they still grate a bit the rest of it more or less much makes up for them. The underlying musicy stuff is pretty good – nice tune, decent dancey beat, if that’s your sort of thing, which it should be and all that – and while it’s not quite as good as Ambitions, it’s more than a match for their other bit hit Sometimes (which was only kept off the top spot in Norway’s charts by, um, Ambitions).

Tom: Look, I just have one problem with this song, and it’s an awkward one. I hate to agree with YouTube comments, but it really doesn’t sound like he’s singing “eagle”. Or even “ego”. Or whatever it’s meant to be. It sounds – and at this point I’m required by dint of social awkwardness to lower my voice to a whisper – a bit racist.

Tim: You know, I didn’t hear that at all, until you pointed it out, at least. Still sounds alright to me, though. As for the video, well, that’s just a load and a half of WTFery, but it’s also jolly good fun so let’s go with it.

Avicii – Levels

“To be honest I feel somewhat short-changed.”

Tim: You’ll probably have heard this – it’s been around for ages (clubs all summer, used by Flo Rida in a track back in August), but we’ve not discussed it until now, because it’s only recently been properly released.

Tom: That’s weird. I know it incredibly well, but if you’d have asked me before I hit ‘play’ I’d have denied it.

Tim: The vocals apparently come from some song off the 1960’s, which as far as I’m concerned is too far back to worry about, but good hunting none the less. As a tune it’s energetic and all that, but I can’t get away from the fact that, sampled vocal aside, it’s just two bars looped for two and a half minutes, and to be honest I feel somewhat short-changed.

Tom: Agreed – which is strange, because the same’s been true of other tracks that we’ve loved.

Tim: Indeed – in the past, great success has been achieved with half as much, but there, at least there was a lot of variation in the backing – this, not so much.

Tom: Ah! Well then, I can help you. May I present Mashup-Germany’s “Believe In Your Best Levels“, which fills in those gaps with a half-dozen other tracks that merge perfectly.

Tim: Ooh, fun. Anyway, to sum this up on its own – it’s good, but it’s ten seconds of good, not three and a half minutes.

Dex feat. Cille – Walking in the Sun

There’s a sample here you may recognise.

Tim: There’s a sample here you may recognise.

Tom: Never mind that. Who sets their alarm clock for 7:03am?

Tim: Someone who wants to wake up at seven and whose clock is three minutes fast, but thinks it’s too much faff to work out how to change it. (This may or may not be why my alarm goes off at 7:06 each morning. (Really, it does.))

Anyway, the main problem with this tune, as far as I’m concerned, is that sample. You see, it’s a perfectly competent – more than competent, in fact, and I might even say very good – dance tune, and I like it a lot.

Tom: I like it too – and Dex clearly does, since he’s able to provide the kind of DJ dancing that I haven’t seen in a long while. It’s enthusiastic, to say the least.

Tim: BUT, I keep listening out for that little bit of Children. “Will it come back? There was only a bit of it, so it might not. But oh, there’s a bit. When’s it going to be next?”

Tom: “Children” is sampled so much that it’s almost become generic – and that’s a shame, because the original is an absolutely cracking track. But to just put this little short snap of it in? It just seems so bizarre.

Tim: Yeah, and I don’t know if most people will do that, or if it’s just me, but it means I’m so busy listening out for a few particular piano notes that everything else sort of passes me by, and that’s a shame, because this is otherwise an excellent piece of dance music, if perhaps six months early and/or late.

The Sound of Arrows – Wonders

Just as spaced out and trancey as ever.

Tim: Barely a fortnight now until Voyage is released, and here’s a new single to accompany it.

Tom: I remember, the last time we discussed The Sound of Arrows, that I had trouble putting them into a genre. Well, no more: this is trance, surely?

Tim: It’s just as spaced out and trancey as ever, and I love it. You push play, you lie back, and you drift away. All it needs is a video along the lines of Nova and it’ll be perfect. You hear me? PERFECT.

Tom: Perfect?

Tim: Well, maybe not perfect, because it’s actually not as good as Nova or M.A.G.I.C. were, but still. Very good nonetheless.

Tom: Despite the dodgy sci-fi laser-beam sound effects, I’ve got to agree.

Saturday Flashback: Sak Noel – Loca People

HUGE in European clubs. You in a partying mood?

Tim: This has been around since April, and was apparently HUGE in European clubs. You in a partying mood?

Tom: Oh yes I am. And you know what? I’m going to put the ‘uncensored’ version of this up as well. Viewers beware: strong language and sexual imagery ahead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZLd81IHGQw

Tim: Now, my first reaction on hearing this was, well, to quote the song, ‘what the fuck?’ I really don’t get this – not keen at all. Big all over Europe? Really?

Tom: It does have a bit of a beat to it, I guess, but it’s really rather dull. The vocal just sounds bored.

Tim: But then I realised I wasn’t in a club, and so this song wouldn’t work. In a club, we can DANCE, and GO CRAZY.

Tom: Yes.

Tim: We can JUMP TO THE BEAT.

Tom: Yes.

Tim: We can SPIKE FIT GIRLS’ DRINKS.

Tom: …I have a feeling that the target market for this song wouldn’t find that quite as offensive as most of our readers will.

Tim: Well, as far as I know most of our readers aren’t out HAVING IT LARGE in Kavos and Magaluf. For those sorts of places this song is great. At hone? Not so much.

That’s not meant to sound as judgemental as it probably did, by the way.

Tom: It’s a song that requires the volume to be cranked to ear-splitting proportions, and the alcohol to be flowing freely.

Saturday Flashback: Micky Modelle v Jessy – Dancing In The Dark

A certified Clubland Classic.

Tom: A certified Clubland Classic here, Tim. Mind you, with all the dancing, the music video is practically a restrained art piece by Clubland’s standards.

Tim: Huh. Not what I expected from Micky Modelle, who almost rivals Almighty when it comes to amazing/terrible/amazingly terrible dance mixes. (For those without Spotify, a version of Love Is All Around on an album entitled “Scottish Club Anthems”. Definitely on the terrible side.)

Tom: Now, I think this is absolutely fantastic: it’s taking a slow, Belgian piano-and-vocals track and adding well-produced new stuff to it. And yes, there are dozens of harder remixes of it out there – but this first remix has the rare ability to get the hell out of the way when it needs to.

Tim: Fantastic, not so sure about. It is at the very least respectable, which, compared to other stuff from him (which admittedly isn’t always bad), does I suppose make it at least very good.

Tom: It must have been quite a change for Jessy: starting out as a Proper Singer and ending up working with Micky Modelle and Sash. Still, she seems to have kept most of her dignity.

Calvin Harris – Feel So Close

Your usual Calvin Harris beat-piano-and-lyrics track – that’s a good thing.

Tom: I really like this track, but I can’t work out whether it’s because of the music or the brilliant Americana video that goes with it.

Tim: Well for me, the music’s enough.

Tom: The track’s your usual Calvin Harris beat-piano-and-lyrics track – that’s a good thing, of course – and the video is just beautifully-filmed shots of people in California. But somehow, the two of those together, when that massive pre-chorus build kicks in… somehow it all just comes together.

Tim: Hmm. Reminds me a bit of that Where The Hell Is Matt? thing from a few years back, which was brilliant. And now I’ve just watched that several times.

Tom: I thought that perhaps my wanderlust was getting the better of me, and I was just a sucker for scenes-from-America videos. But I’ve since disproved that, because I don’t rate Noel Gallagher’s new track at all. It’s not the video, Tim: it’s definitely the song.

Tim: I had no idea Noel Gallagher was doing new stuff. Turns out: don’t really care, either.

Gregorgeous – Take You High

It doesn’t do anything all that great

Tim: Here’s a video that takes a rather irritating – some might say inconsiderate – two minutes to actually do anything.

Tom: What is it with music videos getting credits nowadays? Yes, it looks cool, but it’s not a movie. You’re there to show off the music. Lady Gaga can get away with it because her two-minute intros really are spectacles. This is just some people walking into a club.

Tim: And even after all that time, it doesn’t do anything all that great. Sure, it’s a good track, and I do like it – there’s a nice beat to it, decent rhythm, a fairly alright tune and good dance-floor-appropriate lyrics – but it doesn’t really live up to what it should be based on the first few notes.

Tom: I think that’s because the first few notes are actually from Dizzee Rascal’s “Bonkers”.

Tim: Ooh, they are a bit. And when the music originally hit, I thought, ooh, this is going to be a cracker, expecting it to grow a bit, but it didn’t really, which is a bit disappointing.

Tom: You’re right. There’s nothing particularly wrong with it, but it’s just… standard. Also, “Gregorgeous”? There’s someone with a high opinion of himself right there.

Stellar Project feat. Emelie Norenberg – Strong

You may remember the fantastic Destiny from last year.

Tim: You may or may not remember the fantastic and so-cheesy-it’s-practically-a-fondue Destiny from the end of last year.

Tom: Ooh, yes! I remember wanting to wave my hands in the air in a manner suggesting that I just didn’t care.

Tim: Upsettingly, they’ve now split up, more or less, and one of them’s gone a bit more grown up and done vocals on a dance track. This one, to be precise.

Tim: Is this bog-standard Eurodance stuff? Absolutely.

Tom: And I couldn’t give a damn. That starts well and keeps going.

Tim: Indeed, although it does have a slight summer beach feel to it. Much as yesterday’s track, this is fairly routine middle-of-the-set keep-people-going stuff, and I rather like it. Mainly because of that summery feel to it, because otherwise it would be entirely generic.

Tom: I doubt it’s going to be on an “All Time Dance Anthems” compilation in five years’ time, but there’s nothing wrong with it at all.

Avicii – Fade Into Darkness

It’s a hell of a lot better than Leona’s

Tim: The story so far, for those that don’t know: Scott Mills unveiled Leona Lewis’s new track a couple of weeks ago on Radio 1, everybody realised that the backing was roughly identical to Avicii’s Penguin even though he got no credit or anything, Ministry of Sound (his label) got all shouty, and so did he, and made it all public, and Leona’s people tried to deny it all but no-one really believed them.

Tom: Now, to be fair, I can see this being a genuine cock-up: as Avicii says in his posts, the background is all properly licensed, and the idea of using a modern-classical track as the backing for something else isn’t really a new or original thought.

Tim: So what happens now? The vocal version of Penguin gets decided on and given a speedy release.

Tim: You said it needed a bit more – how was that?

Tom: It’s a hell of a lot better than Leona’s, that’s for sure

Tim: Well, duh…

Tom: I was worried about how long it took to kick in, but then I realised I said the same thing about the original mix: with that in mind, I don’t really have a bad work to say about it.

Tim: I reckon it works well – vocal sounds appropriate, and while it’s unlike to stop Leona Lewis’s being successful, hopefully it’ll do more than well enough, especially given this extra publicity that it’s got. Though of course there is the possibility of total morons getting all over YouTube and going “OMG I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU STOLE LEONAS TRACK U R SO GAY!!!!”

Tom: Point ’em towards the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.