Category: NSFW

MOMOFOKO – We Know

“It’s…huh. Pretty good. Um.”

Tim: Previously, on Europlop!, we tried to listen to Still Need To Dance but ended up complaining that it was more of a film with a musical backing. Now, they’ve pointed us in the direction of their new track. So what’s the video like?

Tom: For a start, it’s got brief shots of a topless woman, blood and injury, and other occasionally inappropriate things in it, so viewers at work may want to keep this in a background tab.

Tim: Good point. Unless you work in a fishmonger’s, in which case you may use it as a training video.

Tom: Other than that, it’s largely nonsensical.

Tim: Well, full of destruction, which is always fun, but even better than that, it doesn’t interrupt the music! So let’s review that properly.

It’s…huh. Pretty good. Um. Part of me thinks that the bloke shouting/girl chanting combination jars a bit, but part of me thinks it works well. Though to be honest, a larger part of me is somewhat indifferent and reckons that while they’re both decent, it’s the backing music that really stands out here.

Tom: Solid drums and keyboard in the background, true – but that voice is good, too.

Tim: It is, and actually, on a second listen, I want to change my opinion. I now think it’s great, because I’ve got it. The ahh-ah-ahhing works as a nice complement to the backing bit, and the bloke singing over the top should be seen as the main vocal bit. That way, it’s almost a sort of instrumental chorus, and it’s lovely. And also contrasts somewhat with the whole destruction thing going on in the video, which is…interesting?

Tom: I think “interesting” just about sums it up.

Caotico & Tove Styrke – Brains Out

What a brilliant track.

Tim: Hello children! In today’s music lesson, we’re going to learn a song that I want you all to sing to mummy and daddy when you go home tonight.

Tom: That starts out so happy, and… well, I guess it continues happy, doesn’t it? What a brilliant track.

Tim: What’s most interesting about this is the way that until the chorus hits, the lyrics just sort of washed over me, even when I tried to listen to them to get what the song was about. Come the chorus, there they are, bang, unmissable. (And leaving very little doubt as to what the song was about.)

Tom: The thing is, it’s actually a good song as well. Okay, so “Shut Up And Sleep With Me” has been almost this direct before, but that’s not nearly as well-rounded a tune as this. It’s genuinely well-written and well-produced, and the video is classy to boot.

Tim: Yes, the music really is good – tune, vocals, energy, it’s all there and great (although with that chorus you’d have to do a lot to calm it down), so I like this a lot. And not just because I can shock my grandparents with it next time they visit.

Danny & Freja – It’s Only You

Paddy McGuinness has been replaced by a scantily-clad dominatrix.

Tim: Danny, off E.M.D. and In Your Eyes, is getting released in the UK in July, with an old track of his but with some re-recorded female vocals. Oh, and don’t watch this if your grandparents are hanging around.

Tom: Well, that is a bit post-watershed, isn’t it? I’d like to think it’s some dystopian future version of Take Me Out in which Paddy McGuinness has been replaced by a scantily-clad dominatrix.

Tim: The music’s nothing special, I suppose, but it’s nothing bad.

Tom: Now I disagree there: I think this is a really good track. It’s not really got a late-night full-club drunken singalong, but as an early-on floor-filler I think it does really quite well.

Tim: They could probably have chosen a better one for a first UK release if they’re going to raid his back catalogue, but it’ll do, although part of me thinks it’s somewhat forgettable.

Tom: In that case, I look forward to hearing about his other tracks: they must be tremendous.

Tim: Well, try Tokyo or Play It For The Girls – both off the same album as this, and largely chirpier and happier. Anyway, since we’ve got this song, the question is: Will it be successful over here? I would say that with a song like this it depends absolutely entirely on radio airplay, so let’s hope it gets picked up,

Saturday Flashback: Shanadoo – My Samurai

There’s no innuendo here at all.

Tom: So, we have a group of attractive female singers in revealing outfits; a Eurobeat-style backing; simple key changes and occasional English lyrics. Textbook J-pop, right?

Tim: That starts off in a similar fashion to Almighty’s version of Never Ending Story and keeps going very well. I like it, verses aside. Well done Tom.

Tom: Well, you see, I showed you that song so I could show you this. Advance warning: this is definitely not suitable for kids, or for anyone who’s likely to have nightmares about being attacked by monsters made of erogenous zones.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8kYIZR7ke8

Tim: Umm… Well, it still has a good start to it, I suppose. And the bits that detracted from the last track have gone. Um. That’s probably not what you were wanting me to comment on, is it? To be honest, though, I really can’t think of words to describe what I think of the video.

Tom: So what the hell happened? Well, first things first: E-Rotic aren’t really a group, they’re a “project”. That’s fairly common for Eurodance acts – the vocalists are disposable; what really counts is the producer.

In this case, the producer is a man called David Brandes, who’d came up with the idea of a group whose songs were all based around sex. (I’d say ‘innuendo’, but there’s no innuendo here at all.)

Tim: No. No there isn’t. And I’m guessing you’ve got a whole load more lined up to show me, haven’t you?

Tom: E-Rotic’s other tracks include the prequel to this one, “Max Don’t Have Sex With Your Ex”, as well as “Help Me Dr. Dick”, “In The Heat Of The Night”, and “Test My Best”. The latter includes some… interesting noises from the vocalist.

Tim: There me be something wrong with me, but I actually really like these. Musically, at least, although not so much lyrically.

Tom: Musically, they’re very good. E-Rotic – with a variety of singers – lasted from 1995 until 2003, releasing a half-dozen studio albums and a compilation called “Greatest Tits”. With them finished, David Brandes gets their existing songs rewritten in Japanese, with no sex in them at all, puts together a girl group and presto – a romantic song about fighting for love follows, which promptly gets into the German top 20.

Shanadoo are still going, as well. As for E-Rotic? …well, not so much.

Tim: I can cope with that. Yeah, I can cope.

Cee-Lo Green – Fuck You

It’s the kind of thing you want to shake a tambourine along to.

Tom: I wasn’t sure whether we could run this on Europlop. Firstly, because I think we’re trying to be vaguely family-friendly, and secondly because it’s neo-soul and completely the wrong type of music for this blog.

But I don’t care. Why? Because it’s genius. I can’t over-sell this. Cee-Lo Green, the singer from Gnarls Barkley, has a song simply entitled “Fuck You”. It’s catchy, it’s happy, it’s the kind of thing you want to shake a tambourine along to. You thought Lily Allen’s “Fuck You” was cheery? You ain’t heard nothin’ yet. And the backing singers! I love profane backing singers.

The release date is October 4th, and the full video – not that this dynamic type one isn’t awesome – is out soon.

Tim: Like it a lot, with special appreciation for the Xbox/Atari comparison and ‘I really hate your ass right now‘. On the scale of Fuck Yous…

Tom: I’m not going to draw a graph of that.

Tim: … it beats Eamon by quite a lot, and Lily Allen by quite a bit, but doesn’t quite match Frankee (due to her incredible vehemence in the chorus and the brilliant lines ‘your sex was whack‘ and ‘I didn’t catch your crabs‘).

Tom: Frankee might have had the novelty lines, but there’s no way a cheap cash-in record – and one that was blatantly a marketing ploy – beats Cee-Lo Goddamn Green.

Yes, that is his middle name.