Category: Saturday Flashback

Saturday Flashback: Jonas Lundqvist – Pengar på fickan

“I guess I’m unimpressed and ambivalent.”

Tim: This got sent in by our reader Gavi, who thinks that “the Tim will love it”, and I couldn’t possibly ignore that.

Tom: And the Tom, as always, will be generally unimpressed and ambivalent, as the Tom is with 99% of music.

Tim: The perfect man to write a music blog, then.

Tim: Hmm, although actually…well, I suppose it’s alright.

Tom: I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to see young Wallace Shaun smoking in the back of a car as part of a modern music video, so there’s that. But apart from that? I guess I’m unimpressed and ambivalent.

Tim: It’s about a guy who has all the belongings he needs but no-one to share it with, and now I know that I’m trying my hardest not to feel slightly offended, however close to home that may cut.

Tom: I don’t know, that sounds pretty good. I means you don’t have to share your stuff.

Tim: Fair point, I guess. And it’s a decent enough track – energy, production, vocals, can’t really fault them – but love it? Not quite that far.

Tom: Also, I’m fairly sure he’s singing “I’m a duffer” repeatedly.

Saturday Flashback: The Wanted – Walks Like Rihanna (7th Heaven Remix)

“Can it be improved further?”

Tim: Now, you’ll remember on Monday I pointed out that there are very few songs that wouldn’t be improved by a 7th Heaven do-over. Well, Walks Like Rihanna is already a very very good song, so can it be improved further?

Tom: See, you’re wrong there, because Walks Like Rihanna is a terrible song.

Tim: What.

Tom: You’re right that the composition and production is great, but the lyrics are god-awful.

Tim: No, *some of* the lyrics are god-awful. I am happy to put those aside.

Tom: Fortunately, someone once sang the chorus to me as “she looks like a hammer”, so I’m just going to pretend those are the lyrics and agree: the production’s pretty good.

Tim: Okay, whatever works for you.

Tom: Like you said, can it be improved?

Tim: WELL OF COURSE IT CAN.

Tom: Yep, because I get to sing “looks like a hammer” even before those terrible first two lines.

Tim: Everything that’s good from the original, and oh then so much more – strip out the tedious ‘real’ and ‘authentic’ instruments, replace them with with outrageously poppers o’clock synth beats instead. Finally, for good measure, chuck in a BANGING post-chorus that everybody can utterly lose their nuts to.

Tom: Phrasing.

Tim: I didn’t know I wanted a dance remix of this, but boy, am I now glad that I’ve discovered it.

Saturday Flashback: Erasure – Take A Chance On Me

“There were several interesting choices here.”

Tom: Erasure: synthpop legends. Thirty-two top 40 hits. Four number 1 albums. And “A Little Respect”, which has joined the understated but incredibly lucrative pantheon of “songs most people know”.

But they also had a number one EP, with four Abba covers on it. It was enormously popular, which makes sense given how well Abba write songs, and how well Erasure produce them.

There were several interesting choices here.

Tim: Oh, blimey. That’s…not what I was expecting. Well, the music is, anyway, as it sounds exactly like I’d expect an Erasure cover of this song wou– WOAH that middle eight has hit just as I’m writing these words, and suddenly the video’s no longer the most interesting part of the song. Really quite something, isn’t it?

Tom: I am reliably informed – by Wikipedia – that the middle eight is a “ragga-style toast performed by MC Kinky” who is “the first white female reggae/dancehall MC”, and that there is a list of things that I am utterly unqualified to even speculate about. It is basically the early 90s in musical form, and yes, it’s really quite something.

Tim: It’s not something I’d choose to hear again, nor probably something Benny and that lot had in mind when they wrote it, mind, but still something.

Saturday Flashback: Nicole – Ein bißchen Frieden

“Does it do anything for you?”

Tim: We discussed Love Shine A Light a few weeks back, and I discovered that, with an average of 9.46 points per country, it’s the third most successful Eurovision song ever. (Well, ish – pre-1975’s tricky to work out, but we’ll leave that for now). First is Brotherhood of Man’s “Save Your Kisses For Me”, slightly understandably; second is this, utterly mystifyingly.

Tim: That song does absolutely nothing for me, and yet not only did it do remarkably, it went on to be number one in every country it was released in. That includes the UK – and no other Eurovision winner’s done that here since. I haven’t a clue why, so does it do anything for you?

Tom: It doesn’t do anything for me, but I’ll tell you why it’s successful: it sounds like a lot of other songs. There’s nothing surprising about this at all: but the chord progression, the melody, even the switching-into-the-harmony bits: they’re all familiar.

Tim: Maybe, but they’re a very dull familiar.

Tom: Except in 1982, I’m not sure they would be as familiar. Not to an audience that didn’t have any music they wanted, on tap, right now. Back when you had to buy actual singles, or wait for one song on the radio. It’s using every trick in the book on a public that probably wasn’t used to them. It sounds… nice.

Tim: I’ll leave you with something I can get behind: a cover of it performed at Eurovision 1996 by, of all people, Rednex. Yep, them off Cotton-Eyed Joe:

Saturday Flashback: Air Supply – Making Love Out Of Nothing At All

“I’m going to ask: who does it sound like?”

Tom: This has been going round my head lately, Tim, but I’m sending it to you for another reason. Rather than asking you to guess what it sounds like, I’m going to ask: who does it sound like?

Tom: Not in the voice, but in the style: the instruments, the melody, those backing singers. Any of it sound familiar?

Tim: My main thought would be Bonnie Tyler – the chorus line at 2:30 gets me right into Total Eclipse of the Heart, for starters – though to be honest it’d fit with with any number of power ballads from an ’80s club night – the piano in particular strikes a Meat Loaf line.

Tom: I was hoping you’d say that. Bonnie Tyler and Meat Loaf are exactly right, because this was written by the legendary Jim Steinman, best known for “Total Eclipse of the Heart” and Meat Loaf’s “Bat out of Hell” album, among a lot of other things. (In fact, Total Eclipse kept this song from the US Number 1 spot.)

Tim: Well then that would make sense. And that’s a hell of a CV – I see he also turned up on Take That’s Never Forget and Boyzone’s No Matter What.

Tom: No Matter What: lyrics by Steinman, music by Lloyd Webber. Seriously.

Tim: Wait, what? How – how on Earth did I not know that?

Tom: I despise that song, incidentally, but what I love about the Air Supply track is that, despite it not being a song that gets as much recognition as Total Eclipse or any Meat Loaf track, it’s still clearly the same formula, and it’s still a really, really good song.

Saturday Flashback: Nathalie Source – L’Envie de Vivre

“Guys. It’s time for some musical theory.”

Tim: Since we’re apparently just discussing songs for key change reasons, as with Eternal last week, I’ll put this on the table. Now, it’s well known by people who pay attention that key changes are really quite a no go in Eurovision, and have been for quite some time.

Tom: It’s still joyful when it happens, but yes: it’s like 128bpm.

Tim: That didn’t stop Belgium in 2000, though, who decided to play with the format. Guys, it’s time for some musical theory. You see, your standard key change: a semitone. Brings some life in, doesn’t sound too ridiculous. If you want to push the boat out, Linda Bengtzing-style, you might double that and go with a full tone. Sounds ludicrous, but guaranteed to bring an enormous smile/yell of disgust.

Belgium went with six semitones.

Tom: Good grief, that is very 2000, isn’t it? All it needs is a record scratch sound effect.

Tim: Yes. And what with that and it sounding like two completely different songs pushed together: it came dead last.

Saturday Flashback: Eternal – I Wanna Be The Only One

“One reason, and one reason only.”

Tom: A video uploaded to YouTube more than ten years ago, Tim.

Tim: And a song that yesterday celebrated its 20th birthday. Any reason it’s here?

Tom: I know the song, of course. Everyone knows the song. But I heard it the other day, perhaps for the first time in about ten years, and I’d forgot about one thing. I link you to think song for one reason, and one reason only:

Tom: Three. Key. Changes.

Tim: I do love it when a song pushes the boat out. That last one – oof, that’s pushing it a bit, though.

Tom: Pushing it into awesome.

Saturday Flashback: Kelly Rowland feat. Wiz Khalifa – Gone

“Who needs the artistic bit?”

Tom: I reckon, Tim, that your thoughts on this will be very much coloured by whether you recognise the track it’s sampling.

Tim: Ooh, is it Basshunter’s Now You’re Gone?

Tim: Oh, it isn’t. But yes, yes I do.

Tom: Because I do. And it’s a folk music classic. Or a slightly more modern pop classic. Or… well, yes, Counting Crows covered it too.

Here’s my problem with this: it never resolves the chorus. Yes, fine, occasionally you’ve got the “got ’til it’s gone” line in there, but the actual resolution is the next line, “they paved paradise” and so on. That’s important. And it’s just not here.

Tim: That’s a very, very good point you’re making, but there’s the question you’re bypassing here which is: why include the sample?Just reusing it because they can? Because the lyrics fit? Or to give it a recognisable hook to hand an otherwise fairly dull track on? Because if it’s the latter: you’ve got the recognisable bit. Who needs the artistic bit?

Tom: Well, apparently no-one. And sure, you could say they’re doing something original and new. I don’t know, you could use a word like ‘recontextualising’ or something. Fine. Except Janet Jackson did the same thing twenty years ago, and that didn’t resolve either.

Tim: Bastards, all of them.

Tom: Harsh.

Tim: Fair.

Saturday Flashback: Linda Bengtzing – Hur Svårt Kan Det Va?

“A favourite of mine for a long time.”

Tim: I went to see Magnus Carlsson performing a couple of weeks ago, but you weren’t able to; to be honest, you didn’t miss much.

Tom: I’d say “that’s a relief”, but I’ll be honest, it’s more of a “well, that’s okay then”.

Tim: He stuck mostly to his Alcazar stuff, which not only meant he didn’t play Glorious, but he didn’t even play Wrap Myself In Paper! DISGRACEFUL. However, the warm-up DJ did play this, one of the finest schlager songs of the past decade and one which I was astonished to discover we’d never covered.

Tom: Echoes of Mika’s Grace Kelly at the start there, but fortunately it goes down a… well, “original” isn’t the right word for a schlager track like this, but at least it goes down a different route.

Tim: It sailed through to the final Melodifestivalen final in 2008, as is correct, but lost out to, amongst others, the even better Hero by Charlotte Perrelli, so I’ve no problems there. Title translates to “How Hard Can That Be?”, song’s basically “I can be whatever you want, how hard can that be?” A curious message perhaps, with a mix of submission but also knowledge that he won’t want much anyway, but one I suppose works nonetheless. Particularly when you apply this sort of music to it – the big beats, the powerful voice, the key change accompanied by the screaming vocal.

Tom: It’s a bold choice to actually just do a shouted scream in the middle of your second verse, but somehow she pulls it off. And it’s a song that needs that key change — that’s not a bad thing, I’m just glad it was there.

Tim: This has been a favourite of mine for a long time, and I’m not sure it’ll ever stop being.

Saturday Flashback: Robin Stjernberg – One Down Two To Go

“This is a proper Big Shoutalong Track.”

Tim: This came up on a recommended tracks playlist, and I thought it was great, looked it up, and was surprised to discover it was left as an album track.

Tom: For the second time this week, I said “bloody hell!” after the introduction. That’s a strong start.

Tim: It is, and what makes the album track status particularly surprising is that a lot of the ones that were officially released were damp in comparison and performed abysmally; this one, though, is brilliant.

Tom: It’s weird, isn’t it? My memory of his singles was… well, I’ll be honest, I don’t have any memory of his singles. But this is a proper Big Shoutalong Track.

Tim: The shouted intro, that repeated 1-2-3-off beat in the verses, the a cappella lead in to the chorus (and if you’re wondering where you’ve heard that muffled effect before, it’s in the six-months-later Melodifestivalen entry by State of Drama). We also have a good chorus, with that yeahhh-eahh staying strong throughout, and a good rhythm to hold it up.

Tom: Strange lyrics, though: I’m not sure that “knocked up father on the ground” got translated correctly.

Tim: Yeah, I looked up the lyrics, and to be honest they’re basically a load of nothing. But you know what? I don’t even care that the title is never explained. What are we beating down? Not a clue. But the music and general theme is good enough that I just don’t care. Opportunity missed, record label.