Category: Saturday Flashback

Saturday Flashback: The Beautiful South – Don’t Marry Her

“Definitely not a love song.”

Tom: In the last couple of weeks, we’ve talked about couple of songs with unconventional messages. This is definitely not a love song. And it’s definitely the explicit version.

Tom: As a kid, this was — if I remember rightly, and I may not remember rightly — the first time I was aware that songs could have explicit versions and radio edit versions. Not just quietly muting swear words, but actually rerecording lyrics.

Tim: And yet, in that video, she’s mouthing “have me” – you can’t quite stretch to recording another few seconds? But yes, and you’re not alone – I think it took my parents by surprise, when the only version they’d heard was on the radio, and the first time we listened to the album was sitting down for dinner on a Sunday evening.

Tom: This was proper, commercial-era Beautiful South: they were playing huge venues, they were all over Radio 2, and even made it onto a couple of Now albums. And you know what else? They have a lot of unconventional messages in that commercial era. It doesn’t matter what size you are. Don’t wait for them, they’re a jerk. It’s okay to grow old together.

Tim: And, FUN FACT: as a piece of GCSE English coursework I analysed the lyrics of Song For Anyone as a poem. Think I got fairly good marks for it, as well.

Tom: I’ll bet not many British people could name Paul Heaton. But most will know his music, and — perhaps with recognition, perhaps with nostalgia — he’ll have made most of them smile.

Saturday Flashback: Haley Reinhart – Free

“What a chorus.”

Tom: You’ll have heard everything in this song before, Tim, in a hundred other songs that sound like it. But what a chorus.

Tim: That is a chorus. And yes, that’s is all familiar.

Tom: You’ve even seen the diner in the video before, because pretty much everyone who needs a generic diner set in the Los Angeles area goes there.

And yes, this is from 2012; it sounds like a mash up of every other female-led Christina Perri-alike with a good voice that came along that year. Although there do appear to be Christmas bells in the final chorus, which is an interesting choice.

Tim: Well, only three months to go. That reminds me, must start hunting around for some Christmas flashbacks – suggestions always welcome (though I’ve already got a stormer lined up for Christmas Eve).

Tom: Already? Blimey. Anyway: like I said, what a chorus.

Saturday Flashback: Sia – Fire Meet Gasoline

“Damn, that similarity is annoying.”

Tim: I heard this a few days ago and thought “oh, I’ve not heard this in ages, I love this song”. Except it was only released as a single in Germany, and was tucked way down at the bottom of the album, so I’ve probably never heard it before. I’ve heard a different song, though.

Tim: Because Tom, tell me there aren’t multiple occasions in that song where you want to sing along with “Everywhere I’m looking now”.

Tom: I was originally going to say “I think it did get some radio airplay over here”, but now I’m not entirely sure that I wasn’t just hearing Halo instead.

Tim: IT’S THE SAME SONG. Well, alright, it isn’t, it’s just a fairly similar lead into the chorus, and actually it’s a brilliant song showing Sia right at the very top of her game. But damn, that Halo similarity is annoying. And I just thought I’d point it out to see if I’m alone.

Tom: Don’t worry, you’re not.

Tim: Good good. Oh, and while we’re here, a hugely tenuously linked fact: Ryan Tedder, co-writer of Halo, has over 92,000 unread emails in his inbox, which to be honest would give me a nervous breakdown.

Tom: How on earth do you know that?

Tim: I’d rather not go into it here.

Saturday Flashback: A Silent Film – Danny, Dakota & the Wishing Well

“It starts out quite promising…”

Tim: Not the first time where I’ve had trouble working out which is the artist and which is the title; definitely the first time where my initial guess was completey wrong and I had to check several times.

Adam: Danny, Dakota & the Wishing Well would be a good name for a twee folk band!

Tim: Well quite, but here we are definitely the other way round. This is from 2012, and was sent in this week by reader Drake; he says it is European (well, Oxford), it is pop (though they describe themselves as indie), and it is very good (definitely).

Adam: This immediately makes me think of Snow Patrol. Which isn’t a good thing.

Tim: Really? I don’t get that at all. The band are currently a duo, though have had up to four members previously, and this was released as a trio and now I’m bored of admin. It’s hard to disagree with any of the three adjectives we’re offered.

Adam: Considering a lot of what gives this song it’s character is the accompanying strings I don’t think it really matters how many people are in the band.

Tim: The first minute offers something very different from what comes later, and much as I was looking forward to hearing the initial genre jump forth, what replaces it is not remotely disappointing.

Adam: I think quite the opposite. It starts out quite promising and loses it with all the bombast. I’ve got to remember that this came out 4 years ago. Musical trends change so maybe the intro would’ve made this track special in 2012 but the rest of the track just sounds a bit dated to me.

Tim: Oh, shame – I’m fine with it. In one respect, it reminds me of when The Killers went electro. Not a mixture you’d initially think would work, but actually ends up sounding very good indeed.

Adam: Oh wow I’ve never heard that Killers track before. It’s so much better than this. It has some soul to it.

Tim: Ah, but is it a soldier?

Saturday Flashback: The Ark – The Worrying Kind

“Reminds me of Austin Powers”

Tim: So, I had Zara Larsson’s Rooftop all lined up for today as it mentions today’s date in the lyrics, but it turns out we covered it back when it was new, so that’s off the table. Instead, let’s pick a track at random from the ever-reliable Best of Melodifestivalen 1958-2013 album (and that’s not even sarcasm, it’s great). The 2007 victor, which thus went on to represent Sweden at Eurovision, and I hope we’re all in the mood for some glam rock.

Tim: Setting the scene, recall that Finland had won the previous year with Lordi—

Adam: What happened to Lordi? I want them back in my life.

Tim: Oh, no, and anyway now we’re heading into Alice Deejay territory – brilliant, but possibly drifting too far from 2007. Novelty was high on the list: we had Scooch, Ukraine had Verka Seduchka, the winner was…unusual, to say the least.

Adam: Wow that is like the opposite of Lordi. Lordi, Lordi, Lordi. I just like saying Lordi.

Tim: And Sweden had this. What a track, and oh, what a performance – talk about “don’t bore us, get to the chorus”, this is ALL IN right from the start.

Adam: When it comes to 3 minute pop songs it’s best to just jump straight in.

Tim: Structurally it’s unusual – mini-chorus, verse, chorus, repeated verse, chorus – but for me at least that doesn’t harm it at all.

Adam: The rotating stage reminds me of Austin Powers. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

Tim: Well, I can’t help feeling it might not have helped – it fit fine with the look they were going for, and yet on the night it disgracefully (and well against the bookies’ odds) only came 18th out of 24. DAMMIT Europe, what’s the matter with you?

Adam: Yeah screw you Europe! (Please take us back…)

Tim: This song is EXCELLENT, and really should have done so well. Bloody Serbia.

Saturday Flashback: Precious – Say It Again

“I’m down for getting a mob together”

Tim: Currently being fairly successfully on British radio is Frances’s song Say It Again; it’s by and large quite good, with one exception. Have a quick listen to that chorus line, 34 seconds in, and then play this, the mid-table British entry for Eurovision 1999.

Tim: And what a TOP pop song that is – verses don’t have much to them and are arguably a tad forgettable, but that key change is prime example of a feature/benefit mix.

Adam: Who doesn’t love a good key change? This song is so ridiculously nineties and I’m loving it. The horn stabs. The vinyl scratches. The insane use of wind machines in the music video.

Tim: Right? But on top of all that, though, is that chorus line, “Say it again, say yeeaahh”. It’s a true all time classic, and yet Frances has SHAMELESSLY STOLEN IT, and I think that’s just rude.

Adam: It doesn’t matter because Precious wins. Her song is much better in my opinion. I’m down for getting a mob together and starting a riot though – I keep my pitchfork sharpened for these kinds of situations.

Tim: Damn, if only you’d been around when we wrote about Calum Scott.

Saturday Flashback: Aqua – Cartoon Heroes

“It’s a shame we didn’t use this video to be more prepared.”

Tim: Why? Oh, no particular reason, except that Apple Music suggested a Hits of 2000 playlist to me this week and this was at the top, and I thought we could do a retrospective, and see how the various heroes are doing these days. (Quick note: in case you’ve still not got round to seeing them but want to, this will have spoilers for both Captain America: Civil War and Batman v Superman.)

Tom: Can you believe that I’ve never seen that video? Because I’ve never seen that video. That is a brilliant video.

Tim: You really haven’t? Well, yes it is brilliant, and in fact the first thing we need to do is note how weirdly prescient that video intro is – less than a decade later, humanity was indeed attacked by a giant octopus, and we did have to resort to somewhat unusual means to survive. Admittedly we needed Mega Shark to save us in the end, as Aqua were on hiatus at the time, but in hindsight it’s a shame we didn’t use this video to be more prepared.

Tom: It looks like they predicted the steampunk craze by about five or ten years, too. And yes, Aqua’s shtick was a bit ridiculous, but let’s not forget just how good this is as a pop song. I don’t think there’s anything actually wrong with this song. At all. This still stands up today.

Tim: As for the heroes mentioned in the song, well, Spider-Man’s in very good health, ably working with Iron Man to hold his own against the likes of Captain America and Ant-Man. Assuming the one running at the speed of light is The Flash, he’s doing alright as well, though slightly hidden away right now. Superman, on the other hand is ever so slightly dead, but hopefully that’ll change soon – we’ll check back in another sixteen years.

Saturday Flashback: Moby – Extreme Ways (Bourne’s Ultimatum)

“Smaller differences that make it my preferred version”

Tim: I’ve been watching all the Jason Bourne films recently, since there’s a new one out and I want to be up to date, as you do. They all use Extreme Ways in the closing credits, and, FUN FACT, from the third one on they’ve got Moby to redo it each time, fiddling it slightly. Such as this, my favourite of the bunch.

Tim: You may want to refresh your memory of the original, since it wasn’t one of his best performing releases.

Tom: No, I don’t. Because this song means something very different to me: it’s the “reveal-music” from the brilliant, smart Korean reality-game show The Genius. That opening string sample means something big is about to go down (that video’s a minor spoiler, obviously).

Tim: This one still uses that opening string sample, and still that same percussion sample, but there are smaller differences that make it my preferred version – for starters the piano line the kicks off the main line is funked up a notch, the vocals are less distorted and there’s a female vocalist joining in later.

Tom: I’m so used to the original that I’m not sure it improves it: there’s certainly more, but is that a good thing?

Tim: For me yes, because of the most noticeable thing: the drums are brought in a whole lot more prominently. Originally they just kicked in at some point underneath the main line, but here everything drops off and we get a “right, let’s GO” moment.

Tom: For me, that first string sample has always been the “let’s GO” moment, but that’s because of the context I find it in.

Tim: Yes, but like you said, they’re an “about to happen” noise – that drum intro is an “it’s ON”. The rolling strings come along, the vocals follow soon after, and we’re know we’re off to a good start. Or, if you’re in the cinema, a good ending.

Saturday Flashback: Runaway Zoo – Youngwildblood

“There’s nothing I want from this song that isn’t already there.”

Tim: Concluding our review of this lot’s Mess Without You on Tuesday, I remarked I wanted to hear more. Well, here’s more – their previous track, from back in May.

Tim: And, to quote that wonderful Saturdays song, I just can’t get enough.

Tom: That’s wasn’t… you know what, their version was better, I can live with it.

Tim: It so was.

Tom: I can also live with this song: that’s one of the best introductions and first verses I’ve heard in a long while.

Tim: Isn’t it? Admittedly, lyrically it could be describe as a bit wanting, but on the other hand that single call and refrain repeated so many times is so effective with the build underneath it up to the thumping, beating chorus. We get so many songs of the “we’re young, we can do anything we want” variety, yet I can’t remember it ever being drilled in so definitively or maturely – a weird description perhaps, especially as I’m not quite sure how I mean it, but it’s one that springs to mind.

Tom: It is a really, really effective build. We’re seeing more and more songs that effectively have two choruses, and this is one of them.

Tim: And returning to that thumping, beating chorus: I like it a lot. It teeters on the edge of the boom-wherp thing–

Tom: “Overcompression” is the term, but yes. It’s close, but not quite enough to hurt. I can live with it.

Tim: Me too, because here the song knows exactly how not to do it badly, and how to make it sound good instead. On Tuesday, I had just one complaint, which wasn’t even really a complaint. Today: I got nothing. There is nothing I want from this song that isn’t already there.

Oh, and also, nothing to do with the music, but at the bottom of the video description: “Youngwildblood by Runaway Zoo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.” How often does that happen?

Tom: For anything that isn’t stock music? Very, very rarely.