Category: Saturday Flashback

Saturday Flashback: Polina Gagarina – A Million Voices

“She’s acting well enough to actually make it look like she believes it.”

Tim: So, you know how, on occasion, if you’re out for an evening in a club or wherever, you hear a song that you’ve never heard before, or might have forgotten, and feel it to be absolutely amazing, and then get remarkably obsessed with it over the next few days?

Tom: I remember, many years ago, having that happen for Special D’s Come With Me. 2004, there.

Tim: Ah, what a track that was, and indeed still is. For me, the most recent example is this, which I played a good few dozen times last weekend, after a FABULOUS night out.

Tom: Well, not only is she belting that out with a lot of power, but she’s acting well enough to actually make it look like she believes it. Or, perhaps, she actually does believe it.

Tim: Hmm, she’d be in quite the minority of her compatriots if she did, given the number of rainbow flags flying that evening, but sure, let’s give her the benefit of the doubt – Europe certainly did, with it actually beating Måns’s winner in the televote.

Tom: Side note: does someone fix a light at 2:09 or something, or is that a miscue? I’m fairly sure the backing singers aren’t meant to suddenly be spotlit like that.

Tim: Huh, yes, that is weird. Musically, mind, we could talk about clichés all day long – that ‘hold off on the main drums until she mentions them in the inspirational lyrics’ is as textbook as they come, and absolutely brilliant – but all in all this is a terrific track (with brilliant staging, dodgy lights aside) and as far as a room full of drunk gays in a club in London was concerned, seemingly the best song to have been performed in the world ever. Until the next one came along, anyway.

Saturday Flashback: G.R.L. – Ugly Heart

“Good Pop Choruses! And a good middle eight! And good verses!”

Tim: It’s not European (well, one of them’s British), and it’s definitely not Europop, but I heard it for the first time in ages a week or so ago and I’ve listened multiple times a day ever since, so here you go.

Tim: At least I’m fairly sure it was this I heard, and not the Little Mix cover version, but either way it’s a brilliant track.

Tom: Good Pop Choruses! This is what we’ve been talking about this week! And a good middle eight! And good verses! My two rules hold true: I can sing the chorus by the end of the first listen, and I want to hear it again right afterwards. This right here? This is a good pop chorus.

Tim: Technically the band is still going, sort of – the disbanded in June 2015, reformed in August 2016 and have since put out a whole two tracks. They’re touring next year, though, so that’ll be interesting to see what they can cobble together. Anyway, until then we have this. What a song.

Saturday Flashback: Robyn – Dancing On My Own

“Why couldn’t we have more of this?”

Tim: Okay, folks: so, when we reviewed Missing U, I remarked that if the upcoming album Honey was as good as that I’d be very happy. Released yesterday, the album is good, as long as you’re having trouble sleeping and are looking for something to help you nod off. So let’s have a listen to a decent Robyn track.

Tim: Because IT’S JUST SO GOOD. So much so that even a limp guitar cover version of it is somewhat listenable. Why couldn’t we have more of this? That would have been nice. Can we, maybe just have a remix album? At least?

Saturday Flashback: Jenny Silver – Something in Your Eyes

“Wait, what just happened?”

Tim: Tom, I mentioned last Saturday that I recently went to see Ace Wilder sing; I won’t repeat myself too much, save to say that her set was awful but the rest of the night was brilliant. For example, this got played, and I’m fairly sure this performance will give you the strongest feeling of “wait, what just happened?” in a long while.

Tom: I’ll be honest, I was on board from the introduction. That is a Big Melodifestivalen Number, isn’t it?

Tim: Oh, it very much is, signalled right from the moment moment that mic stand appeared. But that camera cut: I had to skip and rewatch the entrance of those dancers a few times, and even though I can now see how they did it, it still impresses me the amount of practice and rehearsals that must have gone into that to be entirely confident that none of them would get picked up by any camera, and nor would whoever it was that sprinted on to remove the mic stand, across half the stage and back again, in the six seconds given before the next cut.

Tom: Let’s not forget the choreographer and stage manager who thought that surprising and confusing the audience would actually be worth it. I think it was, but that’s a risky move to make.

Tim: Isn’t it just? I’d almost, in fact, say that that was the most impressive part of this whole shebang. Almost, that is, because I’m not such a silly billy that I can’t recognise a flipping brilliant track when I hear it, with the tune and the beat and the key change, and you know what actually I still find that stage work bloody good. What a performance.

Saturday Flashback: Linda Bengtzing – Jag Ljuger Så Bra

“WHAT A BANGER.”

Tim: So I was out last night seeing Ace Wilder perform, and tbh it was a bit disappointing – despite having a fairly extensive back catalogue of great songs, she only sung Wild Child, Dansa i Neon and Busy Doin’ Nothing, and then for an encore did Busy Doin’ Nothing a second time. On the other hand, the rest of the music played was absolutely cracking, such as this, which I was OUTRAGED to discover we’d never covered. So here it is.

Tim: Finished a close second in its heat in Melodifestivalen 2006, bang in the middle of what could justifiably be described as schlager’s golden age, or maybe its renaissance, and would later come 7th in the final. WHAT A BANGER.

Saturday Flashback: The Wanted – Chasing The Sun

“A song by The Wanted written by Example. And boy, does it show.”

Tim: So here’s something I didn’t realise existed until a few days ago: a song by The Wanted written by Example. And boy, does it show.

Tim: Isn’t that just very, very Example? Almost enough that, to be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if it were credited as ‘Example feat. The Wanted’.

Tom: Yep: there’s a clear distinction between songwriter and producer here. And speaking of production: this is the first pop song I’ve heard in a long, long while where there’s a clear difference in loudness between verse and chorus. It’s not just my imagination: I actually pulled it into a waveform editor to check. That chorus is genuinely louder, just like the Old Days.

Tim: It’s nice – combination of good boyband and a good DJ. Nothing much to say about it, really – I was just quite intrigued to discover that it existed.

Saturday Flashback: BWO – Temple of Love

“A song that would get me right down on the dance floor, not even slightly caring what people think of me.”

Tim: So, for some reason I thought this had been very successful internationally, but then I checked the figures and apparently no – BWO have only had two charting hits over here, both of which peaked, rather nicely, at 69.

Tom: Nice.

Tim: This track wasn’t one of them, but it came a close second to Carola’s fabulous Evighet in Melodifestivalen 2006, and it is what the kids today call a PROPER BANGER.

Tom: I was going to say “tell me it’s a bit stronger than the Enyaesque track last week”, but it’s BWO, so it will be.

Tim: Right from the off we are heavy in on the dance beats, with a good vocal, colourful lights all over the place, dancing around everywhere, all reinforcing the idea that this is a song to be danced to, very physically. Hell, the title alone sounds really quite rude, and although I’m normally all in for that sort of thing this is meant to be a family show.

Tom: This is exactly what I expected, including the fact that it peaks far too early.

Tim: Right – thing is, it could easily have finished at the 2:37 mark. We’ve already had a middle eight and a final chorus, and if all you’re following it with is an instrumental second middle eight and another final chorus, is it necessary? Perhaps not musically, but performance-wise, given that we haven’t yet lit the flares by the walkway he uses at the end of it, yes, it is entirely necessary. This is, all in, a song that would get me right down on the dance floor, not even slightly caring what people think of me, and that’s really all I look for in a dance tune.

Tom: I mean, yes, I would dance to this, although it’s not something I’d put on a playlist.

Tim: Incidentally, on keyboards you may notice a certain Alexander Bard, perhaps better known as a member of the band Army of Lovers, but who has more recently ditched music and gone from synths to syntheism, a movement about how atheists can still feel as good as proper religious people do, or something. I dunno, he’s written a book about it.

Tom: If it doesn’t have a walkway with flares on it, I’m not interested.

Saturday Flashback: One More Time – Den Vilda

“It’s basically an Enya track.”

Tim: Eurovision, 1996. Ireland won, because it was the mid-nineties; Norway came second with a somewhat dull ballad; Sweden came third with its very own Enya.

Tom: Why on earth did you pick this, Tim? After last week’s firefighter-schlager* I was expecting… well, not this.

* I’m fairly sure there’s a single compound word for that in German.

Tim: That’s fair enough. Now, we’ve never featured Nanne Grönwall here, but you may recognise the name as she’s fairly prolific both as a singer (solo and as part of this technically still ongoing group) and as a songwriter; this is her only performance at Eurovision, though, along with husband Peter (son of ABBA’s Benny, incidentally) and fellow lead singer Maria Rådsten. It’s a nice gentle number, it’s calm, it’s…well, it’s basically an Enya track.

Tom: You’re right, complete with the string stabs in the background.

Tim: If you like Enya, you’ll like this, and if you like this you’ll like Enya.

Tom: I don’t like it!

Tim: And that’s absolutely fine, but it does what it sets out to do perfectly. I certainly wouldn’t peg it as a Eurovision top 3 nowadays, but twenty years back, sure, why not?

Saturday Flashback: Brandsta City Släckers – Kom och ta mig

“That’s the first time I’ve seen someone singing while wearing oxygen tasks.”

Tim: Good news Tom! While I was building my BRILLIANT new Lego Hogwarts, I spent some of the 21 hours listening through the rest of my five hour Melodifestivalen compilation album, which means we’ve got a good few fabulous songs coming up.

Tom: That is the most on-brand sentence I have ever heard you say. Right. What are your picks, then?

Tim: Let’s start with this one.

Tom: They went all-out with the costumes. That’s the first time I’ve seen someone singing while wearing oxygen tanks.

Tim: Now, I was attracted to this based on the music alone, because that’s quite a chorus, but then I watched the performance. And…huh. You may be wondering why they’re dressed up as firefighters, and the answer to that is fairly simple: they are firemen in real life, with the band being something of a side project. It’s been going twenty-odd years (Facebook page is still active), and they always perform in uniform (not sure about the drummer, though).

Tom: That is… well, I was going to say it’s a fantastic gimmick, but it’s not even a gimmick. It’s just endearing. Although it looks like they got one extra singer in the back for Melodifestivalen, just to give them a bit more vocal power.

Tim: The song went straight through to the final from its televote-only heat, where it proceeded to get no points at all from the juries but came third with the punters, probably because it’s just five guys on stage having a laugh.

Tom: It is! It really is, and it shows. For the folks at home, this is the sort of dream-come-true “if me and my mates put a band together” story that lots of folks can relate to. And they’re really not bad.

Tim: I like it when that happens – particularly those high fives, which I’m fairly sure I’d keep missing. Well done everyone.