Category: Tropical Friday

Juno Im Park feat. Hannah Trigwell – Never Gonna Give You Up

“TROPICAL – they’ve got palm trees in the video and everything.”

Tim: WELL THEN. Juno Im Park are a German duo, Hannah’s British and off YouTube, and this song is, well, I’ll copy and paste:

“With Rick Astley having just secured both a UK no.1 album and a silver record, alongside British supporters of the European Union unofficially adopting the song and slogan as “Never Gonna Give EU Up”, the long-planned collaboration has unintentionally surfed the zeitgeist to become extremely topical.”

Tom: I dislike pretty much everything about that statement. Does it get worse?

Tim: Topical (as long as six weeks afterwards still counts as topical), and TROPICAL – they’ve got palm trees in the video and everything.

Tom: Okay, I’ll say this much: those are lovely vocals, and the retiming and occasional changed notes work really well.

Tim: Hmm, yes, that’s all true, but it doesn’t help with my biggest problem, which starts with the “long-planned” bit. Why? That implies there was a distinct importance to this, and yet let’s face it that there is a cover that never, ever needed to happen. I’m going to be harsh about this, because, well, it deserves it.

Tom: Why?

Tim: I don’t often think this about a track, but I genuinely can’t imagine any situation where anybody would ever think “I want to listen to a tropical house version of Never Gonna Give You Up”. What was the thinking behind this, beyond “that song was big on the internet for all the wrong reasons, so we should absolutely rerecord it in a modern yet increasingly stale sound”? I can’t fathom it, I really can’t.

Tom: See, I think there’s almost always room for a good cover, and this is at least a cut above the normal.

Tim: Oh, sure, it’s competent enough – decent vocal, above average production values – but just… why?

Tom: You could ask that about any human endeavour, Tim. Because it was there.

Mohombi – Infinity

“Where is all the wind coming from?”

Tim: 2016 arguably has two massive musical clichés. One, the “boom-wherp-boom-wherp” dance line I mentioned on Wednesday; the other, a pineapple. So Tom, I have a proposition for you. Let’s EMBRACE it – the summer, the warmth, the citrus feeling, the upcoming weekend – and introduce TROPICAL FRIDAYS.

Tom: Oh crikey. I’m okay with that, but let’s see how long it lasts. Tropical house can’t be a thing forever.

Tim: We’ve already had MØ and Matoma this month, so I say we head to Tesco, grab a bunch of coconuts, and just make it official.

Tom: That is very tropical.

Tim: So let’s get the obvious right out of the way: the narrative of the video doesn’t really make any sense at all – why has he chopped all his belongings in half?

Tom: Why have they pixelated all the drinks?

Tim: Why do we have palm trees, a beach and midday outside his windows but sunset and rain outside her indoors orchard?

Tom: That sounds like a euphemism.

Tim: Oh, it does a bit doesn’t it? Sorry. But also: where is all the wind coming from, given that the windows on the far side of his room are closed? And most of all, why can’t they both just climb out of said windows and meet up behind the house rather than smashing the entire damn wall down with a curiously not-chopped-in-half sledgehammer that he apparently keeps lying around in his living room?

BUT ANYWAY, we’re not here purely to question the video – we’re also here to discuss the music, which is, well, entirely typical of the genre. All the bits are there – marimba, steel drums, and I think we’ve even got some pan pipes in there at some point.

Tom: There’s definitely a bit of 90s influence in here too. That’s not a complaint, just an observation.

Tim: All in all, a great start for our new regular feature.

Tom: I give it a month.

Tim: Oh, you haven’t seen how much tripe we get sent. Next Friday’s a STORMER.