“It’s got new stuff that sounds modern and Kygo-like! It’s got the brilliant chorus!”
Tom: A bit of a strange one here: Kygo appears to just have gone out remixed a classic track in his own style. And I wouldn’t normally cover this, except: it’s really good.
Tom: Listen to that!
Tim: Blimey – that’s pretty much an entirely new song.
Tom: It’s got new stuff that sounds modern and Kygo-like! It’s got the brilliant chorus!
Tim: Yeah, though that’s about all it shares with the rest. I’m not sure when you go from being a remix to a new track with samples, but this’d be on the boundary.
Tom: It’s really, really… nice. Nice is the word I’d go for.
Tom: I missed this coming out a couple of weeks ago. Yes, this is still the original A-Ha, with the original members, even thirty years on.
Tim: Huh. Okay.
Tom: They’ve got a new album, and the lead single appears to be a Bond theme. Well, a second Bond theme anyway, they’ve already done one.
Tom: I nearly wrote this off during the introduction, but I’m glad I kept going: that chorus is wonderful. I know I’m a sucker for string sections, but this is an exceptional string section.
Tim: Yes, it is…but I there’s a reason you almost switched off, which is that there’s not much else to it. I don’t mind, because you’re right, and with the strings it really is very very good, if we ignore the Feeling Good similarity.
Tom: Is it the incredible synthpop that everyone associates them with? No. Will it still be played thirty years on? Probably not. But as a lead single, yes, this will do nicely.
Tim: Yeah, I’ll take it, with the caveat that I’ll want more from the album than a lot of violins.
Tom: a-ha are releasing their last ever single. This isn’t a comeback – it’s more that they’ve just been trundling on in Norway all these years, while not many people in the UK noticed. They’ve decided to call it a day now, and this is their slightly melancholy last hurrah. It’s called “Butterfly, Butterfly”, and while it’s not going to make anyone dance like an idiot, it does make a rather nice coda to their quarter-century in music.
Tim: Right from the start you can tell it’s going to be slightly downbeat, but it’s nice. There’s not many bands that say, ‘this is it,’ so it seems, weirdly, almost noble. Like, yes, we could keep releasing records, but it’s going to stop at some point, and we’re all getting old, so we may as well quit while we’re still going fairly strong, and thanks for everything.
Tom: I’d bet on a comeback tour in ten years’ time though.
Tim: Good lyrics, as well – they say goodbye, but not in such an obvious way that someone listening twenty years from now will immediately know this was their last single. Only criticism is that is does go on a bit at the end, though, as though they can’t quite bear to let it go.
Tom: Still, after 25 years, I think they’re allowed one more chorus.
