Tag: Benjamin

Tim: “I’m bored of arguing, let’s just call it quits.” Nope, it’s not what I’m thinking right now about this site, but what Benjamin’s having a sing about.

Tim: Hmm. So, I really, really like this – but for lots of reasons that to be honest I’m kind of having trouble verbalising. Sure, I could describe the individual parts of it, but that wouldn’t really come across right because I’d be mentioning things like that peculiar eagle sound effect, and even though it’s objectively weird it just kind of works.

Tim: I could also talk about the melody, and production levels, and that sort of thing, but again nothing would quite sum it up properly, really, because it’s more than that. It’s just the whole…thing. Just works, unquantifiably. And you know, I like that, every now and again.

Tim: When this starts, you might think you’re watching Top Gun, but I promise you you’re not. Instead, you’re listening to a song with a title translating to Show Me Them, where ‘them’ is all your little imperfections, because (genuine translation from what he’s said) “no-one wants to fall in love with Teflon”. True, I guess, because I can’t really see myself ever marrying a frying pan, but there’s probably a metaphor in there as well.

Tim: So as I hear it, what we’ve got here is a song with slightly irritating verses, which are largely made up for a rather lovely pop chorus.

Tim: Not even slightly, and if we’re honest it quite possible was. We’ve also got the middle eight which mixes everything up a little, by which I really mean it gets chucked into a blender and turned on at full speed, because God knows what’s really happening there, but it sounds decent enough.

Tim: Goes back to a lovely normal for the closing chorus, though, and overall I’ll give this a distinctly positive rating. Can’t deny his look in the artwork does help with that, mind, but still. It’s nice.

Tim: Benjamin is…well, let’s just say he’s not taking his breakup very well. At all. (Video gets a bit disturbing at the end, you can stop it once the music’s finished.)

Tim: He’s screwed up, he’s saying he’s sorry, but she ain’t having any of it, so naturally he’s wraping himself up in cling film and getting rid of his lovely hair, because what else is there to do? For all the unnecessary drama of the video, though, this is actually a track I can get on board with. Even without that video, the chorus still has a lot of emotional baggage with it, which depending on my mood may well get me shouting out and singing along.

Tim: It is a bit tricky with it being in Finnish, I’ll grant you, but I’ll go with poison and pretty much get the same idea. Hefty music, hefty vocals, hefty song. I like it.

Tim: Since we’ve currently got two Scandinavian Benjamins coming out with dance music, I’ll clarify: more notably and recently there is Benjamin Ingrosso, cousin of proper Ingrosso and full on Swedish. This is Benjamin who has ditched his surname (Feltonen, incidentally) and is half-Finnish, half-Swedish. And has this as his new one.

Tim: Which is admittedly a tad generic, and coming out a good couple of months before anybody is really likely to be up for listening, but on the plus side contains a good chorus and a well-produced lyric video.

Tim: The focus on the body and nothing else does put me in mind of of Sean Kingston/Pit Bull/that lot style song, which is a bit annoying, especially because stylistically it’s not that far away.

Tim: May be sacrilege to say this, but it might even improve the track. Nonetheless, that ayayayaya bit is decent enough I’ll pretty much forgive that. It’s okay, but let’s have a bit more effort next time, yeah?

Tim: Here, Tom, is a track to properly start your week off.

Tim: A fair ask, but let’s try anyway. It’s a couple of years now since Avicii first unleashed the farmhouse genre, and it really isn’t going away any time soon, is it?

Tim: Structure’s an interesting word to use – it’s strange, because sometimes it works really well, and other times it sort of just about fits, like this. To be honest, I kind of get the feeling that it’s just been shoehorned in here underneath the, yes, structured verses to make it sound current, rather than because that’s what the song needs.

Tim: It is, as it most of the rest of it, working absolutely fine with no real trace of any country presumptions – it’s big, it’s brash, and aside from that slightly harsh bit of autotune at the start, I’ve got no complaints about it. I just wish it didn’t sound so disjointed.

Tim: PREVIOUSLY ON EUROPLOP!: “formulaic, by the numbers, cheap, almost lazy, just no.”

Tim: Yes, but hopefully, as in that case, never unjustifiably. Shall we see if his second track’s any better?

Tim: Yes, yes it is. A whole bucketload better, though that voice gets me a bit, because it sounds a bit fake, almost like really, really badly applied autotune, but it can’t be, can it?

Tim: So let’s assume not, and then given his voice as it is I have few complaints about this. It’s a very good uplifting ballad; like all the almost-best uplifting ballads it could of course be improved with a key change.

Tim: Oh, and he should really visit a barber who knows what they’re doing.

Tim: Well aside from that: really rather good. Speaking of key changes: Melodifestivalen 2015 kicks off four weeks tomorrow, so put that date in your diary please folks.

Tim: Another Scandinavian kid with an aversion to surnames, this is Benjamin, and in an attempt to trigger your “get off my lawn” reflex, I’ll tell you that he rose to fame via Instagram.

Tim: Not really sure how that works, but anyway, here’s his first track.

Tim: Now, call me a cynical bastard if you like, but a tiny part of me has the feeling that someone at Warner got bored of listening to music demos one day and just thought “hang on, that guy’s getting famous, let’s have him.” Find a songwriter who can give you something that doesn’t require a huge amount of singing ability, stick a microphone in front of the photogenic one, film him jumping around a bit and bingo, you’ve got a hit, right?

Tim: No, it certainly doesn’t, and let’s be honest it’s not the greatest. I’d like to think that’s not the case. I really would. But I can’t quite shake the feeling that it is. I don’t know. Maybe his album, out next year, will convince me otherwise. But otherwise: formulaic, by the numbers, cheap, almost lazy, just no.