“I am very, very much in favour of songs like this”
Tim: Alternatively, “I hear what you say but I’ve forgotten what you said”, and after a year or so of mostly dull ballads, he’s back to doing what he does best.
Tim: Other lines in the chorus include “who was it who said that, was it you or me?” – basically, this is a great relationship running on full throttle. And it’s a song that reflects that – from the brash singing that’s basically chanting right through to the jubilant woooooooahs that penetrate the latter half of it – along with a video to boot.
Tom: It’s a fine line between “great party” and “what a bunch of jerks” in a video like this, and for me it definitely ends up on the wrong side of it. Interesting to see bits of vertical video actually make it in as a deliberate style choice, though.
Tim: Yeah, I quite liked that – almost made the party seem more realistic.
Tom: I seem to have a lot of opinions about the video and very few about the music.
Tim: I am very, very much in favour of songs like this, to the extent that actually I feel a bit let down that it isn’t even louder.
Tom: And you’re right there — perhaps that’s why I’m not really sold on the music. It’s certainly a Big Party Song, but despite that it somehow leaves me a little bit cold. The words are there, but perhaps not all the meaning.
Tim: I’m not entirely sure what I’d do to make it bigger – maybe it’s just that that’s not quite enough of a jump from the verse to the chorus. Still, while it’s here, let’s enjoy and go full on FUN HAPPY PARTY WOOO!!!!
Tim: It’s been a couple of years, but here’s a new one from Danny, and I’ll warn you that it does have a rap in it; on the other hand, it’s got a nice piano bit underneath it so it’s not too bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_P95fVorec
Tim: And doesn’t that just have some marvellous qualities to it?
Tom: It does, but I’m still trying to get over the dancing in that video. That’s some of the oddest choreography I’ve seen in pop music. It’s like someone put sign language, Beyoncé’s Single Ladies, and drunk interpretative dance into a blender. Anyway, yes, the music bit.
Tim: SOARING is basically what it’s all about for the most part – that electric guitar in the intro, for example, or the backing OHHHHs in the choruses, or his vocal into each chorus, or the strings pretty much throughout.
Tom: And you’re not wrong about that rap either: that was pretty good, even perhaps going towards singing at the end.
Tim: It seems weird to describe it as inspiring when I barely understand a word of it, though the title translates to “Burning in the Chest” which, yeah, sounds about right actually.
Tom: Take some antacids, mate, you’ll be fine.
Tim: A song about massive emotions, providing exactly the impressive sound that they deserve. LOVE this.
“That went a bit Bob Sinclar at the start, didn’t it?”
Tom: It’s NEW from Danny Saucedo, but as we’ve remarked before, genre-wise that could mean anything. Feel free, therefore, to be apprehensive as you click the play button.
Tom: Blimey. That went a bit Bob Sinclar at the start, didn’t it? And that “woah-oh-oh” middle eight could have come out of something like Love Generation.
Tim: Yes – genres all over the place, you see, and as you’ve heard, here there’s no need for any apprehension whatsoever. This is pretty much pure pop, with a slight latino tint on the top, and I like it. I can’t fault the music, mostly because it’s the first track we’ve had this year that has a proper summery vibe to it and I think it’s definitely time for that.
Tom: As I write this, the sun is streaming in through my window for what seems like the first time in a while: samba drums and a summery feeling seem exactly right about now.
Tim: And since we’ve got summer on our brain, it’s only right that everybody in the word should be dancing in the streets, so I can’t fault his logic in the lyrics. Minor quibble: the pre-chorus sounds like it wants to lead in to Man In The Mirror; that aside – no problems at all. Love it.
That’s a lighters-in-the-air moment and no mistake.
Tim: We didn’t feature his last one, All In My Head, barely a couple of months old, because I didn’t like it much and didn’t have much to say about it, and those are basically my two criteria. This one, on the other hand, fits into both of those nicely.
Tim: This is odd – it’s a strange deviation from the musical journey he seems to have been on, from his pop beginnings in E.M.D. through to drum and bass, via dance tracks, a half and half tune and then full-on D&B like All In My Head.
Tom: If he can keep shifting genres this well, though, that can only be a good thing: after all, Robbie Williams managed to put out an entire album of swing covers, and that seemed to do well. There are some artists where you know exactly what you want the new single will sound like – and some where it’s a good thing when they mix it up.
Tim: That’s true, and I prefer this so I don’t have a problem with it.
Tom: Yep, it helps that this is a really good track.
Tim: I do have a problem with the first line of the chorus, which gets me suddenly wanting to sing the chorus of Jar of Hearts, and I slightly wish it wouldn’t take quite so long to get get going, but once the first chorus hits it’s all plain sailing. I’m happy with it.
Tom: What a final chorus, too: that’s a lighters-in-the-air moment and no mistake.
Tim: It really is…although, and I know I’m dragging this out a bit from yesterday, this could easily be a JLS track and if it was I probably wouldn’t like it.
Tom: Are you having a crisis of confidence or something, Tim? What with this and your recent ‘not sure about schlager’ thing, I’m wondering if you’re going through some kind of mid-blog crisis.
It deserves to do very well. Oh, wait. It didn’t. Never mind.
Tim: So, tonight’s the night, but we’ve just got time for one more reject. Let’s make it a bloody brilliant one, and one that it seems a bit unfair to put in a post with ‘Reject’ in the title – it did, in fact, get more phone votes than most previous Melodifestivalen winners did. Still, those are the rules, so here we go.
This year’s Melodifestivalen, a tad below the usual standard, started out as a two-horse race, really, and then, following a brilliant performance of Loreen’s Euphoria in her semi-final and technical issues in Danny’s semi-final performance, became closer to a one-point-five-horse race, ending with her getting 32% of the phone votes, this song getting 22% and the next one getting 8%. And here it is.
Tom: That’s possibly the best Eurovision intro I’ve heard all year. Admittedly that’s because it sounds like they copy-and-pasted it from the end of a Coldplay track, but still, full marks.
Tim: So many things to mention. Take the outfits. ‘Bloody hell, what is that weird thing he’s wearing?’ I thought, until about forty seconds in, when I thought, ‘BLOODY HELL, WHAT IS THAT BRILLIANT THING HE’S WEARING?’ I’m going clothes shopping tomorrow, and I’m not coming back until I’ve found one of those. (White or black, I’m not bothered.)
Tom: Electroluminescent wire, or EL wire for short. It’s brilliant stuff – been around for years, but it wasn’t until last year’s America’s Got Talent that it hit the mainstream.
Tim: Yeah, but when’s it going to hit Topshop, that’s what I want to know.
But then there’s also the breakdown. Normally, as we know, I’m not a dubstep fan, and a breakdown like this would put me right off the song. (If I’m honest, when I listen to the studio version it does put me off a little bit.) With this performance, my God is it fantastic. It’s perfect: people who think Eurovision’s cack will be impressed by the musical variety, and people who love Eurovision will ignore the music and focus on the pretty colours.
Tom: Not to mention he’s singing live while also managing a complicated dance routine. That’s trickier than it looks – and it looks tricky.
Tim: It does, and the dancing’s exceptionally good – take a look at the bit just after 1:40, because if I hadn’t been watching this live I’d swear blind there was a cut there.
There’s the lyrics as well – you don’t get long to get your song’s meaning across in Eurovision, what with it being a three-minute song only being heard once, and lyrics often go unnoticed. I don’t really think that’s a problem here, though, because it’s fairly simple and it’s being yelled at the audience enough it’ll probably be a crowd-pleaser.
Tom: It certainly pleased me.
Tim: As for the rest of it, the woo-oa-oah bits in the chorus remind me of Save The World, which is just as great, and overall there’s such a fantastic vibe to everything – music, dancers, ‘I’m feeling great, I’m feeling awesome…I think you’re amazing’ – that this song surely can’t really fail to please. Can it?
Tom: I hope not. It deserves to do very well. Oh, wait. It didn’t. Never mind.
Tim: More votes than almost all the previous winners. I think it’s done well enough, even if it didn’t win. Speaking of doing well, I’ve written quite a lot about this song, and entirely resisted the temptation to describe this as amazing. I’m proud of myself.
Tim: E.M.D. are a Swedish boyband formed a while ago out of three Idol finalists, none of whom won it but each of whom was fairly competent and had vague solo success, but decided they could do better as a band. They are, if you like, a Scandinavian One Direction, two years earlier.
Anyway, right now that’s not particularly relevant. What is relevant is that the D. out of E.M.D.* is releasing this on Friday to remind us that he does exist as a solo artist in his own right, in preparation for entering Melodifestivalen next year.
* Creative naming at its finest there – the other two are Erik and Mattias.
Tom: Just before the chorus, I thought “ooh, this is about to kick in properly, isn’t it?” … and then it didn’t. It stayed exactly the same. Disappointment.
Tim: Perhaps. He does a similar trick to Robyn and a few others – trying to create the impression of the track kicking in by dipping slightly beforehand. Often that doesn’t work at all, but sometimes it does, and I think this is one of those times – the beat’s still heavy enough to satisfy as a chorus, even if it’s no bigger than the verse was.
I also like the post-bridge moment, which provides a whimsical touch for anybody who might find it dragging a bit.
Tom: Yes, but he’s pronounced ‘fire’ as two syllables and ‘desire’ as three – “fi-yah” and “desi-yah“. That irritates me for some reason – and now I’ve brought it to your attention, it’ll annoy you too.
Tim: It doesn’t, actually, mainly because it’s quite hard to pronounce -ire as one syllable anyway, especially if you’re singing.
The one really bad thing about it, though, is that video, which was clearly made by someone who should never ever have been introduced to Windows Movie Maker.
