Tag: Kim Petras

Saturday Flashback: Kim Petras – Everybody Dies

“Perhaps a melodramatic choice to send over for our last song, Tim. But I think it’s apt in more subtle ways as well.”

Tim: Well that’s certainly a title.

Tom: Perhaps a melodramatic choice to send over for our last song, Tim. But I think it’s apt in more subtle ways as well. Over the ten years we’ve been doing this, there are only a handful of times I’ve cared enough to download a full album. BWO’s Big Science was the first, ten years ago; and come to think of it, “Kings of Tomorrow” would also be a good song to end on.

Tim: True, actually – a great song from a great band.

Tom: We talked about Kim Petras’s music for the first time back in February; Turn Off The Light has become one of my most-played albums this year since then. Despite its novelty “spooky Hallowe’en” status, and that it’s borderline a concept album, I think it’s proper, really enjoyable pop, from someone with a great voice and a lot of talent.

Tim: I’ve not yet checked out the whole album, but as I said at the time I certainly enjoyed There WIll Be Blood. What’s this one, then?

Tom: The last track on the album: it’s the last dance before the lights come on and everyone goes home.

Tom: I think it sums up exactly the sort of music we were hoping to find when we set this site up, ten years ago. The sort of music you hear randomly on some European radio station. The sort of music that’s catchy and poppy and a bit frowned on by the Serious Music World. The sort of music that can be fun and meaningless if it wants to, and that’s fine, but can reach emotional depth too.

Tim: And very often, the sort of music people hear you playing and ask “what the hell is this?”, but then if you manage to persuade them to give it a go realise they might actually slightly enjoy it. 

Tom: Tim, it’s been a pleasure.

Tim: A pleasure, and an education. 

Saturday Flashback: Kim Petras – There Will Be Blood

“Well, that doesn’t sound like a novelty track, does it?”

Tom: We’ve never talked about Kim Petras before. In fact, I’d somehow missed her entirely until I heard one track on the radio in Luxembourg this week. Not on Radio Luxembourg, you understand, it was just on the radio while I was in Luxembourg.

Tim: Right, sure.

Tom: Anyway: Kim is German, has self-published her dance-pop music to great acclaim, and is now at the point where she’s doing Proper Tours. She also released a Hallowe’en-themed EP in October 2018, and while I’m not saying every track of the seventeen on there there is a banger, it’s got one of the highest hit rates of an album I’ve heard in a while. One of them’s got Elvira as a guest voice, for crying out loud. Novelty themed LPs just aren’t meant to be good, and yet, I reckon this one is. There are multiple tracks on there where I looked up from working and actually, properly, listened.

Anyway, here’s the big opening number.

Tim: Coo, blimey. Yeah, I see why.

Tom: And I’ve got not much to say other than: well, that doesn’t sound like a novelty track, does it?

Tim: No, but just because an album has a theme, there’s no reason for them all to be weird – hell, My Chemical Romance released an entire album about a fictional guy’s death, and I can’t count how many times I’ve listened to some of those tracks.

Tom: I know “four beats on the same note” is hardly an original idea for the first line of a chorus—

Tim: Well, neither’s doing it for every line of a chorus – but it works.

Tom: —but hey: there’s a reason it’s still getting radio play. Albeit in Luxembourg. I couldn’t tell you about the rest of the world.