Tag: Moa Lignell

Moa Lignell – Born

“Good heavens, that’s a power-ballad instrumental intro, isn’t it? Haven’t heard anything like that for a while.”

Tim: “The song I wrote a year ago when I was sitting at home and longing for you all,” says Moa. Not sure what the circumstances were there, but she continues: “I wanted to launch the songs and be immeasurably happy with everything. I build up so many dreams and expectations that I can get an uncontrolled zeal in my body. I want to be who I was born to be. As simple as that. No frills.” No pressure, then.

Tom: Good heavens, that’s a power-ballad instrumental intro, isn’t it? Haven’t heard anything like that for a while. This sounds like a good Roxette track.

Tim: And that there is a song I absolutely love. The genre’s not really one I’d normally go in for – it’s almost a bit folk-y at times, and a bit slow – but here, everything sounds just wonderful.

Tom: It’s doing that trick of playing about with chord progressions, aiming for ‘anthemic’. And… I think it might actually be doing it?

Tim: The melody in the chorus is just lovely, the general sound is incredibly pleasing, with its lazy synth, slow drumbeat and strumming guitar, and the vocal is soft and flowing that I can just lie back and get lost in it, actually paying attention to the lyrics.

Tom: And an instrumental middle eight with an electric guitar solo in there, too. I think the last chorus could possibly have been given a bit more… something — but it makes up for it with that final line.

Tim: The thing that really made me know I liked it was when I thought “is this still going”, checked and saw that we were only two and a half minutes in, and found myself actually happy that there was still over a minute to go. Not sure that’s ever happened before, but it’s lovely that it has happened now.

Moa Lignell – We’re Still Young

“About as subtle as a sledgehammer with a great big “I AM NOT SUBTLE” sign on it”

Tim: In case you, like me, weren’t entirely convinced by yesterday’s cheer yourself up track, I bring you this: just press play, lie back, and listen to one of the most reassuring tracks you’ll have heard in a while.

Tim: You see? About as subtle as a sledgehammer with a great big “I AM NOT SUBTLE” sign on it, and almost as effective, if (and probably only if) you’re just the right sort of person.

Tom: “Take your time with me, because we’re still young.” For a moment, I thought this was some sort of abstinence anthem.

Tim: Oh now don’t be silly. Thing is, it all does depend on who you are. If you’re too old? Probably won’t help much, and all you’ll want to do is come out with a get off my lawn speech about how young people these days just need to take responsibility and have a career path and stuff. If you’re too raucous and fun-loving? “Oh, shut up, I know we are, now put your guitar aside and get with the rest of the party, there’s beer pong over here.”

On the other hand, if you’re in just the right place, or can remember/imagine being in just that right place, this could be really lovely.

Tom: It is, but if you’re not in that place — and, let’s be honest, I’m not right now — it’s just a bit of a slow, sub-Corrs album track, trying to be an anthem but never making it. Incidentally, is there a better reference for “middle-of-the-road bland Irish guitar pop” than the Corrs? Because that’s an old referene now.

Tim: It is a bit old, but it still works, I reckon – she’s gentle enough to get through and relax, the choir’s coming along to really make you smile. I’m happy to think it is really lovely.

Moa Lignell – Where I Stand

“That moment that comes with the immediate promise of what’s coming up next”

Tim: She’s been off for a couple of years, but now Moa’s RETURNED, with this, conveniently enough.

Tom: That sounds a bit like a Corrs track that never made it out of the 90s. I meant that as a compliment, but then it turned on me half way through writing it.

Tim: I dunno, it’s probably not the worst you could’ve said, and I kind of know what you mean. This here’s pretty lovely all the way through, but to be honest I wasn’t really sucked in by until the note that came just before that first chorus. It was an effect similar to the end of the middle eight in Guld och Gröna Skogar – that moment itself isn’t great, but it comes with the immediate promise of what’s coming up next, and we are duly rewarded with it.

Tom: I mentioned recently, Tim, that I only remember about ten percent of the tracks that come through here. How you maintain such an encyclopaedic knowledge is beyond me.

Tim: Oh, please, surely you’ve not forgotten that incredible track already? In any case, here it ushered in a chorus that was slightly more soulful, with a much gentler and softer vocal (almost ethereal, though that’s probably overstating it) – I hadn’t previously thought of her singing as particularly harsh, but suddenly I realised that that’s why I wasn’t quite so drawn in by it to start with. All together, though, and by the time we’re throwing in the emotion of the final chorus: it’s great.

Tom: True: I’m slightly worried you’re confusing “vibrato” and “emotion” in that final chorus, but yes: it’s lovely.

Moa Lignell – You Had It All

“It’s certainly catchy enough.”

Tim: Last time we featured Moa, it was so generic and dull I felt compelled to write a template that we could use for future tracks, about how it was hard to pay attention to and just a bit tedious all round. Let’s see if that can be applied here.

Tim: No. It can’t.

Tom: You’re not wrong there, but – well, I swear I’ve heard that chorus before. I can’t think where. Is it just that it sounds like plenty of other tracks? It’s certainly catchy enough, though.

Tim: Not sure I recognise it, and musically that variety’s a good thing, although it does mean more effort on our part trying to think of something to write when all I can really think about is the line about halfway through that sounds like “this hymen’s all you win,” which would be a pretty horrible metaphor for something not often touched upon in pop music.

Tom: Blimey, Tim.

Tim: I KNOW. I’M SORRY. Erm, so what’s right about this. Music is lovely and sparkly; the voice is soulful and all that stuff which is meant to be good, and, erm, dammit all I can think of is that lyric. I’M REALLY SORRY. Here, have a proper video for it here to make up for that.

Moa Lignell – Whatever They Do

It would be nice if we could have a selection of templates.

Tim: If you’re scared of spiders, or terrifying haircuts, you might want to turn away for the middle part of this video. Just so you know.

Tom: BLOODY HELL! I don’t know whether that’s just because you primed me with the word “spider”, but that genuinely made me jump. Gah.

Tim: Good, isn’t it? Now, sometimes I think it would be nice if we could have a selection of templates, so that if we think a track isn’t hugely interesting we could act in kind and not put much effort into reviewing.

Tom: Aha! A Forer Effect test for music – the kind of generic personality description that most people think actually applies to them.

Tim: For example, it could go like this:

Well, this starts out pleasantly and vaguely promisingly, though to be honest by end of the first verse I was getting bored. Fortunately, the chorus came along and added enough variety to keep me listening, though it fairly soon became background tab fodder and my brain just sorted of tuned out. It’s nice, I suppose, but, well, couldn’t they have brought the final chorus forward to the other ones and then spiced that bit up even more?

Tom: Yep, that’ll do. It’s surprising how much pop music fits into that template.

Tim: Because I think that sums it up fine, and you’re right, a lot of songs are like this. It would be a lot easier, therefore, if we could just copy it in.

Tom: I think in future, we just won’t cover them at all.

Moa Lignell – When I Held Ya

It appears to kick most of this year’s British X Factor contestants into a cocked hat.

Tom: Our regular reader Roger writes: “I have not followed Swedish Idol 2011 closely… if I had I would have sent you this almost a week ago.”

You’ll probably spend the first verse thinking ‘I hope this kicks in a bit more’…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHocCTns8YU

Tom: …and then it does.

So her name is Moa. This is a song she wrote herself. It appears to kick most of this year’s British X Factor contestants into a cocked hat.

Tim: Yes. Although she does appear to be wearing the same trousers as kicked-off-in-sex-and-drug-fuelled-disgrace twat Frankie Cocozza, but I think that says more about him than her.

Tom: It must be quite a feeling, that – writing your own song with just a guitar, and then getting proper producers to add all the instrumentation and professionalism that makes it sound like a pop song. It’s not bouncy, it’s not dancey, but it is really rather tuneful.

Tim: Yeah, it’s nice – gentle sort of stuff, sung and played well enough to safely get you through to next week. Some of the judges scare me, though, but that’s hardly her fault.