Morgan Sulele & Måns Zelmerlöw – Gamle Dager

“Why is this a duet?”

Tim: Morgan, Norwegian, featured once: Måns, Sweden, featured 15 times. Here’s a duet from them, about the Old Days and past romances, with a fun behind the scenes video for anyone who doesn’t know how a recording studio works.

Tom: What a weird video. All in slow motion, some far-too-long lingering shots of objects to fill the time. It’s like they just had a camera op in for the day and they randomly pointed the camera at things.

Tim: The annoying thing about behind the scenes videos (and, as I’ve found recently during lockdown, director’s Blu-ray commentaries) is that so often they’re quite interesting here and there, but typically leave one or two things that you really want to know by the wayside.

For example, here: why is this a duet?

Tom: I’m going to guess “marketing”. I mean, it’s entirely possible that the two of them get along well, decided to record a duet, and picked this odd choice for it. But I think it’s probably marketing.

Tim: It doesn’t hurt the song in any way, mind – if anything, the vocal variety improves it a little – but it’s not really the sort of song that would normally have two singers. Sure, a guy and a girl might be singing in each others’ faces about how the old days were good/bad/horrific, as we see that fairly often, but two guys? This is entering boyband territory – not necessarily a bad thing, again, but, well, I just want to know why (and annoyingly, I can’t find any lyrics online to see if there’s a “two guys having a chat comparing old flames” narrative in the lyrics).

Tom: Sure. There’s nothing objectionable here, but I can’t remember a damn thing about it afterwards.

Tim: Fair, maybe. Listenable enough, though.

Morgan Sulele feat. Mood Melodies – Min Kabin

“Fancy a wintry brass number?”

Tim: Fancy a wintry brass number to kick off the year?

Tom: I… I can’t turn that into a euphemism.

Tim: And there we go – it’s basically “look, it’s cold and empty out there, join me in here my my cabin” which is either dodgy and a bit cultish, the desperate pleading of a lonely man, or just a nice guy who wants to offer comfort and a warm drink, and then presumably get laid at some point in the near future.

Tom: You realise none of those are really good options, right?

Tim: I do, and yet I like it nonetheless – it’s fairly nice and gentle, but with that extra brass lurking around to give a slight party atmosphere to head off the interpretation of “come snuggle on my sofa, I’m very warm you know”.

Tom: And I don’t like it: it’s very possible to make brass sound good in a pop song, but this just seems a bit too strident and out-of-place. And even in a language I don’t understand, I can hear the telltale “sha-la-la-la” that means “I’ve run out of lyrics here”.

Tim: You know, I’ve never thought about sha-la-la-las like that before, and now i’m fairly sure you’ve ruined a lot of music for me. All in all, if this didn’t have a pre-chorus that makes me want to launch right into What Makes You Beautiful, I’d be really enjoying this track, cause innit lovely.

Tom: How did I not notice that? Now you’ve said it, that’s really obvious.