It’s really difficult to whip any kind of feeling verging on real emotion when you’re talking about the Saturdays. That’s because they’re just fine. They package decent pop songs quite nicely, without ever doing anything daring or interesting, never opting for singles that critics drool over, a‘la Girls Aloud. Opting for safe, mostly successful choices every time. A classic five girl line up, each member possessing with a voice indistinguishable from the others. Happy to do interviews till their tongues drop off, nearly all in relationships with high profile gentleman, it’s a record label’s dream. They’re also clearly happy to go along with whatever their superiors tell them to do, given their choice to release a new “mini album” this summer. Said album is just a repackaging of tracks that appeared on their 2009 album “Wordshaker” with one new track “Missing You” tagged on it to avoid trading standards getting in touch.
“Missing You” itself is a pretty drab track. It would desperately like to be written by Robyn or Annie, but lacks any real sentiment. It’s slick, it’s polished, but its instantly forgettable. Slower than the tracks that the Saturdays do best, especially last year’s James Bourne penned “Forever Is Over” which was a real zinger of a break up song. It seems to be more a case of put something out, anything, than really releasing something they love.
Why bother with all this mini album business? Their profile seems high enough as it is, but doubtless their record label felt that going a year without an album was too much of a risk and they sold the idea to the girls on the basis they’d be forgotten if they didn’t. You’d imagine the conversation went something like this:
Record Label: We’d like you to put out a new mini album, mainly with tracks from your last album.
The Saturdays: But that seems silly, surely people already own all the songs?
Record Label: Details. People won’t notice.
The Saturdays: They might.
Record Label: They won’t.
The Saturdays: What if they do?
Record Label: We’ve covered all the bases, we’ve given it a different name, something like….(picks up a newspaper) Headlines. That’ll do.
The Saturdays: We’re not sure about that.
Record Label: It’s better than Wordshaker.
The Saturdays: True.
Record Label: Right. I’m glad we’re all agreed, I’ll book the studio now.
The Saturdays: Can we at least record some new stuff?
Record Label: One track. That’s it. I’m pretty sure we’ve still got some tracks left over from the Pixie Lott sessions, we’ll use one of those.
The Saturdays: Can’t we make a new album?
Record Label: No, too expensive. Plus all the good songs written in the last year will be on Kylie/Sophie Ellis Bextor/Sugababes new albums.
The Saturdays: Then why can’t we just not release an album this year?
Record Label: Because the public will forget you.
The Saturdays: They won’t. Our fans love us.
Record Label: Your fans are mostly ten and under, that’s the second most forgetful demographic, after the over 70s, we can’t risk you being forgotten.
The Saturdays: I’m sure you’re wrong, people remember the bands they like.
Record Label: What? Like the Faders?
The Saturdays: Who?
Record Label: Exactly. Now get back to work.
See what you think here:
Friday 20 August 2010
Monday 9 August 2010
Single #2: Linkin Park - The Catalyst
When nu metal thundered to a halt in the early noughties, there were a lot of casualties. Korn have faded to almost nothing, Limp Bizkit became a joke (whether they were ever anything else is debatable), Deftones are still great, but on a much smaller scale and bands like Taproot, Adema, Papa Roach, Ill Nino are, well, pretty much dead. The one band though who came through the transition without so much as a worried glance, were Linkin Park.
And came through spectacularly. Even now, ten years on from their debut “Hybrid Theory” which yielded a Thriller aping seven singles, they're one of the biggest bands in the world. To go with the band there’s their own travelling festival, the accompanying tracks to the Transformers series, easily the world's biggest franchise and albums that sell by the ocean liner load. Their last album, 2007's "Minutes To Midnight" shifted over five million copies and they moved from the world's arenas to football stadiums. After a brief hiatus to dick around with side projects and have children, they're back, with a new album "A Thousands Suns", their second on the trot with uber producer and saviour of Johnny Cash, Rick Rubin.
All the talk from the band that precedes their new single "The Catalyst" is of reinvention. New starts, new directions, experimentation, trying new sounds for the first time and seeing where it takes them. Bands often talk like this. Most of them are lying. Judging by "The Catalyst", Linkin Park definitely are.
That's not to say they're deliberately misleading everyone, but this is not their “Berlin” or “Kid A”. Experimentation to the California sextet clearly means chucking a few more keyboards on the track and a few more sound effects. “The Catalyst” is still a big. Stomping. Rock Song.
To give the band their dues, the vocals are more distorted and the guitars may be secondary to the electronics, but the Park (as someone, presumably calls them)'s lyrics of alienation and betrayal are still there, the mournful bridge after the second chorus is present and correct, and Bennington's familiar soaring vocal power towers over the track. It works. All Linkin Park’s songs work. They’re carefully put together creations, test tube fostered stadium rock. The riffs are just simple enough for thirteen year olds to figure out on their first Squire guitars, the lyrics speak of pain and suffering without ever being too grimy or specific and the chorus is stickier than a theme park bin.
There are flecks of something new, especially the lack of guitars, but you can’t call it a departure. Maybe there’s more experimentation to come from the album, that’d be a turn up though. They discovered a long time ago what they do well and they wouldn’t have ditched the rapping that graced their first two albums with so much consummate ease if they didn’t really care what people thought. Whether they worried about alienating anybody is something only they know, but this is no big departure or break with the past. This is a song to be sung by thousands in fields and stadiums for the next two years. That’s what they do.
Once again, make up your mind here:
And came through spectacularly. Even now, ten years on from their debut “Hybrid Theory” which yielded a Thriller aping seven singles, they're one of the biggest bands in the world. To go with the band there’s their own travelling festival, the accompanying tracks to the Transformers series, easily the world's biggest franchise and albums that sell by the ocean liner load. Their last album, 2007's "Minutes To Midnight" shifted over five million copies and they moved from the world's arenas to football stadiums. After a brief hiatus to dick around with side projects and have children, they're back, with a new album "A Thousands Suns", their second on the trot with uber producer and saviour of Johnny Cash, Rick Rubin.
All the talk from the band that precedes their new single "The Catalyst" is of reinvention. New starts, new directions, experimentation, trying new sounds for the first time and seeing where it takes them. Bands often talk like this. Most of them are lying. Judging by "The Catalyst", Linkin Park definitely are.
That's not to say they're deliberately misleading everyone, but this is not their “Berlin” or “Kid A”. Experimentation to the California sextet clearly means chucking a few more keyboards on the track and a few more sound effects. “The Catalyst” is still a big. Stomping. Rock Song.
To give the band their dues, the vocals are more distorted and the guitars may be secondary to the electronics, but the Park (as someone, presumably calls them)'s lyrics of alienation and betrayal are still there, the mournful bridge after the second chorus is present and correct, and Bennington's familiar soaring vocal power towers over the track. It works. All Linkin Park’s songs work. They’re carefully put together creations, test tube fostered stadium rock. The riffs are just simple enough for thirteen year olds to figure out on their first Squire guitars, the lyrics speak of pain and suffering without ever being too grimy or specific and the chorus is stickier than a theme park bin.
There are flecks of something new, especially the lack of guitars, but you can’t call it a departure. Maybe there’s more experimentation to come from the album, that’d be a turn up though. They discovered a long time ago what they do well and they wouldn’t have ditched the rapping that graced their first two albums with so much consummate ease if they didn’t really care what people thought. Whether they worried about alienating anybody is something only they know, but this is no big departure or break with the past. This is a song to be sung by thousands in fields and stadiums for the next two years. That’s what they do.
Once again, make up your mind here:
Tuesday 3 August 2010
Single #1: McFly - Party Girl
Let’s start with a bang. The new McFly single.
McFly have managed to pull off the most difficult of tricks, that of maintaining a large fanbase for more than two or three years dishing out sugar coated pop. Adored by hoards of young girls and boys and grudgingly nodded to by sneerers as they write their own stuff, the four lads have enjoyed charmed lives, headlining the UK’s biggest venues and ruling the charts with single after single.
But now they’re the elder statesmen of pop and they don’t like it. Who would? It’s a horrible title. Their fanbase is also aging, and they need a fresh injection of interest. Which this new single will certainly bring. Especially given their last two records have been inspired by bands like the Who, Queen and The Jam, their new creation, “Party Girl” is one hell of a sidestep.
The band have been off in the States working with Dallas Austin, a man who pretty much invented the term super producer. He's worked with everyone from Jacko to Gwen Stefani and clearly knows his way round a hit single. What he seems to have done for McFly is turned everything up, told them to put their guitars down and see what they can mine from the last two years of pop. From this, you get “Party Girl.”
It’s a good track, especially after you've got over the initial shock that this is the same band that recorded "Five Colours In Her Hair" and "All About You.” The guitars are gone and they’ve been replaced with banging colourful synths and a sleazy bassline. It’s Scissor Sisters meets Green Day, it’s Paramore remixed by David Guetta, it’s…actually a lot like early Savage Garden, when the Antipoedean duo were first around, with “Break Me, Shake Me” and “Tears Of Pearl” Aggressive vocals smashed over fist pumping electronica.
Austin has clearly been working in pop production for too long to ignore the current trends, and there's plenty of Red One, Space Cowboy and Guetta all over this one. The distorted vocals, the euphoria laced synths and the driving rhythm actually make it a track that would sound more comfortable coming out of festival speakers than a teenage girl's bedroom. It is, as always with anything Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones pen, insanely catchy.
What this new direction will gain McFly will be interesting to see. You can’t imagine Delphic or Klaxons fans going out to grab their new album, nor can you imagine that they’re suddenly going to be booked at Creamfields, but for Radio One listeners who liked the sound of La Roux, Ellie Goulding and Hadouken and wished they had something you could play in city centre nightclubs, this might be it.
Others will do poppy electronica better, but it’s gratifying to see a band like McFly trying new things.
Make up your own mind here:
McFly have managed to pull off the most difficult of tricks, that of maintaining a large fanbase for more than two or three years dishing out sugar coated pop. Adored by hoards of young girls and boys and grudgingly nodded to by sneerers as they write their own stuff, the four lads have enjoyed charmed lives, headlining the UK’s biggest venues and ruling the charts with single after single.
But now they’re the elder statesmen of pop and they don’t like it. Who would? It’s a horrible title. Their fanbase is also aging, and they need a fresh injection of interest. Which this new single will certainly bring. Especially given their last two records have been inspired by bands like the Who, Queen and The Jam, their new creation, “Party Girl” is one hell of a sidestep.
The band have been off in the States working with Dallas Austin, a man who pretty much invented the term super producer. He's worked with everyone from Jacko to Gwen Stefani and clearly knows his way round a hit single. What he seems to have done for McFly is turned everything up, told them to put their guitars down and see what they can mine from the last two years of pop. From this, you get “Party Girl.”
It’s a good track, especially after you've got over the initial shock that this is the same band that recorded "Five Colours In Her Hair" and "All About You.” The guitars are gone and they’ve been replaced with banging colourful synths and a sleazy bassline. It’s Scissor Sisters meets Green Day, it’s Paramore remixed by David Guetta, it’s…actually a lot like early Savage Garden, when the Antipoedean duo were first around, with “Break Me, Shake Me” and “Tears Of Pearl” Aggressive vocals smashed over fist pumping electronica.
Austin has clearly been working in pop production for too long to ignore the current trends, and there's plenty of Red One, Space Cowboy and Guetta all over this one. The distorted vocals, the euphoria laced synths and the driving rhythm actually make it a track that would sound more comfortable coming out of festival speakers than a teenage girl's bedroom. It is, as always with anything Tom Fletcher and Danny Jones pen, insanely catchy.
What this new direction will gain McFly will be interesting to see. You can’t imagine Delphic or Klaxons fans going out to grab their new album, nor can you imagine that they’re suddenly going to be booked at Creamfields, but for Radio One listeners who liked the sound of La Roux, Ellie Goulding and Hadouken and wished they had something you could play in city centre nightclubs, this might be it.
Others will do poppy electronica better, but it’s gratifying to see a band like McFly trying new things.
Make up your own mind here:
Death By Airplay: An Introduction
Hi. I'm Tom Goodwyn. And I miss reviewing singles.
So, I'm going to start again. Write here on this very page.
Normally I'm the music writer for the Oxford Times (you can find my stuff here http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/leisure/music_and_books/). I also write reviews for Loud & Quiet and occasionally for some other people.
The way this blog/webpage/assault at the Pulitzer Prize is going to work is I'm going to pick a track to review every week. It'll be one that's currently all over the radio, youtube and music TV.
And it begins right...now...in the next post...
So, I'm going to start again. Write here on this very page.
Normally I'm the music writer for the Oxford Times (you can find my stuff here http://www.oxfordtimes.co.uk/leisure/music_and_books/). I also write reviews for Loud & Quiet and occasionally for some other people.
The way this blog/webpage/assault at the Pulitzer Prize is going to work is I'm going to pick a track to review every week. It'll be one that's currently all over the radio, youtube and music TV.
And it begins right...now...in the next post...
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