Sunday, January 04, 2009

#62 Martin, "Show The World"



I never sang of love--I wasn't ready to
I kept that feeling for so few
Now I tell any stranger all about me and you
I show it openly myself


Take one young male Scandinavian Michael Jackson-loving TV singing contestant. Add one song with writer credentials to make pop fans go crazy. What do you get? Well, if it's 2004 and you're in Sweden, you get Darin and the Max Martin/Robyn song "Money For Nothing" (an old Robyn track). If you're in Denmark in 2008, you get Martin and the Remee/Thomas Troelsen/Luis Secon song "Show The World." Thomas, the man behind (in writing and/oror production) Monrose's "Hot Summer," Private, Melody Club's "Baby (Stand Up)," and Junior Senior's "Move Your Feet," is certainly one of the most exciting music creators going. Remee has a long list of pop credentials, one I'm barely scratching the surface of by mentioning "Hot Summer," Robyn's "Don't Stop The Music" and "Keep This Fire Burning," and Christine Milton's "Superstar." Lucas Secon co-wrote several of this year's other great songs, including Sarah Connor's "Under My Skin" and "See You Later" and the Pussycat Dolls' "I Hate This Part," but before that had done songs like Lene's "It's Your Duty."

This set of songwriters kept Martin much closer to the Michael Jackson roots he evinced on X Factor than Darin's path ended up taking him. "Show The World" could quite easily be an old Michael Jackson song, and I mean that in the best way possible. In fact, for a second at the song's end, they even brought in a voice that makes it sound like Michael is singing. With little Martin, "Show The World" is still done more than enough justice. Martin's voice can sometimes take on a harsh tone, but here his voice is kept appealing and serves as an effective vehicle to permit the playful '80's pop beats in the background to have their fun. Welcome to the world of pop, Martin--who'd have known we'd all have such reason to be glad you're here?

(Well, Don't Stop The Pop, obviously, which predicted Martin would be amazing for pop back in May, when all we had to go on was a typical winner's ballad.)

Find it on: Show The World

2 comments:

Myfizzypop said...

Ah Martin. I sort of forgot about him - not really forgot per se but he was pushed to the back of my mind by other music out there. I really like that he went with a debut album that played to his strengths on the show rather than a total change of direction. Too many people from these shows try to distance themselves too quickly and end up in the where are they now category....

Poster Girl said...

Really, Paul? I didn't know you'd kind of moved on from it! I never did the writing on this blog about it that I should have done because Bobby and you did such a good job of covering him.